"It's about time Emma got a boyfriend." My dad settled back down and picked up his glass tumbler. I glanced toward the crew and wondered how long they had been feeding my parents alcohol. "You know, there was a period when we thought she might like the ladies."
"Oh, Ted." My mom giggled, and I looked for her drink, then found it by her original spot on the couch. A vodka tonic, if I had to guess, a lipstick print on the glass. "She was just a slow bloomer. What were you, Emma, sixteen before you started wearing a bra?"
I ignored the question. How long, contractually, did this hell have to last? An episode was twenty-two minutes. A half-hour would give them plenty of fodder to work with. And it had been a least… I glanced at my watch. Four minutes. How the hell had I only been here for four minutes?
“I can see where Emma gets her beauty from.” Cash sat on the wide arm of my chair and put his hand on my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“Oh, please,” my mom sputtered, but I could see how she warmed under the comment.
“It’s an exotic beauty that you both have. Where is your family heritage from?”
"Well, French mostly." My mother preened, literally smoothing down her hair, and her nose rose in the air. "And some Italian. Ted is actually a little Native American. Emma got some college money, though I don't know how they proved that. I think there's a registry of sorts for that kind of thing."
The window of time before my mother said something offensive was rapidly closing, especially with this vein of conversation. I jumped in with the one thing guaranteed to distract my mother.
“Cash’s mother is an actress.”
“Oh, really?” She mused, skeptical. “Anything I would have seen?”
"Not lately." Cash's hand stiffened along my back, and he probably hated talking about his mother as much as I hated being around my own. Too bad. We were going to suffer through this damn thing together. "It's been a few years since she had anything—"
"His mom is Jocelyn Mitchell," I interrupted. "From Beverly Hills."
My mother straightened. "You mean, Adel Berkshire?" All the color blanched from her face. "That's… that's your mother?" Her hand, which had been pushing up the right sleeve of her cardigan, stalled.
"Yes." Cash's hand fell from my back, and he crossed his arms.
"Bullshit." She let out a startled half laugh and covered her mouth. "I mean—" she glanced at the camera. "Are you serious? That was Emma and my favorite show for years." She looked at me, and there was genuine excitement in her face. For a split moment, I felt proud, because even if Cash's mom was a monster, we had adored that character. Glued ourselves to the television screen, drooled over the fabulous outfits and diamonds, and giggled and gossiped over every one of those episodes. That was the closest I had ever felt with my mom, and now I was introducing her to Adel Berkshire's son, my boyfriend. My real, not just for tv, boyfriend.
"Is someone talking about me?" A familiar southern drawl boomed through the room, and we all turned at the sound. There, stepping forward in a fur coat, black leather pants, a cream top, and more diamonds than a De Beers ad—was Cash's mother.
She didn't look like a monster. She looked stunning.
69
#meetingtheparents
CASH
Maybe I should have been more sympathetic to Emma's plight, but it wasn't until my mother stepped on her stage, my father somewhere in tow, that I really understood the perils of the situation. I watched as my mother paused, her arms held out to each side as if she was a scarecrow, and surveyed her audience.
She was in full Adel Berkshire mode, her curls pinned into place, the fur coat one that stretched all the way to the floor, her makeup flawless and set off by diamond earrings the size of dimes.
"Oh, Cash." She beamed at me, and a motherly gesture would come next. A warm hug. Maybe a playful remark. She would be gracious and kind, and everyone would trip all over her, and I wasn't in the mood for another one of these performances, especially not in front of Emma and her family.
I stood as she approached and moved away from the chair, distancing myself from Emma as she held out her hands, then wrapped me in a tight embrace. It lasted for a second, then two. I pulled back, and she captured my face in between her palms, keeping me close as she peered up at me. "How are you?"
“I’m good.” I untangled myself and tried to step back, wincing as she dug her long fingernails into the bones of my wrist.
“Who is this?” She gave Emma a sunny smile, and I wondered how much medication she was on.
"This is Emma. Emma, my mother, Jocelyn."
Emma stood to greet her, and I paused at the glazed look on her face. She wet her lips, and I put my hand on her back, ready to steady her if need be. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she whispered. "I'm a big fan."
Ummm… no. That shit wasn't going to fly. My girlfriend and she was definitely my girlfriend, was not going to be a fan of my mother. Not as Adel, not as Jocelyn, and certainly not as a person.
Emma's mother jostled into place behind her daughter, chiming in with gushing praise, and if either of them pulled out an autograph pen or selfie stick, I was going to walk out.
"This is so wonderful," my mother said, leaning forward to plant a kiss on Emma's father's cheek. "A true family affair. It's wonderful, isn't it? Everyone together." She rubbed the side of his arm, and if Emma's mother didn't watch that closely, it would turn into a problem. Not that Emma's father was a prize, but she couldn't help herself—just like my father couldn't help but leave the room whenever she opened her mouth.
I looked for my dad and found him by a production assistant, his head tilted down, his attention on the peek of cleavage visible above the buttons of her collared shirt. Dana nudged him forward, and he entered with the reluctant gait of a man forced to be here. Yeah, Dad. You and me both.
Introductions were made while my mother continued to stand in the middle of the room, her coat still on, and I almost wished for Marissa. In fact, I was surprised Dana didn't have her here, a bucket of red paint in hand, screaming at my mother about fur rights as she dumped it over her head.
"I can't believe your mother is here." Emma whispered out of the side of her mouth. "You have no idea what this is doing to my mom. No offense, but you could screw me on the couch right now, and she wouldn't notice."
My mom was doing that thing where she clasped someone's hand in between both of her palms and petted the top of it. Mrs. Ripplestine was sucking it up, watching my mother with rapt attention as bullshit spewed out from her fat-injected lips. The problem with Emma and her mom, and half of America, was that they fell in love with Adel's character. They spent twelve years watching her every week. They cried when she lost the baby. They gasped when she almost died. They rooted for her and ranted at the television screen and gripped the remote with sweaty hands as she ran away from her abusive husband and into the arms of her sexy and heartbroken personal trainer. They couldn't combat twelve years of history with the truth, even if they read whispers of it in the tabloids, or heard a first-hand account of the reality. If my relationship with Emma continued, she'd have to learn for herself what my mother was like. I could tell her stories—but she wouldn't understand it until my mother put her hand on Emma's pregnant stomach and advised her to drown the baby in the tub when no one was looking. That was the sort of thing my mother said and did when the press wasn't around.