Poppy’s heart squeezed sweetly inside her chest. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I—hold on. You were at your own family dinner, and you left? Jesus, you shouldn’t have done that.”
“I absolutely should have,” Rosaline said firmly. “No offense, but you look like hell.”
She couldn’t even find it in her to be offended when she knew Rosaline was right. “I’m still sorry I dragged you away from your family.”
“I’m not.” Rosaline shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, dinner wasfine, but it was almost over. I probably would’ve begged off as soon as the dishes were washed anyway. As much as I love my family, they’re best in small doses.”
She joined Rosaline on the bed, crawling up the mattress and flopping down against the pillows. “My family is more like... you know that poison in puffer fish?”
Rosaline propped herself up on her elbow and stared down at Poppy. “Sure. Tetro something.”
“Right.” Poppy laced her fingers together, hands resting atop her stomach. “Well, they’re like that. Toxic in even the smallest amounts,probablysafe if you exercise extreme caution, but best avoided altogether because there’s always the risk of sudden death.” She let her head loll to the side. “It’s a metaphor, obviously.”
“I hoped.” Rosaline smoothed Poppy’s brow with a finger. “Want to tell me what happened?”
Not really. She wished she could forget the whole ugly affair. But Rosaline had left her own Thanksgiving early and raced across town to check on her, so she supposed she owed her an explanation. “Mom laid into me almost as soon as I walked through the door.”
“Laid into you for what?”
Her laugh came out drier than her mother’s turkey. “For tackling that streaker on the red carpet.”
Rosaline’s face went slack. “That was weeks ago.”
“We don’t really talk outside of holidays and phone calls on birthdays.” They’d forgotten to call her this year. Or maybe the silence had been by design. She didn’t know and she really didn’t want to spend any more time pondering it. “This was the first chance she’d had to bring it up.”
“And she was upset, why exactly?”
“I made a scene.” Poppy rubbed her eyes. “On national television, no less. My parents were and still are mortified, my father apparently can’t show his face at the club, and—”
“I’m sorry.” Rosaline screwed up her face. “The club?”
“Golf club. Always gotta keep up with those Joneses.” Winston-Mayfields. Whatever. “Basically, what I did was immature and reckless and I’m a disappointment of the first order and when I tried to stand up for myself, I was called dramatic and told I make mountains out of molehills.”
Rosaline’s eyes were sharp, but her voice was gentle, velvet-wrapped steel. “You’re not a disappointment, Poppy.”
She scoffed. “Tell that to my mother.”
“I’ll call her right now if you want. You think I’m kidding?” Rosaline held out her hand. “Give me your phone and I’ll do it.”
She didn’t doubt Rosaline would do it, call up Poppy’s mother and give her a thorough dressing down. A petty part of Poppy would kill to see it. “Thanks, but I think having you rush to my defense would do more harm than good.”
When Rosaline frowned, Poppy pitched her voice, doing her best impression of her mother: “Penelope knows better than to do something as stupid and frivolous as mix her work and her personal life.” She rolled her eyes. “I left, like, ten minutes after that.”
“No offense,” Rosaline said, “but your mother sounds like a total shrew.”
“She certainly has a way of getting under my skin.” A wet laugh caught in her throat. “It’s mutual, I’m sure. Not that I try, but... you know how some parents want their children to be seen and not heard? My parents would rather I not exist at all.”
“Poppy.” Rosaline’s voice was soft and sad, Poppy’s name nothing more than a whispered rasp. Poppy had to bite her bottom lip so it wouldn’t wobble. “You don’t—you don’t know that.”
“They’ve never tried to hide the fact that my being born threw a wrench in their plans, that Dad had to put off his retirement, that I put a massive dent in their savings and a damper on their plans to travel once Jessica was out of the house. I feel like—like I was born at a disadvantage, and all I’ve done is spend my whole life trying to make up for it, trying to make up for the fact that—that I was born in the first place.”
“Have you thought about—” Rosaline paused, nibbling on her lip.
Poppy reached out and gently pried Rosaline’s lip free from her teeth, brushing her thumb across her mouth. “Thought about what?”
Rosaline grabbed Poppy’s hand and hugged it to her chest. “If they make you feel that way, have you ever thought about just...notgoing home for the holidays?”
Poppy frowned. “That’s the only time I see them.”
