Page 71 of What's in a Kiss?

I pull over and park beneath a huge ad for a podcast calledCall Your Mother. I stare at it. I blink. On the left side of the billboard is my mother’s image, thirty feet tall and airbrushed. She’s wearing her favorite ombre mai tai outfit, complete with the purple orchid behind her ear.

On the right side of the billboard is a woman I don’t recognize. She’s closer to my age, her hair is dyed the same shade of red as Lorena’s, and her outfit’s accordingly mai tai’d.

“Mom, what’s going on?” I dry-heave as I type the title of the podcast into my phone.

There are 170 episodes. The show has over two million reviews.

Mom isn’t dead. She’s a star. And for reasons unknown, she doesn’t speak to me. What have I done?

My plans to stay in the High Life a little longer swerve from feeling like an altruistic lark—leave the world a little better than you found it!—to a miserable ordeal—face what a pariah you’ve become!

By the time I pull into the parking lot at the field, I’m shaking. I’ve listened to the first ten minutes of Mom’s this-world podcast and I have to admit, it’s genius. Instead of a review of other people’s thoughts, Lorena offers her own self-help, and people call in from around the world to seek advice. She’s as masterful at helping strangers as she is at helping me.

“Where are you calling from, sugar?” my mom says in the episode.

“Hot Springs, Arkansas.”

“I once won a bundle on a pony in Hot Springs,” my mom says. “What’s your question, sweetheart?”

“I’m attracted to the preacher at my church.”

“We’ve got a hot one here, Silver!”

Silver—that’s the name of Mom’s matching cohost—is me but better. She’s quirky and smart, and she’s on the mic as much as Mom. Their banter seems to charm their listeners as much as it infuriates me.

“Can I ask what this luscious lector looks like?” Silver chimes in.

“Luscious lector!” Lorena hoots. “Listen to our resident poet, Hot Springs! Have I mentioned Silver’s been nominated for aPushcart?”

How can Mom do this without me? How can she brag about Silver’s success in the tone she uses to tell her mah-jongg friends aboutme? How can she be maternal to the world but not her own daughter?

The agony I feel at listening to Lorena dole out advice to other people on this podcast explains my apparent reluctance about Jake starting his own podcast. Suddenly, the very wordpodcastfeels like an open laceration on my heart.

By the time I park at the baseball field, my anxiety is through the sunroof. I put my head in my hands and take Gram Parsons in my lap, so grateful he’s found me in time for my moment of need. I feel ashamed that I’ve been so wrapped up in Jake, in my bizarro role on a bad TV show, in this strange life I’ve been trying on, that I neglected to confront what should have been obvious all along under the High Life surface.

That something is rotten here between my mom and me.That Lorena isn’t dead, that I’m dead to her. But where did we go wrong?

Kissing Jake wouldn’t make my mom hate me, but some aftershock must have done it.

A moment from my conversation yesterday with Jake returns to me. Casually, he’d mentioned something about a loan.

A loan I had to pay back. A loan I’d taken out to go to Juilliard? That didn’t happen in real life.

What happened in real life, after graduation, was my mom sat me down at the kitchen table for a talk. I knew what was coming. I knew our income had dipped after Dad’s death. I was stunned when Lorena said she’d spoken to a realtor. She offered to downsize from her house to an apartment so she could help pay for tuition.

We sat at the table and cried. I was moved by her offer, especially after we’d spent senior year fighting about where I’d go to college. But I couldn’t let her sell the house, couldn’t even imagine leaving home so soon after Dad’s death. That day, I decided to make family my priority for a while. I would stay with Lorena and grieve. Juilliard didn’t allow deferrals, but maybe I’d try again in a year...

It didn’t happen. I didn’t regret it.

That was real life, but what happened here? I picture that same kitchen table conversation—only this time, I’m in love with Jake.

Did I leave home against Lorena’s wishes? Did I take out a loan without her help or consent?

Did the distance between my mother and me grow instead of shrink? So that every misunderstanding began to feel like a snub?

Is that how, ten years later, the two of us are estranged?

“Olivia?”

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