“Tell me about you, sweetheart,” my mom said, looping her arm through mine and giving it a squeeze. “What’s happening in your world?”
“Roz moved out,” I said, happy to be able to focus on something safe. Or, safe-ish, considering how much I still needed to do now that the space was mine for the taking.
“So have you spoken to Mike about taking it over yet?”
I felt a ball of nervous energy form in my gut at the thought of finally committing to the decision. As much as I wanted to expand, the truth was it felt overwhelming. It made sense and all my projections backed it up, but taking on the extra space meant demolition, and dealing with contractors, and leaping from the predictable I needed to something unknowable, at least for a little while. But my spreadsheets didn’t lie. If I wanted to keep growing I needed to stake my claim and go for it.
“I haven’t spoken to him yet. But I will, and soon, because there’s this guy...” I stopped. I didn’t want to give Andrew any more airtime than he deserved.
“What guy?”
I sighed. She was going to find out about him moving in eventually, might as well tell her now. “Remember Nolan’s roommate at school? You met him once, I think, when we were carpooling back. His name was Andrew.IsAndrew.”
She nodded slowly. “Of course. Very handsome guy. Seemed sweet.”
Even my ownmom? Damn him.
“Trust me, he’s not. Anyway, he moved into the warehousewhere the T-shirt guys were, and he wants to expand into Roz’s space too. He literally just moved in!”
“Doing what?”
“Gym stuff.” I thought about the double-booked Halloween party night and felt nauseous about all the ways it was going to go wrong since he’d refused to change his date.
“Well, that’s nice,” she said as if she couldn’t hear the disdain in my voice. “Seems like a good fit for your complex.”
“It’ssonot,” I shouted, causing Birdie to pause and look back at me. “He acts like he owns the place already; the last thing I need is him taking more real estate. And his clientele is going to be obnoxious, I can guarantee it. Gym dudes are the worst.”
“Not all gym patrons are men,” she scolded. “Women go to the gym.Igo to the gym.”
It was one of the many changes she’d made in the past year and it had been good for her. But the place she went to was a gym for normal people, with little pink three-pound weights, and Zumba and SilverSneakers programs, not some airless box filled with bros working on their “gains.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” I admitted. “But still, he doesn’t deserve the extra space. I’m a legacy tenant, it should be mine.”
“So talk to Mike,” my mom said with her usual common sense that didn’t take ancillary details into account. “Tell him you want it. Won’t that be enough?”
“It should. I’ll do it.” I paused. “Tomorrow.”
“There’s the spirit.” My mom squeezed my arm. “Chels, I know you don’t like talking about it, but you have the financial—”
“It’s not necessary, Mom.” I cut her off quickly as my heartbeat triple-timed. The visit had been so nice and I didn’t want her to ruin it. “My finances are fine. I can handle it.”
“Okay, well, it’s there when you’re ready.”
“Um-hm.” I nodded, pretending to look around for the dogs when I knew they were six feet ahead of us, nosing in the tall grass by the goldenrod.
“You look tired,” my mom said, drawing back to take me in. “I can tell you’re overdoing it when your eyebrows seem pale.”
“Gee, thanks!” I laughed at her perceptiveness. “And I was just about to say that you look great.”
“You think so?” she asked and ran her hand down the back of her hair. “I’ve been keeping up with that yoga classat the gym”—she gave me a pointed look—“and I really think it’s helping.”
I loved that she kept discovering new ways to stay busy. She was a homebody for years, content to stick around the house with Dad, reading books and gardening. Now her social life was busier than mine.
But that was true of most people these days.
“Looks like it suits you,” I said, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye. “You seem... good.”
It was the closest I was willing to get to the sleeping tiger between us and she seemed to understand.
