“So, Jess, going to tell me what’s up?”

I looked up and saw Aunt Alice entering my room. Without knocking. Again. I knew my mom was mad at me, but I didn’t think she’d call for reinforcements. “I’m sure you’ve already heard.” Ok, so maybe I didn’t have to be snotty to her, but it felt good sometimes. “Why does she call you, anyway? I’m her kid.”

Alice sat on the edge of the bed and picked up with Mr. Goofy Bear. “She didn’t call me. I just dropped by. Since I could tell something was up”

It’s hard to keep mad when Aunt Alice has Mr. Goofy Bear doing some weird dance moves from when she was in high school. Flash dancing, freak dancing, something. She’s right about being able to tell, though. Sometimes mom gets really weirded out by things. Even things most people wouldn’t totally freak over.

Like that one time, the time that she got mad because I’d painted her dishes for her. I was ten. I didn’t really know what china was. Plus, it’s her fault for taking me to that “paint-it-yourself” pottery place. Well, I was all mad, and a kid, and kind of dumb. I asked her if she didn’t like what I did, why’d she even have me. It was the first time I made my mom cry.

In any case, I’m not quite so dumb anymore. And I’ve learned that mom’s great for playing poker with. She can’t hide a thing from me, or from anyone.

“I want to go on this school trip. She said no.”

I could tell by the narrowing of the eyes that Alice wasn’t quite buying my version of things. Ok, so maybe there was a little more. “It’s in New York,” I continued. “It’s going to be really cool. It’s a small group, by invitation only. We’re going to museums, and galleries, and she said no.”

“Okay.” Alice stopped the dancing bear tricks. “This is something you really want?”

I nodded. I mean, New York. How cool is that? For a week. No mom. Sure, we’d have chaperones, but still. It’d be not here and all that.

“I’ll talk to her,” she agreed. “But you be nice about this, ok?”

“Of course.” If anyone could smooth things over, Aunt Alice would be the one.

“No gloating.”

She was using Mr. Goofy Bear’s paws to emphasize the words. I had to smile. “No gloating, I promise.”

“Ok.” She reached over and gave me a big hug, and then did that hair tousling thing that she always does. I hate that – and I think she knows it.

“I’ll talk to her. Let’s see if we can get you to New York.”

Then Aunt Alice’s face got one of those looks, and I knew the tactics were about to change. “So, what’s this I hear about a boyfriend?”

My mom has the biggest mouth. “Nothing.”

“Yeah?” Aunt Alice was giving this cute little grin, and I knew I was so busted, since I also knew the grin sort of matched one that I had on my face.

“Well, maybe a little something?”

“And?”

As if I could keep anything secret. Between my mother and my collection of Aunts, a girl didn’t have a chance at keeping her private life private. “And, his name is Luis.”

“Cute?”

She must have known that was a dumb question. I mean, who goes out with someone that they don’t find cute? Even Aunt Alice had to find her husband, Frank, cute from time to time. I mean, he was funny and stuff, but I don’t know that cute really was the word I’d use to describe him.

“He’s very mature for his age.” I thought that was a good answer. After all, that’s what people say about me. I thought maybe that would calm their stupid fears about me dating.

Somehow, my calming influence seemed to be minimal, since Aunt Alice just looked even more concerned. “Well, you make sure he’s not too mature.” She was again waving Mr. Goofy Bear at me. “Or you, either.”

“Nah.” How could I explain this in a way an adult might understand? “He’s nice. And I think he really likes me.”

Aunt Alice gave me a huge smile. “Of course he does.”

And it was true, too. Even living here in West Hollywood, there were still friends who were weirded out that my mom’s *****. Not like I think it matters; she hardly dates, it’s not like she’s got women going in and out all the time.

Still, it seems like a lot of the guys I know either find that little factoid about my mom to be something really scary, or something that makes them turned on, or something, and they act like jerks. Either way, it’s not something I want to deal with.

Luis was different from the start. He just seemed to accept me, and my mom. I never felt like I had to explain it all – as if I could do that, anyway. I’m comfortable with him. And he’s really, really cute.

“So, when do I meet him?”

When he met my mom, Luis was so terrified that I thought he’d pass out before he made it through dinner. The last thing I wanted to do was throw him into an audience with Aunt Alice. Or what’s worse, Aunt Shane, Aunt Dana, and Aunt Lara might come along. That’d be asking a bit much of the boy. He’d only asked me to go steady last week. “We’ll see.” Hopefully that will keep her satisfied.

“Is he going to New York?” Sometimes that reporter stuff kicks in with Aunt Alice, and I have to remember that one reason she’s good at finding out info is that she asks questions for a living.

She must have seen the blush rising on my cheeks or something. Even with my coloring, I still tend to get a pretty fierce blush going. I think I definitely get that from my mom. Again, it’s part of the thing that makes her so bad at poker.

It’s not that I don’t look like my mom. I do, in some ways. Like my eyes and nose, those look a lot like hers. But people dont always see that about us, because our skin and hair coloring are so different.

Mom keeps up the blonde thing, although I know there’s a lot of help from a bottle to keep it from going gray. Her skin remains pale, with a bit of freckling from the sun. Me, I’m quite a bit darker, with dark curly hair that I’m currently wearing short. If this tousling thing keeps up, though, maybe I’ll go for dreds or something.

I tried asking her once or twice, why she picked a donor that was African American. It became one of those things we don’t talk about. Mom’s got a few of those. Most of them seem to be tied to a woman whose picture I found in a box once; a woman who kind of looked like me.

It’s not my fault that mom made it tough to find where she had the Christmas presents stashed. But I found the box, and I knew that I’d found something really secret. But I asked her about it, anways. Like I said, when I was a kid, I was kind of stupid.

This woman, mom had a lot of pictures of her, and of the two of them. I think she’s the one I heard Aunt Alice, Aunt Shane, and the others whispering about, late, when they thought I was asleep.

I searched for the box again, recently, but mom must have moved it. It didn’t really matter. Over the years, with the listening, I’d been able to gather a bunch of facts.

Fact, the woman was once someone important to my mom. That was easy enough to figure out. Fact two, I heard that she was living in New York. Fact three, and the most important. As of a few weeks ago, I finally heard her name. Bette Porter.

I looked her up on the internet, and I was right. It’s the same woman. The one who kind of looks like me.

Now, all I need to do is have my mom let me go to NY, and maybe I can figure out the rest of this.

(tbc?)