The pity in Maya’s eyes pissed me off. Why did everyone think they knew more about my mom than I did? She’d come this year because we were leaving for France together tomorrow.
“Sit down, Maya. You work too much.”
She slid into the seat beside me and poured herself a cup of coffee. “So are you sticking around for the Winterfest toast on Sunday night?”
I snorted. “If there’s gonna be toast, there’d better be bacon.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
I grinned. “Nah, I can’t make it this year.”
“But it’s tradition!”
I shifted uncomfortably and avoided her eyes. “I’m leaving for Paris with my mom in the morning.”
“Paris? I guess you’ve been in New York almost six months. It was time for you to move again. You’ll be back for Winterfest next year though, right?”
“Sure,” I said, though I didn’t know what to expect out of next year. “I’ll be back and I’ll make sure I stay through Sunday night next year.”
Her face lit up and she wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so excited for you. I hope Paris is awesome.”
Someone screeched, followed by the sound of crashing dishes.
Maya released me and stood. “Gotta get back to work.”
She bounced off into the crowd, leaving me alone with my thoughts. No one but Kennedy had been surprised about my move. Not Everly, not Mrs. Hale, not Maya. Was it because Kennedy didn’t know me as well as they did or because he understood me better?
My phone buzzed. Mom’s face smiled back at me from the screen. I accepted the call.
“Good morning, Mom! Isn’t it like six in the morning there?” Mom was on the West Coast this week and was so not a morning person.
“I haven’t been to sleep yet, darling. I’ve had the most amazing night. Charles took me out on his yacht, and well, you probably don’t want to know the details, but it’s safe to say Mama’s still got it.”
“I didn’t doubt it for a minute, Mom.” I wrapped my hands around my coffee, holding my phone between my ear and my shoulder. “What time does your plane get in tonight?”
“Oh, see, sweetie, that’s why I’m calling. I’m not going to be able to make it. Charles is having this party and all of these Hollywood people are coming. It will be my last hurrah before Paris.”
“But…you promised.” Worse than the fact that I sounded like a child when I said the words was that I felt like one. Time shifted, and I was a little girl again. In that breath, I wasn’t an adult capable of making her own decisions and her own mistakes. I was eight years old and looking for Mom in the audience of my first dance recital. I was nine and sitting on the couch in my Halloween costume, watching the clock tick past ten as I waited for her to get home and take me trick-or-treating. I was fifteen and looking for her at my first Winterfest Art Show. Her promises were nothing.
“I’ll make it up to you,” she said. Her voice was so perky and full of excitement. She was never that excited to spend time with me. But I kept betting on her. “You’re not mad, are you? I know my Bree. She’s too cool to make a big deal of something like this.”
My stomach contracted painfully. I know my Bree. But she didn’t. She didn’t know me at all. “Have fun at the party, Mom.”
“We’ll get you moved to Paris another time. Or better yet, go ahead without me. The apartment’s ready, and I can meet you there in a few days, a week at the most.”
“Right, Mom. Okay.” But Paris didn’t feel like the glowing beacon of possibility anymore. It just felt like an empty shell of lonely disappointment. Like every other city in the world. But the alternative? Coming back to Ohio to stay? That scared me even more than moving overseas.
When I finally escaped Dad, I couldn’t find Bree anywhere. Maya said she’d seen her leave Village Hall, but she wasn’t at Juke’s. She wasn’t at the bakery. I jogged back to her house and used my key to let myself in. She wasn’t in her room. I finally found her in the basement, studying a portrait of her parents under florescent lights and making notes on a pad of paper.
She looked gorgeous in those harsh lights. She’d stripped off her sweater and stood in jeans, boots that came to her knees, and a tank. One strap had slipped, and my hands itched to push the other one down to match.
“Why didn’t you—” I cut myself off at the sound of her jaggedly drawn-in breath. In all the years I’d known Bree, I’d seen her cry only once. She was fifteen and she had a painting in the Winterfest Art Show. Her mom had promised to return before the winners were announced. We all knew the ending to that story. Her mom never showed. Not that year or any year after.