Her father was rarely stern with her, so his sharp tone warned her he wasn’t kidding. And she knew from twenty-four years of experience that arguing with the man would get her nowhere. Milton didn’t take a stand very often, but when he did, he was the immovable object.
“I wish you loved me less,” she murmured, feeling a little floaty and stumbling over her words. “Okay, I feel drugs. Let me enjoy the experience of breathing without, you know, wanting to die.”
“Oh, baby girl. You’ve always been difficult.”
“I know. It’s one of my best qualities.” Her eyes drifted closed. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you more.” He kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“Come alone.”
His soft chuckle was the last thing she heard.
Shannon Van Horn pulled into a parking space in front of the construction trailer that was the main office of her boyfriend’s gardening business. She clutched the steering wheel tightly and gave in to the scream that had been building for the better part of the morning. Unfortunately the cry that echoed through her ten-year-old Corolla did little to make her feel better.
She was a mess. A total and complete disaster of a person. Sure, she was basically nice, and if she ever used public transportation, she would absolutely give up her seat for someone in need—although this was Los Angeles, and everyone drove, so it was more of a spiritual assessment than a reality, but still. She would do it.
But being a nice person didn’t make her any less of a mess, and wasn’t that a kick in the head?
She grabbed her bag and the folder she’d brought from work, stomped up the three steps to the trailer and flung open the door.
“My life is chaos,” she announced to Aaron, her boyfriend of eleven months. “Why do you date me?”
Aaron, a tall, rangy guy with curly brown hair and one of those cute mischievous smiles, rose and started toward her. “Because I think you’re sexy and I feel good when I’m around you.” He kissed her. “I can give you more reasons, if that’s why you stopped by. I’ve got about a million.”
While she appreciated the kind words, they weren’t going to help. Not when things were so awful.
“Look,” she said, flinging the folder on his desk. “Look! It’s so horrible.”
He gave her a slightly confused look but opened the folder and stared at the single sheet of paper inside.
“This is a...” He glanced at her. “Help me out here.”
“It’s an actuarial table.” She waved toward the chart. “Like for insurance and stuff. They updated the employee plans at work for profit sharing and our 401(k).” She pointed at the offending document, wishing she had the power to laser it with her eyes and turn the paper into ashes on demand.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “I’m still not getting the problem.”
“That shows how much money I’ll have in profit sharing and my 401(k)when I’m sixty-five.” The last four words came out in a shriek. “That’s forty-one years from now, Aaron. The actuarial table assumes I’m going to keep working there for forty-one years. I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that. But time is marching on, and somehow I forgot that. I left college over three years ago. Three!”
Technically she’d flunked out, but she wasn’t comfortable using that particular F-word.
“I took the job working for my mom because I didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought I’d be there a few months while I figured it all out, but it’s been three years, and I’m still there. I tell myself I can’t live my life like this, and yet I do nothing to change.”
She threw up her hands. “I need to pick a direction, but then I don’t. I’ve been drifting. I’m a drifter. And saying that should galvanize me, but somehow it doesn’t. I lack direction and purpose, and I work for my mom.”
She paced to the end of the trailer, then turned to face him. “I love my mom. She’s great. And she’s a really good boss, but this isn’t my life. It’s an interim. I’m living an interim. I’m twenty-four. I should be all-in with the goals and plans and dreams. And you know the worst of it?”
He waited, knowing an answer wasn’t expected.
“The one person I want to talk to about this is my mom. But I can’t because we both know what will happen.”
“Cindy will come up with fourteen plans.”
“Yes, she will. The second I tell her there’s a problem, she’ll try to fix it because she’s a wonderful mother and that’s what she does. You know what else?”
Because he was one smart guy, he shook his head. “Not a clue.”
“I’ll let her. This is me, letting her. That’s what I do. I claim I want independence, then I run to my mother to help me. She comes up with a plan, and while it’s a good one, it’s not for me. So I don’t do it, and then I end up not doing anything, and suddenly I’m staring down an actuarial table that tells me how much money I’ll have in my 401(k) when I’m sixty-five!”
