Page 58 of Best Woman
“You’re right,” she says.
I don’t think she’s ever said those words to me. “Come again?”
“I love you, Julia, and Iknowyou, because you’re my child. But I don’t…understand you, any better than my mother understood me. You’ve made all these choices for your life, and I want you to have everything that you want. I try as much as possible to guide you when I can and stay out of your way the rest of the time.”
“I’m twenty-nine years old, Mom.”
“But you’re still my baby.”
When we were little, Mom used to read Aiden and me a book calledLove You Forever,and the mother’s refrain from the book was one she’d repeat to us in tender moments. “I love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.” When I was eight, twelve, even twenty, it was enough.
“I can’t keep trying to be the daughter you’ve always wanted,” I choke out. “The daughter you havehasto be good enough.”
“You are,” she says, voice thick. Her hand comes down on mine on the steering wheel. “I promise, you are.”
It doesn’t erase or excuse what happened at the reception. It was so public and shameful. I still feel…dirty, in a way, and caught out. I feel like a fraud, and the world has made me feel that way so many times. But my mom never had. Until now. Something has been broken between us. I don’t think I’ll ever see her the same way again, and an ugly part of me almost delights in the symmetry: this must be how she felt four years ago, when I told her I wasn’t the person she’d thought I was for twenty-five years. And thinking about it that way, as if it’s an even trade, lets me see the compromise we’re both making. If she can try to let me be the daughter she never had, I can try to let her be the mother I always wanted.
“It’s OK, Mom. I love you too. Don’t do it again.” She doesn’t look any more reassured by the words than I feel saying them. I pull into the drive-thru and open the window. “One large Diet Coke, please.”
Something vibrates insidemy bag. It’s a call from Daytona—a regular phone call, not FaceTime, which is unusual.
“Hello, Daytona.”
“Hello, doll. Having a good time?”
“Not particularly.” Brunch is winding down, but someone’s put on a playlist of early-nineties pop music, leading to some very uncoordinated mimosa-fueled dancing. No one wants the party to end, but I’m ready to go home. “But I did what I came to do.”
“Got the girl?”
“No,” I say. Speak of the devil: Kim dances with Rachel, sexy as hell in jeans and a blazer, cool and composed and closed off to me forever. “I saw my brother get married. I made a toast. I ate kugel. My job here is done.”
“Good girl,” she says. “I’m proud of you. Although I’d be prouder if you were too busy dancing to answer the phone.”
I laugh, leaning back in my chair. Brody and Brian leave thetable for parts unknown. “Give me time, I’ll find some lonely busboy or sweet-talk one of the bridesmaids into giving me a spin. Eventually. Or I’ll leave alone and die an old spinster.”
“Must you be so melodramatic? Sylvia fucking Plath over here. Need to find a nice oven to stick your head in?”
“As if,” I say, faux aggrieved. “My suicide would be much sadder and more glamorous. Pills, perhaps. Or drowning. I could fill my pockets with stones and walk into the sea like inThe Awakening.”
“Yeah, I skipped that day in English.”
“But you got the reference, so I think you’re lying.”
“I can just picture you there, all sad and morose with your half-eaten crème brûlée.”
I look down at my plate. “How did you know it was half eaten?”
“You’re probably biting your nails again, ruining that manicure your mother paid for, the way you do when you’rereallygoing through it.”
I had, in fact, been chewing on my thumbnail quite aggressively.
“You’re probably wishing you’d gone with a nude color instead of black,” she says, knowingly. I look around wildly. “And you’re wondering who added Celine to the queue.”
“There were nights when the wind was so cold” crackles over the speakers. I stand, swinging right, then left, searching past the tables, dancing bridesmaids, and towers of smoked fish. Daytona continues speaking into my ear, providing commentary on unfortunate dress and hair choices as I bob and weave through the dancers. I reach the edge of the floor, where Rachel now dances with Aiden, both moving slowly, completely incongruous with the music.
“Oh, honey, how many times do I have to tell you? The shoes stay on until you get home.”
The voice isn’t just in my ear. It’s here. Daytona is here, standing just behind the newlyweds. She wears a short red dress with a dangerously high slit, her hair swept to one side so she can hold her phone to her ear. She is incandescent and improbable, and I want to cry just looking at her.
