Along for the Ride(34)

I just sat there, this time knowing better than to answer. Thankfully, then our food arrived, and she got this last word, as well.

Things did not really improve from there. She gave up on me as a source of conversation, instead ordering another glass of wine before launching into a long, protracted story about some curriculum dispute that was apparently draining all her time and energy. I half listened, making affirming noises when necessary, and picked at my salad and pasta. By the time we were done, it was past eight, and when we stepped back outside, the rain had stopped, and the sky was now streaked with pink.

‘Well, look at that,’ my mother said, taking it in. ‘It’s your favorite color.’

I felt this like a sudden slap, which was exactly how it was intended. ‘I don’t like pink,’ I said, my voice as stiff as I felt.

She smiled at me, then reached over, ruffling my hair. ‘Methinks you doth protest too much,’ she said. ‘And your choice of outerwear says otherwise.’

I looked down at Heidi’s jacket. ‘This isn’t mine. I told you that.’

‘Oh, Auden, relax. I’m just kidding.’ She took a deep breath, then let it out, closing her eyes. ‘And besides, maybe it’s to be expected that you’d change a bit, down here with Heidi and these people. I suppose I couldn’t expect to keep you as my very own doppelg?nger forever. Eventually, you’d want to try the Booty Berry, so to speak.’

‘I don’t,’ I said, and now I could hear the edge in my voice. She did, too, her eyes widening, but just slightly. ‘I mean, I’m not. I just work there. That’s all.’

‘Honey, it’s fine,’ she said, ruffling my hair again, but this time I stepped out of her reach, hating her condescension, the way she smiled, shrugging. ‘We all have our dirty little secrets, don’t we?’

It was only pure chance, and nothing else, that led me at this exact moment to look over the fence behind us to the hotel pool, which was deserted, save for one person. One person in black, square-framed glasses, his skin pale enough to be translucent, wearing red trunks and reading a small, hardback book that you knew at one glance was Literature. I glanced at my mother, catching her eye, then turned back to him, making sure her gaze followed mine. When it did, I said, ‘I guess we do.’

She tried to keep her face relaxed, but there was one, quick twitch as this remark hit home. But I didn’t feel good about it. I didn’t feel anything.

‘Well,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’m sure you need to get back to your job.’ She said these last two words the same way she referred to my dad’s book, making it clear that she doubted it mattered or even existed.

She leaned closer, offering me her cheek to kiss, but I stayed where I was. She smiled at me again, then said, ‘Oh, darling, don’t be bitter. It’s the first instinct of the weak.’

I bit my lip, turning away from her, and didn’t respond to this. Instead, I dug my hands deep into Heidi’s jacket, as if to tear the pink right off it, as I walked away. Someone else might have called after me, but I knew my mother wouldn’t. She’d gotten her last word, and it was a good one, and to her, that was all that mattered.

On the way back to Clementine’s, I kept my head down, trying to swallow over the thick lump that had appeared in my throat. Clearly, it was my defending Heidi that had set her off, even though I’d only said that she wasn’t ‘that much of a ditz’, and then paid her two small compliments. But that was enough, in my mother’s eyes, to put me squarely in the big pink camp. If I wasn’t in total agreement with her, I might as well have been Heidi. There was no middle ground.

Thinking this, I felt tears fill my eyes, just as I pulled open the door to Clementine’s. Luckily, Esther and Leah were clustered at the counter with Maggie, all of them discussing their evening plans, as always. They barely paid me any attention as I walked past to the office, where I sat down at the desk, fully intending to get back to work. But after about twenty minutes of my numbers blurring as I wiped my eyes with the back of my hands, I decided to call it a night.

Before I left the office, I pulled my hair back in a rubber band, then arranged my face to as stoic and unbothered an expression as I could manage. Two deep breaths, and then I was walking to the door.

‘The thing is,’ Leah was saying as I came onto the floor, ‘I’m never going to meet a hot guy at a coffee shop.’

‘Says who?’ Esther asked.

‘General logic. They just don’t hang out there.’

‘What about the hot, sensitive, artistic type? They live at coffee shops.’

‘See, but,’ Leah said, ‘artistic isn’t hot to me.’

‘Oh, right. You only like greased-up frat boys,’ Esther replied.

‘Grease is your specialty, actually. It’s the artistic types who don’t bathe.’

I was hoping that this conversation was engrossing enough that they’d hardly notice me. But no luck. When they saw me coming, I had their full attention.

‘So, I’ve got to go,’ I said, keeping my voice casual. ‘The receipts are done, and I’ll come in early to finish payroll tomorrow.’

‘Okay,’ Maggie said. ‘Hey, did you have fun with your –’

‘You know,’ Esther said suddenly to Leah, ‘I kind of resent that remark. I have never dated anyone as greasy as that air force guy you met last summer.’