Read Brass in Pocket for Free Online Page B

sweet smile, but a grating laugh. “Yes, I know her. What about her?”
    â€œI was… I was at this club tonight?”
    â€œWhich one?”
    â€œDon’t worry, it was a twenty-one and under place. No booze, no fake IDs.”
    â€œOkay,” Catherine said. She guessed her message about fake IDs had gotten through. She also guessed it wouldn’t last for long, and until Lindsey was twenty-one, it would be a continuing issue. “So you were at the club. What happened?”
    â€œI was, you know, listening to the music, hanging with my friends, dancing a little. And then I saw Sondra, but she didn’t see me. She hadn’t come with us. She was in one of the booths, stretched out on the pillows, and she was practically doing it with this guy. They had their tongues so far down each other’s throats I thought they would both choke.”
    â€œWell, that’s tacky, but why does it have you so upset, honey?”
    â€œMom, Sondra is like practically engaged to Jayden!”
    Right
.
Jayden
. Six three, acne-ravaged skin, tattoos, dyed-black hair left long on one side, buzz-shaved on the other. Catherine thought that style was decades out of date, not that it had ever been attractive. But she still saw people with Mohawks around from time to time, so there was just no telling about fashion. Jayden always wore black, right down to the studded leather bracelets on his wrists and the beads on either end of the bar he kept through his left eyebrow. She remembered him, and the way Sondra had cozied up to himwhen she and Lindsey had run into them at the mall. “Practically engaged?”
    â€œThey’re planning to get married next year,” Lindsey said. “You might not think much of them, Mom, but they’re like my most stable friends. They both have good jobs, and Jayden is in college. He’s going to be an investment banker.”
    Not looking like that
, Catherine thought. But one of the first things a mother learned was when to keep her mouth shut, and she did so now.
    â€œAnyway, I… well, you know, I don’t have a lot of experience with a solid family life. But I thought Sondra and Jayden could really pull it off, you know. They’ve been together for years. They’ve never broken up. They have like a five-year plan, getting married, getting their degrees, making some money, having a kid. The whole deal. And then tonight I saw Sondra getting busy with this guy at the club, a guy I’ve never seen before, one of those scummy-looking older guys with a silk shirt open to his navel… it just about made me sick.”
    Catherine still hadn’t figured out exactly what she was supposed to do about it. Sondra was seventeen, so even if they’d had sex, the guy couldn’t be charged with statutory rape. “Did he hurt her?”
    â€œI don’t know. I don’t think so. Mom, that’s not the point!”
    â€œForgive me for being dense, Lindsey, but I’m a little distracted here tonight. What exactly is the point, then?”
    â€œThe point is, what do you think I should do?”
    â€œHave you talked to her about it? Maybe she and Jayden broke up.”
    â€œI saw Jayden this afternoon, and he said everything was fine. I don’t know what to say to Sondra, though. We just left the club so she wouldn’t see us.”
    â€œWell, you can pretend you didn’t see her—”
    â€œMom, she’s my
friend
!” Catherine had to move the phone away from her ear in self-defense. Daughters could hit just the right tone to make their mothers feel both stupid and useless. It had to be in the genetic coding, because Catherine could remember using it on her own mother, but never in Lindsey’s presence.
    She felt like she had to respond to the issue if not to the tone. “Can’t you just tell her what you saw and find out what’s going on?”
    â€œI don’t know if I can do that. I