Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 116362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
“Look at you,” Ana coos. “So in love.”
I let out a strangled cry of frustration. “Oh my god, I can’t talk to you anymore,” I tell her, getting up just as my phone rings. I expect it to be Blake with his ears burning but my heart sinks when I see it’s my mother.
“Shit,” I swear. “What day is it?” I’ve totally lost track after school ended.
“Thursday,” Ana says.
Fuck. I promised to have lunch with my parents today. They’ve been hounding me about coming over for ages now and I’ve deftly avoided it. Until they brought up me being selfish and having no respect and blah blah blah.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Don’t sound so happy. You knew I’d be calling,” her crisp voice comes through.
“It’s early.”
“Early to bed, early to rise, that’s the life of a successful adult,” she says, and it’s loud enough for Ana to hear because she’s already rolling her eyes, motioning that she’s blowing her brains out with a gun. I don’t know why parents always have to talk so loud on the phone, it’s like they think they’re underwater trying to talk through a tin can.
“Right,” I tell her. “This successful adult is on vacation now.”
“That may explain why you’ve been ignoring your parents. No need for school funding, no need to talk to us.”
Ugh. The guilt trip. “I’m not ignoring you, I’m just…so what time is lunch?”
“Eleven-thirty,” she says. “Your dad is making your favorite. Don’t be late.”
I assure her I won’t and say goodbye. My parents are these real sticklers when it comes to punctuality. Actually, they are real sticklers when it comes to everything in life that is proper and safe and orderly. No matter how much I feel like I’m progressing and becoming an adult—on my own terms—they’re always there to remind me that I’m still their child and most likely doing it wrong.
I show up at my parents’ house at twenty after eleven, just in case, and to my surprise I see my Uncle Seth’s 1980s hunter green Jaguar outside. Uncle Seth and Aunt Sylvia are ridiculous. When I was growing up I was taught to view them as eccentric, but now that I’m older, I realize they’re dumb and kind of senile. I know everyone has relatives and family friends that embarrasses them for one reason or another but these two take the cake.
This is the house I grew up in. It’s a large two-story built in 1912, which gives my parents an edge over their friends—at least they think so. “Anyone can build a new house. Not just anyone can buy something historical,” my mother has stated. I mean, it is gorgeous and has been updated a lot and I loved how vast the property was as a child. I’d flit around, pretending to be a superhero, running from the nanny and interrupting my father’s croquet game.
Yup. Some people actually do play croquet. My parents. Along with bocce ball and any other game that involves standing on the lawn in white pants with a drink in one hand.
Actually, that sounds kind of ideal. Except for the white pants thing.
Out front there’s an iron gate flanked by a pristine brick wall that spans the brick driveway and stately columns on the front porch. At the back there is a clay veranda that overlooks the oasis and pond.
That’s where I find my mother, Uncle Seth, and Aunt Sylvia, huddled around the table, sipping tea from fine china and snacking on scones and crustless cucumber sandwiches from a copper tiered serving tray. My mother likes to pretend her house is the Empress Hotel when guests are over.
“There you are,” my mother says as if they’ve been waiting forever. “Your father was worried.”
I roll my eyes and don’t even bother pointing out that I’m early.
My mother gets up and gives me a light hug. She smells like Chanel and disappointment. Aunt Sylvia gives me a shy little wave and Uncle Seth just nods. He doesn’t say much in general, which is just as well because the few times he does it’s usually racist or sexist.
“There you are,” my father says, coming outside, wiping his hands on his apron. At least his hug is more genuine than my mother’s. I bask in the affection for exactly three seconds before he says, “You know, I had lunch with Alan’s parents the other day.”
Everything inside me freezes. “Great. Hope they’re well.”
No, I don’t. I fucking hated his parents.
“Where is Alan?” Aunt Sylvia yells in that grating, nasally voice of hers. Think George Costanza’s mother on crack. Uncle Seth can’t hear that well and she assumes no one else can hear well either.
My mother gives her a look. “You know they broke up in January, Sylvie.”
I look at my dad, dying for a change of subject. “Let’s eat. I’m starving!”