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It was your
favorite when you were little.”
    “ I ate meat when I was
little. I don’t now.”
    Mom glared at me. “There’s not much
meat in it. You can take it out.”
    I saw Ian open his mouth. I fought the
urge to leap across the kitchen and shove him out the window before
he could speak. “Not eating meat is why you’re so skinny,” he said.
“It’s not healthy.”
    “ God made animals for us to
eat,” my mother said waspishly.
    “ Is that so?” I said,
digging my fingernails into my palm to divert me from saying
something else.
    “ Of course. We rule the
animal kingdom. Animals are tools to be used by us. We eat a lot of
animals: lambs, pigs, cows, and even ocean animals like
fish.”
    “ You do, but I don’t,” I
said. “I don’t share your views.”
    “ What views?” Ian
asked.
    “ All of them,” I
said.
    Ian shoved a finger in the air. “The
point we’re getting at, Laurel, and this is from two people who
care about you, is that you need to eat meat to be
healthy.”
    “ I don’t, Ian. Not at all.”
With that, I turned and headed to the dining room. I sat and took
deep, slow breaths. When Mom and Ian brought in the dishes, I put
salad on my plate and nothing else. Mom watched me and shook her
head.
    Ian spoke up once more. “You’re not
getting any protein!” he protested.
    “ Ian, thank you for your
concern, but plants actually have protein,” I said through gritted
teeth.
    The rest of the course was passed in
merciful silence, and then Mom produced dessert. “Angel food cake,”
Mom announced. “Ian made it.”
    “ I brought it,” Ian said.
“My girlfriend made it.”
    “ If only you would learn to
cook,” Mom said to me. “Then you might be able to find a nice man
like John Jones. The two of you would be a good match. Don’t you
think so, Ian?”
    Ian looked torn. “Well, only if Laurel
attends our church first, Thelma,” he said.
    Mom looked horror-stricken. “Of
course, Ian! That’s what I meant. And Laurel would have to learn to
cook first, or what else would she have to offer a good man like
John Jones?”
    I got through the rest of dinner by
imagining myself alone on a deserted island. And then I imagined
that Ian was a bartender who had to wait on me and bring me drinks,
and I liked that even better. Of course, in my imagination he had a
sock in his mouth so he couldn’t speak.
    After dinner, I offered to brew coffee
for everyone, and I hurried into the kitchen to escape.
    Ernie was waiting for me. “How do you
put up with your mother?” he asked me.
    “ No idea,” I said. “Really.
None. It’s horrible, isn’t it?”
    He nodded.
    “ How’s the new guy holding
up?” I asked.
    “ Not too well,” he said.
“He’s nice enough guy, but he’s still in that first
stage.”
    “ First stage?” I
asked.
    “ He’s still in shock. He
can’t believe he’s dead.” With that, he floated up and away,
through the ceiling and wall.
    I edged toward the door as the coffee
brewed so I could hear what Ian and my mother were talking
about.
    “ Thelma,” Ian said, “I
don’t know what to do with my girlfriend.”
    “ Are you still having
problems?” my mom asked. “Does she still want candles in the room
when you know one another?”
    “ Yes, and something new,
too,” Ian said tersely. “It’s much worse than the candles
now.”
    “ What is it? Not something
else New Age, surely?” Mom’s voice was horrified.
    “ Even worse,” Ian said.
“She wants to be more adventurous.”
    I thought I would pass out. Imagine
Ian saying such a thing to my mother!
    “ That’s not for a woman to
decide,” my mother said firmly.
    I knew that Mom had absolutely no idea
what Ian was talking about. He was still speaking in the world of
‘knowing’ one another, which to my overly religious mother meant
lying with someone in the Biblical sense, to put it in another nice
term no one uses these days besides those two. I was pretty sure
that, to my mother, being