Page 58 of Push & Pull
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Honey… I’ll tell you later. You’re grabbing life by the balls right now. I don’t want to get in the way of that by putting things in your head you might not understand.”
Petra had no idea how to process that. How could she process anything if her mother wouldn’t give her the full story?
“I’ve gotta get going,” Petra said after a few more minutes of silence. “I think they’re about to kick me out, anyway.”
Nicolette shut down as Petra prepared to leave. The guard approached to escort Nicolette back to her cell. The two of them exchanged a glance that was meant to say goodbye, but something in Nicolette’s demeanor brought a faraway memory back to the forefront of Petra’s mind.
“Your uncle is gonna take care of you, honey,”an incarcerated Nicolette had said over the phone the first night Petra was in her uncle’s Chicago home, a dingy apartment far away from Forest Glen.“Better than strangers. It’s always better to be with your blood if you can find it. They’ll always take care of you in their own way. Strangers are fickle. Do what he says, okay? You’ll learn some life skills with that man.”
All of that said with the most robotic voice Petra had ever heard from her mother’s mouth – as if she had rehearsed those words through a host of tears. The secrets that undercut the women in her family, as few as they were, always came back to that.
Chapter 20
AlthoughitwasFebruary,the independent coffee shop Simone had picked up the street from Starbucks was still playing Christmas tunes. She didn’t know if it was stuck on that playlist or if the barista on duty had a strange sense of humor, but she had not been prepared for “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” Let alone three times in the two hours she was there.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes according to Google Maps,”Petra texted her.“I’d like to get back on the road ASAP since traffic up to New York is still looking a mess.”
The distracted part of Simone was ready to leave. There was only so much for her to catch up on with a burner laptop that wasn’t logged in to half the websites she used for work. Yet the other part of her? The one cranky about her lot in life – and confused about Petra?
Ugh.
She opened her email one last time in the hopes of thinking about anything but Petra and what the two of them had been up to the past three days. Except when Simone tried thinking about life after she got home, she kept coming back to the issues that triggered her into grabbing another shot of espresso. Because it beat buying a pack of cigarettes from the convenience store across the street.
Since the last time she opened her inbox, a new email had landed.
“RE: Meeting on Friday.”
It was from Astrid Evans, or as the From field specified,“Vice President.”
“Thank you for updating me,”Astrid wrote in response to Simone’s email from two nights ago.“I have updated my schedule to include you coming by in the late afternoon Friday. The information will be prepared for you as usual. While you are here, I would like to discuss your possible return from your sabbatical. I’ve already briefly discussed it with the president, but we want to know where you are on your journey before making any concrete plans. Looking forward to seeing you on Friday. – Astrid.”
Simone read that twice. She even put her laptop to sleep to get up to use the restroom and came back to read it again.
“Where are you on your journey.”
Couldn’t she have said it, already?“Where you are on your road to recovery.”That’s what she meant, wasn’t it? Because the whole reason Simone was on sabbatical was because…
Rehab. Best to skip over the steps leading to rehab when Simone had no intention of repeating them, let alone going back torehab.
Astrid could have left that part out. She could have brought up a discussion about Simone’s sabbaticalwithoutthe condescending journey bullshit.
What was Simone supposed to say in response to that?
“I will be there Friday afternoon. Once I am home, I can give you a more accurate window of what hour. I’m still currently out of town, but looking forward to being back and discussing important matters.”
There. Was that professional? Did that convey that Simone Evans, the rightful heir to her father’s work, was prepared to redon the mantle that should have been hers all along?
“Simone.”
Interacting with Astrid was always a volatile time, but Simone swore to God that her stepmother did not make matters much easier.It shouldn’t be so hard.Wasn’t it bad enough that Astrid had come into the family the way she did? Why did she have to take the vice presidency while she was at it? Why did she have to occupy that house that Simone’s mother had made her own long before another woman was in Bernard’s eye?Why did she have to move in a girl who could be my sister?That house was tainted now. Although Astrid had implied she and Simone would come to some agreement over it one day – namely that it rightly belonged to Simone, who might like todiein it – nothing was enough. Not when Simone spiraled.
Her mother. Her father. The damned house.
Friends. Future. Her damned sanity.
If anyone seriously asked her what made her turn to drugs when she was a volatile teenager, she’d look them in the eye and laugh.What else am I supposed to do? Explain in earnest?There were whole books on the market that talked about what Simone had been through. She knew that because she hadreadthem. A friend in a Ph.D. program had interviewed her for a dissertation on how stress led to substance abuse. Was this really still some big secret people didn’t know the answer to? Or did they simply begrudge Simone for having the money and privilege to access the best care at her disposal?
