She and my father had split up when I was in junior high, and my brothers and I had stayed in Scottsdale with our dad, since we didn’t want to attend new schools. But we spent the majority of the summers and other vacations in Sedona, with Mom. She knew all about my obsession with Carter, so she’d understand the hell I was in. Though, I didn’t really intend to tell her about my night with him. In the light of day, propositioning him the way I had seemed a bit tawdry. Not that I’d go back and change what I’d done, but still…
I rang the bell so as to not startle her by barging in. She wouldn’t be expecting me during the week.
“Bon jour, mon petit chou!”she said as she pulled open the ornate door with splashes of turquoise, bronze and copper on the raised wood design.
Did I mention my mother was eccentric?
I gave her a quick hug and said, “Someday you’ll stop calling me that, I’m sure of it.”
She laughed “Never!”
Mon petit chou meant “my little cabbage”. I’d had a large head as a child, until my body caught up—well, relatively speaking, since I was still short and compact. But my mother had never ditched the term of endearment. Worse, my brothers had always called me Shoe. They weren’t the least bit cultured and couldn’t speak French, so they didn’t know how to spell the word correctly. But Shoe, spelled incorrectly, had always been better than cabbage. Or Tinkerbell.
Stepping into the foyer, I asked, “Am I interrupting?”
With her long, button-down chambray shirt over her jeans and white tank top, I suspected she was painting. Landscapes were her specialty.
“Not at all. I was just sifting through some photos I’ve taken before I dive in. Let’s go out back.”
I followed her through the house to the patio. She had dark brown rattan furniture with thick sienna-colored cushions and colorful throw pillows scattered all over the deep green grass and decorative patio. A tall waterfall in the far corner emitted a comforting sound that mingled with the Classical music softly playing in the background.
After dropping my purse on a bistro table, I sank into the cozy sofa under the bushy Fremont Cottonwood. I slipped out of my sandals and curled my toes in the lush grass. My mother had disappeared into the kitchen and came back minutes later, carrying a tray with a pitcher of iced tea, two glasses, a bowl of lemon wedges and my favorite chocolate-swirl Madelines. The spongy French dessert was one she’d learned to make while studying cooking in Paris one fall, and she always kept a fresh batch on hand.
The comfort food was welcomed, though a lump of emotion instantly swelled in my throat, due to the impending subject matter. I’d come here for a reason.
She set the tray on the glass-covered rattan coffee table and then settled beside me, patting my leg in her maternal way.
“What brings you by?” she asked.
My mother, Liz Westerly, was a striking redhead with bright green eyes and delicate features. She wasn’t much taller than me, but had a bit more substance to her. She stayed fit and active, and time had certainly been kind to her. I hoped like hell I’d age as gracefully as she had, because the fifty-four-year-old woman didn’t look a day over forty-five.
Pushing down the agony lodged in my throat, I said, “Just needed to clear my head. This is the best place to do it.”
She poured our tea and handed me a glass. “Tell me all about it.”
I sipped, then sighed. A full-on recap of my dilemma was really too depressing to face. “You remember Carter Davis, right?”
My mother let out a heavy, over-dramatic breath. “Do I ever. You were hopelessly in love with him. He was the only boy you ever talked about. Didn’t he take you to a dance?”
“No, but we did dance together once. At prom. Anyway, he’s been playing football since high school and just came back to Phoenix. We got together last night and it was incredible, but he has a lot of things on his mind and some serious issues with his career. I’m afraid I’ll screw him up if I continue to see him.” He’d said himself I’d derailed him, after all.
Following a sip of her tea, my mom asked, “Are you still in love with him?”
“That wasn’t love in high school. That was a mad crush.”
I shook my head at my own misery as I contemplated how my infatuation had never died. And how easily it had transcended adolescence and blossomed into something much more substantial with our reunion .
“My feelings for him never changed, never dimmed,” I said. “And when I saw him again… Oh, yeah. This is definitely love. He’s wonderful, Mom. In so many ways.”
She gave my words their due consideration, then played devil’s advocate, as she was prone to do. “Ten years is a long time to have feelings for someone you’ve never really dated.”