Lucky Stars Read Online Free Page A

Reiser.”
    “Call me Helen. Please. And tell me something else: Do people often assume you’re gay?”
    “Mom!”
    “I only ask because so many men in your profession are gay, just as so many anesthesiologists are Indian. It’s an interesting phenomenon, the way certain groups seem to gravitate toward certain careers, isn’t it?”
    Let me say, in my mother’s defense, that she was not bigoted in any way. She despised injustice and, as an example, lobbied her congressman to pass the hate crimes law in the state of Ohio. She was just incredibly blunt, had a tin ear when it came to conversational blunders, didn’t have a clue how to edit herself.
    “I’ve got to be going,” said Ethan, who rose from the sofa, shook my mother’s hand and my hand, and then told me he’d be in touch. Right.
    The minute he was out the door, she said, “My, he was a quiet one. He’s not the right man for you, Stacey, so listen to your mother.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with being quiet,” I said, wishing she would be.
    “No, I suppose not. Do you think he’s just shy or was he upset about something?”
    “I think he was upset about someone,” I said, too softly for her to hear me.

 
     
     
     
    t hree
     
     
    M y movie with Jim Carrey, Pet Peeve, was finally coming out, which meant that I was scheduled to attend my very first premiere. I didn’t have a date for either the premiere or the party afterward, so I planned to take Maura. My mother was profoundly insulted.
    “My daughter is going to a movie premiere and she invites her friend instead of her mother?” she said, pressing her hand against her heart, as if she were bracing for cardiac arrest.
    “Maura’s doing my makeup that day,” I said. “She’s done my makeup for a million important occasions, just as a favor to me, so I think it’s the least I can do to repay—”
    “Oh, and I suppose I haven’t done you any favors?” she cut me off, her whine becoming sort of an Edith Bunker screech. “What about all those hours I spent rehearsing your lines with you when you were in high school? Do you think I did that because I’m wild about Our Town and Hedda Gabbler and Flower Drum Song ? Well, let me tell you, Stacey, I did it because I love you. I did it because I would sacrifice anything for you. And this is how you thank me? This is how you treat me? By forcing me to watch you from the sidelines, like a perfect stranger? And in your hour of glory yet?”
    “Oh, Mom.” I tried to hug her but she turned away. She was a big baby when you got right down to it. “Please try to understand. I would take both of you if I could, but the studio only lets us bring one person. And I promised Maura, before you even moved here, that she could come with me if I didn’t have a date.”
    “But I did move here,” she said. “Why can’t Maura be the understanding one?”
    There were a few more back-and-forths, but in the end I caved. And Maura did understand. “Maybe your mother’s starstruck,” she said. “Maybe it’s not so much that she wants to be with you as she wants to brush up against Jim Carrey.”
    I laughed. “My mother doesn’t even know who Jim Carrey is. She has virtually no interest in the entertainment business. She has virtually no interest in anything except insinuating herself into every conceivable aspect of my life.”
    “Well, look on the bright side,” said Maura, who was much better at looking at the bright side than I was. Her last boyfriend, the one before the rich real estate developer, was a rich department store heir and when she found him in bed with another man and he begged her not to tell anyone, she asked for and got a lifetime discount on all merchandise in his stores.
    “Okay. What’s the bright side?” I said.
    “If you take your mother to the premiere,” said Maura, “she won’t call you the next morning and make you give her a blow-by-blow description of the event. That’ll save you a headache,