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singing about somebody she loved slipping away.
    Mom seemed hurt, so I added, “Everybody calls me Franky, y’know? Like it suits me. Who I am.”
    I’d have liked to tell Mom about Freaky. But not today.
    â€œOh, we’ve been through this a thousand times!” Mom tried to laugh. “All right, ‘Franky.’ If that’s howyou wish to be perceived.”
    How I wished to be perceived? I’d never thought of it that way. Always I’d assumed that other people called you what they chose to call you, beginning with your parents, and you had no choice.
    I said, “Even my teachers call me Franky, Mom. Except if they’re scolding.”
    Mom tried to laugh. “Well. ‘Franky.’ I’ve been noticing that you’ve been unusually quiet lately. Since I went to Santa Barbara . . . you’ve been withdrawn. I hope there isn’t some connection?”
    I squirmed in my seat. “Mom, no.”
    â€œThe other day, when I drove Twyla and Jenn home, I noticed you were so quiet, they did all the talking. . . .” Mom hesitated, knowing this was dangerous territory. “I hope you always feel that you can talk to me, Francesca. I mean, Franky. If . . .”
    â€œSure, Mom. Okay.”
    Something very weird had happened at Santa Barbara, I think. Dad was gone that Saturday morning saying he had “emergency business” in L.A.,but from things I overheard after Mom returned, I guess he’d gone to the arts-and-crafts fair to check on her; he hadn’t made contact with her, only just “spied” on her. Then he’d returned.
    I guess this was what happened. There was nobody I could ask.
    I’d overheard Dad say Your lezzie friends. Palling around with your lezzie friends. I saw you . What Mom replied I had not heard.
    Mom was telling me blah blah blah. When she’d been my age blah blah. In St. Helens, Oregon. As if I didn’t know. Her small-town background she’d loved. I wanted to turn the CD volume up high to drown out her voice.
    No. I wanted to squeeze over against her and nudge her. Like I’d done all the time when I was little. Nudging Mom, pushing against her so she’d pull me onto her lap. “My big girl,” she’d say, laughing. “My big beautiful girl.” This was fine for Samantha, still; she was only ten. But not for Franky, who wanted to smooth away the smile lines at the corners of Mom’smouth and eyes, which looked as if they’d been made by tiny knife blades.
    I wanted to grab her hands. Tell her her hands were beautiful. Even with the unglamorous short nails. Even if there were telltale ridges of clay or paint beneath them.
    The Freaky impulse came to me, to pull away the turquoise scarf Mom had knotted so carefully around her throat.
    At the same time I was wishing I could escape somewhere. At least that I was sixteen and had my driver’s license. (Dad had promised me my own car, if I was a “good girl.”) That way I wouldn’t be so damned dependent on Mom to drive me places. It was too intimate, this mother-daughter thing. Too much!
    By the time Mom turned into our driveway, I had my hand on the door handle. By the time she braked to a stop, I was halfway out, dragging my backpack behind me. I called back over my shoulder in a perfectly innocent not-blaming Franky voice,“Mom, I’m fine. I’m great. I have my own life, okay? Like you have yours.”
    The first time Twyla Lee came home with me to have dinner and stay the night at our house, she looked around, rolled her eyes, and whispered in my ear, “This is cool, Franky. But do you guys actually live here ?”
    Twyla was joking of course. The Lees’ own house was pretty special. But I knew what she meant.
    When my father began to be really successful in his TV career, he wanted a new house custom built for him and his family. He purchased a lot in Yarrow Heights overlooking Lake