Read Around the Bend for Free Online Page B

is holy, please let me sleep for another hour.”
    Another pause of disappointment. “Fine. I’ll get takeout and bring it to you.”
    “Whatever.” As long as she let me sleep, I didn’t care if she wheeled in an entire Swedish smorgasbord. I dropped the phone back into the cradle and buried my head in the foam pillow again.
    Ten minutes later, she was at my door. “Hilary! Eggs, sunny side up with a side of wheat toast.”
    I stumbled to the door and yanked it open, blearily focusing on her fully dressed and smiling self. “I thought you were going to let me sleep for an hour.”
    “Then the eggs would have been cold. And you know how you hate cold eggs.”
    “Ma, I hate eggs, period.”
    “Since when?”
    “Since forever.” I turned, leaving the door open and climbed back into my bed, pulling the covers over my head, knowing I was acting like a three-year-old. And so not caring.
    “But you always liked eggs when I made them.”
    “And when was that?” My voice was muffled by the scratchy floral polyester coverlet. “Because last I checked Dad was the one who fed me breakfast. Got me dressed for school. Made sure I got on the bus.”
    I closed my eyes and squeezed my temples. What was with me this morning? Had I not just vowed a mere twenty-four hours ago that I would not get into a verbal match with my mother? That I would behave for this road trip?
    Uh-huh. And look how well that was going.
    She brought out the worst in me, like sandpaper on a callus. It was why I kept a mental egg timer on our visits, because I knew if I went over so many minutes, someone was bound to blow.
    “Will you please come out from under there and eat your breakfast? You need to start the day right.”
    I flung back the covers, annoyed and frustrated and not in the mood for anything sunny side up. I stalked over to the breakfast tableau she’d set up on the cheap laminate table in the corner, grabbed a piece of wheat toast, then perched on the corner of the armchair and nibbled.
    “For God’s sake, Hilary, put on some clothes.”
    I looked down at my tank top and panties. “These are clothes, Ma.”
    She glared at me.
    I had two choices. I could continue to stand there, just to tick her off, an art I had perfected during high school, or I could throw on a pair of jeans and buy some peace.
    I had learned some lessons in three decades of life. And one of them was that some battles were not worth the fight—like what I wore to bed.
    I put down the toast, picked up the Lees I’d dropped on the floor the night before and wriggled into them, ignoring the way my mother’s nose wrinkled in distaste, then went back to my breakfast.
    “You’re getting crumbs on the—” She cut herself off, apparently deciding I was a lost cause, and rose. “Reginald and I will meet you in the car. Be sure to make the bed before you leave.”
    “Ma, that’s what the maids do.”
    “We don’t want them thinking we’re total slobs.” She glanced around my room, at the shirt draped over the armchair, the open duffel bag, its contents strewn in a circle, the blankets puddled on the floor. “Even if some of us are.”
    Then she left the room without shutting the door. I crossed the room and closed it myself, muttering unflattering things about passive-aggressive relationships under my breath.
    Then I threw the eggs into the trash and stood over them, watching the little tendrils of steam rise off their happy yellow faces. If I’d thought it would make me feel better, I’d been wrong.

six
    My mother, I discovered, only liked to read books, not listen to them. I tried each of the books on tape— New York Times bestsellers and Oprah picks—and she rejected them all. One reader was too slow. One was too hard to understand. The third had a drawl. “Grates on my nerves.” The fourth was a male. “Men shouldn’t read books written by women.”
    “Ma, he’s playing a character. He’s an actor. That’s his job.”
    “If I want an actor,