Chapter 19
“I’m not going to be very good company,” Victoria said as she let Javiar into her condo.
He’d texted earlier, asking to stop by for the evening. She’d agreed because she was dealing with a lot of unresolved emotions,
and he would be a nice distraction. Sex would be better, but Javiar seemed determined to hold out on her so she didn’t have
a lot of hope that she would get laid anytime soon.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, walking in and lightly kissing her cheek before setting down a large shopping bag.
“My mother and writer’s block.”
His dark eyes immediately lit up. “You’re a writer? You never said. What are you writing? A novel? A screenplay?”
She held in a groan. Blurting out something she generally kept quiet was proof that she wasn’t right in the head. Come to
think of it, lately she’d been blabbing the fact to practically everyone she met. A testament to being really messed up emotionally
and possibly in other ways she didn’t want to define, she thought grimly.
“It’s a screenplay, and no, you can’t read it. Right now I’m convinced it totally sucks. I want to be wrong about that, but
I don’t think I am. I’ve been avoiding my critique group, which is stupid because they can help. Worse, Ella, the leader of
the group, said if I don’t show up at the next session I’m out.”
He studied her for a long time. “You don’t want to be kicked out, so you have to write or edit or whatever it is you need to be doing. But all the emotional stuff from your mom is getting in the way. Makes sense.”
She glared at him. “Oh my God! You’re insightful. That isn’t anything I like in a man.”
He flashed her a sexy smile. “Most women like that I’m insightful. It makes them think I’m sensitive and possibly brooding.”
“You’re a sales guy. Sales guys don’t brood.”
“True, but come on, with my good looks I can play the part.”
Despite all the roiling emotions, she laughed. “All right, you can stay, but no more insights.” She pointed at the bag. “What
did you bring me?”
He pulled out a box and showed her the front of it.
“Lego?” she asked, her voice doubtful. “You want us to play with Lego toys?”
“We’re going to build something. You’ll like it.”
She studied the color pictures of a beetle and a butterfly. They were really beautiful, and when she was a kid, she and her
dad had often built things, but wasn’t it a little juvenile now?
He walked over to the kitchen table and opened the box. “Unless you think you can’t keep up.”
“Really? You’re trying to challenge me into participating?” But as she spoke she took a seat and stared at all the pieces.
The colors were iridescent and appealing. “Okay, you win. There’s a bottle of white wine in the refrigerator. Why don’t you
go get it for us?”
She pulled out the instructions, setting the one for the beetle on his side of the table and studying hers. There were a lot
of steps, as per usual, but the instructions were clear, and she found herself actually kind of excited to get started.
Javiar returned to the table and set down a glass of wine for each of them.
“How are you feeling? You must be close to getting your walking cast.”
“You’d think, but my stupid orthopedist says I can’t be trusted to follow instructions, and he’s making me wait a little longer.
Idiot man.”
“Yet you like him. I can hear it in your voice.”
“He knows me, which is the problem. In the past, I’ve been too eager to get back to doing stuff, so he’s careful.”
“Basically it’s your own fault.”
She grinned. “It is, and I have to live with that.” She started sorting pieces. “How do you have time to hang out with me?
Shouldn’t you be out selling multi-million-dollar listings?”
“I try to keep a couple of evenings free every week. I need a personal life. Balance is healthy.”
She eyed him. “I’m not part of your personal life. I told you—no relationships. Only sex.”
“And Lego,” he teased.
“Fine. And Lego.”
“How are you doing otherwise?” he asked. “You know, with the adoption thing.”
She figured Shannon would have told him about her lunch with Ava and the whole you-were-the-chosen-one thing, not to mention
the fact that she and Shannon seemed to be becoming friends.
“I’m fine with it.” She paused. “Mostly. I’m confused about my mother. I was so hurt and angry that she kept a memory box
for another kid. It makes me feel I don’t matter.”
“Your parents love you.”
She looked at him. “You have no possible way of knowing that.”
“You’re too strong not to have been loved. Unloved people don’t have giving hearts.”
“My heart’s not giving. Don’t say that it is. I’m repressed and wary.” She thought about what Shannon had said before. That she was an emotional coward who pretended to be independent when she really wanted connection. “It’s possible I have issues.”
“Maybe, but you do love. People have to learn how. It’s not always instinctive. If you know how to love, you were probably
loved yourself.”
“Yes, I love, but I don’t always like. I want things to be simple and predictable, and they’re not. Like I said before, I
was so angry at my mom for that stupid memory box. And the name thing.” She looked at him. “Do you know about that?”
He nodded. “They were going to call Shannon Victoria. It’s a family name.”
“When you say it like that, it doesn’t feel so awful, but when I first found out, it was a slap. Like they couldn’t be bothered
to change anything. I was a placeholder baby.”
“But you’re not.”
“I guess.” She put the first pieces together. “When my mom talks about what happened with Cindy, I feel so bad for her. She
had all those months of waiting and planning and dreaming about what it would be like when she finally got to hold her baby.
She totally took care of Cindy, acting as part older sister, part mom.” She paused and looked at him. “Does it bother you
to hear this? Do you feel you have to defend Cindy? She’s going to be your stepmom.”
“I’m good,” he told her. “Cindy’s great, and whatever she did at eighteen is fine with me. She was in a tough position.”
“She was. Scared and pregnant and sort of alone. My mom would have been so kind to her, which would have been great until
the doubts started. Then what was she supposed to do? She had an impossible decision to make. She could give up her child,
which she didn’t want to do, and get the future she’d been dreaming about, or she could do what I assume she considered the
selfish thing and keep her baby. Only the price of that was hurting Ava and walking away from college and all her plans.”
“What would you have done?” he asked.
“Not get pregnant.” She held up a hand. “I know, I know. That’s judgy.
I’m sure a lot of teens think it won’t happen to them, but we all took sex ed.
The day I turned sixteen I told my mother I wanted to go on birth control.
” She smiled. “I have to give her credit. She only flinched a little. Two days later I was at the gynecologist.”
Her smile faded. “It’s like I have good- and bad-mom stories. Sometimes she’s totally there, and sometimes it’s like we constantly
go at each other.”
“Isn’t that normal?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Except I usually feel like there’s something between us. A wall, maybe. My theory is we missed that
window of emotional bonding when I was a newborn. She was mourning Shannon, and someone shoved me in her arms. I wasn’t what
she wanted. Eventually she warmed up, but by then the window had closed. So we are where we are.”
“Or you could just be different people who have clashing personalities. Not every reason has to be dramatic and unsolvable.”
She stared at him, not sure if she should laugh or sock him in the arm. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Why not? You’re saying the reason you and your mom don’t get along is some biological misstep. According to that theory,
the problem can’t be fixed. Which means not only is it never your fault, there’s no point in trying. So while it sucks to
be your mom, who is eternally in the wrong, you get to be righteous and not have to do anything about the problem.”
Had he been taking lessons from Shannon on ways to make her feel bad about herself?
“You don’t get to say that,” she told him, going for indignant but having a bad feeling that her voice came out kind of whiny
and hurt instead.
“Because you said so?” His tone was gentle.
“I’m not being harsh. I’m just pointing out that what happened all those years ago obviously had an impact on you.
I get that. But the rest of it is just a story you tell yourself.
Did you and Ava bond? I have no idea, but more importantly, you don’t know either.
Maybe she did everything right. Maybe she didn’t.
Isn’t the more important question what you’ve been believing all this time and how it’s affecting you now?
You’ll never know for sure what happened, but you can know what you’re willing to do next.
From this second for the rest of your life, you can take control.
If you want a different relationship, then have one.
If you don’t, keep doing and thinking what you’re doing and thinking now. ”
She stared at him. “You’ve taken a bunch of classes on selling, haven’t you? You’ve gone to those weird seminars where everyone
has to scream out that they’re the greatest and then walk on coals.”
He grinned at her. “I’ve never walked on coals.”
“But you have gone to sales seminars.”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “I’m good at what I do, but I want to be better. What I do matters to me. It’s the same as the reason
you belong to a screenwriting critique group. You’re not there to socialize. You want to learn and make your work the best
it can be.”
She looked at him. “Before, when you pretended not to know about my writing, that was bullshit, right? Shannon had already
told you.”
His smile was only a little smug. “She had.”
Figures. “I asked her to keep that private.”