The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(47)

“Deer Drop?” I prompt.

One of her eyelids flutters low. “If we truly wanted to help the people here, we’d rename that place.”

“Good bait shop over in Deer Drop,” Teague says. “Best live worms around. And the Farm-’n’-Fish has overalls on sale. Not sure what other shopping there is to do, but the Deer Droppers are good people. Bet they could teach you a thing or two about being good people. Except Deer Drop Floyd. Avoid him. He’ll try to get in your pants.”

“Stop,” I whisper to him, wanting to smile but also realizing that if I do, I’m undoing all the good I’ve done for my personal progress. I should not take joy in my mom’s suffering. “She’s not ready for you.”

“Can we help you?” Mom asks Teague.

“Got a meeting with your matriarch at nine.”

Mom and I both look at our watches, see that it’s 9:02, and suck in the same breath of horror.

“Go!” Mom cries. “Go on. You’re late!”

I nod. “You really don’t want to be late.”

But Teague studies us both like we’re the crazy ones. “Maybe if Estelle wants to get into heaven, she should try to learn the world doesn’t revolve around her.” He tips his baseball cap at us and steps between us. “Enjoy your morning, ladies. I’m off for a leisurely stroll through the halls of someone else’s youth.”

He slips inside the building, his shoulder brushing mine and making goose bumps erupt all over my skin.

I look at my mom.

She smiles, clearly oblivious to what Teague’s body apparently does to mine. “As I said. We should have a shopping day.”

I don’t ask if she’s supposed to be working.

She has fifty-five years of not working under her belt. At least, not doing the kind of work Gigi wants us to do here. And despite the random sketches I’ve seen at the occasional meal since we arrived, I don’t think she’s doing much to expand her fashion empire either.

“I have to go to class.”

“Oh, Phoebe, skip class! You’re brilliant. You’ll still pass.”

“Gigi’s donating five million dollars to the school on the condition that I don’t skip class.” Somehow, she’s managed to make actual moral dilemmas for me.

If I skip class, I’m not just hurting myself.

I’m hurting the people who stand to benefit from Gigi’s donation.

I won’t call it kindness or charity—Gigi could drop $5 million daily for the rest of her life and still die a billionaire without so much as glancing at the trust funds she controls for the rest of us—but it’s still a massive infusion of capital for an area that doesn’t get a lot of donations like this.

“Maybe after school we can grab lunch and hit the Deer Drop gift shop?” I offer Mom.

Her eyelid does its irritated flutter again. “Fine, fine. We can play this game. I’ll drive.”

“Mom—”

“Of the two of us, dear, I’m not the one who tried to kill the car yesterday.”

She loves you most, Tavi’s voice whispers right near the part of my brain that’s inspiring all these feelings of guilt the past few days. And has Mom always been so harsh on Tavi about her weight?

I should talk to her about that.

Mom, I mean. She probably doesn’t realize she might be hurting Tavi’s feelings.

I reach into my clutch and pull out the keys. “When’s the last time you drove?”

“I drive all the time at our country estate in the Catskills.”

Her fingers twitch impatiently.

But I hold the keys just out of reach. “Mom? Why are you here?”

“To support your grandmother, dear. It’s what you do for family.”

She’s lying. There are very few things that I know with 100 percent certainty in my life these days, but I know without a doubt that my mother is lying.

Not your journey, Phoebe.

So I nod and hand her the keys. “That’s great, Mom. And thank you for spending the day with me. It’ll be really good for both of us.”

It will.

Won’t it?





Chapter 15


Phoebe


Dear sweet internet.

Oh my God, dear sweet internet.

I get a signal as soon as we hit the community college’s parking lot, and after having zero signal since we got here and then forgetting I could bring my phone with me yesterday, it almost feels surreal. Mom and I both hear my phone explode with text and voice mail notifications, and she bursts into sobs and almost takes out a squirrel that has no idea the parking lot is suddenly a danger zone.

“Oh my sweet Wi-Fi,” I gasp when I enter the password the school gave me yesterday too.

I barely notice the SUV lurching to a stop or Mom rustling in her handbag beside me for her own phone, also exploding with notifications. “I’m so sorry, baby,” she sobs. “Mommy will never abandon you again.”

“Mom, you didn’t—”

“Shh. I’m talking to the internet. Let me have my moment, Phoebe. Let me have my moment.”

I’d be offended, except oh my God, the real world.

There are messages from friends asking if I’m still alive. Invitations to galas and fundraisers and parties. A notification on my private email that—“What?”