Chapter 2
I was raised to be soft, with an elegant demeanor. Don’t raise your voice, Audrey. Represent the Carrington family. Marry a family-approved man from a respectable family. Never get involved in drama, online feuds, or participate in any activities that sully our name. We are Carringtons. Respect us.
I’m not valuable to my family unless I add to their connections or wealth.
“We participate in this charity for you, Audrey Elizabeth,” my mother says through the phone, her voice somehow loud and soft at the same time.
Her nasally whisper gives me an immediate headache with childhood flashbacks of her holding her wine glass, most likely filled well past halfway with an aged Bordeaux that cost hundreds.
Glancing at the clock, I see that it’s just past four.
Knowing my mother, this is already her second glass.
Hell, it might be her second bottle. The subtle dig at their involvement in a local charity that provides assistance to pet owners who are financially struggling?
It’s not the first time my mother has attempted to demean me this way, and it certainly won’t be the last. Heaven forbid they donate their money to a good cause.
My family is a mixture of old and new money.
My great-great grandfather came to Colorado during the gold rush, but he was already considerably wealthy courtesy of hitting it big in Texas when he tapped into oil.
My parents have no problem reminding me of the legacy our family has built in Colorado, and how important it is to keep up appearances within our snobby little community of who’s who in the area.
Barf.
There was a time when I envisioned being the prim little princess my parents wanted.
Following in the footsteps of my older brother and sister in how they always seemed to please our parents.
My brother has been molded into a fine successor for my dad at REC.
Real Estate Consultants is the company my father and grandfather founded in the seventies, and it’s grown faster than anyone could have predicted.
My brother, Preston, has known since he was a kid that he’d take over REC, regardless of whether or not he was the most qualified for the job.
Probably why he has never shown any ambition, choosing instead to spend time partying and sleeping with anyone he comes across — both male and female.
Our parents turn a blind eye to his shenanigans, only getting involved when his actions show up on the news or gossip websites.
My sister, Paige, also has no professional goals or ambitions.
If this were one hundred years ago, she’d have happily attended a finishing school, ready to get married to any rich man she could find, and have a kid or two.
Actually, there’s hardly any difference to her life now.
Married to an assistant district attorney for the county, she has one child, a snobbish and entitled brat named Daughton.
I don’t enjoy spending time with him. Even at the ripe age of nine, he’s mastered a sneer as he judges me for a variety of reasons.
I rarely see him, as a nanny spends the most time with him.
Paige lunches with her equally as stuck-up friends often, then comes home to get railed by the man in charge of their landscaping.
Her husband routinely stays late at work, and has bagged many interns for some extracurricular activities.
It boggles my mind how my parents find these behaviors acceptable. Yet somehow, me being a veterinarian is a punishable offense. Heaven forbid a child of Charles and Emmanuelle Carrington have a job. Even worse: it’s a job that doesn’t pay that well, and I work with animals. Gasp.
Pets were a no-go my entire life. From as early as I can remember, I’ve wanted any kind of animal.
I’d have been happy with fish, hamsters, or even a rat.
My mother could never hide her disgust when faced with a critter, regularly referring to it by its domesticated name.
“Hello, dog. Oh, there is that cat.” Honestly, that was my first sign that my mother lacked the necessary maternal instincts to parent well.
My parents also despise where I live. I had the audacity to leave our wealthy neighborhood of Cherry Creek Hills, the community I’d been raised in, and live in a small townhouse on the southwest side of Denver, in the Englewood suburb.
How can they keep me under their thumb if I’m not under constant surveillance by them and their neighbors?
Then I did the thing that basically put a nail in the metaphorical coffin: I adopted a dog. A handicapped dog, no less.
I fell in love with Flash the moment a passerby brought her to me after seeing her get hit by a car.
The accident caused damage to Flash’s spinal cord, paralyzing her from her belly to her hind legs.
Corgis are known to have temperamental personalities, disliking other animals, and being somewhat difficult to have, and Flash was no different.
Once I’d trained her in a specialized wheelchair, she happily zoomed all over my home, but she has never been social and friendly to anyone.
She despises my parents, and the feelings are quite mutual.
Needless to say, my relationship has mostly stayed tentative with my parents.
They’ve made it clear they expect me to participate in a variety of functions to keep up appearances, and in appreciation for my cooperation, they donate to my favorite charity.
It raises tons of money each year, benefiting the Humane Society, a handful of trap and release programs, quarterly spay and neuter clinics, and providing free medical care to those who can’t afford it for their pets.
I absolutely love the program, but I don’t care for the man who started it.
Jameson Wahlberg is the golden boy of Denver.
The starting quarterback for the NFL’s Colorado Coyotes.
He’s perfect and he knows it. The only reason I know he owns the LLC that the charity is under is because I saw an interview with him where he referenced the name, almost in an afterthought.
I did a little digging into the LLC, finding a connection to his agent.
Since I’ve seen both of them at a couple of adoption events in the city, I figured he was the proprietary owner. Do I absolutely know this? No.
But of course he is. Perfect golden boy with his good looks and a ridiculously chiseled body.
Dark brown hair that always seems deliciously unkempt, like someone had their hands gripping it and held on for dear life.
It’s his blue eyes that really unnerve me, though.
I feel like I wouldn’t be able to look him in the eyes without feeling he’s seeing straight into my soul.
Knowing me, I’d have one conversation with him, scaring him half to death with my awkwardness and discomfort.
It’s a tale as old as time: brilliant Audrey Carrington puts her foot in her mouth yet again, scaring off potential love interests.
Or friends. Frankly, my inner circle is about two feet in diameter.
“Paige said Dexter is prepared to take off work for the evening to show family support. You will be on your best behavior, Audrey. I will accept nothing less.”
“You act like I routinely get on the table and take off my shirt,” I remark dryly.
My mother gasps audibly, and I can imagine her hand resting on her sternum in faux shock.
She’s an excellent actress, a proper woman of money and good standing who can deliver remarkable empathy and caring, then turn around and rip someone to shreds.
It’s disgusting to watch, and I’m so glad I’m nothing like her.
“Audrey, I do not appreciate your jokes.”
“Then don’t call me.” Even I’m surprised at my audacity, realizing an internal thought became verbal, courtesy of an intrusive thought winning.
“Audrey Elizabeth, I did not raise you to speak so abruptly to me,” she chides.
“You didn’t raise me. The nannies did.”
She scoffs. “As if it matters. You were taught not to be so disrespectful.”
I don’t answer. She is correct. It was drilled into my head from as early as I can remember that I was not to backtalk to my parents, or any adults in general.
“Wear one of your black dresses. They’re slimming.”
“Mom.”
“What?” she says breezily. “We don’t want a repeat after that hospital gala from a few years ago.”
I don’t know how it became my fault that she forced me into a too-small dress, and when I bent over to pick up a napkin I’d dropped after getting an amaretto sour from the bar, the dress ripped right down the seam from mid-back to mid-thigh.
It was horrid, and I refused to speak to my mother for six months.
I’m a plus-size woman. Not curvy. Not voluptuous.
I’m big. Typically around a size eighteen or twenty.
No matter how much I diet, or what exercise fad I try out, I can’t seem to lose the weight.
Getting under two hundred pounds has been a challenge, and I’ve been flirting with that number for a few months.
I’m on a plateau I’d love to jump off, but it’s been much more difficult than I thought possible.
Everyone in my family is skin and bones except for me.
I take after my dad’s family, where all of my aunts have struggled with their weight.
It never really bothered me until I entered veterinarian school, and I had my first real crush on a man.
I was a late bloomer, and didn’t have my first kiss until I was in college.
But meeting Sean was the first time I truly saw a man.
Where I could barely focus because I daydreamed about him.
At first, I thought Sean returned my feelings.
Until I heard him ragging on me behind my back one afternoon.
We’d been studying together for weeks, and he admitted to his friends that he was only using me to get ahead with our classes.
He was truly befuddled when I refused to talk to him after that, only confronting him when he jokingly said he’d fail the next test if I didn’t help him study.
He did fail. He failed out of the program completely.
And I didn’t feel even a moment of regret.
Maybe that’s the first time I truly stood up for myself. A turning point in my life, when I realized the only person who can bring me happiness is me.
“I’m sending over a variety of dresses for you to try on. You will not show up in something else.”
“I will absolutely show up in something else if you send all of the wrong sizes again.”
“Audrey,” my mother warns.
“Mother,” I reply, my voice replicating hers. “You can’t send me a size fourteen dress and expect it to work. All the Spanx in the world won’t even help that.”
“The event isn’t for three weeks, Audrey. You can lose at least twenty pounds by then. Write yourself an Ozempic prescription.”
“Wow,” I breathe, only slightly surprised at how easily my mother expects me to commit fraud. “I’m sure it’ll be easy to explain to my pharmacy why my name is both the issuing doctor and the patient, not to mention the fact that veterinarians don’t prescribe weight loss medications, Mother.”
She tsks, effectively ignoring everything I’ve said. “You need to make better choices. How do you expect to ever find a husband in your current situation?”
And with that, I’m done. “I have to go, Mother. I have a patient.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“It’s an emergency case,” I lie, before ending the call.
Some might think it’s rude to essentially hang up on my mother, but she’s been doing it to me for years.
I began doing the same a few years ago, and when she never commented on it, I continued.
While a little juvenile, I don’t care. I’m giving her the energy she gives to me. It’s only fair.
For just a minute, I let myself dream about moving away from Denver.
From the only city I’ve ever known. Moving somewhere I’m not a Carrington.
Where I’m Audrey, or Doctor Audrey. A place I’m valued for me, and not a placeholder for someone my parents want to add to their empire when they marry me off.
I fantasize about meeting someone who actually likes me, and isn’t there because he is forced to be.
A man who sees my value, likes me with all of my quirks, and doesn’t let my parents steamroll over him.
A man who won’t expect me to turn a blind eye to his lifestyle like my sister and her husband, or one who ignores me for who I am.
I’m so tired of being ignored, and expected to be less. Expected to be invisible.
As my best friend Chelsea always tells me: I’m a fucking delight, and the right man will come along and see all of my quirks as strengths. Easy coming from my office manager, as she’s a petite beauty with all-American good looks of blonde hair and bright blue eyes. But she’s right.
The right man will come along, and accept me for me.
A brilliant veterinarian with zero game, somewhat lacking social skills, and borderline crippling anxiety.
And also autism.