Page 23 of Eligible Best Friend

Ford produces a diaper bag from behind the couch. “He cut his nap an hour short, so he’s been kind of cranky.”

“An hour?” Cass lets out a long-suffering sigh. “It’s that thing you use. It’s not his crib.”

“I tried laying him down with me, but he was just distracted.”

“I guess he’ll have to go to bed early tonight. I hope he doesn’t also wake up early since his sleep schedule’s thrown off.”

She might just be voicing her concerns, but her tone makes it clear that it’ll be all Ford’s fault.

My phone chooses that moment to start buzzing. Vibrate is not silent and it echoes between the three of us. Four, if I count Jayden, but he’s more interested in the shoes Cass is trying to stuff on his feet.

I’m tempted to ignore it, but I don’t get many calls and my curiosity wins. My parents or Samuel?

My mom. “Excuse me.”

I give Cass a quick smile, but she eyes me like I’ve failed some unknown test she was conducting.

I shoot an apologetic look at Ford. He shakes his head like it’s no problem, but his shoulders hang like he knows he’s failed his own test. He should also know that it wouldn’t matter. I’m sure seeing me amped up Cass’s Ford-criticism factor.

Ducking into the hallway, I answer. “Hello?”

“Aurelia. Hi.” Mom’s businesslike tone drifts over the line. I imagine her dressed much like Cass, only with a properly mature tucked-in blouse and her highlighted walnut hair in a French twist. “Listen, your father and I are going to be in North Dakota this weekend.”

“What?” They haven’t been here since Grandma died. Mrs. Rosenthal evicted her deadbeat tenant when she heard I needed a place to stay. I’d have been on my own if I had needed movers too. It was my parents’ passive-aggressive way of teaching me a lesson.

It’s only thanks to Mrs. Rosenthal and her nose for good deals that I even have some furniture.

“Yes, dear. We haven’t been out there to see you yet and I have a break in my campaign schedule.” She means she made a break in her campaign schedule. Mom’s job as a California state senator is her identity. Campaigning is critical and her priority every election season. There’s no such thing as a “break” in September. Which means I won’t like the reason for the visit. “Samuel tells me you’re seeing someone.”

There it is.

“Yes.” I don’t give her more. She talks to him more than she talks to me. I know they’ve worked together and she’s his mentor. It didn’t bother me as much when I was with Samuel, but the resentment is building more each day I’m gone.

Mom and I don’t have much in common. I went to school in a field she loved. At the time, I thought it was because my life was so steeped in politics, I must be destined for it. But the longer I’m in Fargo. The more times I have lemonade on Mrs. Rosenthal’s back porch, with the smell of citronella in the air, and evade her nosy questions about the patients I deal with. The more I realize that I must have wanted a link to Mom. Now that I’m not following in her footsteps, what else do we have to talk about?

“Is he the man you’ve been working with?” Mom’s voice invades my swell of disappointment.

“I’m sure whatever Samuel told you is accurate.”

“Aurelia, don’t be like that.”

How often have I heard that from her? Whenever I don’t act like her, she says it. Yet I recite my standard response. “Like what, Mom?”

“Immature. You’re twenty-five. Samuel is a nice young man with a good head on his shoulders. I wish you knew what you walked away from.”

“He’s a cheater.”

“He’s human and he loves you.”

Thank God I have a lie to fall back on. “I’m with Ford now.”

“A man that took advantage of a younger and inexperienced partner.”

“He’s a nice young man with a good head on his shoulders.” Yes, that was immature. But I don’t have many tools to deal with my parents, especially Mom. It’s either obedient acquiescence or petty remarks.

Mom’s sigh is so familiar it propels me back to my teenage years. Hell, I don’t even have to go back that far. She made the same noise when I told her I was leaving both her campaign team and San Francisco. Right before she said, Aurelia, don’t be like that. “Your father and I would like to meet him. We’re your parents. We worry.”

Thirsty for more signs that Mom cares about me and not just me and Samuel, I can’t refuse her outright. “He works Saturday.” I hope she doesn’t catch that I only said he.

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