Page 56 of All It Takes

The door to the back opened, and Farrah peered in. “Oh, there you are.” Her eyes dropped to where I was cleaning. “Who did that?”

“The puppy,” I said with a shrug. “It’s expected.”

I straightened after I finished wiping the area with the disinfectant spray that broke down the scent. “The cleaning people will come tonight and give it another cleaning,” I noted as I crossed to the trashcan and tied it up after tossing in the wipes.

I double-checked that the entrance door was locked and my computer was powered down before walking with Farrah to the back.

“Are you okay?” she asked as we walked into the break room together.

I shrugged as I looked over at her. “I think so. You caught me at a bad moment earlier.”

“What happened?” Alice asked as she walked in, clearly hearing my reply.

Looking between them, I hesitated for a beat before Alice prompted, “Let me know if I can do anything.”

I took a breath before I sat down at the table and rested my hands on my face for a moment. Straightening, I tightened my ponytail before letting my hands fall. “It’s a whole thing. I haven’t talked about it, but I put a pause on things with Wes and me.” I glanced at Farrah before looking at Alice. “You know how my mom was, right?”

Alice and Farrah immediately sat at the table. Farrah offered, “I don’t know how your mom was, but this calls for friend time. What do you need?”

My eyes felt watery. “I’m not sure where to start.”

“I sensed there was a pause with you and Wes, but since you weren’t talking about it, I didn’t want to push,” Alice said. “And what does this have to do with your mom? All I knew about your mom was she wasn’t around a lot. When you were younger, she used to take you with her. Sometime in middle school, it seemed like that stopped happening.” She glanced at Farrah. “Small town. Tiffany and I were friends but not besties in school. Kids notice when kids aren’t around all the time, though.”

“Where is your mom now?” Farrah asked the obvious question.

“She died,” I said simply.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Farrah looked dismayed.

“Thank you. It’s been a few years. I had a complicated relationship with her. She was kind of, well, not really the most available mom. She did a number on both Chase and me. When I was younger, I was her favorite but not in a healthy way. Not that there’s any healthy way to have a favorite, but she took me with her everywhere while traipsing around trying to get famous. She wanted to be a model, she wanted to be an actress, she wanted to be in a band, and so on. She was desperate for attention, so she was always taking new jobs here and there. It finally stopped when she had her first of two affairs. I was really stressed out. I was getting behind in school, so my dad put his foot down. My dad is really good about not saying anything bad about her. He was then, and he still is now, but he was willing to argue with her about me staying in place. She ran hot and cold, so it was just a mess.” I lifted a hand, waving it vaguely and hesitating. “I don’t know if I want to say this because it might affect what you think of Mr. Green.”

“Mr. Green made you cry,” Farrah said pointedly. “I didn’t go to high school here, so I’m not attached to him.”

Alice shrugged. “Let me guess, he had an affair with your mom.”

“Did you already know that?” I sucked my breath in through my teeth as I gave her a dismayed look.

“Small town. There were rumors,” she said succinctly.

I let out a weary sigh. “They were true. It was just a weekend. His daughter, Frannie, told me. He and his wife are trying to work things out. It happened a few months before my mom died. Even though I was furious with him…” I paused, almost doing a physical scan of my body.

I wasn’t mad at him anymore. Somehow, that brief interaction with him had helped me to let it go, to recognize that even though he had let me down, he was just a flawed person, like the whole wide world. “I was mad, but I’m not now,” I finally said. “He apologized. My mom can never apologize, though she probably wouldn’t have.” I twisted my fingers in my lap as I looked at my two friends. “She wasn’t the kind of person to contemplate her behavior in the context of how it affected others. Long story short, I don’t have a great track record with trust in relationships. I was angry with her after she died because my dad is the best. He deserved a good relationship, someone to treat him right. So…” I threw a hand up in the air before letting it fall. “I haven’t even talked about it, but I have this thing on my back, a peripheral nerve sheath tumor.” I rolled my eyes. “This guy I started to see, I actually trusted him, and he just ghosted me completely when I had the thing with my back.”

Farrah interjected. “Are you okay?”

Alice answered for me. “She had surgery, and she’s fine.”

Farrah let out a breath. “Okay, I just needed to know that. Carry on.”

“And then this whole thing happened with Wes. We’ve got Ross, and it just seems like it’s…” I ran out of words and leaned back in my chair, exhausted from trying to explain.

“Like it’s too much of a risk,” Farrah said calmly.

When I met her eyes, I realized she completely understood.

“I get it. It’s logical, emotionally speaking. Except Wes is really into you,” she added.

Alice nodded vigorously. “He is. No wonder he looked so down when I saw him. You know the crew is going out for three weeks starting tomorrow.”

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