Page 51 of The Beautiful Collision
Who does this? Who sees their hookup-slash-roommate passed out on the couch and thinks,You know what she needs? My most precious family heirloom?
Maine, apparently.
The same Maine who sent me a crude text about my “great tits” a few days ago.
The same one who’s the biggest peacock in any room.
But also the same one, I’m learning, who cares for others and makes sure they’re OK, even at the expense of himself. The same one who holds me and makes me feel at home. The same one who looks at me like I’m a special prize that he wants to win and I’m pretty sure is fighting his feelings as much as I am.
Fucking fantastic, I sigh.
But before I can process this new development, my phone buzzes, the screen lighting up with an incoming FaceTime. For a split second, I wonder if it’s Maine calling, but when my eyes snap to the caller ID, my stomach plummets straight through the floor:
MOTHER.
I could ignore it. Should ignore it, probably. But Eleanor Hayes doesn’t call to chat about the weather. When she calls, it’s because she has something specific to say, usually something designed to remind me exactly where I stand in the Hayes family hierarchy.
Which is somewhere between the pool house and the recycling bin.
I swipe to answer, quickly finger-combing my hair and pasting on my besteverything’s perfectsmile. The one I’ve been perfecting since I was old enough to understand that Hayes children don’t have problems, they haveopportunities for excellence.
My mother’s face fills the screen, her makeup flawless. “Maya,” she says.
No hello, no how are you. Just my name, delivered like a summons.
“Hi, Mom.” I keep my voice bright, channeling the daughter she used to like and approve of, up until the age of about six or so, when I went and ruined everything by having opinions and making choices she didn’t agree with. “You look great. Is that a new?—“
“I’m calling about Clarissa’s wedding.”
Clarissa is my cousin, who I’ve met exactly twice and whose main personality trait is owning horses. And ofcourseshe’s getting married. Probably to someone with a yacht and a trust fund and the ability to discuss tax law with the gentlemen at dinner parties.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” I say, because that’s what you say. “When’s the happy?—“
“Next month. The Ritz-Carlton. Black tie, naturally.” My mother’s eyes flick to something off-screen, probably her computer, where she’s billing some corporation five hundred anhour while casually destroying my day. “The entire family will be there.”
The pause that follows is deliberate. Surgical. She’s one of the most powerful trial lawyers in America, and she knows exactly how to use tactical pauses to dig the knife in. And here it is, designed to give me a flash of hope that I might be out of the icebox, but she’s waiting for me to ask the question.
I sigh. “Am I?—“
“Your attendance is neither required nor desired,” she cuts me off.
The words are delivered with the same emotional inflection she’d use to decline a lunch invitation. Just another item on her to-do list: Review Patterson brief, check, call opposing counsel, check, emotionally devastate youngest daughter, check.
I keep the smile plastered on my face even as something inside me crumbles. “I see.”
“Your father and I feel it would be… awkward… given the choices you’ve made lately.” She says ‘choices’ like it’s a synonym for ‘heroin addiction’, which is probably fair given they consider my choices in degree, career and lifestyle to be about that bad. “Questions would be asked about your… lifestyle.”
My lifestyle.
“Of course, because studying nursing is like running a meth lab,” I say, unable to resist a cheap shot. “I understand.”
“I knew you would.” There’s something almost like approval in her voice, and I hate how desperately I want to grab onto it. “You were always practical, at least.”
The call ends without a goodbye, and I’m left staring at my reflection in the black screen. I want to throw the phone across the room. I want to scream. I want to call her back and tell her exactly what she can do with her black-tie rectal dysfunction of a family gathering.
Instead, I sit, wrapped in Maine’s sister’s blanket, feeling hollow.
Neither required nor desired.
