Before She Was Mom
by Spotlight Johnson
Emilie Conlon shook her head and smiled as she led Connor Walsh up the stairs. He was so much like his mother had been at that age. She remembered when she and and the boy's mother, her best friend Jorja Walsh, had been forced to clean out Jorja's mother's basement. The look on her face had been nearly identical to the one on Connor's face now. Emilie tried her hardest to suppress a snicker.
"What're you laughing at?" Connor said, scowling.
"You are SO much like your mother was at this age!"
He scowled at her some more. Emilie just rolled her eyes.
"Here, let me pull the ladder down," Em said, standing on tiptoe to reach the pull cord for the trapdoor for the attic.
Seeing that poor little five-foot-five Emilie was probably going to hurt herself trying to get that cord, Connor rolled his eyes and said impatiently, "Aunt Emilie, let me get that. I'm about 8 inches taller than you."
Emilie sighed dramatically. "Yes. Poor little five-foot-five me was blessed to get great big six-foot-three you to help me clean out my attic."
"Yeah. Blessed that my mom enjoys torturing me," he muttered.
"Don't mumble like that. I have two teenaged boys of my own, you know. I know how to translate mumblese to English."
"Mumblese?" he said skeptically, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes. Mumblese. It is a language that originated with some unknown teenaged boy thousands of years ago and has been spoken ever since."
"Aunt Emilie, you're a piece a' work," Connor replied, shaking his head.
She smirked and chuckled. "Just be glad I'm not your biological aunt."
Emilie struggled to pick a box up to move it.
"Ah-ah-ah-CHOO!" Connor sneezed. The Conlon attic was very, very dusty. His very large sneeze caused him to drop the box of photos he was holding. The pictures went everywhere. Emilie gave up on her box and went to help him pick up the pictures. Emilie groaned inwardly when she saw the label on the box, written in bold black Sharpie: SPRING & SUMMER 08. Oh. no. That was back when Emilie, Gabe, Jorja and Mike had been Spotlight, Spot, Jockey, and Skittery. That was the summer after they had graduated, when they had celebrated surviving JP's by going on a road trip to Tijuana. Hopefully Connor would just pick up the pictures and put them in the box.
Of course he didn't.
He picked up a picture of Jo and herself, Jo in a string bikini, smoking a joint and her in a tankini with a sarong tied around her waist. He raised an eyebrow.
"Aunt Emilie, who're the girls in the picture? They're kinda hot," he said, smirking approvingly.
Emilie started laughing. She laughed so hard that she started snorting and rolling around on the dusty attic floor.
"What? What's so funny? Aunt Emilie, tell me! What is so funny?"
"The- the girls- Oh, God. The girls in the picture are your mom and me in Tijuana the summer after graduation!"
Connor turned beet red, which only made Emilie laugh more.
"MY mom, Mrs. SUV Suzy Homemaker USA, wore a string bikini and smoked pot in Tijuana?"
"Sugar, you've got a LOT to learn if you think your mom was always the next June Cleaver. Oh, GOD, no. She used to be a rebel. She's calmed down a lot since high school."
"They had high school back in 2008?"
"For your information, smarty-pants, I started high school in 2004. Oh, wow. Has it really been 26 years?"
"You are old, Aunt Emilie."
"You are young, Nephew Connor."
Just then, Jo and Gabe came up with two glasses of lemonade and two turkey sandwiches.
Connor, being the -tactful- young man he was, asked, "Mom, did you really smoke pot in Tijuana?"
Jo nearly dropped the plate. "N-no! What would ever make you think that?!"
"Um, Jo, he found a picture of you smoking a joint..." I said quietly.
Gabe was trying hard not to crack up. "So, Connor, you've gotten the rare chance to see your mom before she was your mom. Good for you."
Jo was bright red. "Yeah. Good for him."