Motherhood, The Second OldestProfession Read Online Free PDF Page B

that follows a muscle from the right arm down to the base of his billfold pocket. It's called “cheap.”
    Girls can slam a door louder, beg longer, turn tears on and off like a faucet, and invented the term, “You don't trust me.”
    So much for “sugar and spice and everything nice” and “snips and snails and puppydog tails.”

Unknown
    9
     
    What kind of a mother...
    runs a wedding—in three hours, forty-three minutes and sixteen seconds?
    Donna
    It was the moment every mother of the Seventies prayed for.
    The phone rang and the voice said, “Mom, guess what? Barry and I are getting married!” (Hallelujah!)
    Married. Her friend, Sophie, had a son who had short hair, but he wasn't . . . married. Another friend, Eileen, could boast a daughter who still shaved her legs and waited for someone to open the car door for her, but even she wasn't . . . married.
    Married. It was like a dream come true for Donna. Just think, soon her little girl would have unpaid bills, unplanned babies, calls from the bank, and substandard housing. All the things a mother dreams of for her child.
    Not only that, Donna would become the first mother-in-law in her bridge club. She couldn't believe that after two years of cohabitation, it was finally happening.
    Then Donna hesitated. What if this were another “commitment”? I ler mind raced to a meadow. A van painted with serpents. Grace Slick coming from a tape deck. Organic juice out of Dixie cups. Guests smoking the lawn.
    As if she were reading her mother's mind, Lynn said, “Don't worry, Mom. It's going to be a traditional wedding.”
    Tears welled in Donna's eyes. A real wedding. Stuffed mushrooms, cutaways. A string quartet. Silver pattern. Tapered candles. Barry Manilow. Navel-length corsages.
    The bride-to-be's father was less exuberant. “Who's Barry?” he asked.
    “I forgot to ask.”
    “What do we know about him?”
    “What's to know? He's the man who's going to marry (hallelujah!) our daughter.”
    “He has some nerve, after they've been living together all these years.”
    The invitation arrived within the week. It was shaped like a runner's shoe.
    Lynn and Barry
    Invite You to Their
    Marathon of Nuptials
    Saturday, June 18, at 2 pm
    at Jackie's Body Shop.
    Guests will assemble in Central
    Park and run 10 K's with the
    bride and groom to Jackie^s place.
    Dress optional: Running or aerobics attire.
    Donna and Mel looked at the invitation in silence. They were stunned. Mel spoke first. “I his isn't an invitation to a wedding. It's the opening of a gym. We're not going.”
    Instinctively Donna stiffened. “May be you're not going, but my only daughter is being married (hallelujah!) for the first time and I'm not about to miss it. Tomorrow the bride's mother is going shopping for her outfit for the wedding, with or without the bride's father.”
    The next day, Donna looked at her reflection in the fitting room mirror. She had experienced dizziness in a fitting room on only one other occasion, and that was the day she tried on a bathing suit wearing knee-hi hose. Today was a close second. Plum tights that glowed from the strain of a million fat pockets of cellulite fighting to get out were covered by a pink leotard that rode high over the hips. A matching pink headband tried valiantly to keep her forehead from falling into her eyes. She looked at the leg warmers and prayed she wouldn't have a hot flash. She knew that if she so much as cleared her throat the crotch would bind her ankles together.
    Poking her head outside the curtain, she said to the salesperson, “On second thought, I think the groom's mother is wearing this. I think I'll go for the blue velour warm-ups. A daughter only gets married (hallelujah!) once.”
    Her last stop was a sports center where a young man fitted her with running shoes. As she peeked into the X-ray machine to check the stress points on her new shoes, she asked, “By the way, young man, how far is 10 k's?”
    “It's 6.2 miles,” he