“Both of you need a good time. Especially Samantha here, who continues to torture herself every Wednesday,” I say.
I’ve learned over the course of the last few weeks that Samantha is a lawyer and Wednesdays are her pro bono days. The stories she hears shatter her and, maybe it’s because she seems so adrift that I confided in her that I, too, have a law degree. Since then she’s been trying to coax me into coming to work for her and eventually sitting the bar and mentoring under her.
“I have a good time waiting for me at home. I should get there sooner rather than later.” She places a few bills on the bar. “If you come work for me I wouldn’t have to come in and drink on Wednesdays.”
“If I came and worked for you, I’d need the drinks. Thanks, Samantha but no thanks.”
“If something changes, the cruise line doesn’t work out, you know where to find me.” She waves on her way out and I clear her space, readying it for the next person.
“You just like what you can do at your job. With your boss,” says Jayne.
“When you say it like that it sounds so dirty.” I wag a brow at her.
We laugh as Pippa joins us. She moves Samantha’s seat aside and lifts her leg, placing it on the bar, stretching it.
“Bloody hell, Pips. This is a bar not a yoga studio. Put your leg down.” Jayne turns to me, rolls her eyes, then shrugs. “It’s her mating call.”
“You two will miss me when I’ve gone,” she says and moves into tree pose.
“Shall I take you to the airport now?” Jayne teases.
“I might actually miss you, Pippa.” There is some truth to my words. Both friends look at me, surprised.
“You’re like a conversation piece. A coffee table book. Look at what my friend Pippa can do. You’re a tool to help us pick up guys. They see how limber you are and they’re all in.” I lean across the bar to briefly squeeze her hand. It baffles me the speed in which these two have become important to me, having never experienced my own girlfriend clique before.
“As if you have ever picked up any guy when we’ve gone out,” Jayne says.
“We do make a lovely trio,” Pippa says and moves into the splits, balancing between two stools. “If you are ever in India, Josie, look me up.”
I smile and nod my head toward incoming. Two guys, both college-aged, come to stand beside Pippa and strike up a conversation. Pippa waves at us and we laugh.
“She’s brilliant,” Jayne says and I agree. Pippa knows how to work a room.
“Meet my cousin,” Pippa says and introduces Jayne to the friend that was working as the first guy’s wingman. Unfortunately, he’s not very tall and when Jayne stands, she towers over him. He backs away and stands behind his friend.
“He’s wearing pleated pants,” I whisper to her. “As if you could really be interested in a guy with pleated pants.”
“This is true. He’s more your size anyway,” she says.
I shake my head. “I already have my good time.”
We watch Pippa ease herself from the stools and walk to a table full of other guys, apparently the friends of the two that approached her.
“She’s such an attention whore,” I say.
“Well, here comes Mr. Good Time now.” Jayne arches her brows and I look toward the door.
Brinn comes across the room and slides onto a stool. His smile gives me a warm fuzzy, essentially making my day.
“What’ll it be, handsome?” I lean on the bar and present my best smile.
“How about a kiss?”
“Mmm. See, I’m at work and that’s probably not going to fly since the bosses’ daughter is right there.” I jerk my head in Jayne’s direction. “How about I get you a drink?” I tease though I’d like nothing more than to lean across the wood counter and plant my lips on his. “I can meet you by the restroom at my break and maybe our lips can accidentally collide.”
“I can’t wait. Until then I’ll take a Guinness. What’re you doing later?”
“This tall guy. Short hair. Has a thing for flying. I’m going to so totally do him. Really work him over.” I pour his draft and place the dark stout in front of him.
“Lucky bastard,” he says with a wink.
“Josie?” I hear my name from behind Brinn and look over his shoulder to find the source.
I can’t believe my eyes.
“Max? What are you doing here?” Maxwell Gardner, my ex-fiancé, is staring at me.
He looks the same, maybe a tad tanner, which shows off his dark hair and eyes. His suit is not the Brooks Brother’s type he used to favor but looks like Armani. I move from behind the bar but freeze mid-stride when I spot my mother walking toward me, tucking her phone into her purse.
“Hello, Josephine.” She hasn’t aged as well as I’d expected. Though her mouth has always been a thin line expressing her perpetual irritation, it now has a slight downward curve. She looks tired. There are more lines around her eyes and a pallor that she’s never had before.
“Mother?”
“Is she wearing Chanel?” Jayne asks in a hushed voice.
I nod. “Mother,” I say again in a flatter, here-it-comes voice, which is hard to emulate as I am ticked off six ways to Sunday.
I glance at Max, who’s giving me an apologetic shrug. Mother steps closer and scans me up and down, at least the parts of me she can see, and her lips disappear altogether. She lets out a sigh though her nose as she looks heavenward.
She steadies her stare on me. “Josephine. Might I have a word with you?” She tucks her bag under her arm and narrows her eyes at my piercing.
“All right.” I wave for her to continue.
“Privately. Might I have a word with you privately?” She gestures away from the bar. Her bobbed dark hair still falls to her shoulders; nothing about her has changed.
Her limited wheelhouse of emotions are the same. Disappointment, frustration, and impatience have left their mark, creasing her face. I used to look so much like my mother, before I left but I hope, now that I’ve changed my path, that laugh lines are what will age my face. I don’t know what she could possibly say to me, but I’ve no interest in hearing it considering what she kept from me about Will.
“I’m working, Mother. I can’t just walk away.”
“Oh, I see you finally learned something.” She arches a brow.
“I walked right into that one,” I say to Brinn.
He’s looking from Max, to my mother, and to me, his beer forgotten.
“Mother. Max. Would you care to have a seat? I have a break coming up. We could talk then.” I turn to fill a few orders and then turn back to Max. “Why are you here?”
“It was either me or Stuart,” he says.
I shudder. My kid brother Stuart is my parent’s sycophant, who went from sticking toads in my bed to hacking into my computer to steal my term papers in the course of one summer.
“Ah, I see. Thanks then, I suppose. What can I get you to drink? Mother, a vodka tonic?” I pull a tumbler from the shelf and make her drink. All my life all she’s ever drank was vodka tonics or wine. The conversation is lacking as everyone is looking from one another and my mother is laser focused on me.