I let the end of that sentence fall off a cliff.
“What problem?” she asks sharply. I fear she’s logging in to Facebook as we speak, righteous indignation at the ready.
“It’s nothing,” I insist, well aware that it’s too late. In mydistraction, I dipped a toe into the topic I’m always dodging with her. Silence stretches from here to San Diego, but I’m too flustered by the last hour of my life to fill it with anything but the truth. “They have me sharing a stage with someone I’d rather avoid.”
“Do they know who you are?” she asks without a hint of irony.
“Mom—”
“No, I’m serious. They’reluckyto have you!”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that,” she exclaims as I writhe in silent misery. Defending me is my mom’s favorite (and most problematic) pastime. She thinks everything I write is perfect, and anyone with a different opinion is wrong, as she likes to tell me—loudly—every chance she gets.
I don’t give her many chances. I’d rather listen to earned criticism than her empty praise and relentless positivity.
She wasn’t always supportive. Daphne says she’s overcompensating for her attitude toward my writing when I was younger, but the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. A few weeks after my third book came out, in the midst of my career implosion, I fled home to wallow in misery and lick my wounds. Instead of, I don’t know, buying me ice cream or giving me a hug or venting in private, she used her public social media accounts to argue with readers in the comments of my bad reviews. Like when a guilty party doubles down on her innocence, it made everything worse.
Similar to my recent conversation with Dr.B, I need this one to end. I don’t want anyone to be proud of me before I’ve earned it. “Forget about it. It’s not important.”
“What about the new book? Are you selling it at the event?”
“No. It’s not out yet,” I remind her.
“I can’t believe you haven’t given me an early copy.”
“No one got an early copy,” I point out. Icouldgive one to her, of course, but I can’t handle the inevitable compliments. Not until I know whether or not I can trust them.
“But I’m your mom! And I’ve preordered it from three different stores! Shouldn’t that count for something?” she asks.
In the background, my dad yells, “Send your mom a book!”
“Debbie asked if it was going to be an improvement over your last one, so I told her not to talk to me until she understands art. By the way, you never responded to my text about the Page Turner.”
I sigh and rub the heel of my hand into my eye. “I forgot.” Sensing this conversation is far from over, I stand and walk back toward the lawn.
“I was talking to the event coordinator—Marilyn, have you met her? She blocked off a few dates for you to do a signing with them if you decide to come home this summer.”
“I told you my publicist does my event planning—”
“Tell your publicist to book it. I’ve already told all my friends about it, so you’re guaranteed to have an audience.”
I sigh. A book signing filled with women who have been guilted into attending might be my final straw. “I don’t know when I can next make it home,” I say in lieu of the truth, which is that I don’t know if I could survive the dissonance of being given a grand homecoming.
“Nonsense. You haven’t seen Lucy since she started walking! Oh! Did I send you the video?” Without waiting for my answer, she launches into a story about my niece, and it takes ten more minutes to get her off the phone, at which point I’ve found Daphne in the outdoor patio section of the authors’ lounge.
I sink into the seat across from her and rest my chin on my threaded fingers while I wait for her to remove her AirPods. “You’ll never guess who I just ran into.” Around us, tables are dotted with authors gossiping and eating and resting between panels. I exchange cursory waves with a handful of people, but events like this tend to be cliquey. If Daphne weren’t here, I don’t know if I would have been brave enough to show my face.
The crochet hook in Daphne’s hand pauses. She studies me for a long moment, and then her eyes widen. “West is here?”
“How’d you know?”
“The look on your face. Fury mixed with…well, something I can’t put my finger on. Revenge, maybe? It’sintense,” she muses as she resumes stitching a fuzzy pink blob that she claims is two-thirds of a halter top. “Plus, he’s local.”
I blink in surprise. “When did he leave New York?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I heard it in passing.”
