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bank. You’d have a pension and benefits.”
    Josie could feel the walls close in on her. Her mother had worked at the same job, worn the same navy suits and eaten the same tuna-salad lunch for twenty years. Josie couldn’t do it. She couldn’t sit at a desk all day.
    “The bank was a good place for Grandma, but not for me.”
    “A mystery shopper is a sweet job, Mom,” Amelia said. “Emma thinks so, too.”
    Emma was her best friend at Barrington.
    “Thanks,” Josie said. “You’re sweet, too.” She kissed her daughter’s forehead.
    “You’re not using it right,” Amelia said. Slang had strict rules at age nine. “Can I call Emma, Mom, before it gets too late?”
    “Go ahead.”
    Amelia raced to her room, dodging Jane in the kitchen doorway. Josie’s mother had her arms folded defensively across her chest. She was still angry. Josie noticed her mother’s gray hair had a yellow cast and straggled down her neck. Jane hadn’t made her weekly visit to the beauty shop.
    “Are you really going to get fired?” Jane said.
    “I don’t know, Mom. Danessa said I lied on her report.”
    “And did you?”
    Josie was hurt. “How can you say that?”
    “Because I know how much you resent Danessa. You’re jealous of her.”
    “I don’t resent her.” Right now, Josie burned with resentment for what Danessa had said and done to her, but she hadn’t when she wrote that report. “Her stores were a mess, Mom, and I said so. Harry told me to tell the truth and I did. Then that coward hung me out to dry. He sat there while Danessa screamed at me. So, yes, I may get fired.”
    “I never did like that man,” Jane said. “He’s low-class.” That was her mother’s worst insult. “But so much of what you do in that job is low-class. Look how you left the house yesterday. Mrs. Mueller saw you. She mentioned your outfit to me. She said it wasn’t decent for a woman your age to dress like that.”
    “She’s the worst busybody on the block,” Josie said. “She’s disappointed that I don’t have any boyfriends who stay overnight. Then she’d really have something to disapprove of.”
    “She’s concerned,” Jane said. “We don’t have many women of her caliber in this neighborhood. She’s president of the St. Philomena Sodality. She’s an important person, Josie. Lived here forty years. She cares about this neighborhood. Of course she’s worried when one of her neighbors dresses like a prostitute.”
    “A what? I’m a hooker because I wore a tube top? And you sat there and let her say that?” First her boss, then her mother.
    “I most certainly did not, Josie Marcus. I told her you were in a play. But I hope you do get fired. Maybe then you’ll get a decent job. You could have worked your way up to vice president at the bank by now. You’re so smart.” Josie could see the tears in her mother’s eyes. She didn’t want to hurt Jane. She just couldn’t live her mother’s life.
    “GBH, Mom,” Josie said.
    Her mother submitted stiffly to a hug.
    “Josie, I never doubted you,” Jane said. “I just want a better life for you.”
    What all mothers want, Josie thought. Including me. But tonight Jane’s love felt like a smothering blanket. “Mom, we’re out of milk. I’m going to run to the store, maybe go for a drive. Amelia’s in her room talking on the phone with Emma.”
    “I’ll keep an eye on her. She can watch TV with me,” Jane said.
    “Thanks, Mom,” Josie said and kissed her again.
    She stopped by her daughter’s room. “Amelia, it’s a school night. You have to be in bed by nine o’clock. Start your bath by eight thirty if I’m not back.”
    “Why do I have to take a bath at eight thirty?” Oh, God. Amelia looked just like her grandmother when she put her jaw in that locked-down pout.
    “Because I’m the mom; you’re the kid.”
    Josie stopped, too horrified to continue. Another mother phrase had slipped out of her mouth. She fled in the middle of Amelia’s “Oh,