This was true, so Molly didn’t debate the particular point.
“But she wants to send him to stunt camp,” Sadie continued, “because she’s worried she’s failing him as a mother.”
Okay, so, whoa. “Could we not do this?”
“It’s important.” Kaiya shushed her. “Let us finish.”
“Molly is not failing her son as a mother, but seeing as
she is a mother, it’s in the job description that she feels this way.” April took another sip for good measure. “Believe me, I know this curse of motherhood. I feel it, too.” She got a little quiet before that little morsel at the end.
“Preach it,” Rachel said, not allowing the heavy to settle.
She clapped her hands. “Preach. It. We are not failures.”
“At everything.” April raised her tumbler and said loud
and proud, “We are not failures at everything.”
“I’m next.” Sadie took an extremely generous gulp from her insulated tumbler. “Molly doesn’t really care if she wins this matchmaking competition.” Sadie raised her eyebrows as though she was daring Molly to negate her.
Which she was going to do, because Sadie was wrong. “I do want to win,” Molly announced with vigor. “I want Charlie and Agnes to be happy together. I want Ollie to go to stunt camp. I want a working vehicle so I can get him where he needs to go safely. I want that house a street over on the corner so Ollie has a more reasonably-sized bedroom. All things that will happen if I get that prize money.” She emphasized the last word.
“All of that is for other people. What do you want, Molly?” Sadie asked.
“I want a break,” Molly said. “And I want the stove sink thing in my God-I-hope-they-drop-the-price new house.”
“When’s the last time you took a break?” Sadie poked further into her turn than Molly was pretty sure was allowed in this game.
“I take breaks all the time.” Molly tossed her hands to the side, which had the unfortunate consequence of sloshing a bit of her mimosa through the drinking hole of her beverage.
She lapped it from where it’d sloshed on her wrist before saying, “I sleep in every morning because it’s a little break I enjoy.”
“And because you’re up most of the night worrying about everyone else,” Sadie murmured. “Or working. Which is essentially the same thing.”
“I don’t like this game,” Molly announced.
“You’ll like it when we play it for someone else,” Rachel
said, sly like a fox, ready to go in for what she wanted. “That’s true,” Molly said, conceding the point. She
was always much more comfortable sticking her nose in everyone else’s business than she was doing it in her own.
Some things were just better left alone.
Her business was simply one of those things.
“Molly wants a real first date,” Rachel said. “The kind that doesn’t involve setting her guy up with someone else.”
“Nope. That’s not what Molly wants,” Molly countered.
Was it? Was that what she wanted?
“I think it might be,” Sadie added, looking at Molly with the intensity she probably used when evaluating someone for jury selection.
“Fine.” Molly shrugged. “I’ll call Dan.” She made gigantic eyes at Kaiya as though she tried to broadcast, dare me.
“You can’t.” Kaiya shook her head. “I licked him. He’s mine.” Her cheeks didn’t even turn the slightest shade of red at that assertion.
