Georgia on Her Mind(12)
“Yes, and I’ll keep asking. It’s worked out fine so far. I weigh the exact same as the day I married your father.”
I choke on my French fry. “Mom, how can a fifty-nine-year-old woman weigh the exact same as she did when she was twenty-two?” Isn’t there some scientific law against that?
“Don’t know how she does it, but she’s right.” Dad winks at me. “Within a pound or two.”
“Or five or ten,” I say before diving into dinner. The food tastes wonderful. Pete Miller all but chained me to a chair and ordered me to make his e-business deadline. I popped breakfast, lunch and dinner from the vending machine. I don’t want to see another bag of pretzels until the twenty-second century. Maybe not even then.
“What brings you to Beauty?” Dad sets his salad aside and asks the hard question.
I sip my soda. “Nothing really. I’ve been in Atlanta working. Since I was so close—”
“What’s wrong, Macy? Your eyes…” Mom grabs my chin and pivots my head her way.
“Mom.” I twist out of her light grip. “I’m tired, that’s all. Long week.” Mothers. Do they ever stop perceiving?
“Since when do you do fieldwork?” Dad’s a keen one, too, and he’s digging deep.
“I haven’t in a while.” I force a smile.
“How’s Chris?” Mom asks, biting a forkful of lettuce and tomato while neatly brushing her red bangs away from her eyes.
“He’s fine.” If you like creepy-crawly things.
They have no idea, but their questions shine a light on my internal sense of failure. It flashes across my mind like a tacky neon sign.
Failure!
Failure!
Failure!
Sigh.
Chapter Six
“Macy, you sighed.” Mom’s radar is blipping over Macy Land and picking up way too much activity.
Silent sigh. “Just tired.”
I want to tell them what’s going on. I do. But I can’t. How does one tell her parents she’s failed in her career and doesn’t know why? That the one steady relationship she’s maintained in a dozen years ended with her man in another woman’s arms. And that he was a “settle” boyfriend anyway.
Do I say, “You raised an idiot”? No, not the words they want to hear. Not the words I want to say.
“Cole and Suzanne will be excited to see you.” Mom weaves the conversation with gentle, casual threads.
“What have they been up to?” Cole is my younger brother. Five years, to be exact, and Suzanne is his best friend and wife.
“Suzy is about to finish school and Cole’s joined her father in his business.”
“Good for him,” I say.
“He’ll have a fine surveying career with Regis.” Dad acts cool, but I can tell he’s disappointed by Cole not wanting to make sauces for a living.
“Our fifteenth class reunion is this year,” I offer by way of news-from-Macy. Not much else to tell yet. I tip my cup for a piece of ice, leaving out the idea that I might not attend the reunion.
“Wonderful. Chris will be able to meet your friends.”
I’m confident now that she knows something is wrong, but isn’t sure how to get it out of me. She’s chipping at the wall hoping to find the crack.
“Maybe.” I refuse to crack and continue munching on my ice.
The conversation takes a detour down a side country road. We talk easily back and forth about life in general and I avoid details about my life in Melbourne.
Dad picks up the check, leaves Sarah Beth a healthy tip and waves at Freda. Everyone, it seems, knows everyone in Beauty.
At home Dad carries my suitcase up to my old room. It looks exactly the way it did the day I left for college, the day I came home from college and the day I ran away to Florida.
Flopping onto the bed, I close my eyes, pretending I’m sixteen again and the world is still my oyster.
“How’s the old room feel?”
I lift my head to see Dad leaning against the door frame. “Peaceful.”
He chuckles. “You couldn’t wait to get outa this room, as I recall.”
“I felt pinned up in this town like I’d never been anywhere but north and south Georgia.” I stare at the ceiling while reminiscing out loud.
“I was teaching you the ropes of the gourmet sauce business when Lucy called to say she’d read in the paper that Casper & Company was hiring.”
“I ran home to pack.”
Dad juts out his chin. “Right in the middle of my riveting account of how we bottle the sauce.”
I lift my head. “Sorry about that.”
He laughs, giving me the Father Knows Best eye. I hug one of the many pillows on my bed. “It worked out well, don’t you think?” Until now, but I leave that part out.
“That it did.”
Dad steps inside my room and straddles my desk chair. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.” I scoot against the headboard and hide behind the pillow. Is saying “nothing” a lie? I don’t want to lie.
I realize I’m doomed. With Mom zeroing in on Chris issues and Dad snooping around with questions about Casper, I just might crack Humpty Dumpty-style. Calling all the king’s men.