A Mother's Homecoming(36)
“Maybe because your story was too hot for a school assignment and sounded like it might be autobiographical?” Faith had actually been too squeamish to ask if any of it had been true. She didn’t want to think about Morgan and Kyle like that. “If you don’t want an uproar, don’t be a pervert.”
Morgan tossed her blond hair. “It was an artistic exercise.”
“If you say so,” Faith mumbled.
The two girls finally resumed work on their history project, a partner paper on the way fear had affected domestic race relations during World War II. Other student pairings had been assigned different periods throughout America’s past.
After a few minutes, Morgan glanced up from her binder with a smug smile. “I’ll tell you this. Mom is worked up enough about my short story that she actually called my dad. Do you know the last time they spoke that didn’t involve lawyers? He’s phoned every night this week and he’s been answering my emails. Maybe that’s what you need.”
“A lawyer? Or email?” Faith frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“Honestly, Shepard.” Morgan rolled her eyes. “You know I love you, but you can be so naive! You need an angle to get your mother to pay more attention to you.”
“We should really focus on this project,” Faith said. Her stomach hurt. “It’s due in two days, and you spent more of this afternoon with your mom than me.”
“Hey, this is me, your BFF! We can talk about this, right?”
“I guess so.” But she’d rather not. For starters, Morgan kept insisting that her own mother and Faith’s dad would be great together—so not happening—which made their conversations about Pam awkward. Mostly, though, Faith just didn’t want to discuss the situation.
At first Faith had thought it would be enough to meet her mother. They’d never had a relationship before, so trying to force one now would be weird. Faith wasn’t looking for anyone to French-braid her hair or read her stories. All she’d wanted was a few minutes to see the woman in person, have an actual memory of her. Once she had that, Faith had truly believed she would be at peace with the situation, content to have her dad.
But that had been before Pam took up residence in Mimosa! Word got around town fast, and Faith knew her mother had started working at the salon on Witherspoon. So much for just passing through. Growing up with no mother wasn’t nearly as hard as not having a mom when the mom in question only lived a few blocks away!
What’s wrong with me? Why doesn’t she want anything to do with me? Maybe it was her dad’s fault. There were obviously “issues” between him and Pam. Had he told Pam to stay away? Or was Pam simply not interested in getting to know her daughter? After all, Faith had spent her entire life in North Carolina and Mississippi, and she could be a little … bland. She wasn’t as colorful as someone like Morgan. To a woman who’d traveled extensively, had lived in California and had even been on television, Faith must have seemed utterly boring.
“I screwed up,” Faith muttered. “I’m so stupid.”
“Don’t say that! Half my grade depends on you.” When her joking got no response, Morgan reached up to poke Faith in the shin. “Seriously, what’s the deal, Shepard?”
“Pam asked me if I was interested in music. Like, professionally interested, and I told her I thought I’d rather work for NASA. Dumb! Music’s one of the things I have in common with her. I should have, I don’t know, pretended to think about it.”
“That would have made a difference?”
“You said yourself, I need an angle. Music could have been it.” Truth be told, Faith did love to sing. She just wasn’t excited about the idea of doing so in front of crowds. What she really loved was writing her own songs, but she’d always been too embarrassed to show them to anyone. Maybe that was one of the reasons she liked Morgan—she admired her friend’s fearlessness, even when it led her to make questionable choices. At least she takes the risk.
“It’s not too late.” Morgan rocked back, gradually getting to her feet. “You could still talk to her about music. You could talk to her about anything you want.”
Faith snorted. “She hasn’t been in contact with me since the one and only time we met.”
“So?” Morgan grinned. “This is Mimosa. It’s not like you don’t know where to find her.”
AFTER HER FIRST full week on duty, Pam concluded that Beth the stylist had been right: there was nothing specifically difficult about Pam’s new job. Her part at the salon required minimal talents—sweeping, answering the phone, cleaning equipment, shampooing customers. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that none of those were the real reason Maxine had hired her. I’m the sideshow freak.