Pity Please (Pity #7)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

ALLIE

“You look rough,” I tell my mom, while staring at her from across the breakfast table. Her complexion has a greyish pallor, and her hair is practically standing on end. Her blue eyes are hooded in a way that suggests she barely slept.

“I feel rough,” she grumbles into her ancient coffee mug—the one we bought at Disneyland when I was six. Mickey Mouse has lost all color from a thousand trips through the dishwasher and now looks more like a ghost than a beloved childhood icon.

Long moments pass and when it doesn’t appear she’s going to elaborate, I ask, “Nightmares? Hot flashes? Worrying about organizing this year’s Christmas Bazaar at the church?”

While the source of her angst could easily be any of those things, it could also be rooted in global warming, the uptick in earthquakes across the planet, or the current hurricane season—the one that doesn’t affect us in the slightest, living in Wisconsin as we do.

Of course, her heirloom tomatoes might also be the culprit.

They didn’t ripen before the weather started to turn cold and she’s taking it as a slight of the highest order.

My mother glares at me like I just mowed down her hydrangea bushes—a crime I accidentally committed in the eighth grade. It doesn’t matter that they grew bigger and stronger the next year, I have never been forgiven.

Her gaze suddenly softens in that way that makes me feel like an orphaned Victorian child in line for a crust of bread to stave off my imminent demise. “I’m worried about you,” she says. “I’m afraid you’ll never find someone to share your life with.”

Super, we’re back to my mother’s favorite subject—my lack of a love life. “I thought I had found someone when I married Brett.”

“Brett!” she hisses like I pledged my undying love to Satan himself, not that that wouldn’t be an accurate description. “What a sorry excuse for a human being. What a waste of oxygen …”

It’s not that I don’t agree with her, but I’ve finally reached the point where I’m tired of complaining about things I can’t change. After three miscarriages, my husband left me in search of a more reliable incubator to carry on his line.

Interrupting my mom’s rant, I tell her, “Yes, but karma came calling for Brett. Think of the fun we’ll have stalking his social media in the coming years.”

She doesn’t look convinced. “That man should be tarred and feathered before being hung.” She embellishes this to include, “Just enough to break his neck, not kill him. Then he should be cut down before being drawn and quartered.”

My mother’s ability to conjure a horrible end for my ex has greatly increased since she binge-watched Game of Thrones over the summer.

Before she can add beheading and dangling his amputated body parts on pikes to feed the vultures, I remind her, “His new wife recently gave birth to quadruplets.” Which, in my book, is better revenge than any archaic torture.

I watch as her eyes narrow deviously, and her head bobs up and down.

“That is pretty satisfying.” A slow but sure smirk starts to form as she appears to be mentally itemizing the coming trials and tribulations in store for Brett and the woman he cheated on me with.

“Four screaming infants, four dirty butts to clean, four babies waking up at various times in the night to eat, four middle schoolers, four college tuitions …” The whole time she’s reciting, she smiles like she just won a billion dollars in the lottery.

“Feeling better?” I needlessly inquire.

Her shoulders square and her neck lengthens considerably until she looks like a superhero about to take flight.

“I really am.” But instead of taking time to enjoy Brett’s new predicament—or “blessings,” as his mother is calling them on her Facebook page—my mom can’t help herself from wondering, “But what about you?”

“What about me, Mom? I’m fine. I have a good job at the bakery, and I’m making enough money to survive. I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay,” she challenges. “You’re still sleeping in your childhood bedroom, and now that Lorelai lives in Chicago, you barely even socialize.”

I’m not about to confess to how much I miss my childhood bestie, or my mom will push me to follow her to the Windy City.

After living with Brett in Madison for several years, I’m done with big cities.

For now, there’s nothing quite like my hometown to soothe the angst—that I possess but will never confess to—about my coming years.

“I’m doing great, Mom. I promise I won’t live with you forever, and I’ll make plans with Faith soon.

” Faith is my boss and owner of Rosemary’s Bakery where I work.

She’s also married to a movie star—I can’t make this stuff up.

If that isn’t amazing enough, she’s mother to the most adorable twin girls I’ve ever met.

Which, come to think of it, might be why I don’t see her outside of work.

I would give my left foot to have children like hers, and I’m still mourning my ability to do so.

“Faith has a life,” my mother reminds me. “What you need is to meet some single women in the same predicament you are, so you can go out and socialize.” The emphasis on the last word translates into “stalking unsuspecting prey.”

While I don’t see being single as a predicament, there’s no use continuing to beat that drum with my mother.

She’s made it clear she can’t hear it. “Wouldn’t single women be competition for any single men I might meet?

” I ask. I have no intention of going out of my way to meet any men—let alone unattached ones—but again, I know sharing that sentiment won’t do me any good.

My mom’s eyes bug out like I’ve finally made a decent point. “You know what? You’re right!” That confession will probably cost her another three nights of sleep. “You are better off with your married friends. Surely, their husbands know some men they can set you up with.”

“Mom …” I push away the plate of half-eaten scrambled eggs which no longer holds any appeal for me.

“Please leave me alone. Please. I cannot handle your pity when the truth is that I’m better off without Brett.

” It feels necessary to add, “How horrible would it be if I had found out who he really was after having a family with him?”

She ponders my question intently, but just when I think she might finally agree with me, she suggests, “He might have been a loyal and loving husband and father had you not lost those babies.”

I know my mom isn’t trying to hurt me. I know she loves me. Yet I can’t help but feel she’s blaming me. “I didn’t lose them on purpose, Mom. It just happened.” As much as I try to stop them, my eyes begin to water with unshed tears.

My mother jumps up from her chair and hurries across the table to my side. Enveloping me in her ancient chenille robe, she holds me tight and sobs right along with me. “Allie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you pain. I just … I just …”

Couldn’t help yourself? Felt the need to twist the dagger still firmly embedded in my heart? “I know you want the best for me, Mom. But you have to let me live my own life. You got to live yours and now it’s my turn.” I wipe my runny nose on her shoulder in payment for making me cry.

Instead of agreeing that I should be the captain of my own ship, my mother laments, “I always thought your life would turn out like one of those delightful romcoms from the nineteen nineties. You know, single girl meets the love of her life in a quirky, yet totally believable way …”

I’m not sure which movie she’s thinking of as I’ve grown up watching them all with her. On repeat.

“Which Julia Roberts character did you envision me being? If it’s Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman, I’ll have to move to LA and become a sex worker first.” My mom pushes out of my arms and stares at me in horror.

Instead of letting the subject drop, I feel a burst of indignant steam start to build.

“If you want me to be like Anna Scott in Knotting Hill, I’ll also have to move to LA, but this time I’ll have to figure out how to become a movie star.

Then I’ll need to find an abusive boyfriend so I can cheat on him with a bookstore owner in London.

” How does she find these to be believable scenarios?

Hurt tinges her voice as she responds, “What about Jules Potter in My Best Friend’s Wedding?”

“She didn’t even wind up with the guy!” I shout.

“How about the Runaway Bride?” This woman is relentless.

“I would have to get engaged three times so I could dump three men before my true love showed up to write an article about my chaotic life,” I remind her.

My mom’s face screws up in an agonizing expression like she’s painfully wracking her brain. “Maybe not a Julia Roberts movie then. What about Sandra Bullock? Her romcoms were more girl-next-door, which is exactly what you are.”

Raising my hand into the air, I start ticking off fingers.

“While You Were Sleeping would involve nearly killing someone in a train accident so I could lie to the victim’s family and fall for his brother.

In Miss Congeniality, I’d have to be an FBI agent masquerading as Miss New Jersey.

Hope Floats would get me that husband and child you so badly want me to have but said husband would have to dump me on national television before running off with my best friend. Do you want me to go on?” I demand.

Confusion riddles my mom’s features resulting in my feeling an unexpected wave of compassion for her. “I don’t want any of that for you. I just want you to have a beautiful and happy ending to your story.”

“My story is a long way from being over, Mom.” I’m not going to tell her that my vision of the future is nothing like what she’s hoping for.

As in, I’m pretty sure I’ll never let myself be vulnerable enough to give love a second chance.

I know for certain I will never have my own children.

Three lost pregnancies are enough for me to take the hint.

My mother inhales deeply before telling me, “I’m not good at leaving things in the hands of fate.”

“No, you’re not. You’re the worst control freak I know, but that doesn’t mean you’ve been appointed God and get to make all the decisions for my life.”

“I don’t want to make all the decisions. I just want you to start living again!”

“I’m enough on my own, Mom. I don’t have to be a wife to have value.” I can tell I’ve hurt her feelings again, but what else can I do? It’s like we’re two different species with zero understanding of how the other works.

With hands on hips, she demands, “What’s your five-year plan?”

“To still be breathing,” I tell her honestly.

“Do you ever want to get back into publishing?”

I offer a brief shrug. “Can’t say.”

“Do you plan on working at Rosemary’s for the rest of your life?”

“Would there be anything wrong with that? Would you not be able to love me anymore if I don’t get the Hollywood ending you’ve always imagined for me?”

My mom’s face turns bright red, which is a sure indicator she’s about to lose her cool. But instead of screaming at me, she merely turns around and strides out of the dining room like she’s on her way to execute a military coup. Napoleon had nothing on this woman.

I take her reaction to my question to mean that her love is dependent on my capitulation to her vision. Well, too freaking bad, Margaret. I’m not going to try to make you happy when I don’t even know what will make me happy.

My phone pings before I can stand up and clear the remnants of my uneaten breakfast. Picking it up, I click on the message notification and read a text from Lorelai.

Lorelai

Noah is driving me crazy! I’ve been asking him to put my navy-blue cashmere sweater in the mail for a week, and he hasn’t done it. Would you mind going over to my parents’ house and sending it? The key is under the mat.

My nervous system responds by causing me to break out into a cold sweat. I do not want to see Noah Riley. To be honest, I hate that he’s moved back to Elk Lake. There is no place in my life for my childhood crush. He’s part of my past and I will not go out of my way to run into him again.

Having said that, Lorelai is my best friend, and she never asks for anything. Shoot! I’m going to have to do it. I’ll just have to make sure to go when Noah isn’t there.