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Show Inside Out, 2 For one thing, I had never experienced fall in Salt Lake City before. The weather here wasn't all that different from the weather in Park City (a little warmer, a little later to freeze). But it was a different place, a place without all those memories, and so the usual triggers didn't work. And then there was Leslie. For the last few months I had been busy trying to figure out how to live with the Most Perfect Woman on Earth. You'd think the contrast would have made me think more about Mom, not less. But no-I had simply been too distracted. I looked across the kitchen at Leslie, my new stepmother, stirring her herbal tea. Leslie had given me ample opportunity for comparison with Mom. I think Mrs. Ottley, my English teacher, would say that I was not comparing Leslie to Mom, but contrasting her with Mom. Whatever. The point is that Leslie was completely different from Mom. The herbal tea, for starters. The bleach blonde hair, always looking gorgeous. And the jewelry-all the time, even when she was just hanging around the house, the jingling of all her necklaces and earrings and bracelets and ankle bracelets and-toe rings! Nothing like Mom. But... I had to be honest with myself about the real reason I hadn't remembered what day it was. Regardless of Leslie, the pain of losing Mom was fading for me. And realizing that made me feel a little funny, and more than a little guilty. "Can I take that piece of pop-tart for show-and-tell?" Paul asked. "I can tell the other kids that I saved you." "Uh, no, Bud," I said. "I swallowed it already. Sorry." Obviously he had no idea what anniversary had just passed. |