w a t e r s o n g

dancing

After school, Miranda made sure to leave work as soon as possible. There were emails that could be left until the next day, paperwork that could be filled out later. Her daughter was on the forefront of her mind. What possibly could have happened that made Regina completely flake on that test? She recalled her conversation with Crissy in her office earlier that week. 

Could the girls have had a falling out?

Miranda was determined to get to the bottom of the situation. When she turned into the driveway, she saw that Regina's car was already there. She must have bolted right after the bell. Taking a deep breath, she prepared to return to the chaotic state of her daughter's room. As she climbed the steps, she rehearsed what she was going to say. She didn't want to put her daughter on the defensive by immediately calling out her lie about the math test. Rather, she'd circle around it and start casually with a question about her friends--perhaps something about Crissy, how Miranda was concerned about her, without bringing up any actual details about Crissy's visit to her office. Maybe that would loosen the tension between them enough for her to get an idea of what was going on in Regina's head.

When she turned the corner to face Regina's room, however, it was as if she had made up their interaction in her head. The door was open, and most of the clothes had been picked up off the floor and deposited into a laundry basket on Regina's bed. Instead of headphones, Regina was playing a Taylor Swift song on her computer, a tune she'd favored in her younger years. And the kicker was that her daughter was smiling. And dancing. Miranda blinked her eyes, trying to reconcile the happy Regina that had resurfaced as if the past few days hadn't even happened.

"Hey," she said to her mother, a welcoming smile on her face. "How was work?"

Miranda swallowed. "It was good," she replied cautiously. "How was school?"

She couldn't quite be sure, but a shadow seemed to flit across Regina's face before she skipped over to her computer and paused the song. "Fine. I was thinking I'd make dinner tonight. Give you a break. What do you say to some risotto?" 

The two had switched roles so quickly, Miranda felt as though her head was spinning. She had been planning on making Regina's favorite, homemade mac and cheese, a balm for whatever difficult conversation they may have had. But Regina's face was not stormy in the least. 

"That sounds wonderful, honey. I didn't have time for lunch," Miranda said, helping her daughter by retrieving a stray sock behind the door and dropping it into the basket. 

The statement was a lie, sort of. She'd had her lunch break, like usual, but she'd spent it scrutinizing her daughter's grades online to make sure there were no other gaps she'd missed. There was a missing lab assignment on Monday, but everything else was perfect.

She dropped onto her daughter's bed and looked around. The curtains were pulled back, allowing the late afternoon sunlight to fall across the newly visible carpet. It bounced off her daughter's long, dark hair, which had been pulled back with a velvet scrunchie into a loose messy bun. Regina wandered over to her desk, where she straightened some papers and her math textbook. She tapped the keyboard of her laptop, and another song from her childhood started to play. 

Miranda's gaze lingered on the screen of the computer. Behind the iTunes playlist, it looked like a chat bubble displaying a conversation that Regina was having with one of her friends. She could only see her daughter's screen name, AppleJack, and the beginning of her friend's handle: Kam. Probably one of the girls from school--Kameron Bixler or Kami Patterson. She felt grateful to whoever had cheered her daughter up. Even if she was squabbling with Crissy, she had plenty of good friends to rally around her.

Remembering her intention to ask about Crissy, she ventured, "You know, I had a question about Crissy. I don't mean to pry, but she's been looking pretty down this week."

Regina stood with her back to her mother. "Yeah?"

"I was wondering if you knew anything about it?"

Shrugging, Regina turned around to face Miranda. Her face was placid. "I haven't really talked to her much. Maybe she and Mason have had a fight."

Miranda nodded slowly. It would make sense. Actually, it had been one of her theories, that Crissy had fought with her boyfriend, nothing more. Crissy was one to blow things out of proportion. She'd probably be fine--in fact, probably already was fine, judging by how quickly the weather of her emotions turned. She rose and encircled her arms around Regina. "You'd let me know if anything was bothering you, right?" The scent of her daughter's vanilla shampoo reminded her of when she was small and needed help rinsing her hair. 

"Of course," Regina said simply.

True to her word, her daughter made dinner that night. Raph apologized and said that he'd eaten on the way home. He grabbed a beer and went down to the basement, but Miranda enjoyed the meal with her girls. There was talk and laughter and silliness. It reminded her of the way things used to be. 

That night, she relaxed in her bed with her laptop and logged in to the counselors' chatroom. 

She hadn't been online for a full minute when a message popped onto her screen. 

"Glad to see you still fighting the good fight," Kisforkaleidoscope wrote. 

Miranda looked at their chat history and felt sorry for how quickly she exited the conversation the other night. 

"You too," she typed. "These kids... I swear they'll be the death of me."

A few moments passed.

"Or maybe you'll be the death of them."

Her breath caught in her throat. Suddenly she didn't feel so bad for cutting their chat off so quickly the other night. God knew there were crazies online. She just didn't think she'd find one in a chatroom for high school guidance counselors. 

"Excuse me?"

The response came quickly. "Ah, sorry. That came out darker than I meant it to." After that, he asked about her day, and she wrote something vague about work going well, but she logged off fairly quickly after that. 

It took her a long time to get to sleep.