Chapter 14 #2
“Randall.” Mom growls his name through gritted teeth.
He faces Mom and puts his empty hand on her knee. She scowls.
“Hillary, baby, it’s literally two blocks from our front door. We can install a security system and put the apps on our phones so we get notified when she so much as opens the door for a pizza delivery—”
Mom pounces. Of course, pizza is the devil. “That’s—”
“Or grocery delivery,” Dad quickly amends. “She’ll be close. She’ll have her space and we’ll have our space.” Dad gives her a suggestive look I swear I’ve never seen, and I quickly avert my eyes.
Eeew.
Instead, I look at the townhouse. The front door is recessed, so there’s a little slab that’s covered that could maybe fit a café table, two chairs, and a few plants, but that’s it in terms of space. Ivy climbs the brick bulkhead to the right of the front door.
I realize I’m smiling. It looks cozy.
I might live here. Just me.
My heart does a quick jumping jack. “C-can we go inside?”
And it’s like I’ve sprung Dad from jail. “Sure!”
He practically leaps from the driver’s seat. I’m out of the car and stepping up to the front door behind him as Mom drags her feet.
“No covered parking,” she mutters.
Dad unlocks the bolt and then the knob before swinging the door open for me. “Go check it out, Hats.”
I step into an open concept living space with blond pine floors, buttermilk walls, and a flight of stairs. There’s a fireplace and a little seating area by the front windows, and then the space transitions to a kitchen with a granite bar counter that looks like it could fit three bar stools.
My heart pounds as I round the bar counter and do a slow three-sixty.
The kitchen is about a third of the size of Mom’s, which means it’s more than enough kitchen for me.
On the other side of the kitchen, there’s room for a modest dining table that would overlook the sliding glass door and cute as hell back patio.
Oh my fucking God, there’s a cypress swing.
I race toward the glass door and slide it open. “A swing!”
I’ll admit I practically dive for it, grinning from ear to ear as I let it fly. Mom and Dad hover in the doorway.
“You didn’t even see the laundry room and the downstairs bath,” Dad says, chuckling.
I snort. “But there’s a swing! And a covered patio. And a little fire pit. And it’s fenced.” The back patio takes up most of the outdoor space, but there’s still a little L-shaped patch of grass and a crepe myrtle in the corner. “I could finally get another dog.”
Mom’s hand goes to her temple.
“Just a tiny one,” I add, because, of course, this yard could only serve a little dog. Like a Yorkie or a little Bijon.
My eyes roam over every inch of the outdoor space. The patio ceiling is vaulted, meeting the roofline of the second floor, and suspended from it is a cabana style ceiling fan with huge, leaf-like blades. Which means, even in the summer, sitting out here wouldn’t be terrible.
I picture the space dripping in fairy lights and a little outdoor furniture arrangement. Man, I’d practically live out here. I’m already picturing myself moved in.
Hopping off the swing, I grab my phone and start snapping pictures. I can’t wait to send them to Beck.
“Hats, come back in so we can look at the bedrooms upstairs.”
I could put some bird feeders out here and some low maintenance potted plants like petunias or impatiens. Pops of orange everywhere. It would be so freaking cool.
“Hattie?”
Giggling, I turn and take a picture of Mom and Dad still standing in the open sliding glass door. Mom is wearing a scowl.
“Sorry.” I tuck my phone in my pocket and follow them back inside.
Dad makes a point of showing me the half bathroom and laundry room.
Hurray.
Then he leads us upstairs, and, holy crap, it has three bedrooms. A primary en suite and two smaller rooms joined by a jack-and-jill bath.
Mom reels on Dad. “Three bedrooms, Randall? Seriously?!” she hisses. “What is she going to do with three bedrooms?”
Dad throws up his hands. “Honey, think about the location. Think long term,” Dad says. “She could live here for the rest of her life. Free and clear.”
Since they’re talking about me like I’m not here, I’d rather not be here, so I walk back to the main bedroom and into the bathroom. I already want to climb into the big tub. Especially when I continue to hear them.
“What if she finds herself with child in a few years?” Dad asks. “What if her partner isn’t on board with that? At least she has room to raise a child here in a home that we’ve already paid for.”
“And you don’t think setting her up with a party pad isn’t going to fast track that situation?” Mom hisses. “She’s already got that farm hand.”
“She said he was a farmer, Hillary, not a farmhand,” Dad defends, and I want to hug him. “If he’s caring for his ailing father, I doubt he’d be a deadbeat dad if it came to that.”
This shuts mom up. For a few seconds anyway.
“Don’t forget. We’re right down the street. If she needs something, we could be here in under a minute.”
“How is she going to keep this place clean? Three bathrooms, Randall?”
Silence.
“We could always hire a service.”
Mom scoffs. “So she never learns to look after herself? Life skills, Randall. I still think we should explore a specialized residential—”
I don’t want to hear anymore, so I shut the bathroom door and indulge myself. Climbing into the tub, I take out my phone and text Beck.
Me: IF SLOB IS A 0 AND NEAT FREAK IS A 10, WHERE DO YOU FALL?
He might be back on the harvester, so I might not get a response until tonight, but it’s worth a shot.
Beck: I say I’m a solid 7. More neat than sloppy, but not perfect. Things are generally clean, but maybe not in their proper place.
I grin at my phone because this seems in character for him. His dirty truck that had “clean dirt.” His soft, worn, slightly wrinkled button down. The tidy, old-fashioned kitchen with the scarred and scuffed farm table.
Mom is a ten squared. And she expects me to be a ten too. Talk about stress.
But sharing space with a seven sounds pretty sweet.
Beck: What about you?
No point in lying.
Me: I’M A 3 ON A GOOD DAY.
Beck sends back a string of laughing emojis.
Again, I know he’s not laughing at me.
Beck: Describe a 3.
Me: Clothes hangers and dresser drawers are good in theory…
Another string of laughing emojis.
Me: I PICK UP ONE THING TO PUT AWAY, SEE SOMETHING ELSE THAT I NEED/WANT TO DO ON THE WAY, PUT DOWN THE FIRST THING TO DO THE SECOND THING, AND THE CYCLE REPEATS.
I press send and hope the admission hasn’t just cost me my first ever boyfriend.
Beck: Your brain works faster than most people’s.
A smile splits my face.
Me: THAT IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE DESCRIPTIONS OF ADHD.
Beck: Are you still in the car with your parents?
I gasp and text as fast as I can.
Me: NO! MY DAD MADE A SURPRISE STOP TO SHOW ME A TOWNHOUSE HE’S THINKING OF BUYING FOR ME.
I press send before I can rethink this one.
Me: DOES THAT SOUND BOUGIE?
“Hats? Where’d you go?” Dad calls.
I clamber out of the tub. “I’m in here!”
Before I throw the door open, I check my phone one more time, but Beck hasn’t responded.
Who am I kidding? Of course, it sounds bougie.
It is bougie.
Parents buying their twenty-three-year-old a townhouse? That’s not a thing.
Mom and Dad are waiting for me in the main bedroom. Dad takes one look at me and his face falls.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
My jaw ticks at baby.
Dad shakes his head and throws up his hands. “Sorry—Hats—sweetheart—what’s the matter?”
“It’s too much.” The words come out like a crowbar dragged over concrete. “You shouldn’t have to buy me a townhouse. It’s not normal.”
Mom and Dad glance at each other. Marriage telepathy.
“You mean it wasn’t normal when we bought a condo for Margaret in Baton Rouge when she moved out of the dorms?” Dad asks.
I roll my eyes. “That’s different.”
Mom frowns. “How is that different? She’s our daughter and she needed a safe place to live.”
“While she was in college in another city,” I huff. “We live down the street.”
They glance at each other again.
“A minute ago, you were squealing with excitement,” Dad says, looking almost hurt. “What changed?”
I press my lips together. What exactly did happen?
I told Beck about the townhouse and started to worry he’d think it was too much. That having this place would mean we weren’t compatible.
And then he wouldn’t like me anymore.
I’m not about to share that thought spiral with the parentals, though.
I scratch my cheek. “Um… I might have started overthinking.”
Mom’s face softens.
“So you still like it?” I swear, Dad looks like he’s holding his breath.
I snort. “I love it.”
“Great—”
“I just… feel bad that you have to do this for me.”
“Hattie—” Mom steps toward me, but I hold out my hands to stop her. She stops.
Dad closes in too, but he wraps an arm around Mom’s waist and tugs her into him.
“First of all, we don’t have to do this for you. We want to,” Dad says. Then he arches an eyebrow. “For a number of reasons.”
To get me out of the house, I think with a pang.
Don’t get me wrong. I want to be out of the house. But knowing that living with me is a strain or a burden feels shitty.
Dad must see it on my face because he starts to move closer then stops.
“Reasons for all of us.” Then he shakes his head.
“Make no mistake, I think this will be a good thing for all of us, but you know me. You know I’m not gonna buy something we can’t afford.
I won’t make a bad investment, no matter how much I want something.
Trust me, buying this property would be a good investment. ”
Okay. That makes me feel a little better.
I look at Mom and try to read her face. My gut tells me she doesn’t want me to be upset, but she’s still not one hundred percent convinced this is the right thing for me.
And, I have to admit, she might not be wrong.
It annoys the hell out of me that Mom is always telling me what to do—when to get ready to leave, when to take my meds, how much or how little I should eat, when to wake up, what to wear to our stupid Wednesday lunches with Grandma Eloise—but I honestly don’t know how I would fare if I were left to my own impulses.
It might be okay. It might be totally great.
And it might be a fucking disaster.
I bite both of my lips because I can’t risk saying this out loud.
Because, no matter what, I want to try.
I want to try living on my own and figuring things out by myself.
Even though it’s scarier than I’d thought it would be, now that I’m looking the prospect in the face.
But when I scan the empty bedroom, a smile spreads across my face. It’s bigger than my own. But even better than that are the other bedrooms.
“I could have a sewing room,” I blurt. “A whole room just for that.”
Mom hums. “Maybe that’s the answer. More room for you to spread out.”
I keep my mouth shut. More room would be great, but I don’t think it’ll suddenly make me the kind of housekeeper that would meet her standards.
My brain is my brain, after all.
But who am I to burst that bubble?
I take a deep breath and exhale. “I really like it.”
Dad beams and looks at Mom.
Mom presses her lips together before inhaling deeply. Finally, she exhales, clearly exasperated. “We’ll talk about it.”
But Dad winks at me.
I think I’m getting a townhouse.
We’re climbing into the car by the time I manage a look at my phone. Beck has responded. As soon as I see it, my heart soars.
Beck: It doesn’t sound bougie. It sounds AWESOME!!! Send pics.
The message is from fifteen minutes ago. For sure, he’s back at work by now, but I start spamming him with the pictures I took, including ones of the front I snapped on our way out. He won’t see them for hours, but I suddenly can’t wait to see what he thinks.
I can’t wait to show it to him.
“Hats? You buckled up back there?”
Dad’s looking at me through the rearview. The engine’s already running, and I realize he’s stopped reversing out of the parking spot.
I look around. Nope. I’m not buckled in.
“Sorry.” I grab the seat belt and click it in place.
Dad’s still watching me.
“You know, maybe you should invite your boyfriend to the wedding—”
Mom gasps. “Randy—”
“What?” Dad says with a shrug. “It’ll be a party. He can get to meet all of us when the focus of attention isn’t all on him and Harriet.”
“Dad, I don’t think—”
Mom tries to protest. “You can’t just—it’s in two weeks—I—”
“He’d be Hattie’s plus one,” Dad says, waving a hand. “He doesn’t need an embossed invitation.”
“H-he might not be able to make it,” I hedge.
“Well, ask him. I want to meet the boy.”
I like Dad calling Beck the boy about as much as I like him calling me baby. “His name is Beck, and he has a lot of responsibilities,” I say pointedly. “I’d be asking him to hang around for hours with people he doesn’t know while I did bridesmaid things.”
I don’t even want to do bridesmaid things. Why would anyone want to stand around with a bunch of strangers and watch me do bridesmaid things?
“She’s right,” Mom says quickly. “Besides, he’d need a suit, and… well… getting one might be a hardship.”
I scowl at my mother. “He wouldn't need a suit. There’s no dress code on the invitation.”
Mom sniffs. “All I’m saying is that guests of the wedding party end up in a lot of pictures, so they should look the part.”
The thought of Beck in candid pictures from the reception has heat blossoming in my chest like a thermonuclear peony. The two of us dancing…
And he looks great in a button down. Those pictures would be fantastic.
It’s only when Mom and Dad glance at each other that I realize I’ve said this out loud.
Oops.
We pull into our driveway.
Damn. The townhouse really is close.
“Just ask him,” Dad says, killing the engine. “There’s no harm in asking.”