Page 48 of If All Else Sails
Yes. Yes, I am.
It is at this point I realize I have been one hundred percent steamrolled.
I also realize that I’ve unknowingly harbored a secret hunger for a mother-daughter shopping spree. My mother’s wardrobe is ninety-nine percent from catalogs like Talbots or Coldwater Creek. Back-to-school—or any other—shopping consisted of her giving me a credit card and a firm limit while she read a book in the mall food court while I shopped alone. No one to zip me up or help me out of a too-tight dress or tell me which pants were more flattering.
It’s not like my mom—or dad—neglected me. I mean, sure, Jacob sucks up ninety percent of the attention in any room and consistently did so with our family, but my parents are great. Fantastic. Slightly distracted and physically distant with all their RV-ing and before that, their other hobbies, but still wonderful. Maybe it feels a little like once my brother and I were out of the nest, they set the nest on fire and moved on to another tree, but it’s not like there’s bad blood or trauma I can complain about. Sometimes I just miss my mom.
Which leaves me here, emotion climbing its way up my throat while trying on a dress I definitely can’t afford.
I just can’t remember a time I ever had either of my parents’ complete focus like this. Or the level of delight Susan seems to take in something so small and simple. Especially considering I’ve known her for all of twenty minutes.
I guess this is a dream unrealized for me too—even if it is Wyatt’s mother.
He must take after his dad.
“You okay in there?” she calls as I work up the side zipper.
“I’ve just got the first dress on. Do you...want to see it?”
“Of course I want to see it,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “What fun is it if you don’t model for us? Don’t be shy.”
Drawing in a breath and making sure my tears are tucked away, I do.
Susan wasn’t kidding about this being a quick stop. She shops like it’s a sprint—on which the fate of the world hangs. Twenty minutes later, I’ve tried on half the store and am leaving with several bags and wearing a new dress, new shoes, and a new necklace.
None of which I paid for.
I couldn’t have stopped her if I tried. And her absolute joy over the whirlwind shopping spree made me not want to.
Wyatt’s smirk tells me he knew exactly how this would go. Like he was well aware that his mother’s master plan was not to find auction earrings after all but rather to force an almost complete makeover on me. My hair is even twisted up into a fancy knot with a new clip. If the store had sold cosmetics, I’m sure I’d have a whole new line of that as well.
I climb into the car first while his mother puts the bags in the trunk. “Don’t say a word,” I tell Wyatt in a quiet voice.
“Wasn’t going to.”
I raise an eyebrow and twist to peer back at him. “You weren’t going to sayI told you so?”
“Do I evenneedto say it?”
“Say what?” Susan asks, climbing behind the wheel again. She touches up her lipstick, a coral color that looks great against the olive skin tone she and Wyatt share. “How beautiful Josie looks? She’s stunning, Wyatt. Don’t you agree?”
Wyatt makes a noncommittal noise from the back. I want the leather seat to open up and swallow me whole.
“Thank you,” I say again. To Susan, not Wyatt, since not even his mother can drag a compliment for me out of him. Best to pretend she never asked him. “I really—”
“Nonsense,” Susan says, waving me off without hearing the rest of what I was going to say. Then she swivels in the seat, her eyes fiery as she glares at Wyatt. “Wyatt.”
“Mother.”
“Wyatt Hamilton Jacobs.”
I bite back a smile. Even if I don’t like her forcing him to say I’m pretty when he clearly doesn’t think so, I’m her new favorite person while Wyatt’s getting called by his full name.
But the tension in the car stretches to awkward levels, and I wonder if I should get out and let Wyatt and his mom continue their silent standoff alone.
I’ve just grasped the door handle when Wyatt leans forward, catching my eye. Despite all the eye contact we’ve made in the last few days, only now do I realize his irises aren’t a solid gray. They’re mostly gray, but with navy and brown flecks, like a gray hazel.Grayzel.
They are hypnotic.
