by Julie Wright
I drove Kat home at the end of her allowed time with me. It was the least I could do after not letting her live with me. I owed her that much.
In the driveway, Kat turned to me with her big eyes. “Come in with me.”
It wasn’t a demand but more of a plea. A plea I could not refuse, even though I hadn’t intended to go in. I unbuckled my seat belt and offered her a shaky smile. “Of course.”
We both exited the car with the same hesitance one has when walking up the wooden steps to the gallows.
Maybe she wouldn’t be home. Maybe the tremor in my hands and the race of my pulse were for nothing at all.
I hope. I hope. I hope.
Kat opened the front door, and all hope was extinguished. “Well, look who decided to come home. Not a word or a message on how you’re doing.” My mother’s voice hit an octave that made me inwardly shudder, just like it did anytime it took me by surprise. An article in Scientific American had once reported that when a woman hears her mother’s voice, her stress levels go down immediately. If her mother hugs her, her stress levels disappear altogether. I say it depends on the mom. My mom wasn’t the hugging type. And her voice did nothing but heighten my stress levels. Would this turn into a lecture on how I never visit?
But she wasn’t addressing me. She wasn’t even looking at me. Her pale blue gaze had fixed itself to Kat.
Kat’s dark brown eyes didn’t waver from my mother’s gaze.
Mom lost the staring contest and turned to look fully in my direction. “It’s nice to see you again, too, Charlotte.”
“Thanks, Mom. It’s nice to see you again as well.”
“I find that hard to believe when you never return my calls and never come to visit.”
Ignoring the argument she clearly wanted to have, I asked, “How’s work?”
Her less-than-enthusiastic greeting of us turned to something different with this change in topic.
“I got a promotion.” The evident pride in her voice compelled me to smile and actually mean it.
“That’s great. What will you be doing now?”
She frowned and looked at me like I wasn’t paying attention. “Obviously, I’ll still be an accountant, Charlotte. I will just now be overseeing all of our firm’s newer employees.”
“Great. I’m happy for you,” I said, though in truth, I felt sad for the newer employees. They likely had no idea what they were in for when they were placed under the care of this particular taskmaster. Kat must have been indulging in the same thoughts because, under her breath, she said, “Has anyone broken the news to them yet?”
I lifted my arm to elbow her for the comment, but she’d already moved to head up the stairs.
“After you drop off your things in your room, I’d like you to come right back down, Kat,” my mom called after her. My sister visibly deflated, which guaranteed she heard even if she didn’t respond.
“You’re far too lenient on that girl, Charlotte. How is she supposed to grow up to be a responsible adult when you’re always there to clean up after her and coddle her through the hard things?”
I laughed. “Since when does loving a kid count as coddling, Mother?”
She sniffed at what she rightly interpreted as a jab at her less-than-loving parenting demeanor. “The anniversary of her mother’s death is going to come every year. Missing her mother is going to happen every minute of every day for the rest of her life if she’s allowed to wallow in it. You jumping in to, let me guess, drive her to the cemetery and hold her while she cries, cripples her from addressing her feelings and overcoming the stagnation that comes from such wallowing.”
A familiar insecurity settled over my shoulders. Because, like it or not, she might have been right. I might have been making things worse for Kat.
I made my way to the living room off to the left. I didn’t want Kat coming down the stairs and overhearing my mom being callous.
My desire to shield my sister made me worry all the more over the idea that my mom might be right about me coddling.
She’s not right.
But what if she was?
She followed me. “But I guess if Kat had to run away in order to get you to actually visit, I can’t complain.”
And yet, she was doing exactly that.
“What did you do to get your promotion?” I asked, continuing on through the living room and into the kitchen, knowing she would keep following.
“I worked. Obviously. Haven’t I always taught you that if you received an education and worked hard, you’d achieve great things? Haven’t I always said that?”
“Yes. You’ve always said that.” I pushed on through the kitchen to the French doors leading out to the patio. The garden really was the most pleasant place of my childhood home. My mother loved flowers, and I loved them too, so even when my punishments came in the form of weeding out the flower beds, it didn’t really feel so much like punishment as it did a good chance to reflect and think and make up stories in my head.
If I had to talk to my mother, I wanted to be in the garden where there was peace to be had visually even if I could not enjoy any kind of verbal reprieve and even if it was still too cold for the flowers to be blossoming.
“Speaking of working hard, how are things at your job?” She didn’t really approve of my job, so it was a surprise to me that she’d asked about it. She felt like it was dead-end employment, kind of on the level of working in fast food. Since I had worked in fast food during most of high school and college and even for a while after college, I clearly understood her feelings on that subject.
“Things with my chosen profession have never been better.” How I wanted to tell her everything, to tell her how I was accomplished and successful in a way that would make her proud of me but also make her feel that she had been wrong about me and I had been right about me my whole life. I wanted her to be proud of me, and I despised myself for being so needy as to crave that approval. But I wanted to tell her on my terms, with Edward present, and while I was buying them a nice dinner.
“What? Did you quit?”
I started at that. How did she know I—
“Because that’s the only way that job could actually be improved on.”
“It’s a multimillion-dollar, international company, Mother.” It was kind of absurd that I was defending the company I had been dissing for so long. Especially when my agent assured me that I would be a multimillion-dollar entity all on my own. Especially when I’d quit the company and owed them no loyalty.
But really, what had Frankly Eyewear ever done to my mother that could possibly deserve her ire?
“No need to get defensive. You know I’m only looking out for you. It’s my job to want the best for you.”
“I know.” And that was exactly the problem. I did know. It was the reason I was caught between never wanting to see my mother and wanting to give her a play-by-play of my every minute of every day just to see if I could win her approval. Because her approval meant that I had achieved the best for myself even if the best was only defined by her terms.
“Your father and I could really use your help with Kat.” She slid to the new conversation without as much as a backward glance at the old one.
“Edward has already talked to me, and I’ve already talked to Kat. She won’t take off again unless she’s provoked to do so. And I know that you know what things provoke her, so could you try to just ease up a little?”
“I’m not a monster, Charlotte. I just want to see her prepared for the world. Do you think her future employers will ease up on her when they need things? Do you think her future coworkers will go easy on her when the team is required to do something that is hard? How about her college professors? Will they go easy on her?”
I was about to agree that, no, they probably wouldn’t go easy on my sister, when my mom continued her train of thought.
“Of course, how hard can a fashion design professor actually be on a student?” How often had she said the same thing about an English professor? Which meant she’d never spent enough time in English courses; otherwise, she’d have the answer to that for herself.
The conversation didn’t really improve after that. She felt vexed, and nothing anyone said or did could pull her out of that mood. When Kat, who was equally vexed, came down from her room, it was more of the same. Our time spent together was absolutely delightful, if delightful could be defined as ice picks being stabbed into the brain.
Kat tried several times to bring up my good news but finally caught on that I didn’t feel like a show-and-tell with the parents. Not yet.
I stayed until Edward came home, not wanting to leave my mother and sister without supervision. When Edward did return, I jumped up, ready to leave the circus that was my family. But Edward insisted I stay for dinner, so the torture continued. It would have been a betrayal to leave Kat alone anyway, since Edward and my mom were intent on wringing her out for taking off without telling them and for staying at my house even when she was given direct orders to come home.
The only thing that kept the situation from becoming a full-on war where Kat packed her bags and ended up back at my place was me trying very hard to play the voice of reason.
I sighed at the lot of them and cut through my quinoa-stuffed avocado like a woman intent on murder.
Kat jumped up to walk me to my car when the opportunity for me to escape presented itself, but Edward beat her to the punch when he said, “Let me walk Charlotte out, sweetie. She and I haven’t seen each other for a while, and I’d like a minute to talk.”
He was probably worried she would end up in my car and refuse to get out again.
Kat shot me a look of apology. It appeared that we would both be lectured by the other’s parent.
I returned that look of apology. After all, I got to leave. She had to stay.
“I appreciate you watching out for Kat for the last little while,” Edward said as soon as we were out of earshot of the others. “And I’m sorry if her turning up causes any conflicts in your life. I know that being single and living on your own means that having a teenager around could cramp your style.”
“Not at all,” I assured him. “She actually makes sure I get a social life. She’s no trouble.”
“That’s nice of you to say, but a social life for a teenager isn’t the same as a social life for an adult. You can see how it’s better if she’s here at home.”
I laughed, more comfortable with Edward than with my mom. At least with him, I could counter comments without it turning into the cold war. “If you believe that, then you have the wrong idea about my social life.”
He raised an eyebrow, apparently not humored. “If your calendar has some holes in it, then maybe you could pencil in a visit every now and again to your mother.”
“Edward . . . I—”
“She really loves you, you know?
Kat had the same habit of affirming all her words with the tacked-on “you know.”
“Do I know?” I lifted my eyebrow to match his.
He nodded. “Of course you do. She only wants the best for you.”
I sighed. The same old cyclical conversation. She loved me, wanted the best for me, made me miserable, toughened me up for the real world, made me so insecure that the real world terrified me, and on and on, around and around we went.
“Anyway, thanks for bringing Kat home.”
All things considered, the lecture was small and no promises for visiting my mom were extracted. It felt like a victory.
I escaped to my own corner of the world in my own apartment and found myself sad to not have the companionship of my sister. I immediately texted her. “Hey, sis. Sorry about the awkward.”
“Would it be family dinner without the awkward?” The text alert chimed immediately.
I laughed. No, it wouldn’t. “Maybe.” I texted. “Are things good there now?”
“Meh.”
Dang. I’d hoped for better. “Remember. At the first sign of cutlery investments . . .”
“Haha! You know it! Love you, sis!”
I felt better knowing she was in good spirits even with the meh response.
With Kat gone and with Anders scheduled to work odd shifts for the next several days, boredom seemed inevitable.
But my editor had other plans for me. The phone call came early Monday morning. Before offering me a legitimate greeting, Melissa dove into the reason for her call. Marketing wanted ARCs ahead of some sort of book convention. Cover mock-ups had already been created, and Melissa had emailed them to me, and had I checked my email? Because if I had, could I please respond to her?
I hurried to comply by sitting down at my laptop and clicking open the email. Four attachments with different cover ideas awaited my approval.
Another email popped up in my inbox. That one was from Toni, saying she wanted to do her job and boost my posts, except the only post to work with on my Instagram account was the one Lillian had tagged me in. She wanted to make sure I was keeping my appointment for the hair, makeup, and photographer so she had pictures to work with. I checked the clock on my laptop. I sighed. At least I didn’t have to get ready for the appointments, since the whole point of them was that someone else would be getting me ready. I was going to be late if I didn’t leave soon.
Except that another message appeared in my inbox. Melissa now had a publication timeline. The manuscript would be turned into an actual book and be able to dance at the ball far sooner than I’d imagined. They expected it to be out this fall. The people in several of my online writing groups always said publication dates were at least a year out, and often two, once a manuscript had been accepted. For me, it was all happening in a matter of months. In just over seven months, my book would be available to buy in bookstores, both online and in brick-and-mortar stores. Was it normal for it to all happen so fast?
I didn’t have time to contemplate actual time because I was definitely going to be late to my appointments. I grabbed my phone, figuring I could answer emails from the road, and hurried out.
When the “artists” were done with me, I glanced in the mirror and had to look a second time. And it wasn’t because I was so staggered by the beauty they had found in me. I liked how I looked on an average day. What was so staggering was the fact that I didn’t recognize the girl in the mirror. She wasn’t better looking than me or worse looking than me. She just wasn’t me. The photo shoot went well enough, with the photographer who’d introduced himself as Thomas moving me and angling me into positions that felt unnatural and stiff, though he assured me they would all look natural.
I finished and was about to leave when Thomas the photographer said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“What?” I turned back to him. “Tomorrow?”
“For the location shots.” His confirmation did not clear up my confusion.
“Location shots?”
“Yeah. We’ll be coming by your place tomorrow to do some environment shots. You know, with you in your own space. It’s part of the schedule we have for you.” He checked his phone. “Yeah, it’s on the schedule.”
“Oh. Right. Schedule. Tomorrow.” Hadn’t I skimmed through the emailed schedule Toni had sent me? Probably. Maybe. “What time?”
“Nine in the morning.”
Of course it was first thing. Why wouldn’t it be? “Cool. Do you know where you’re going?”
He checked his phone again and rattled off my address.
Thomas and his photography team were coming to my house.
Upon considering what that meant, I thought about the mess the apartment was in.
The day my mother had warned me about had finally come.
Chapter Eleven
“Mice are not to be counted on f
or housework purposes. Neither are birds or other woodland creatures. If you have a real aversion to housework, hire a maid. Let’s be real. Do you really want rodents doing your dishes?”
—Charlotte Kingsley, The Cinderella Fiction
(The “Own Your Own Space” Chapter)
“Keeping clean is easier than playing catch-up clean,” Mom always said. For a few years, when I was very young, I’d thought she was saying ketchup clean and could never figure out how ketchup could ever be considered clean. I’d spilled on enough shirts to know that it never came out again, and the shirt was ruined. By the time I’d figured out she was saying catch-up, I’d also figured out why she had repeated the words to me over and over. She hoped to motivate me to keep my room tidy. She always used the argument, “What if one of your very important friends came over to visit and saw your room looking like this? Wouldn’t you be embarrassed?”
I always responded that of course I wouldn’t be embarrassed, because cleaning could be easily done as soon as they let me know they were on their way over.
“Tidying up is easily done. Cleaning requires time that is never available when company wants to drop in with little to no advance warning.”
I hadn’t picked up everything on the list Toni had given me, which meant I had to go shopping as soon as I left the photographer’s studio.
By the time I arrived home and had taken multiple trips to lug up the various required items to my apartment, the digital clock read 10:42. In fewer than ten and a half hours, a camera crew would come in and record all the details of me. The apartment required at least that amount of time to be made friend-or-family presentable. It needed to be do-a-photo-shoot-for-the-public presentable.
I hated it when my mom was right.
It’s not that I was a slob. But when life became busy, I prioritized, and cleaning never made the short list. With writing the book, catching up on work, being with my sister, and getting the new contract and a new relationship, my apartment had paid a heavy price. The basics got done: the dishes and picking up. But the deep cleaning: scrubbing the toilet, cleaning the shower, actually dusting . . . That stuff had gone the way of neglect and decay. Literal decay in some instances.