“Wonderful,” says the salesman smoothly. He’s probably mentally calculating his commission. “Shall I wrap it up for Star?”

Mom looks at him blankly.

“My daughter? No, this is for me,” she says. She glances at me, then smiles sweetly at the sales staff. “This way I can always keep Star close.”

“Awwww,” the salespeople say in unison.

I smile tightly and wonder how long it will take for that quote to get into Us Weekly.

An hour and a half later, we’re sitting down at a fancy French restaurant off Fifth Avenue for lunch. I’m feeling a bit better. After Mom’s Tiffany purchase, we actually bonded a bit at Bergdorf Goodman, Bulgari and the Manolo Blahnik store on West Fifty-fourth, where Mom picked out four pairs of shoes.

“I’ll have the roast duck, but leave the orange peel out of the glaze and substitute Splenda for the sugar,” Mom rattles off to our waiter. “Steamed broccoli instead of the asparagus, with just a touch of lemon, but don’t oversteam the florets or I’ll send them back. Rice instead of the potato, but make it jasmine rice with a hint of ginger. And the house salad, dressing on the side, no mushrooms, extra tomatoes.”

The waiter jots down Mom’s detailed order, looking panicked. Then he turns to me.

“Um, Miss Beck?” he asks, sounding sort of nervous. I glance around, and as usual, the entire restaurant seems to be staring at us. I can hear the whispers and murmurs that follow me wherever I go.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger and a Coke, please,” I say, wondering if Mom will notice. Of course she does.

“You will not!” she exclaims indignantly. The waiter pauses halfway through writing the words.

“Mom, I—” I begin.

“Star!” she cuts me off, keeping her voice low. “Remember yourself!” Before I can protest, she turns to the waiter and chirps, “She’ll have the Caesar salad with your fat-free Caesar dressing. Hold the Parmesan cheese, hold the croutons.”

“So, uh, just lettuce with fat-free dressing?” the waiter clarifies.

“Dressing on the side,” Mom commands.

The waiter nods and scurries away.

“I didn’t want a Caesar salad,” I say.

“You have Dial in two hours” is what she tells me.

Fine. Okay. Deep breaths. I can eat a Caesar salad.

“We should do this more often,” I say tentatively once her meal and my lettuce arrive. “Do things just the two of us. It’s nice.”

And it is. Even with my mom being pretty high maintenance and spending more money in two hours than most people make in six months of work, it’s been a nice day. After all, getting to spend time alone with her is a rare thing.

“I’m kind of nervous about my interview,” I blurt out in this rare moment of mother-daughter bonding. “I hate it when they ask me about Dad.”

Mom stops chewing and looks at me sharply.