Page 47 of As a Last Resort
Ivy coughed.
“It’s definitely something,” I mumbled under my breath.
Glenn nodded so hard that his brain had to be jiggling.Of course he did.They’d probably been looking at pictures of stupid waterslides for hours together as they ate breakfast, giggled like schoolgirls, and ordered matching best friend necklaces online.Ugh.
I heard shouting in the distance.Then singing.My eyes gazed across the screen looking to see who’d be singing in the conference room.
“Honeyyyy!”a woman’s voice sang through my front window.“Are you here, baby girl?”
Oh, no, no, no…It was coming from my side, not theirs.
Mom only called me that when she was good and sloshed.Last night’soff the islandmust have been code forbinge drinking.Did I tell her I was staying at the Starfish?I couldn’t remember.
Please tell me I locked the door.
Singing drifted in through my cracked window.“… yellow polka dot bikini, that she wore for the first time today…”
Dear Lord above, if you exist, please don’t let her—My front door burst open and there she was: my mother, sporting the tiniest yellow polka dot bikini ever made, giant pink sunglasses, and a straw hat big enough to have its own zip code.
“Baby girl!”she shouted across the room throwing her arms up like she was accepting an Oscar.
I shot out of my chair and lunged for my laptop, trying to slam the screen shut, but my elbow hit my coffee first spilling it across my keyboard.I yanked my shirt down to soak up the mess, which did absolutely nothing but smear coffee all over the keys.
Mom sauntered across the Berber carpet, but tripped in slow motion before dramatically laying out on the couch beside me.“Whoa, it is a hot one out there today.I need lemonade.”
I looked back to the screen.Ivy’s eyes were wide, her hands flapping in a silent panic, miming for me to pull my shirt up.I looked down and I had tugged my shirt so far down that I was giving the entire conference room a front-row seat to my girls.I reached for the laptop again but Mom wedged her hand in and pried it back open.
“Your friends!Oooh, let me see!”She swatted my hand away.
“Hi there!”She waved into the camera.“Oh, look at that!I can see myself!”She puckered her lips and posed, watching herself in the little box nestled in the bottom right-hand corner of my screen.“Not too shabby.”
This couldn’t be happening.This had to be cosmic punishment—for the goldfish I forgot to feed in sixth grade, for that tinted ChapStick I accidently stole from Target, and for kissing Max under the bleachers when I was dating his brother.And basically every other morally questionable moment of my entire life had led to this.
“Mom, I’m in the middle of a work call.”
She leaned closer to the computer and winked at the screen.“Well, you’re fun to look at.”
“Oh.Umm, okay.”Crimson creeped up Glenn’s neck.
“Oh, I didn’t mean you.You’re much too old for me.I was talking to him.”She pointed straight at Robby.
Oh my God.
“I’m so sorry, Glenn, let me give you a quick ring back.”I angled my laptop away from my mom’s face.
“No need, no need, you all get back towork,” she slurred as she finger-quotedworklike it was a joke.“But don’t work all day, you could use some color, baby girl.”She squeezed my cheeks, turned, and threw a “see you later tonight” over her shoulder.
I looked at the screen, scanning faces trying to gauge the amount of damage control I’d need to do when Glenn’s face went fire-engine red.Ivy’s normally perfect composure slipped.Her eyes went wide and her mouth was slack.I looked on the screen at my little face in the bottom right-hand corner just as my mother opened my front door to leave, revealing that her tiny little yellow polka dot bikini was, in fact, a thong.
Do you know that part in a movie where the scene’s sound cuts out and it’s just an instrumental track playing over total devastation in slow motion?This was that moment.The blood drained from my body.The fading singing was the only sound for a solid five seconds after the screen door slammed shut behind her.
“Well, she’s certainly lively.”Robby’s voice broke the awkward silence, bringing me back to reality.“And in pretty good shape.How old is she?”
Ew.
“She’d make a great activities coordinator.Very friendly,” Ivy piped in, clearly trying to help.“But probably not the type of resort we’re really going for,” she added quickly, apology in her tone.
“The waterslide sounds great.”My voice wavered, trying to pretend the last three minutes never happened.“Let’s table it for now though and I’ll get with Robby one-on-one to chat after I’ve sent everything I’ve got.We’ll touch base again later.Anything else for me?”
