Her tender voice submerges into my dark, saturnine thoughts. “Tony is a good guy. Needless to say, that's why you and Evan have gotten along so well. He’s a good stepbrother. He’s a good friend.”
True. “But you're going to leave Tony one day.” I utter my selfish wishes.
Lolita shakes her head. “No, I’m not running anymore. I’ve done so for ages. Since the death of your father, I searched for a man who was capable of taking care of us. Taking us far away from here.”
“It’s too late to force me anywhere.” My eyebrows knit together in confusion. None of this makes sense. “But why?”
Mom glances toward the carport and then looks pensively at me. “In the back of my mind, I’ve only had one single goal. Us. I’ve wanted to, yet couldn’t force myself to care about Flour Shoppe or the latest and greatest thing my daughter created. You see, Reese, I had to prepare for the day we needed to hit the road.”
I scoff. “Mom, you’ve been hitting the road since I was able to crawl. Running after one rich, old geezer or the next one has become your mantra. Forgive me for being frank, but it’s true.” I give a psychotic little laugh.
The mask that is my mother’s face, grounds me. Instead of giving into one of her episodes, by manipulating the situation, Lolita addresses her selfishness. Every one of her divorces wasn’t a catastrophe. Most people say that just the word divorce implies failure. A failure to compromise with the one you’ve promised yourself to for life. She caused the ‘marriages-in-progress’ to nosedive, along with the ones which should’ve never been.
“What about the dentist? You were with him during my first-year-and-a-half in college?”
A fond smile lights up Lolita’s face. “We parted ways.”
“That man was friggen postal-in-love with you, Ma. And you ruined…” I stop talking.
She gestures for me to continue. I choose not to. “You’re free to say what you mean to say, Reese. I did ruin the beginning of a very good love story. Albeit, not as you’d believe. There was no cheating involved on either of our parts.”
I chortle, sidestepping a teen couple. The father is pushing along a stroller, with so many blankets pilled on, that I can’t see their baby. I give a sad frown for them, since the mom looks rather distraught before turning back to my mom. “Yeah, I missed the Kings of Leon, and you sounded rather guilty.”
Her lips twitch, Lolita half-smiles. She never half-smiles, and reserves full-blown grins for jewelry. “Mathew made me very happy, Reese. He was my deep end of the ocean after your father. Most breakups made me wish Mi… he never died.” Still she has difficulty uttering dad’s name. Mom shrugs, licking her lips. “But Mathew? He was one-hundred-percent good. No bad boy gene in his body. We had our ups and downs, in the same manner that you and Grayson did. I just had to get out of the relationship before I truly fell for him…”
My eyes narrow in confusion, I endeavor to catch her gander. Lolita looks far away. Why bring Grayson into this? She’d hated him all along. And what does she mean truly fell? “Isn’t falling in love with your husband the proper course of action?”
“Not for me.” Lolita murmurs. “There’s always been one end goal when I marry. To get out. Lord knows, connecting with Gus should’ve lasted a lifetime. Yet, each dissolution of marriage has made me an even wealthier woman.”
Throat heavy, I glare at her. An image of me shouting about Luis’s family as I tossed my meager salary onto the table for our lunch flashes before my eyes. Nook. My precious Nook—
“Reese, I never needed your help making ends meet while searching for the next, great love story. And I never wanted Flour Shoppe to succeed.”
My face is hot in anger. Her truth isn’t told in a voice of malicious intent. It’s simply told. Lolita holds her hand up so she can continue to speak, “I’ve saved every penny from my breakups just to be prepared.”
I'm stock-still as Lolita continues, “Even in Milo’s death, his sins will haunt us.”
One.
Day.
26
Reese
45 days later
Flour has been closed for almost two months now. Too much bad press has been hovering around my business. I’ve virtually moved into Evan’s place since I can’t step inside of my apartment without bile rising from the depth of my stomach.
The current wedding season orders had been fulfilled after Sandra bamboozled me out of my current depression. There was no way in hell she’d allow me to be a failure over seeing my restaurant on the news. There’d been a dip in morning pastry sales and desserts for events ever since. After a bit of arguing back-and-forth, she’d resorted to calling Jamie on Facetime. Per the norm, he was propped up on a plethora of pillows dressed in silk. The personal nurse Chu hired, in the background massaging his shoulders for added effect. I got the tongue-lashing of my life from Jamie.
Now, I’m sitting Indian Style on Evan’s bed, determination renewed. His large shirt is so big on me that my left shoulder is bare as the collar droops to the side. I’m reviewing the realtor’s guide for potential locations for Flour Shoppe, some of the places on the lists are foreclosed and banked-own. One in particular catches my eye, it has a prime location and right around the corner… The positioning is right near the Downtown Art Walk, where Evan and I have strolled to on numerous evenings over the past month or so. Venturing into a new gallery has almost become a routine as we learn and albeit occasionally joke about an eccentric artist’s work.
I smile to myself and then hide it with my hands to my face like a giddy child. I suppose opening up Flour near Evan’s apartment is a great timesaver, since
