11.12 Starring Jeanne as Mom...

“But why didn’t you call when you realized you be late? Or check your cell phone for messages at least? I was really worried.”
Celeste rolled her eyes and have an impatient shake of her head. “Look, Jeanne, I understand that you were worried. I’m sorry that you were worried. But believe it or not, I didn’t do it on purpose. I’ll try not to do it again. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to call my mother so I can make sure she’s aware that I’m alive and well, and then I’m going to take the train home. Ok?”
“Fine,” Jeanne responded in an angry tone of voice. “Whatever.”
“Yup, whatever,” Celeste responded, and closed her cell phone with a snap.
She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down before she called her mother. I was only out for five hours, for God’s sake. How can she get that worried in five hours that she calls my mother? I don’t get it.
Celeste pressed the speed dial for her parents house. Her mother answered the phone. “Hey, Celeste. I hope you called Jeanne first, she was just about to call the state police, the last time she called here.”
“Yeah, I just got off the phone with her. Could you explain it to me? I’m twenty-two years old, I was only out for five hours. Total. Not late by five hours, just out at all for five hours. And she leaves four messages on my cell phone, calls you, calls Jessica, goes over to Jessica’s house to panic in company, and is ready to call the police to look for me. I just don’t get it.”
“Celeste, I tried to calm her down. But no, I can’t explain it. I think it’s something you’ll have to talk to Jeanne about.”
Celeste sighed loudly into the phone.
“Don’t do that,” her mother protested, “it hurts my phone ear. So what have you been doing for the last five hours?”
“Mo-om!”
“I’m just joking, sweetie. And at least my question is out of sheer nosiness, rather than real worry.”
“Oh. I met up with the grad student that I’m working under. I had some questions about indexing the book that I’m working on, and he answered them. Then we went over to the bar next to Starbucks for a quick dinner.”
“I figured it was probably something like that. And silly me, I was hoping it could be that you might have a date…”
Celeste lauged and said “You’d be the first person I’d tell, in any case.”
“Good night, sweetie.”
“Night, Mom.”
“Oh, and Celeste..”
“Yeah?”
“Be nice to Jeanne, she’s only like this because she cares about you.”
“I know, Mom. Bye.”
“Bye bye.”
Celeste heard the rumble of the subway in the distance, so she quickly ran down into the tunnel, and started sprinting toward the turnstyles. She swiped her T-Pass, and reached the platform just in time for the train to pull up.