“Is that your mom?” He gestures over at Paula, who attempts to give Sarah a kiss on the forehead, but Sarah storms out of the store, stomping with every footfall.

“Ah …” I mean, yeah, Paula is technically my mom. The guy looks confused, for which I don’t blame him. “Is that your mom?” is a pretty simple question. For most people.

“Um, Paul—” I stop myself. “Mom?” I call out to Paula. She freezes, and there’s a weird look on her face. I guess it’s a combination of shock and joy. I don’t really know how to describe it.

Paula walks toward us. Her hands are on her heart while her eyes are filling with tears. “That’s the first time you’ve called me Mom. Well, in at least fifteen years.”

The sales guy looks between us like he’s trying to figure out an equation. He’s also probably wishing he were waiting on anyone else.

“Um, yeah, so.” I gesture at the phone and focus my attention on it. It’s too difficult to see the look Paula is giving me. How much she wants me to fit into her world. And how I simply can’t. “Ah, I think I need a new plan.”

“What? Oh, yes. Yes, the phone.” Paula shifts back to her hyper shopping mode. “We want all the accessories, and Aman—Allison needs to join our family plan.”

The guy looks between us again, but he gets to business once Paula pulls out her platinum card.

I zone out while they go over my contract and new number. I come back as Paula asks him about his orange-and-blue lanyard with alligators on it. “Oh, I see you went to Florida.”

“Go, Gators!” he replies.

“My daughter”—and she says those words with so much pride—“is a senior, and we need to start looking at schools.”

“Can’t go wrong with Florida.”

I nod along since I’m certainly not going to bring up in front of a stranger that I have no intention of going to college in Florida.

“And the weather here is way better than Wisconsin,” Paula says as she tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear.

“Wisconsin?” the guys says with a laugh. “It is cold there. Wait a second, do not tell me you’re a Badgers fan.”

“Sure am. And a Packers fan,” I reply.

The guy shakes his head as he takes my phone out of Paula’s hands. “Well, I wish you would’ve told me that up front. We don’t sell phones to Packers fans.”

He and Paula have a good laugh at my expense.

“I have a question,” I state with a bit of a smile, a bat of the old eyelashes. Luring this dude in.

“What can I do for you?” He folds his arms. “Besides educate you on real football?”