Page 90 of Cooking Up My Comeback

“Hey, Mom.”

“There’s my boy!” Mom’s face fills the screen, bright smile and knowing eyes. She’s in her sunroom back in North Georgia, surrounded by plants that somehow thrive despite her notorious black thumb. “How are you, honey?”

“Good. Fine. Just having dinner with?—”

“Turn that camera around right now,” she interrupts. “I want to see where you’re hiding.”

“Mom, I’m not hiding?—”

“Camera. Around. Now.”

I close my eyes, send up a quick prayer to whatever deity protects grown men from embarrassing mothers, and slowly turn the phone.

Amber looks up from the sink, soap bubbles on her hands, and waves with a polite smile.

Mom’s face lights up like Christmas morning.

“Oh, honey, she’s beautiful! You didn’t tell me she was beautiful!”

I want to disappear into the floor.

“Mom—”

“Is this the business partner you’re not falling for?”

“We’re not—it’s complicated?—”

“Nothing complicated about it,” Mom says with the confidence of a woman who’s raised threesons and seen them all try to lie about their feelings. “I can see it all over your face.”

From the living room, Tally’s voice carries: “Tell her I approve! But she better bring good snacks when she visits!”

My mother’s eyebrows shoot up. “Well, I like her already. Smart girl.”

“You’re not visiting,” I say quickly.

“Oh, but I am. I just got off the phone with Marla Edgewood—you remember Marla—and she told me those Keith boys are getting married left and right. Something in the water here makes men settle down.”

I’m dying. Actually dying.

“I’m driving up for New Year’s. Pack an extra blanket for the guest room.”

Amber is trying very hard not to laugh, but her shoulders are shaking.

“Mom, you can’t just?—”

“I absolutely can. I’m your mother. It’s my job to embarrass you and check out the girl who’s got you looking like a lovesick teenager.”

“I don’t look?—”

“Honey,” she says gently, “you look happy. Happier than I’ve seen you in years. Don’t you dare mess this up.”

The call ends. I stare at the black screen.

“She seems lovely,” Amber says, not quite managing to keep the laughter out of her voice.

“She’s a menace.”

“She loves you.”