Page 12 of An Irresistible Force (Vancouver Vice)

Fuck it. I hated all this deep thinking shit.

6

Rich Girl

Amanda

My mother knockedon the door of my room and walked in without waiting for an answer.

“What if I were doing something private?” I complained. Moving home had turned me into an adolescent. Next I’d be writing in my diary about how unfair it was that my curfew was 11:00PM when everyone else’s was midnight.

She sniffed. “If you had a man in here I’d be offering up sacrifices to all the voodoo gods who granted my wishes. You’re doing what you do every night, working.”

She sat on the arm of the easy chair since my cat Pookie was relaxing on the cushions. He nudged her until she began petting him, then purred blissfully. He was in her doghouse because he had been fighting with her pampered cat. My mother loved having me home again, but the jury was still out on Pookie.

I eased the glasses off my nose and rubbed the sore bridge. “You’re the one who begged me to come back and sort out this mess. But I’m sure you had no idea how bad it was going to be.”

When I came home for Christmas, my mother convinced me to leave my job, my apartment, and my friends in Toronto to help save the Vancouver Vice. That she was able to do this while hosting a festive dinner for twelve was a testament to her sheer willpower. My mother was a scary tyrant in a designer dress.

“I asked you to come back and work, but I expected you to have a social life. Oh, I ran into Cynthia MacMillan at the hospital fundraiser. She was very offended that you’ve moved back home and you haven’t called her yet.”

“Okay. I’ll call her.” We had been best friends in high school, but barely seen each other since then. Cynthia had gotten married early and disappeared into family life. And I knew exactly what was coming next.

“She showed me photos of her two adorable children. It must be so nice to have grandchildren.”

“I’ll let Greg and Rebecca know.” My brother lived with his girlfriend, so the pressure to procreate should have been on him.

“Actually, I met a lovely lawyer at this talk last week.”

“Noooo,” I groaned and put my head down on my desk. My mother was so predictable. And had the words “lovely” and “lawyer” ever been combined before?

“Yes! Very nice looking and he’s a partner at a big firm. I got his card.” She reached into the pocket of her shirtdress. “I told him about you and said you’d call him.”

“I’ll certainly do that.” I shoved the card into my desk drawer where it merged with my Pokemon card collection from grade school.

“I know you won’t, so I gave him your number as well.”

“What’s the point? I’m going back to Toronto in a few weeks.”

My mother shook her head. “It doesn’t seem like you’re meeting any nice men in Toronto either. What was that Japanese phrase you told us about old unmarried women?”

I sighed. “Christmas cake.”

She laughed merrily. “Yes, that’s it. Nobody wants Christmas cake after the twenty-fifth, and now that’s you—way past your twenty-fifth birthday.”

“Thank you, Mummy. I’m only twenty-eight. That’s not a big deal here in Canada.”

“Oh, I know that. But honestly, Amanda, you need to make an effort.” She got up and opened the doors of my closet. “You really need to go shopping. Your work clothes are so... dowdy. Would you like me to get Estelle to bring over some new things?”

Estelle was my mother’s personal shopper. The last time I saw her she was about sixty, so she must have been eighty now. “Thanks, but if I had a stylist, I’d want her to be familiar with the styles of the last decade at least.”

My mother made a tsking sound. “Estelle is a classicist. She scorns seasonal trends.” Admittedly, she did do a good job on my mother, who was currently wearing a Liberty print shirtdress with the collar popped. She looked both ladylike and on point. How pathetic was it that my mother was more stylish than me? But fashion was never that important.

“I just came up to remind you that dinner is in half an hour. Uncle Thomas is coming as well.”

Sunday family dinners were a must-attend event at our house. This started when we were teenagers, and near-death was the only acceptable excuse for not attending. She drifted out.

I took a quick shower and scrounged up a pair of black dress pants and a blouse. As usual, my mother was right. My bedroom hadn’t changed since I moved out after high school.

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