Anonymity Read Online Free

cathedral. A couple of kids smoked on the few flat steps separating the church's entrance from the sidewalk. She read the historic marker and found the curlicued architecture was called Spanish Revival. She walked the perimeter, looking for a way into the grounds, but none appeared. A low wrought iron fence surrounded the church. She scaled it with little trouble.
    Parks and alleys were risky, especially when you were alone, especially when you were a girl. But cemeteries were assured safe havens. Normal people didn't sleep in boneyards. Even gutter punks avoided sleeping with the dead.

Barbara
    “SO BETH'S moving back to Juniper.” Barbara's eyes fell on the red and black club stamps decorating her daughter's hands. At least they weren't permanent.
    “Right down the street from her parents.” Emily sighed and pinched crust from her sandwich.
    “It'll be good to be close to her parents when the baby comes,” Barbara said. Her e-mail dinged in the other room, but she forced herself to ignore it. This was Saturday. Her daughter was visiting. E-mail could wait.
    “Did she invite you to a baby shower?” Barbara asked.
    “Oh God. Don't even think that. I hate those things. Besides, I'm tired of always buying wedding gifts and baby presents and never getting anything in return.”
    “Well, your luck would change if you picked young men who are marrying material.”
    Barbara had learned not to stop by Emily's house unexpectedly. More than once she'd dropped in unannounced in the middle of the day and caught her daughter with some young man still twisted up in her bed sheets. They were always scruffy things, mostly musicians, boys with tattoos crawling their arms. Late work schedules made musicians appealing, or at least convenient, for a bartender.
    “Please don't start,” Emily said.
    “You lack a people filter. You always have. You'll just let anybody into your life.”
    “Just because I don't want to live in this cookie-cutter suburb and date the khaki clan doesn't mean I'll never get married. I date nice guys.”
    “None of your generation actually dates. All young people seem to do now is read each other's profile online and text a few thousands times. Then suddenly, there's the hookup.”
    “Whatever.”
    “How a girl's supposed to know if a boy really likes her if all they ever do is meet at a bar? If the guy springs for a couple of beers, does that mean you sleep with him? Seems risky.”
    “Don't worry. I have a strict no-glove, no-love policy.”
    “Please. That's not the type of information a mother wants to hear.”
    “Well, you brought it up.”
    Barbara often wondered if her daughter's laissez-faire attitude was common to today's young adults. Perhaps she should have pushed Emily harder, demanded more. Isn't that what all the talk shows and magazines harped about? How her generation had ruined their children by trying to be their friends rather than parents?
    “I hate all the expectations,” Emily said. “Like there's some grand life plan you have to follow to reach happiness. Step one: go to college. Step two: get some big job. Step three: get married. Step four: buy a house. Step five: be a breeder. It's like, if you don't have a widescreen and a golden retriever, you're somehow less of a person. I want to know who made those rules.”
    “Nobody made the rules, Emily. But if you ever want to be somebody, you have to apply yourself.”
    “I AM somebody. I'm a person. When did being somebody stop meaning being an individual and start being defined by jobs and college degrees?”
    “Everybody has to work. Why not do something worthwhile?”
    “You don't respect what I do.”
    “Do you respect what you do?” Barbara swirled the ice cubes in her tea.
    “Your tone implies I'm not supposed to be proud of my job.”
    “It was just a question.”
    “Right. It's just a question. Why can't you love me just the way I am?”
    “It's because I love you that I want you to get past this teenage angst