Written in the Stars(90)

“You know, a Darcy effigy—”

“I know what a voodoo doll is, Margot.” Elle set her glass down roughly, water sloshing on the table. She scrambled across the carpet on her hands and knees and grabbed the human-shaped doll off the floor. In reality, it was a T-shirt stuffed with what looked like pillow fluff made humanoid by tying off limbs with hair ties at the joints. Thankfully, it looked like she hadn’t gotten to the point of doing something crazy—crazier—and poking pins in the damn thing. “What the hell was I thinking?”

Margot bared her teeth in a grimace. “Tequila. You weren’t doing much thinking.”

“Did I . . . did I realize how stupid this was?” Elle shook the doll in the air. She’d even attached those twisty-ties they kept in the junk drawer, the red ones from bread loaves, to the doll’s head like hair. It looked terrifying, like some rustic doll of olden time possessed with the spirit of a vengeful child. Elle was creeped out that she had made it. “Please tell me I came to my senses.”

Margot’s head seesawed side to side. “Uh. Honestly? You started crying that you couldn’t get the freckles right and then you passed out beside the coffee table.”

She stared at the doll with wide eyes. Sure enough, there were scribbled splotches, smudged dots that had bled into the cotton fabric. Freckles. Elle slammed her eyes shut and clutched the doll to her chest. Fuck.

She hadn’t had enough time to commit the constellations those freckles and moles connected into memory. Not nearly enough. She was never going to see those freckles again.

A hand landed on Elle’s shoulder making her jolt. Margot tugged the Darcy doll from Elle’s hands, setting it aside. In its place, she pressed Elle’s phone. “You might want to check that.”

Elle’s heart crawled into her throat. “I didn’t call anybody, right?”

Margot set her hands on her hips, an affronted frown on her face. “I’d never let you do that. You have another missed call from your mom.” Her mouth pinched. “And you have a text.”

“Did you . . . did you look?”

Margot bit her lip and nodded.

“Is it—” She stared at Margot, eyes wide and heart pounding inside her chest, pulse leaping painfully in her neck.

One little jerk of Margot’s head was all it took to send her spirits plummeting. “It’s Brendon.”

*

Inside her pocket, her phone buzzed. Brendon, maybe? She wasn’t running late.

No. Mom.

If she didn’t answer, Mom would just keep calling. The calls had escalated in frequency over the past two weeks, word no doubt getting back to Mom that Elle was no longer avoiding Jane and Daniel, just her. Better to bite the bullet than prolong the inevitable. “Hello.”

“Elle, you answered. Good.” She sounded relieved.

Elle shut her eyes and leaned against the stop-walk sign. “Look, Mom, now’s not a good time.”

“I’ve called half a dozen times. I left you messages.”

Something about the way she said it, as if Elle owed her an explanation made Elle grit her teeth.

“I didn’t have anything to say.” No, that wasn’t right. “Or I did, but it didn’t feel like you were ready to listen.”

Silence filled the line, until the clearing of Mom’s throat broke it. “Elle, I’m . . . I’m sorry. It was never my intention to belittle what you do.”

“But you did. You called it a pseudoscientific fad. Do you not realize how badly that hurt?”

It still hurt, the sting of her words fresher than ever after Elle’s falling-out with Darcy.

“I didn’t. I just . . .” Mom sighed. “I’m just worried. It’s my job to worry about you, Elle-belle. I want what’s best for you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

What about what she wanted? They’d been having some variation of this conversation for years, tiptoeing around it and Elle was tired. “I’m happy. Why can’t that be good enough?”

“I’ve gone about it all wrong. I know that now.”

“Let me guess. Jane said something? Daniel?”

“It was Lydia, actually.” At Elle’s stunned silence, Mom laughed. “She confessed that she agrees with a lot of what you said. That I put too much pressure on you, all of you, Lydia included. I had . . . I had no idea, Elle. But Lydia, she told me that she and Marcus are thinking about eloping, can you believe that? She doesn’t want to plan a wedding with me. Apparently, I have impossible standards and not just when it comes to color schemes and venues. Which makes me feel great, let me tell you.” Mom’s laughter took on a frantic edge. “I just want what’s best for all of you. The best, Elle. I read all these stories about no one being able to retire, that no one can buy a house, and there might be another recession, and it makes me nervous.”

“Look on the bright side, I might not be able to retire but at least I love what I do. I’ll be super happy working until the day I die.”

Elle cringed until Mom chuckled. “I don’t know if that’s supposed to be funny.”

“I don’t know either.” The light turned green and Elle hustled across the street.

“Maybe”—Mom coughed—“at our next brunch, you can tell me more about this consulting you’re doing for OTP. I promise to actually listen this time.”