“You want me to move back in?”
I nod. “As early as tomorrow. Right now. Yesterday.” It suddenly feels like the most important thing that Morgan moves back in with me. I’ve been moping around the house. I need someone to remind me that even if my relationship with Tate is dead, I am still alive.
Morgan’s head tips to the side like she’s thinking. “I don’t know…”
“I have houseplants that need watering.” The lie comes out smoothly.
Morgan frowns and thumbs back toward my place. “You don’t have a single houseplant in there.”
I hold up a lone finger, signalingone momentand reach for my phone. It takes a grand total of three minutes. I look up at Morgan. “In two days, I will be the proud new owner of two snake plants, one Ficus tree, two peace lilies, and something called a ZZ because its real name is too hard to pronounce.” I toss my phone beside my thigh on the chair. “If you don’t water them, they will die.”
Morgan shakes her head, but the corners of her lips turn up. “Wouldn’t want plant blood on my hands.”
“Never,” I agree solemnly.
“I have a lease,” she reminds me.
“I’ll pay the breakage fee.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
I take a drink of the champagne and hand it back to her. “Roomie?”
“Yes,” she says, drinking. “You’re quite persuasive when you want to be, you know that? Forget being America’s sweetheart, you should have been a lawyer.”
“Jasper’s the lawyer.” My little sister’s working at a firm in NYC, as far away from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood as she can possibly be. She never tells people who her family is.
“You could’ve been one also.” Morgan eyes me. She knew before she said it that she would strike a nerve, but she said it anyhow. That’s how Morgan operates. She never treats me with kid gloves, like so many other people in my life.
I shrug. “All’s well that ends well.”
The following day, Morgan moves back in. For the next few weeks, I run lines with her and prepare to live in Sierra Grande, Arizona for the next three or so months. As for what comes after that? Well, I don’t know. My future is one great big question mark.
3
Warner
“I saw her this morning,you know. The Hampton girl in that SUV she used to tote those kids around in.” Barb folds her hands in her lap and looks out at the street.
Shirley’s eyebrows raise. “Don’t you mean the Hayden girl? She married the middle one.”
Barb snorts indelicately. “You know she ran off and left him with those kids. Poor children. They’re the real victims.”
Shirley eyes her oldest, closest friend. “You don’t even know what happened.”
“I don’t have to. A mother never leaves her children. Never.”
“Well then, I guess you’re wrong, because she did.”
* * *
It’s old now,but I remember when it was new.
Shiny black, picking up every speck of dust. The new car smell only lasted a week. After that it smelled like Cheerios, the sweetness of a child’s head, and sweaty toddler shoes.
I bought the SUV for Anna just before our son, Charlie, was born. Peyton was nearly two and sat in the center of the back seat of Anna’s sedan. Our family grew and so did our vehicle. She whooped and hollered when I drove up in it and handed her the keys.
Eight years later, Anna used the SUV as a getaway vehicle.
