Thank God, the clerk hands me my sandwich along with a sympathetic gaze.
Maybe I am a fool. Maybe Kostya is everything this dipshit says he is, but my questions about him are mine alone. I’m entitled to them because of the things I’ve seen and heard while in Kostya’s employ. This douche nozzle has nothing more than faulty supposition and bad guesswork. Maybe someday I’ll ask Kostya myself about the things that don’t quite make sense, but that’s my decision if I ever choose to make it. I won’t be bullied into it by some nosy reporter.
He’s opening his mouth to launch a new line of questioning, but I shove him out of my way and head to the dining room.
It’s full, as usual, but I spot my mother by the window. Instead of walking toward her, I practically jog because I have so much leftover adrenaline.
She’s all smiles. “Charlotte, I saw you talking to that man. And you’re practically glowing. Did he ask you out?” Before I can answer, she gushes on. “He’s so handsome. So many other women were looking at him, too, and he chose you.”
Yay. Big shiny star for me.
“I told you those push-up bras were a wonder,” she continues. She takes a hard look at my chest and frowns. “Though that one doesn’t seem to be doing much pushing up.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that the ten new bras she gifted me for my birthday are still sitting unused in the drawer. I just smile because anything I say won’t matter to her anyway. “How are you, Mom?”
My mother is a force of nature. A whirlwind on a good day, a Category 5 hurricane on a bad one. She’s only fifty-five, with nary a gray hair, due in part to her weekly appointments at Alejandro’s Salon in Beverly Hills. Neither does she have a wrinkle or a frown line. She’s youthful and vibrant.
Also, bitter and pushy. I take the good with the bad because I love her.
“Well, to be honest, I’m upset.” She dabs melodramatically at tears that have yet to make an appearance.
Oh God. Hurricane Gloria is in the house today. Batten down the hatches. “Mom,” I start. We’re about to have the same old argument. Well, “old” if the eleven months I’ve been working for Kostya can be considered an adequate time to be classified as such. It certainly feels like a lifetime.
“You said you would ask him.” She’s petulant and accusatory, all the things that are sure to make this an oh-so-enjoyable lunch date. And, as always, apparently it’s my fault.
In a moment of weakness, I told my mom I’d ask Kostya to help track down my sister Lila, who willingly crawled into a car with her new husband—a man she’d known a week, I might add—and left, never to be heard from again. Nine years ago.
“I know, Mom, and I will.” But I’m not, and I probably won’t. Lila was of sound mind and body when she married that buffoon. Maybe not when she left with him, but she made her choice. And she chose the buffoon over her family.
Begging my boss for help in an emergency situation was one thing, but for a sister who ran out on her own? That is a completely different ball of never gonna happen.
Of course, I won’t be sharing that conviction with my mother.
“Honey, I know you think Lila was a fool to leave. But I know my girl, and if she wasn’t in trouble, she would have called.”
“Her girl”?
Does her girl pay for the two hundred dollar a week salon visits?
Did her girl spring for a trip to Hawaii after Dad died?
Did her fucking girl even show up for the freaking funeral?
My blood is boiling for the second time in as many minutes, but I just bite my lip and sigh, because to point any of it out would only start a fight. And after the interaction with the jerk at the counter, I’m not up for another. Especially not with someone who knows exactly which of my buttons to push to get the reaction she wants.
I suppose it’s only fair. She gave me the buttons, after all.
“I know. I’ll ask.” Because I’m dutiful, and responsible, and about to hear how lonely she is, it’s easy to look into her eyes and lie.
“It’s just that since your dad died and you girls left …” Aaand there it is. “I’m all alone. I walk around that big empty house by myself.”
“Maybe it’s time to think about selling the house. You could get a small apartment. Travel. See the world.” And, hopefully, it’ll keep her busy enough that maybe she’ll quit worrying about my selfish, irresponsible sister. “Enjoy this time you have to get to know yourself outside of being our mom or Dad’s wife.”
“Travel alone?” she says in horror.
Uh-oh. I messed up. Here it comes. Meltdown in three, two …
She rolls her eyes. “How could you, of all people, suggest such a thing?” She’s one huff away from a full-blown explosion. “Especially after what happened to your boss last night. He was almost killed in a random shooting! And what if Lila comes home and I’ve moved away? How will she know where to find me?”
I don’t point out that the shooting happened right here in LA and that there are safer places she could visit. It wouldn’t do any good. The point to this lunch isn’t selling her house or enjoying a meal.
It’s Lila—because my mom’s whole world is about Lila. Sadly, it always has been.
Not that I can fault her. Before he died, I was Dad’s girl, and Lila gravitated toward Mom, on those
