“Right.” My laugh came out brittle. “That’s not going to happen. Not until I have literally no other choice.”
Even then, I’d need a disguise. Maybe cut off my hair, bleach it, and buy a giant pair of dark glasses. And forget about wearing the vintage clothes I loved—the patchwork swing skirts, the loose blouses with embroidered designs. I hadn’t done it intentionally, but they had become part of the “Luna” brand. Wearing them now would feel like hanging a neon sign around my neck that said, yes, it’s me. The trainwreck from Channel 12!
It's not like I was famous, but in this town, people knew me. The people who followed the show used to love me! But that was before…
“If that’s all you called to say?—”
“It’s not,” Ashley cut me off. “I actually have something else we need to talk about. Mom’s physical therapy is…progressing slower than she had hoped.”
Six weeks ago, our mother, who’d lived alone since Dad passed away two years ago, had fallen off a ladder and broken her hip.
None of us were surprised to hear she’d been on a ladder painting her kitchen. What shocked us was that—as meticulous as she’d always been about her health—she’d managed to break her hip doing it.
“She can’t be happy about that,” I muttered.
Mom was the type of person who needed to keep busy. If she wasn’t attending some class at the local rec center, she was doing volunteer work for a charity, training to run the next 5k, or crocheting miniature blankets for the nearby children’s hospital. And that was outside of her part-time job at the grocery store, which she’d had for as long as I could remember.
Not that she had to work necessarily, not with dad’s pension and the money from his life-insurance policy—plus the rent she collected on Gran’s old beach cottage—but Mom had to keep busy, and she had always valued financial security above anything else.
“She isn’t. But…that’s not the problem,” Ashley said, and I could hear that she was finally getting to the point, the reason for her call. “Mom’s not going to be able to take that trip she’s signed up for.”
If Leo and his new “assistant” weren’t careful, their béarnaise sauce was going to boil over. And once it broke, no amount of whisking would bring it back together.
“Luna, are you listening to me?”
“Of course I am.” I blinked. “What was she signed up for?”
“Her trip, Luna. Twelve days…?”
“Oh, yeah. The trip.” Only, I didn’t remember hearing about a trip.
“She went on and on about it over Christmas. Remember? The bus tour? That starts in Colorado and travels around the Southwest?”
“Okaaaay…?” I said, pointing the remote at the TV to mute it, forcing myself to pay attention. “What about it?”
“Well, it’s non-refundable.” My sister fell silent for a few seconds, allowing me to process the implications of what she was saying. “Mom is threatening to go, against her doctor’s advice, rather than let her ticket go to waste.”
“She can’t do that.”
“Of course, she can’t, but you know how she is when she gets something in her head. So…I told her the ticket wouldn’t go to waste.”
“Oh?” Where was she going with this?
“The tickets aren’t refundable, but they are transferable…” Ominous pause. “I told Mom that you would go.”
I laughed, incredulous. “You what?” I couldn’t have heard her correctly. Already, I was shaking my head.
“Luna, just hear me out.”
“Ashley,” I said, my voice rising. “You know I can’t?—”
“Why not?” she interrupted. “Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Mom needs to stay home and recover, and you need to get out of town—out of sight for a while. This is perfect.”
“No, it’s not!” I groaned, flopping back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling as I pictured it.
A bus full of happy people, all of them probably just like my mother.
Any vacation she signed up for would be just as regimented as every other aspect of her life—every stop prearranged, being shuttled from place to place on a timer.
