Page 4 of One More Time
‘Oh, I know,’ Chloe said, lifting the bags from the floor. ‘July is a dumb time to be in Vegas. Even Chandler’s beginning to see it now.’
The mention of her daughter’s groom brought Lucy back to reality. The reminder that there were things to be done, items to tick off the list, made her feel more solid again. She pushed herself off the door and shuffled behind Chloe into the kitchen area of their absurdly enormous suite.
‘Where’s the stuff?’ Chloe asked with impish glee.
‘The big bag,’ Lucy replied.
Chloe squealed when she looked inside the canvas sack. ‘Amazing! Wish I could have gone with you!’
‘How were Mr. and Mrs. Heylen?’ Lucy asked.
‘Grumpy. Tired. Said about three words,’ Chloe lamented.
‘So, totally normal, then?’
‘More normal than normal. So damn normal it’s actually painful. How they ended up with Chandler and Mason for kids I will never understand. They’re so conventional and boring. Like,clinicallyboring.’
‘Pretty sure I’m the wrong kind of doctor, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say “boring” isn’t a legitimate medical diagnosis.’
‘Yet, they are that boring. And I know they still think I’m a basket case. But what can you do?’
‘You’ve finally given up on trying to convince them you’re average?’ Lucy teased, placing the flower bouquet in the kitchen’s full-sized refrigerator.
Chloe beamed at her, and it gave Lucy such an ache of love and wonder that she actually clutched her chest.
‘I’m so grateful to have you,’ Chloe said, racing to Lucy’s side and squeezing her tight.
‘Not half as grateful as I am,’ Lucy replied, kissing the top of her daughter’s soft chestnut hair.
Maybe weddings were like this. Typical weddings, that is. She’d gotten more hugs from Chloe in the previous six months than she had in the six years before the engagement. Lucy didn’t remember so many hugs when she’d married Brandon, Chloe’s father. Then again, Lucy’s parents were the prototype from which all Mr. and Mrs. Heylens had been cast.
Ugh, that thought had her drifting back to her childhood. From there, it was only a quick loop and a left back to Nicky Broome.
‘What time are you headed out to pick up the girls,again?’ Lucy asked nonchalantly as Chloe hefted the sack of penises toward her bedroom.
‘I’m going to the airport to meet Hannah and Gabby around seven, Alexis and Francesca arrive at eight-ish if their layovers work and they can catch the second leg to Vegas. Then, once we’re all together, we’ll do a late dinner at Spago in the Bellagio.’
‘Sounds fun,’ Lucy replied.Sounds perfect.
‘You could come with, you know. Daddy’s assistant is making all the arrangements and throwing that Wall Street cash around. He could add you to the reservation.’
‘No way! You have fun with your friends.’
‘You’re sure?’ Chloe asked.
‘Totally sure. I’m just going to take a long, hot bath in that swimming pool I’ve got in there, have a nap, and get some room service or something.’Orsomething. Like figure out what to wear for drinks with a Grammy winner. Maybe there’s a YouTube tutorial?
The sweet sounds of Donny Hathaway’s voice trilled from the integrated Bluetooth audio system in the bathroom. (The whole suite was wired for sound, because of course it was.) Lucy hummed along as she sank into the steaming bubbles of the Olympic-sized bathtub in her private en suite and conceded that allowing her ex-husband to pay for everything had been the right decision.
There had been a moment when Lucy had wantedto split the cost of the wedding with him. She’d been thinking ‘equal parents, equal cost’ or something similarly boneheaded and noble at the time. But when Chloe had announced that she wanted a destination wedding, Lucy raised her white flag. She’d let the millionaire have this one.
For years, Lucy’s ex-husband wielded his money like a weapon to win Chloe’s love. As though their daughter was a prize they were fighting over. It was a competition Lucy had never signed up for and had no hope of winning. How could a college professor in Ohio compete with a Manhattan hedge fund manager? Ridiculous. Lucy’s refusal to play hadn’t discouraged Brandon, though. There were outlandish summer vacations. Birthday presents that cost more than Lucy’s car. (On her sixteenth, it had been an actual car that cost almost as much as Lucy’shouse.) There were offers of a British boarding school, then Ivy League university. While Chloe decided to go to public school and enroll in the university Lucy taught at instead, it still felt like Brandon was winning somehow.
He was an expert at filling the empty hole left by his absence with buckets of cold hard cash. It was typical finance-bro stuff – minimum effort, maximum result. But, especially in Chloe’s teen years, the strategy had been effective. Teenagers are ruthless but simple creatures, and Chloe absolutely J’adored her Dior.
In weak moments, like while doing the three hundredth load of laundry or rumbling along in a yellow bus on a school field trip, the whole thing made Lucy bitter. It had taken a lot of years (and eye-rolling) but as Lucy sippedchampagne in a sea of soft, foamy comfort, she thought she might finally be over it. Lucy may refuse to drive her daughter’s G-Wagon, but she was sure as hell going to enjoy the penthouse suite at the Lusso.
‘I’m off!’ Chloe screamed through the door.
