Charlotte stared back at the spot beyond Sue’s shoulder, thinking about the weird, exaggerated, bright “hospitality” toward that nice Italian couple she had for dinner. And since when did her mother invite coworkers for dinner? She didn’t even invite friends for dinner. Well, she didn’t really have any friends, honestly. And then there was the erratic behavior at church on Christmas Eve.

“It’s still really uncomfortable at home and, jeez Louise”—she broke the trancelike gaze to look back at her lunch tray—“I feel like, lately, she’s been eavesdropping when we use the phone. She’s asking all kinds of questions, asking my dad where he’s going all the time.”

“Ugh,” Sue said. “Mothers.”

“But, that one day, just after New Year’s, jeez, was she ever mad. I don’t think I’d ever seen her that mad.”

“Really?” Sue asked, disbelieving. “Not even when you brought home the syphilis book?” As soon as she said “syphilis book” she burst out laughing.

Charlotte glared at her, not laughing.

“What’s funny?” Barb Harper sat down next to Sue with her lunch tray, which held a carton of chocolate milk and a lump of canned green beans in a dish.

“Oh, nothing.” Charlotte waved a hand in an attempt to appear nonchalant.

“Oh, nothing, nothing.” Sue caught her breath, and glanced at Barb’s tray, noting the absence of cake. “Remember when we had to read The Myth of Sisyphus for English?”

“Sue . . .” Charlotte warned.

“Yeah,” Barb answered, peeling back the top of the milk carton.

“Well, Charlotte went home one afternoon after school, and she was carrying the book, and her mom saw the cover and went positively ape.”

“Sue!” Charlotte slapped her hand on the table like she was trying to reprimand a misbehaving puppy.

But Sue kept going.

“What did she say, again?” Sue said, looking to Charlotte for assistance, but Charlotte had covered her face with her hands. “Something like, ‘YOU WILL NOT BRING PORNOGRAPHY INTO THIS HOUSE!’”

Everyone at the tables in front of and behind them turned and stared at Sue, openmouthed. Charlotte’s forehead was now resting on the tabletop, her arms wrapped around her hair.

“She did not!” Barb sputtered, as shocked as the onlookers at the other tables.

Charlotte’s head nodded from under her wrapped arms. “She did,” her voice muffled by her arms. “She ripped the cover right off the book. Tried to rip the entire thing in half.”

“Oh, boy.”

Sue had doubled over laughing again, as Charlotte peeled herself up from the table and took a deep breath, straightening her sweater. “Well, at least she didn’t come to the school and yell at Mr. Grandy about it.”

Barb gasped. “Can you imagine?”

“Yes.”

Charlotte had been stupefied by her mother’s deranged outburst and it had taken her several minutes to understand the cognitive disconnect. Her mother had been so enraged that Charlotte couldn’t explain the mistake to her, and had just gone up to her room with the remaining shreds of the book. She had then been flooded with dread, imagining her mother taking her Rage, with a capital R, to the high school, stomping in with hair and eyes wild, pocketbook swinging like a weapon, demanding to speak to the filth-monster who gave her daughter pornography.