Audiobook - Fiction
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
the smell of freshly brewed coffee drew Alex into the kitchen. Her daughter was hunched over a steaming mug at the kitchen table, poring over a textbook. Josie looked exhausted. Her blue eyes were bloodshot. Her chestnut hair was a naughty pony tail. Tell me you haven't been up all night, Alex said. Josie didn't even glance up. I haven't been up all night, she parroted. Alex poured herself a cup of coffee and slid into the chair across from her. Honestly, you asked me to tell you something shows, he said. You didn't ask for the truth. Alex frowned. You shouldn't be drinking coffee, and you shouldn't be smoking cigarettes. Alex felt her face heat up. I don't Mom, Josie Side. Even when you open up the bathroom windows, I can still smell it on the towels. She glanced up, daring Alex to challenge her other vices. Alex herself didn't have any other vices. She didn't have time for any vices. She would have liked to say that she knew with authority that Josie didn't have any vices, either. But she would only be making the same inference the rest of the world did when they met Josie, a pretty popular straight a student who knew better than most the consequences of falling off the straight and narrow. A girl who was destined for great things. Ah, young woman who was exactly what Alex had hoped her daughter would grow up to become. Josie had once been so proud to have her mother as a judge. Alex could remember Josie broadcasting her career to the tellers at the bank, the baggers in the grocery store, the flight attendants on planes. She'd ask Alex about her cases and her decisions. That had all changed three years ago when Josie entered high school and the tunnel of communication between them slowly, Brecht shut. Alex didn't necessarily think that Josie was hiding anything more than any other teenager, but it was different. A normal parent might metaphorically judge her child's friends, whereas Alex could do it legally. What's on the docket today? Alex said. Unit test. What about you? Arraignments? Alex replied. She squinted across the table trying to read Josie's textbook upside down chemistry catalysts. Josie rubbed her temples, substances that speed up a reaction but stay unchanged by it. Like if you've got carbon monoxide, gas and hydrogen gas and you toss in zinc and chromium oxide, and what's the matter? Just having a little flashback of why I got a C in or go. Have you had breakfast? Coffee? Josie said. Coffee doesn't count. It does. When you're in a rush, Josie pointed out, Alex weighed the costs of being even five minutes later or getting another black mark against her in the cosmic good parenting tally. Shouldn't a 17 year old be able to take care of herself? In the morning, Alex started pulling items out of the refrigerator? Eggs, milk, bacon. I once presided over an involuntary emergency admission at the state mental hospital for a woman who thought she was emerald. Her husband had her committed when she put a pound of bacon in the blender and chased him around the kitchen with a knife yelling, Bam! Josie glanced up from her textbook for Riel. Oh, believe me, I can't make these things up, Alex cracked in a again toe a skillet. When I asked her why she put a pound of bacon in the blender, she looked at me and said that she and I must just cook differently. Josie stood up and leaned against the counter watching her mother cook domesticity wasn't Alex's strong point. She didn't know how to make a pot roast, but was proud to have memorized the phone numbers of every pizza place in Chinese restaurant and sterling that offered free delivery. Relax, Alex said dryly. I think I could do this without setting the house on fire. But Josie took the skillet out of her hands and laid the strips of bacon in it, like sailors bunking tightly together. How come you dress like that? She asked. Alex glanced down at her skirt, blouse and heels and frowned. Why is it to Margaret Thatcher? No, I mean, why do you bother? No one knows what you have on under your robe. You could wear like pajama pants or that sweater you have from college that Scott holes in the elbows. Whether or not people see it, I'm still expected to dress well judiciously. A cloud passed over Josie's face, and she busied herself over the stove, as if Alex had somehow given the wrong answer. Alex stared at her daughter, the bitten half moon fingernails, the freckle behind her ear, the zigzag part in her hair, and so instead the toddler who'd waited the baby sitters window at sundown because she knew that was when Alex came to get her. I've never worn pajamas toe work, Alex admitted, but I do sometimes close the door to chambers and take a nap on the floor. A slow surprise smile played over Josie's face. She held her mother's admission as if it were a butterfly lighting on her hand by accident, an event so startling you could not call attention to it without risking its loss. But they were miles to drive and defendants to arraign and chemical equations to interpret. And by the time Josie had set the bacon to drain on a pad of paper toweling, the moment had winged away. I still don't get why I have to eat breakfast if you don't, Josie muttered, because you have to be a certain age to earn the right to ruin your own life. Alex pointed at the scrambled eggs Josie was mixing in the skillet. Promise me you'll finish that. Josie met her gaze, Promise. Then I'm headed out. I'll X grabbed her travel mug of coffee. By the time she backed her car out of the garage, her head was already focused on the decision she had to write that afternoon. The number of arraignments the clerk would have stuffed into her docket, the motions that would have fallen like shadows across her desk. Between Friday afternoon and this morning, she was caught up in a world far away from home, where at that very moment, her daughter scraped the scrambled eggs from the skillet into the trash can without ever taking a single bite.