Too Good to Be True - Kristan Higgins [61]
The spell was broken. Cal took the sculpture, grabbed another one and went upstairs. I did the same, still blushing.
I shoved Hidden Treasure onto the bookcase and lay Portal in Green on the coffee table, where it splayed most obscenely.
“Hello, there!” Mom called from the porch. “Angus, down. Down. Quiet, honey. No. Stop. Quiet, dear. No barking.”
I picked up my dog and opened the door, my heart still thumping. “Hi, Mom! What brings you here?”
“I have pastries!” she chirped. “Hello, Angus! Who’s a sweet baby? Hi, Margaret, honey. Stuart said we’d find you here. And oh, hello. Who are you?”
I glanced back. Cal stood in the kitchen doorway. “Mom, this is my neighbor, Callahan O’Shea. Callahan, my mother, the renowned sculptor, Nancy Emerson.”
“A pleasure. I’m a big fan of your work.” Cal shook my mother’s hand, and Mom turned a questioning gaze on me.
“Dad hired him to put in some new windows,” I explained.
“I see,” said Mom suspiciously.
“I need to run next door and then head to the hardware store, Grace. Anything you need?” Cal said, turning to me.
I need to be kissed. “Um, nope. Not that I can think of,” I said, blushing yet again.
“See you later, then. Nice meeting you, Mrs. Emerson.” The three of us watched as he went out the front door.
Mom snapped out of it first. “Well. Margaret, we need to talk. Come on, girls. Let’s sit in the kitchen. Oh, Grace, this shouldn’t go here! It’s not funny. This is serious artwork, honey.”
Callahan O’Shea had placed Breast in Blue in my fruit bowl amid the oranges and pears. I grinned. Margaret snorted with laughter and opened the pastry bag. “Oh, goody. Poppy seed rolls. Want one, Grace?”
“Sit, girls. Margaret. What’s this about you leaving Stuart, for heaven’s sake?”
I sighed. Mom wasn’t here to see me. I was her trouble-free daughter. Growing up, Margaret had been (and proudly still was) the drama queen, full of adolescent rebellion, collegiate certainty, academic excellence and a gift for confrontation. Natalie, of course, was the golden one from the moment of her birth and since her brush with death, her every feat had been viewed as miraculous.
So far, the only exceptional thing that had happened to me was my breakup with Andrew. Sure, my parents loved me, though they viewed becoming a teacher as a bit of an easy route. (“Those who can, do,” Dad had said when I announced I’d forgo law school and get a master’s in American History with the hope of becoming a teacher. “And those who can’t, teach.”) My summers off were treated as an affront to those who “really worked.” The fact that I slaved endlessly during the school year—tutoring and correcting and designing lesson plans, staying well past school hours to meet with students in my office, coaching the debate team, going to school events, chaperoning dances and field trips, boning up on new developments in teaching and handling the sensitive parents, all of whom expected their children to excel in every way—was viewed as irrelevant when compared with all of my delicious vacation time.
Mom sat back in her chair and eyed her eldest child. “So? Spit it out, Margaret!”
“I haven’t left him completely,” Margaret said, taking a huge bite of pastry. “I’m just… lurking here.”
“Well, it’s ridiculous,” Mom huffed. “Your father and I certainly have our problems. You don’t see me running off to Aunt Mavis’s house, do you?”
“That’s because Aunt Mavis is such a pain in the ass,” Margaret countered. “Grace is barely even half of the pain that Mavis is, right, Gracie?”
“Oh, thanks, Margs. And let me say what a privilege it was to see your dirty clothes scattered all over my guest room this morning. Shall I do your laundry for you, Majesty?”
“Well, since you don’t have a real job, sure,” she said.
“Real job? It’s better than getting a bunch of drug dealers—”
“Girls, enough. Are you really leaving Stuart?” Mom asked.
Margaret closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Well, I think that’s ridiculous. You married him, Margaret. You don’t just leave. You stay and work things out till you’re happy again.”
“Like you and Dad?