Chapter 16
madison
. . .
May
For over a month, we attended therapy together.
If anyone said breakthroughs couldn’t come through tears, they weren’t ready to shed any.
I wasn’t mad anymore. Yet, people still avoided my gaze and remained silent.
Except for Omari. He was flirty and chatty when we met at the glassblowing studio he’d rented. But he just wanted ass.
Other people didn’t know how to communicate with someone sad. Depressed. Blue. Grieving. And they didn’t know how to talk to someone angry because then they took it personally. I guess in my situation, to avoid hurt feelings, they avoided me.
Meanwhile, I wanted to avoid the warm sun pre-ten a.m., but I needed to finish the latest batch of Philippe vases.
Over five weeks, Omari had showered me with invoices for his clients and spreadsheets, complete with receipts, business transactions, and enough accounting detail to make an IRS auditor sing in the rain.
He clearly proved that he hadn’t jacked up the price to compete with an original, stolen Philippe.
I wasn’t born yesterday. I wanted to ascertain if he had peddled reproductions as counterfeit art.
I’d accounted for every vase I’d created.
Omari’s uppity clientele could strut around pretending to live the high life.
At first, I didn’t get it. But hell, come to think of it.
They were like me. The old me. They could invite people over and show them their pretentious Philippes.
Perhaps they mixed the fake art in with a Rembrandt or the teensiest authentic Monet.
Yep, I knew who they were. The same people who bought Hermès knockoffs on the street, then layered them with discount, last-season, outlet-store designer pieces, hoping that a little logo stacking screamed, I’m rich!
And now, I was the quiet artisan in the background, turning raw, furious glass into polished lies while enabling addictions.
I chuckled into my morning mug of tea. Chamomile.
I had found that caffeine and unresolved anger issues didn’t bode well.
But I needed to take a quick drive-thru shower, since I had to rush to the studio Omari rented.
It was still all a nightmare to me, that I had to be upright before eight a.m. because Glass & Sass hosted classes in the afternoon and evenings.
As I stepped into my bedroom, my phone chimed with a new text. Washington. We’d already done the have-a-good-day emoji thing.
WASHINGTON: Breakfast this morning? Lunch? Dinner? I’m open. Got a red-eye tonight, so yep. Open.
ME: Do tell?
WASHINGTON: the Dodgers game is in NY. Gotta support my bro and get me some pizza. So breakfast?
Annoyed that he’d forgotten a very important detail, I growled under my breath.
ME: Boy, bye . Enjoy your cardboard NY style pizza. Now if you said Chicago deep dish, you could bring me back a slice. Besides, we did lunch together yesterday.
Right after therapy. I’d set boundaries to prevent myself from suggesting we get a hotel room. Hell, a motel. Even the Quarter had a Holiday Inn.
I placed the phone on my dresser and rummaged through my closet for sweats. Ugh, the temperature would reach eighty today. I didn’t wanna dress down … and I didn’t want to miss Washington’s next text, because the iPhone was already thinking. Seconds later, another message came through.
WASHINGTON: But we didn’t see each other today. And I have a birthday gift for you.
A smile overcame me with enough cheesiness to satisfy an entire elementary school’s pizza party. He remembered.
ME: I bet.
WASHINGTON: My ducktail is .0000001 inch long. You agreed to a private date.
I laughed so loud that my sister rushed into the room, dressed in khakis and an icky polo with her company’s logo. And her tennis shoes were NASA prototypes that never advanced beyond the test track. I cackled harder.
As if realizing she was now the subject of my elation, she dropped a hand to her hip and tilted her head. “You know what? I came to see if you’re dying. Because you laugh like a hyena after a pack of lions got to it.”
“Thank you for the birthday funnies.” I giggled again, not minding my sister shading me. I pointed my finger with the precision of a fashion sniper. “Those shoes are so thick you could hide all your cats underneath them.”
“What cats?”
“The dozen you will end up with if you keep walking around looking like you do.” I sipped my tea, my smile almost faltering as I remembered my own grumpy cat fiasco. Maybe I should avoid the cat jokes.
“Happy birthday, baby sister.” She sighed.
“Thanks.”
“I canceled geocaching with my friends tonight. Where are we going to dinner?”
I crossed my fingers at my side. “Mom handled those plans. A surprise, I guess. They should arrive by two. I’m supposed to pick them up at the airport, but if she complains about my Mustang.”
“Oh, my gosh! Your vase projects have done that well? You dumped the Daewoo?”
My eyebrows crinkled. Okay, too far. “No, I named my Daewoo Mustang.”
“Like the Ford?” She leaned against the doorframe, eyebrow raised.
“No, silly. Like a real, wild, majestic horse. A mustang.” I did my best impression of a David Attenborough nature documentary. “They’re free-spirited, gorgeous, powerful. So pretty.”
“Maddy,” she said, chortling, “your car wheezes when you speed. And I’m talking twenty-five miles per hour. The only thing wild about your Mustywoo is the mystery goop in the backseat.”
“Whatever!” I threw a pillow at her. She dodged, rushing out the door. Okay, those shoes served a purpose.
Lynetta popped her head back into the room. “Hey, so you let Mom make reservations for your birthday dinner. Are you sure … they’re gonna make it?”
I pulled my scarf off. My hair, in a smooth wrap, fell into position. I muttered the obvious. “They promised.”
“Well, we’re doing dinner then.”
Hours later, I had shaped glass out of fire and received one of the best gifts ever …
from Omari Riche. Good news. After he placed the newest vase I’d created into a kiln to help it cool, he’d shared about one of his connections, a man who owned a good chunk of HomeGoods.
He said after we finish with the Philippes, he’d introduce us.
So, I wouldn’t be creating reproductions, a.k.a.
, potentially illegal art anymore. I’d create authentic pieces again. My pieces.
Now, the music at a Spanish tapas restaurant, a little louder than I expected my mom would enjoy, pulsed in my chest. I put down my sangria and clutched the phone tight. My other index finger wedged into my opposite ear. “Mom, you’re still in Portugal …?”
“No, honey. Of course not. Portugal was last month.”
“But you’re not here … in New Orleans.” I glanced at the table setting for four, where I sat. Alone.
She sighed. “Snookums, we met a couple in Jordan. You know what they say about vacation cronies. You’ll meet no one like them. Anywho, they invited us to their ranch in Austin. See? We’re nearby.”
I fiddled with the Spanish baroque silverware. “Yeah, so close.”
“We intended to fly out yesterday, but your father is enjoying the most exclusive golf club.”
“Oh, so he’s more like Wash than he realized.” Except my ex-husband hadn’t missed my birthday.
“Madison, please don’t tell me what Lynn said was true. You’re not….”
I glanced around. “Not with him right now. I’m sitting at a restaurant … alone … waiting for you.”
“We are sorry. But he is a murderer, Snookums!”
“Mom, please lay off the poodle references. I’m not a child anymore. And we both know Washington landed that plane the best way he could after the engine malfunctioned. He loves Elijah as much as I do.”
“I suppose appearances aren’t everything. It didn’t appear that he loved Elijah as much as you when your eyes swelled shut from tears. We had to—”
“Cut short the vacation you’ve called life since I was sixteen?
” Wow. “Thanks for sitting with me at the hospital while we all grieved the best way we knew how. Wash had work. I held my child’s hand …
praying to God his fingers might move. You grieved in an airline magazine because you missed the cherry blossom season in Japan.
Even Momma Virginia had to rub your back and comfort you!
” Yep, my voice rose, not too disrespectfully since the beat dropped on another flamenco fusion song.
Chest heaving, I breathed out. I … I will respect my parents.
They were all I had left. Them and Lynn after I’d pushed all the Babineauxs away.
Mom stutter-cried in the background, and I spoke up. My I’m sorry I made you cry on my birthday came out as “Love you, Mom, bye.” This was the part where I should’ve hung up and prayed she enjoyed the rest of her evening at a ranch in Texas.
Texas.
Where was our Tex?
Wash’s Tex.
No. My Texas. My little brother. “Mom, wait,” I murmured as she bid me goodnight in Italian. So fancy, distant, polite. And funny … how all the crying had instantly stopped.
“Yes, honey?”
Blood pounded in my ears, and my throat ran dry.
I hated confrontation. Always had. And since my parents raised me to respect them no matter what, I expected to go into anaphylactic shock in this restaurant.
Not due to allergies, I’d already ordered the shellfish paella and pretty much every other seafood option.
No, my throat clammed up at one thought:
Insubordination to my parents.