Page 138 of The Tryst

My jaw nearly drops from the shock, except…I don’t let it. She’s never offered to buy my app before. She’s known all along we wanted to sell it. Why now? Why double it? Because someone else wants The Makeover?

No. It’s because someone else wants me, I think.

“It could be a wonderful partnership,” she says. “Getting to see each other at the office. Brainstorm ideas and new lines. Grab lunch while we discuss makeup and business.”

And all at once, everything is illuminated. Why she wants me to work with her. Why she’s clung to the idea of it.

She doesn’tneedme to work at her company. She needs to spend more time with me. She’s lonely.

I fight back tears as the server arrives with our food. When she’s gone, I say to my mom, “Let’s eat and then I’ll show you something.”

Since I also know what to do next.

* * *

After lunch, I take her to Central Park. “We’re almost there,” I say as we near the bench.

Twenty feet away, she stops, so I do too. She turns to me, understanding in her eyes, shining along with her tears. “You got a bench.”

“I did,” I say.

“Your father loved these so,” she says, her voice wistful and full of love.

“He did.”

“You never told me.” She doesn’t sound upset. She sounds amazed.

“I needed it to be a secret for a long time,” I say. But now I don’t have to keep it to myself.

I take her hand. “I had a plaque made too,” I add. I take her to the bench so she can read it. This is the real Herculean task—fighting off the waterworks. A whisper is all I can manage as I gesture to the plaque. “They’re my last words to him.”

She covers her mouth, tears streaking down her face as she gazes at the silver metal and the four words etched onto them.

I love you too.

* * *

We sit and talk and reminisce—about the places we liked to go with him, the way he’d laugh, and the things he’d said—as the afternoon wanes. It’s time to leave, and I walk her across the park to Fifth Avenue, stopping when we reach the museum.

“Mom,” I say, as cars and cabs and buses trudge down the avenue. “If you really mean your counteroffer, I have to take it to Geeta. But if you made it to spend more time with me, then I’d like to make you a counter-proposal.”

That seems to surprise her. “Oh. Okay. Sure.”

I’ve caught her off-guard, perhaps for the first time. I think she’ll admire that about me. I hope she’ll like my idea. “I could really use a mentor. Maybe a strong, passionate woman who’s dealt with all sorts of challenges and opportunities in business.” She smiles, unbidden, as I say more: “Do you happen to know anyone?”

She taps her chin, playful in a way she rarely is. “I believe I do.”

“Then maybe this mentor and I could get together and talk shop every week. Say, at the Neon Diner?”

“Consider it scheduled,” she says.

We say goodbye, and she heads to her side of the city, and I go to mine. But we’re not so far apart anymore.

49

SPEAKING OF BOSSY

Layla

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