Bad Mommy(18)
“What do you write about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Struggles … life … the women who experience them.”
“That’s not telling me very much,” I said, frowning.
“I’m trying not to.”
“Oh.” I suddenly felt hurt. I thought we were friends. I’d been working so hard at bonding with her, being the type of person she’d confide in. She wasn’t helping me here. I was trying to like her and she was keeping things from me. My hurt switched to anger, and I stood up. She couldn’t treat me this way. I wouldn’t allow it.
“I gotta go,” I said. “I forgot I have a roast in the oven…” I couldn’t look her in the eyes. She was a deceiver.
“Fig-”
I kissed Mercy on top of her head and promised to see her soon then I headed for the door, passing Darius on the way out. I hadn’t even heard him come home.
“Hey, Fig,” he said, as I marched past him.
I threw a “Hi” over my shoulder and practically ran the rest of the way back to my house. He’d text to ask me what was wrong. I’d drag it out as long as I could. I liked it when people begged. Once I was locked inside I turned on my stereo and blasted the playlist I’d just recently put together. I called it The Blonde Spectator. As the music blasted, which I was sure they could hear over in the Avery house, I carefully unpacked my books, placing them in color-coded order like I’d seen on Pinterest. I studied the author photo on each one before placing them on the shelves. There were no pictures of Jolene. Surprise, surprise. An author … how could she not tell me? This was exactly the type of stunts women liked to pull. A power play, control. They wanted to build up their accomplishments then flaunt them at you when you were at your lowest. Now that I was thinking about it, she did sort of have an artist vibe going on. The tattoos, the dramatic black hair, the way she did up her house. I turned and looked around my own living room—some of it unpacked, some of it still in boxes. Most of my things were hand-me-downs from my mother. I liked to think my style was mid-century modern. She wasn’t better than me. I’d show her who she was dealing with. I pulled out my laptop and typed Pinterest in the search bar. I hadn’t used my account since I first signed up years ago when George and I moved to Washington. Sure enough, I found Jolene Avery, and her account wasn’t on private. I scrolled through her boards: Recipes, Birthday Parties, Wedding, Home. I clicked on that one and let all the inspiration come to me.
The morning after I stormed out of the Averys’ house and ordered an entire new living room, I found a package on my doorstep. I carried it into the kitchen and carefully unwrapped the brown paper, lifting the tape as to not tear it. Inside was a book. I turned it over in my hand. I hadn’t ordered a book, and besides, there was no address or stamp on the paper. That’s when it clicked. Jolene had left it on my doorstep. It was her book. She must have felt guilty after I left last night and brought it over as a sort of peace offering. It was called The Snow Cabin, and the author was Paige DeGama. There was no author photo, just a quick bio.
Paige DeGama is a graduate of the University of Miami.
A voracious reader and coffee drinker. She is the author of The Eating House, The Other Woman, Always, and Lie Lover.
She resides in Seattle with her daughter and husband.
I had to sit down. How could someone keep this sort of thing to themselves? It was a whole other life, an existence on paper. Was it because she wanted privacy? Or was there some other reason Jolene Avery didn’t want to claim her own books? I eyed the cover, a simple log cabin in the snow. Nothing R-rated, nothing foul like those half-nude kissing couples. I opened my laptop and searched the name: Paige DeGama. Hundreds of articles popped up: interviews with newspapers and magazines, websites devoted to talking about her books, there was even a fan page where people got downright swoony when they spoke about her. They speculated what she looked like, what her husband did for a living, and what they would say if they ever came face-to-face with her. One girl posted a picture of her new tattoo—a line from The Snow Cabin. There were hundreds of comments underneath it as people posted photos of their own tattoos—all from Paige’s books. It was all so sick and obsessive.
What type of person created this sort of cultish mania? I tried to reconcile the woman from next door to this … person, this Paige DeGama. It was humorous really, that people cared that much about someone they didn’t know. I closed my MacBook and went to lie down on the couch, a headache starting to pound behind my eyes. The book was still lying on my chest when I woke. I told myself I’d just read one or two pages to get a feel for the book, but soon I was six chapters in and unable to put it down. I took an advanced lit class in college. My professor, an ex-nun, would often speak about the written word having rhythm and beat. I found myself enraptured by Jolene’s use of words, the staccato sentences blended with a rhythm that flowed so easily you just kept reading as to not disrupt it. Before I reached chapter seven I snapped the book closed, sore about the fact that she was so good. I felt depressed. I wandered over to the fridge, my go-to place when my mood took a downer. Therapy in brightly colored packages, filled with ingredients that went straight to my hips. But my fridge recently had a makeover, and instead of therapy, there were leafy greens and fruit. Nothing was going my way. I decided to take my book and read somewhere else. I couldn’t concentrate with Jolene in the house right next door. It felt like she was looming over my shoulder asking me what I thought.