Rough Draft

Glass Heart

"How was your drive, Sweetie?" Linda set the plate down at the booth though her eyes were on Tina.

"Actually-"

She frowned at the customer, "No. Not you, my daughter! She drove down from Rhode Island" Linda smiled moving beside Tina. "She's published you know."

"Its just one book, Mom." Tina felt the blush starting to rise.

"Well I thought you were talking to me." The customer grumped, sliding down in his seat.

Linda huffed, rolling her eyes. "So? How's college, how are the boys? Are they cute?

"Yeah!" Louise rang the order bell, "when are you writing a murder mystery starring me?"

"Oh!" Gene piped up, moving to Linda's newly empty seat, "write one about me. Playing music to some hot babe!" His hand trailed in the sky, "call it 'The Sound of Music'."

"That's already taken, Gene." Louise snorted.

"No it's not." He reached across the bar, pulling a napkin out.

"Yeah, it is Gene." Bob cut in with a chuckle.

"We've seen the movie, like, a million times." Linda added, standing in front of the register and punching in numbers. "I always sing to that one song. You know-" She began humming and shuffling to the music in her head.

"I didn't know that's what that was called!" Gene's eyes opened in shock. "Well, call my book something equally cool, but there has to be a music pun!"

"I'll see what I can do." Tina promised. "I'm gonna take my bag upstairs and I'll be back down."

"Yeah, yeah, sure." Linda smiled. "You know where your room is." She snorted at her joke.

~*~*~

Tina ran a hand over the row of books, pulling one from the line-up out of curiosity.

" 'Erotic Twilight'?" Tina grimaced, then sat on her bed, opening the book a third of the way in.

Edward Pesto - Tina closed the cover, taking a deep breath before continuing. Edward Pesto climbed onto Tina Swanns bed.

"You smell so good." He hissed through his vampire teeth, his fingers were cold and hard as they trailed up her neck. "I can't resist-"

Suddenly Tina Swann's bedroom door burst open. There stood Zeke the werewolf, coming to claim his life mate from the arms of his archnemesis-

"Wait... what?" Tina frowned, flipping through the pages.

She knew she had been indiscriminate with her hormones, no butt or boy was safe from her teenage lust, but she didn't remember writing Zeke in as a half to a supernatural love triangle. She had always hated him, or, rather, the attention he took away from her when he was around.

She pulled another book from her collection.

"Bright green gel pen. Nice choice 13 year old Tina." She congratulated herself, squinting to read the bright ink.

It was a trend, she noticed, to play Zeke opposite Jimmy. Perturbed she pulled up her diary from years ago. She smiled remembering how she would read it aloud to her mother, then get upset when she discovered Louise had been reading it. Teen Tina had been an odd duck for sure.

"I dreamed Zekes head was on Jimmy Jrs body." Tina shut the book, leaning away. "What's up with that?"

She hadn't remembered any of this and, blessedly, she hadn't remembered the erotic scenes she had written of her love interest's best friend.

"Tina, honey!"

Linda's voice carried up the stairs, startling Tina from her musing. "Be there in a second, Mom!"

"Okay, but hurry. Your dad dared Louise to a grill challenge and you're gonna miss it." She laughed, "I always get the left overs."

"How did you survive my teenage years?" Tina caught her mothers question gaze as she descended the stairs and stood beside the older woman.

It struck Tina suddenly that her mom was aging. Her hair was laced with grey, her eyes sported wrinkles in the corners.

"Oh Tina!" Linda laughed, waving her hand flippantly, "You were unique." She pursed her lips as they rounded to corner to the shop door. "If we hadn't cultivated your own special Tina-ness then you may not have become a writer at all!"

Tina paused, "But it's so embarrassing. Why do you keep all that stuff?"

"Tina," Linda rounded the counter top as Tina sat on a stool, "you are my baby. You'll always be my baby. I don't care how raunchy or embarrassing or hormone driven you think you are, we love you. We love everything you've created."

"Maybe not everything, Mom." Louise piped up from behind the grill.

"Oh shush you!" Linda growled, turning back to Tina, laying a hand over her daughters. "Your embarrassing memories are some of our best ones. They remind us of you when we can't see you."

Tina frowned, looking at her mothers hand over hers. "I think I understand." She looked back to her mom, brown eyes catching brown eyes. "Thank you for believing in me."