Page 60 of Rivals to Lovers
“That fucking asshole!” Sloan said. She was painting Mo’s nails again, this time for the rehearsal dinner. Mo had one more shift at work, then she would hop on the plane at JFK for a red-eye back to Des Moines. Maureen knew this was Sloan’s way of showing her love, and she let her roommate take care of her as they sat on the couch, surrounded by junk food. None of them had to work before noon today, and Mo was grateful for their company.
The junk food acquisition was Mackenzie’s love language, and Mo was grateful for her selection of every type of Twizzlers she could find—pull-and-peel, traditional, the whole range of flavors and artificial colors. Mo would bind her insides so full of waxy sugar that her body wouldn’t fall apart over the next few days. Maybe if she had a big enough sugar high, Mo could pretend to believe in loving relationships and truly root for Anna to walk down the aisle with Kyle, who it turned out was actually a nice guy with a good sense of humor.Who could have guessed. Not Maureen, because she did nothing but demonstrate what a horrible judge of character she was.
Whatever the combination of cuticle care and licorice Mo needed to feel halfway human, she had almost achieved it before her Thursday shift. She would have called in sick the past few days if she hadn’t been taking the weekend off. She couldn’t do that to Amy. Instead, Mo muddled through in a haze, not even wanting to check social media. She even blocked him on LinkedIn when she noticed he’d tried to message her there. Her entire body felt achy, like her broken heart had infected her with some terrible illness. Then, even worse news came down than the fact that Mo was a talentless failure: Yuri called to say that Estelle had died Tuesday night.
Mo tried not to think about how Estelle might have taken her last breaths while Mo was crying in Wes’s apartment, feeling the ridiculous weight of striving for literary success crashing down on her. It was only a book, not her life, and she knew that. Still, she felt so emotionally wrung out, and it wasn’t only because of the book or Estelle.
Mo had trusted Wes, even though she probably shouldn’t have. Yuri explained that she’d connected with the editor at Wildman, and that she had a copy of Mo’s book too and loved it. No harm done. It was all out of their hands at this point. All hypotheticals.
It didn’t matter what anyone else said; Maureen felt stupid. Wes was a rival. It didn’t matter that he had passed along her manuscript too, because he hadn’t told her about it. How had she managed to trust her work, her body, and even her tender feelings with someone who was only out for himself? She’d felt like she’d grown so much in the past few years aftermoving out here. She’d developed a thick skin and a certain set of antennae to warn her away from assholes and the kind of people who could use her. Her number-one goal in moving was not to be taken as the country rube, but here she was, too trusting when she should have been more careful. She had been driving straight off the cliff, which happened to look like a curly-haired, scruffy nepo baby heir to a lifestyle brand, who happened to have written a book she couldn’t stop thinking about.
It would be easy if it had just been a fling. Sex could be good in the moment, like ice cream, but there were few ice cream cones she stayed up at night thinking about. Wes was more than that cold sweetness, those licks of pleasure. That was awful imagery, and this was why she didn’t write erotica. Still, she’d never met someone like him before who got her sense of humor, who effortlessly kept up with her mental lane shifts, and who cheered her onward toward her goals while teaching her something new along the way. He felt like a partner, until she realized he’d been running a different race all along.
Well, she hoped karma would fuck him, because she never would again.
Her bags for the wedding were packed and tucked in the kitchen, ready for a taxi after cleanup tonight. By the time she arrived, the caterers had already been hard at work for an hour. It wasn’t a wedding this time—thank God, since she could not handle any more fake brides and grooms on top of too-sweet cakes. The event was some kind of retirement party. No DJ, no ridiculous rituals, fewer toasts, and fewer drunks. The flowers were tasteful bouquets of peonies and roses, and she thought, as she adjusted the vases in the center of thetables, of Estelle’s upcoming funeral and the peonies that were certainly blooming on the Morgan estate by now. Maureen wouldn’t be invited to the funeral—she had been in Estelle’s life for only a single weekend—but still, Mo couldn’t help but imagine the scene she would miss.
Maureen wasn’t mad at Flor and Talia for what they’d said about her book. How could she be, with them mourning their mother? The fact that her book had next to no chance, though, deserved some kind of sorrow. Feeling sad about it made Mo feel like the most selfish person alive, mourning a career alongside, or more than, this full person and her complete life.
Before the event began, Mo pulled up theNew York Timesobit for Estelle. The first part of the article focused on her youth as the only daughter of a famous author. A paragraph snagged her attention. “AlthoughThe Proud and The Lostwas written before E. J. Morgan had children, many have mistakenly assumed that after Estelle was born, E. J.’s creative spirit warped under the pressure of parenthood, like her famous heroine. Not true, the author’s personal effects have shown. In fact, E. J. Morgan wrote letter after letter praising her daughter, full of admiration for her spunk and spirit, and rumors have flown for years that among the author’s files are dozens, if not hundreds, of children’s stories written by E. J. for her daughter.”
Mo’s vision went blurry with tears. Estelle had been so loved, not only because she was the daughter of someone famous but because she was herself. She would give anything to read those stories, maybe to her own daughter someday.
The rest of the obit focused on Estelle’s life, not her mother’s. First her education, then her unlikely career in finance. Itwasn’t unexpected because of her family’s connection to literature, but because of her being a woman in an extremely male-dominated arena. For ten years, she had been a stockbroker on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, her wheelchair given a particular location every day so she didn’t have to fight in the melee. She had retired after adopting Flor, then Talia.
More than good investments in money, she had invested her time and effort into causes she cared about. In the nineties, she had personally overseen the construction of ADA accessible playgrounds all over New York City. Estelle had been a major philanthropist for the organization she’d adopted Flor and Talia from as well as donated to women’s groups and LGBTQIA+ youth programs. She’d donated to literacy causes and for COVID vaccines in rural India.
Mo finished scrolling the obit, eyes more than misty by that point. Estelle had been a powerhouse of a woman. And though she had lived to be in her eighties and survived her husband, she still had so much to give. But Mo couldn’t dwell on that, nor could she dwell on herself, or her poor sucker’s heart. She had work to do.
Amy finished arranging canapés on a silver tray, each atop a perfect lacy doily, and smiled at her in a careful way, like she worried something might break inside Mo. Mo hadn’t told her the whole story, but Amy knew something was up. “Heartburn,” Mo had told her yesterday. Amy obviously hadn’t bought the excuse but, after catching her expression, asked, “Heartburn?”
Mo nodded and stored the phone. Her aches, all of them, should be described as burning instead of breaking. Everything in her felt hot and unsettled, a kindled fire ready toconsume her. She didn’t want to do anything except eat more Twizzlers—maybe also some cheese, for protein—and watchThe Wizard of Ozon TCM with Mackenzie. Mackenzie always sang all the parts, and it was always glorious, and not obnoxious, even with the Munchkins. Mo felt a bit like a house had fallen on her but prayed licorice would carry her through the rest of the shift. She could do this. She could make it.
Amy handed her a tray of wineglasses, and suddenly she had no choice.
The party was for fifty-five people, and Mo knew there was trouble immediately. The aura was familiar, the low chat, the eclectic dress. “Who is this for? What company?” Mo whispered to Amy. They were stationed near a potted fern near the entrance to the kitchens, waiting for people to congeal into small groups so she and Amy could circle them to offer appetizers.
“Hmm, some kind of media thing, I think.”
Mo dreaded media events in general. She wanted to be the kind of person important enough to be invited; instead, she cleaned up spills. Mo had worked more than a few book launches and a gala for a major literary foundation, and every time it felt like having to watch a Broadway show from the lobby. Once, a journalist from CNN sabered a bottle of champagne in the middle of the room and Mo had to pick up shards of glass and clean up the spilled champagne, all for the sake of what became a viral Instagram. Glancing out the kitchen, Maureen appraised the room for any familiar faces. She didn’t immediately see any famous or famous-adjacentpeople, until she noticed someone in the farthest corner of the room.
Ulla.
Ulla wouldn’t recognize Mo in her catering uniform, right? After all, they had met only twice. Sure, in the meantime, Mo had been bonking her son, making grilled cheese with him, and storming out of his living room. Despite her anger at Wes, Maureen worried how Ulla was managing the divorce. Though Ulla was always svelte, she looked gaunt in her tiered black gown. Before that moment, Mo wouldn’t have been able to explain the delineation between a dress and a gown. It was something in its vibe, and this dress said gown. It also, in the way it hung off Ulla, saidHelp me.
The party was obviously for an elderly man with a bow tie, who was glad-handing around the room. Amy’s intel was that the man had been a photographer for publications all over the city, and Mo overheard conversations about his shoots in Papua New Guinea, Appalachia, Kathmandu, and Queens as she circled with appetizers. Mo handed out caprese salad kabobs, and the guests talked about European politics. She came by with an empty tray to collect used toothpicks and napkins, and guests talked about a blown glass artist in Rio. Mo noticed on a later pass a local weather anchor in her purple silk jumpsuit, her helmet of hair sprayed curls perfectly in place, just like on TV. There were plenty of people who gave off the impression of importance without her knowing what that importance was. She was grateful, suddenly, that Wes had been unpretentious. At least most of the time.
Thoughts of Wes kept intruding in her thoughts, the way she used to worry loose teeth constantly when she was a kid. Distracting, achy. Suspicious, magical-thinking Mo consideredthat even thinking of him might radiate through the air to his mom and cause Ulla to look at Mo more carefully. She didn’t want to be noticed.
After clearing the appetizer dishes, Amy and Mo reconvened in the kitchen to plan for dinner service. Noticing where Ulla would be seated, Mo asked to take the other half of the tables. Amy agreed.
Mo trayed the salad plates and carried them into the dining area. She served the first few tables without incident, but at a table near the center of her area, a man at the six-spot rubbed Mo’s arm as she put the plate in front of him. He was in his midsixties, with thinning brown hair and too-confident hands. A horrified shiver ran through her. “Thanks, doll,” he murmured.
As she turned toward the kitchen, she felt a tug on her apron strings, which she’d double-knotted behind her back. The man jerked the strings back toward him and said, “I need more butter over here.”
Mo’s face flamed. He let go of the apron, and she felt like a dog unleashed. She was not the kind of server to spit in someone’s food, but she was almost willing to make an exception. Swallowing her anger, Mo put on her best impression of a Midwest-nice smile and brought him an extra two pats of butter. He didn’t even thank her for it, his mouth still full of bread.
Asshole. Asshole.
