"Toothpaste."

"Really?"

"Toothpaste will take it right off."

"Okay." It was weird what mothers knew. You assumed by adulthood you knew all the things they did, that they'd passed it on like mama bears did. And then, they'd have some little tidbit or some big one, although Ellen didn't dispense many of those, and it made you re-think things. Maybe that's how mothers were guaranteed being taken care of when they became elderly. They retained just enough original wisdom no one felt comfortable getting rid of them. "I'll go clean up with some toothpaste, and you'll..."

"Enjoy the weekend. Honestly, Gwen, our first event begins in an hour."

"Right." She reached for her shower caddy. "I've got to get ready for our first event."

The banner hung in blue and silver over the entrance of the ballroom. Welcome Belmar Parents!

"Oh my God."

Ellen didn't seem to think there was anything unusual about the two of them being there and pointed to a cluster of chairs where the middle-aged parents chatted over punch. "The packet line is quite long, Gwennie. You go get one for me. I'm going to sit down."

Gwen considered sneaking out, but her mother would just go on without her. At least if she were there she could run interference, maybe save some shred of pride despite the fact that her senior citizen of a mother was attending her middle-aged daughter's parent weekend.

She felt a tug of pain that she wasn't visiting Missy, sending her own daughter off to fetch the activity packet. But she wouldn't have asked that of Missy. She would have done it herself and highlighted the itinerary, and Missy might have slipped out. Would Steve have stayed by her side? Even when they were as together as they'd ever been, she couldn't picture him spending a parent's weekend with her, even for Missy. Two days at Belmar wouldn't have let them graze by each other like they could at home, camped out behind newspapers, or staked out in their private territories of office and kitchen. She'd never seen that about her marriage before, and she wasn't sure she wanted the clarity of perspective. Perspective might just make her feel worse.

She sighed, took a folder from a girl who could be the understudy for Mranda and might be. Even mean girls graduated and needed to be replaced. Mranda might be a second generation pain.

Turning back to the parent area, she tried not to notice the exit sign, so very appealing in red, and kept her eye on her mother. Ellen chatted it up with the other parents who would react with pity or maybe distrust that she was even trying to be a college student. But just maybe, there'd be a little envy mixed in there. She'd like to imagine that. If one kind of perspective made her feel worse about her marriage then she'd focus on the good kind of imagining instead. People weren't pitying her, they were jealous. That might help her survive three days and two nights in an eight by ten foot room with her mother.

"Dear, you were very patient through parent orientation and the delightful tour. That Mranda is lovely. She'd stab you in the back soon as look at you. You've got to watch lovely females like that."

She was safe from Mranda. The girl would never be jealous of her and neither were those parents. They'd steered clear of her like a school of sardines darted around a shark. Well, she was giving herself too much credit with that one. They'd steered clear of her like the ducks at Woodland Park stayed away from the one whose eyes weren't lined up quite right. The other ducks avoided it until the fateful picnic when she and Missy had witnessed the chilling attack. That poor, weird duck didn't stand a chance, and neither did she.

"I have a treat for you, young lady."

Gwen tried not to roll her eyes. "In case you haven't noticed, mother, I'm no longer young."

She felt Ellen reach out and pat her cheek. Her mom's hand was softer than it had been all those years she'd bartended to support them, but the smell of sugary perfume said familiar comfort. "You've always been a lady, Gwennie, although where that came from is a mystery to me, and young is relative. You're fresh as a daisy in my eyes. And if my mother was still here, bless her soul, she'd say Ellen, you are fresh as a daisy too."

The sweetness of that made the parent's weekend embarrassment tolerable. And wasn't everyone young when viewed from the porch of the next generation? Maybe only the oldest person on the planet wouldn't be fresh as a daisy to someone. But then, they were the oldest person on the planet, so they were already a winner.

"Because you've been such a good girl and only a little cranky, Mama's taking you to the mall."

"The mall, huh?"

"Parents always take their college kids shopping. You need some new underwear."

"That's funny, Mom. You can be quite funny."

"Gwen, dear, you do need new panties."

"Oh." She did have the few she'd packed for Missy, and it had been a little weird wearing them, although her mother was, no doubt, referring to her preference for white cotton no-frills no-thrills underwear.

Ellen grabbed her handbag, touched the ends of Gwen's hair as she walked to the door. "And a style."

After shopping, a late dinner seemed like not just a good idea but a critical one. She watched the waitress set down the Chinese food that came out steaming on large white platters, three of them, and two bowls of rice. She'd have leftovers for a week, and her little dorm refrigerator would reek of teriyaki.

She began to dish up their plates, her attention taken periodically with the traffic from the mall just on the other side of the window. Her mother sipped a glass of plum wine and looked very pleased with herself. Gwen had let her not only purchase underwear, including a few very Ellen satin numbers, but matching bras as well. She could have kept wearing the ones she'd packed for Missy, but her mother was right. She needed some things of her own. She needed some style. And she'd be damned if her mother wasn't right about her hair too. The new cut made her previously difficult curls soft commas of ginger brown. She subtly shook her head just to feel them on her cheek.

"I was right."

Gwen stopped with a spoon of fried rice poised above her plate.

Ellen raised an eyebrow, penciled in with drama for as long as Gwen could remember. "I was right. Mothers always are, and daughters never admit it."

Gwen tapped the spoon on her plate, put it back in the rice, and smiled across the table at her fresh-as-a-daisy mother. "You were right."

Ellen coughed as if the wine had gone down wrong.

Gwen laughed. "I'm not repeating it."

When the boys found them in the restaurant, she knew her leftovers weren't going to last long enough to be leftovers. After the boys, trawling the mall for anything female, had spotted Venus, Grandma Venus, and the sweet and sour chicken, the food receded like a Chinese tide.

"Would you pass the soy sauce, mam?"

Ellen put her hand to her heart and gazed at Bryan, who looked so innocent he might scam more than his share of the fortune cookies too. "Did you hear that, Gwennie? These young men are so polite. It is refreshing. Refreshing, I tell you."

"They're eating all our food."

"We shared the Red Bull," Jason shrugged, and his shoulder pinned Hayden tighter to the inside of the booth.

Ellen perked up. "Ooh... what's Red Bull?"

Gwen had a premonition of disaster. Her mother, who had once ridden through a bar on the back of a Harley, did not need encouragement from boys who still thought nothing of not thinking. "There's a law against minors corrupting."

Ellen tilted her head. "I thought it was corrupting a minor."

Bryan smiled, patted her hand. "Can't be done, mam. We were all taught right from wrong by our own dear mothers."

Gwen shook her head, whispered, "She's not gonna buy the dear mothers. You overplayed your hand, Smootheo."

But Ellen only seemed immune to distrust and pushed the rice closer to him. "Aren't you the sweetest boy?"

"Uh..." Hayden, from his spot in the corner, seemed to consider the field of males. "No. No, he's not."

Gwen smiled at him in complete agreement, and the waitress returned, set the bill on the table and picked up the plates that had been nearly licked clean.

Ellen snatched it up, handed a credit card to the waitress, and Gwen considered that her mother probably did have more money than she did at the moment. That wasn't depressing. Maybe prosperity was just around the corner. She eyed the two lone fortune cookies. The boys would never take her mother's but hers was... she lunged across the table, snagged the cookie, and knocked a half-filled water glass into Bryan's lap. Jason knuckle bumped her, and she laughed, and cracked open the fortune cookie, pretending to read it out loud. "You will dampen Bryan's aspirations..."

"In bed!" Hayden and Jason yelled at the same time which only made them laugh harder.

Ellen pointed one of her manicured nails toward the ceiling. "I knew the in bed part. My Bunco partner showed me."

Gwen choked and a sprinkling of dry fortune cookie landed on the table.

"Oh," her mother grinned, "that sounds dirty also, doesn't it?"

Gwen kept coughing and was reaching for a glass that still had water in it when she spotted him. Max, with a bag of take-out food in his hand, watched her from the cash register. And all she could think was... Don't come over. Don't come over. Don't come over. As if he knew it would spite her, he ambled up to the table and surveyed the boys. "Gentlemen."

Jason swiveled his thick neck from her to Max and back. "Pee photo dude."

Max seemed to ignore that and smiled at Ellen, a real one, one that made Gwen remember when she'd seen him give lots of them, special ones she couldn't live without. But he wasn't even looking at her. "Mrs. Ciarrochi. I'm not sure if you remember me--"

"Max." Ellen rose, took his hands, and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "It's wonderful to see you. You were always one of my favorites. Of course, Gwen didn't date much. That valedictorian... no, he wasn't that. What's second place called? Well, the boy who took her to prom."

"A high school boy?" Bryan grinned like it was the greatest joke ever. "Wow, Venus, I'm surprised we're not too old for you."

She rolled her eyes, whispered, "It was when I was in high school." She took a drink of water, like she was just cool as a cucumber. No, a vegetable metaphor wasn't going to work for her. She was a jaded woman kind of cool.

Max stood like he was really fit or something, as if she'd even noticed the kind of shape he'd stayed in. She hoped he'd say goodbye and leave when Ellen sat back down, but leave it to her mother to keep the conversation going. "You know she married Steve, but she didn't date him in high school. He was... what, Gwennie? Three years older? I always thought he was a bit of a tool."

She choked on her water. So much for cool. She coughed a couple of times and wiped her mouth with a napkin. She'd settle for not panicking.

Ellen looked at the boys. "I said that right, didn't I? A tool's a bad thing but not criminal."

Hayden nodded, "Good usage."

Max raised an eyebrow at Gwen but spoke to Ellen. "It's unfortunate that Gwen's husband is a tool."

"Oh, not anymore."

Max sighed. "I'm afraid, Mrs. Ciarrochi, once a tool, always a tool."

"But he's not her husband anymore."

Max's face was so calm, Gwen didn't think he'd even heard the D word implied. He certainly wouldn't care about her failures, which were being batted around like small talk over mall food, but she felt like sliding under the table and this time staying forever.

"His loss, I'm sure."

His loss. Oh, wasn't that just the thing to say that he completely didn't mean? What he really meant was that she was a quitter, wasn't it? Before she camped out permanently under the table, she'd poke him in the eye with a chopstick, twice.

"Oh, Steve dumped Gwen, I'm afraid."

It was like watching a slow motion car accident where you could see the inevitable crash. What had been standing upright became something completely obliterated. She had to get Ellen out of there before Gwen watched all of her dignity tee-boned.

Ellen whispered loudly to Max as if no one else could hear. "Months ago. Just up and left her. Gwen's sure it's another woman, but it's a small town, small enough that I'd have heard who the other woman was, and not a peep."

Gwen shot out of the booth. It was time to panic. "Well, we've gotta... we've got something, you know, to do. Mom, get your purse."

"Where are we going, dear?"

"Bowling." Hayden stepped in to rescue her, a smart and nice boy. She would bake him cookies for a lifetime. "She promised she'd go bowling with us."

Bryan grinned in agreement. "And it wasn't just the vodka talkin'."

"Bowling." Gwen picked up her shopping bags. Yeah, that sounded like a good reason to get out of there. Like having a tee time for golf, they'd reserved a lane at the U's bowling alley. She was going straight home.

"Would you like to join us, Max?" Ellen slid her purse into the crook of her arm. "We're going for a bowl it would seem."

Max tilted his head for her to go first. "Mrs. Ciarrochi, I'd love to."

The take-out wasn't bad for American Chinese. Max sat back in the molded plastic chair, legs out, and dug his chopsticks in the noodle box. He couldn't have imagined he'd be back at Belmar, sitting in the SUB's bowling alley, watching Gwen throw a gutter twenty years after she'd left him.

He watched her pick up the Hello Kitty! ball. It looked like a giant gumball with vacant black eyes, six whiskers like the cat needed a shave, and a flower at the top with Gwen's thumb sticking in it dead center. The boys were rolling lightning designed ones. His favorite had the bold yellow lettering declaring it was TWISTED FURY. The game of matching shirts and two-toned shoes needed equipment labeled TWISTED FURY.

Gwen hit a pin, and when she turned, her face lit up like she'd won the lottery. He could see a little of the girl she'd been that first time he'd seen her at eighteen. Shit, eighteen. Ancient history didn't even need thinking about. But he was in the bowling alley again, wasn't he? And he was watching a woman, and she was a woman, that he'd known a lifetime ago.

She looked every bit her age, nothing plumped-up, shot-up, or pulled-up about her. She'd been so pretty when he'd fallen in love with her. It was hard to imagine she could be even more at forty. But young girls weren't full grown women. It was clear she'd taken care of herself, if not her life. He didn't want to take any pleasure in that, but hearing Mrs. Ciarrochi call Steve a tool had been one of the highlights of his life.

One of the boys tried to hand Gwen an energy drink. She shook her head, the reddish curls skimming her cheeks. He remembered that, but they'd been more tamed back then. She'd mostly been subdued, just distant enough that he'd been crazy to have her. Maybe she hadn't done it on purpose, but over the years he'd come to think she had. She'd been the mature one. He tried to picture himself at eighteen, standing beside her, all testosterone and ego. He'd have grabbed the TWISTED FURY ball too. He'd been the TWISTED FURY ball.

But she'd taken care of that. It shouldn't have mattered, his failure. It had been his freedom, hadn't it? Freedom from everything after all. But Gwen had counted on him. She'd counted on him.

He'd thought at eighteen, nineteen, twenty, that he had plenty of time before life got serious. He'd called that wrong and maybe he'd even been wrong about who'd been the one who needed someone.

She glanced back at him, her lips coming together in nervousness. He wanted her to feel that just for the offense of resurfacing. She'd thrown him that day in the SUB. The last person he'd ever expected to see that wasn't dead. And, in a way, she had been to him. He watched her pat her bowling ball like it might jump off the ball return and walk towards him. She stopped in front of him with her hands in her back pockets, rocking back on her heels as if to calm herself. He didn't feel like playing poker, but he knew how, and he smiled. "You look good, Gwen."

Her hands dropped to her sides. After the pee photo and her own returning volley, he could tell she hadn't expected nice from him.

Her eyes narrowed. "What is your deal?"

"You've been hanging out with college kids too much."

"Excuse me?"

"Hello Kitty. What's my deal? I just think they've been unduly influencing you."

She snorted, but she'd always been a bad bluffer.

He crossed his right foot over his left ankle like he could just lounge there all evening. "For a second there I thought you were going to chug that Red Bull with some vodka."

She bit her lip, and he pointed his finger like a gun. "Gotcha."

"My personal life is none of your business."

"You are so right, Gwen Frame. It is Gwen Frame isn't it? I suppose I could ask your mother if you've taken back your maiden name. I always loved that she says what's on her mind. She'd tell me what color your panties are."

Gwen gave him a mean smile. "I'm not wearing any."

His foot popped off his ankle, and his sole whacked against the linoleum.

She pointed a finger at him like a gun. "Gotcha."