Page 34 of The Heiress
With music blasting through my ear pods, I didn’t hear Mom come in, and only when she stood in front of the bike did I register her presence. I was in the zone, deep in the lyrics of being told that if I didn’t get up in the morning and think I’d be great, then I would never be great. The motivation was exactly what I needed. On repeat.
“You’re back?” I said, muting my music.
“Yes.” She had a glow about her, color in her cheeks, and not from makeup or fresh air. “You look like you have a sweat up.”
I nodded, bringing the pedals to a complete stop. “Buy anything?”
Mom’s eyebrows lifted playfully, and she said, “A little.”
“You mean a lot?” I said, rolling my eyes, carefully swinging my legs over the bike, holding the handlebars for balance. The monitor showed I’d biked for fifty minutes. I walked across to the whiteboard and wrote it down.
“You ran for five minutes?” Mom asked, reading the board.
“Yep.” I put the cap back on the marker and turned around to see Elisha standing next to Mom. I suddenly became acutely aware that I was wearing a workout tank and training shorts and that my skin was an unsightly shade of pale. Spending all summer indoors meant I didn’t get my customary summer tennis tan. I looked around for a t-shirt or jacket to cover up, but they were back in my bedroom.
“Good job, Phoe,” Mom said. “Way to make Elisha and I feel guilty about drinking pumpkin spice lattes while you’ve been training all morning.”
Elisha wrinkled her nose and shrugged her shoulders apologetically, and yeah, the way her pert nose scrunched set my heart racing, but so too did the fact that Mom had a pumpkin spice latte.
“Did you bring me one?” I joked.
Elisha bit down on her lower lip and covered her hand over her mouth in genuine alarm. She and Mom turned to each other.
“Oh great, you forgot about me,” I said with mock sarcasm, standing behind the bike so Elisha couldn’t see my pale, skinny legs and knobbly knees.
“Since when do you drink lattes?” Mom said with a laugh. She was right; I usually ridiculed people and their pretentious coffees and pumpkin spice was a particularly overpriced hype.
“No, wait,” Elisha said excitedly, shaking Mom’s elbow, “we got the apple donut.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Mom said, “your favorite apple donut from The Kitchen. See, we didn’t forget about you!”
Mom patted Elisha’s shoulder and they laughed as they went back to the kitchen like they’d forged some sort of bond while shopping. When had I last heard Mom’s laughter sound so real? I dashed to my bedroom, keen to shower and hide my legs in some track pants. I spent longer than normal on styling my hair, and why I needed cologne for a walk around the lake was a mystery. When I finally emerged, Elisha had swapped her jeans for leggings and her boots for white sneakers. She’d tied her hair up into a high ponytail like she did at school most days.
“Ready to go?” Mom asked.
“Sure.”
“Do you want to bring your crutches? Just in case?”
I shook my head vehemently and replied with a scathing, “I’m fine.”
As we were packing up the picnic, the apple donut now a pleasant memory of delicious sweetness, Mom’s phone rang. She immediately reverted into boss mode voice and waved at Elisha and me, indicating this was an important call that might take some time, “Why don’t you two get started and I’ll catch you up?”
There was a moment of panic as I contemplated walking alone with Elisha. Sure, the talk was easy as we ate our picnic, Mom and her in riveting conversations about clothes and shops and whatever, so much that I could have been forgiven for forgetting that the girl could sting like a scorpion. For that reason, I avoided speaking and listened. I liked hearing Mom sound like her old self.
Sitting had caused my muscles to stiffen up a bit, and I cursed myself for not taking some pain meds before coming out. No, for some reason I’d been too distracted with getting every strand of hair into place and selecting the right cologne. Huh! As if the manufactured scent of patchouli and woody musk could compete with the smell of nature. But I’d be able to walk at a snail’s pace in the guise that Mom could catch us up.
I tucked my phone into the pocket of my hoodie, and we set off down the path. That was one thing I noticed about Elisha—that she didn’t have her phone with her, not even to take photos. It was definitely odd.
For the first fifty meters of the trail, I rehearsed a host of conversation starters in my mind:When are your parents coming back? Where did you go to school before this? Why were you staying in the hotel?
But she spoke first. “Your Mom’s really nice.”
“Yeah,” I said with a shrug. What else could I answer? “Hey, did she really have a latte?”
“Yep. Pumpkin spice. Why? Doesn’t she like it?”
“Let’s just say she doesn’t have much of an appetite these days,” I said.
