This is the part where a mother should say, “Oh, I’m so proud of you and the amazing work you do, darlin’!”
Not my mama. She looks bored to tears. “You wouldn’t have to be doing all this silly work if you would just take Tyler up on his offer.”
Silly work? I dig my fingernails into my palms to keep from crying at the table. “I can’t believe we are still having this conversation. I’m not going to marry Tyler, Mama. You’ll just have to find some other way to secure the family business, because I don’t care to sacrifice my happiness for it.”
“Again. So dramatic. Tyler would make you plenty happy.”
“How? By parading me around on his arm at cocktail party after cocktail party for the rest of my life?”
She’s giving me a look that says she sees no issues with that scenario. Of course she doesn’t. We couldn’t be less alike if I were an alien freshly beamed down from space.
“Your daddy parades me around on his arm, and I happen to love it.”
“Well, I’m glad for you, Mama. But I’m not the same woman as you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course you are. You’re a Jones just like the rest of us. Sooner or later, you’ll get bored with this feminism kick you’re on and come to your senses. I just hope that Tyler still wants you when you finally wise up.”
I want to scream. I want to stand up and scream. Maybe then she would finally hear my voice over the crazy ones talking in her head. “This is not a kick, Mama. This is my life, and you need to get used to it. I don’t want your money. Or Tyler’s money. And I sure as heck don't want to spend the rest of my life having to turn a blind eye when he grabs a cocktail waitress’ rear end.”
“Evelyn Grace, what a terrible thing to say about a man. Now, stop talking about Tyler like that before he overhears you.”
I frown. “What do you mean ‘before he hears me’?”
I look around, afraid that I’ll find Tyler standing right behind me. Not because I’m afraid of him overhearing me say I think he would be a no-good, cheating husband (I’ll say that to his face), but because I don’t want to have to spend any amount of time with him. Ever.
“Quit craning your neck like that. It makes you look like a giraffe hunting for leaves. Tyler is running late too, but you want to look your best when he arrives.”
“What?! You invited him tonight?!”
“Shhh. Lower your voice, young lady. We thought it would be a nice reunion for you two since you won’t spend any time with him. I can’t believe you haven’t even seen him since he moved back to town. Really, Evie, we raised you to have better manners than that.”
I am so angry I feel like my head might pop off my body. I push my chair back and shoot to my feet. Charlie does the same. He gives me the look that says, “Let’s do this, girl. I’ve got your back.”
He was at my feet during my weekly hour with my therapist; he knows I have her approval to leave when Mama starts putting me down. “I cannot believe you went behind my back and invited him here. Actually, no. I can believe it.” I shake my head. “I’m leaving. And until you can start learning to respect my wishes concerning me and Tyler, our family get-togethers are over.”
This is the scene in every movie where my mama realizes the errors of her ways. Her mouth should fall open, and she should reach out to grab my hand to keep me at the table. She should apologize and tell me all she wants is for us to have a good relationship.
Nope. Maybe when hell freezes over.
Mama just sits back in her chair and lifts her brows in a taunting expression. “You’re being childish again.” That line should sting. It doesn’t. She’s used it too many times to count, so it just rolls right off my back. Or maybe it rolls right off my long giraffe neck.
I gather my purse and push my chair in to the table, not even bothering to reply to her. I think I would have more luck convincing the brick wall outside to be proud of who I am than my own mother.
“Evelyn.” I pause and turn back around to the table. A false hope blooms in my chest that maybe she wants to make amends. How stupid. “And just what am I supposed to tell Tyler when he gets here to see you?” I stare at her, my mouth falling open a little. This woman is delusional.
“Tell him if he had been on time, he would have been able to watch my butt walk away himself.” I shouldn’t be the only one to be scolded for being late. But I know he’ll get off scot-free because he’s precious Tyler Murray. If we were to marry one day and he cheated on me, Mama would say it was because I wasn’t giving him enough of what he needed.
Daddy lowers his menu slightly to peek at me over the top. “That was a little too crude for my taste, Evie.”
Okay. Where is that nice waiter? I need to find him and ask him to hold me back before I jump over this table and fistfight my parents. I’ve never been one to resort to violence to solve a problem, but it’s never too late to start.
I turn around and raise a lackluster hand over my shoulder. “Have a lovely evening,” I say, in a bland tone that conveys that I mean absolutely none of it.
On my way out, I notice our trusty waiter headed toward my parents’ table with two drinks—the only two drinks my parents have ever ordered in the history of their lives: a glass of champagne and an old-fashioned.
I step into the waiter’s path, looking like I’m a gunslinger from the wild west. I wish I were wearing cowboy boots with spurs on the back so they could clink as I move. “Whoa, there. Are these going to the table I was just sitting at?”
I must have crazy eyes, because the waiter nods skeptically. He should be skeptical.
I give him my best John Wayne smile before I take my mama’s champagne off the tray and shotgun it like I’m a college frat boy with major insecurity issues and something to prove.
After the bubbles have sufficiently burned my throat and threatened to come out my nose, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and charge out of the restaurant just hoping to high heaven that I don’t bump into Tyler.
Here’s the problem with not having a car or a license. When you pull an epic move like storming out of a restaurant and downing your mama’s champagne on your way out the door, you’re then forced to sit on the sidewalk with your service dog and find a ride home before you have to encounter the man you’re avoiding. Not to mention the major buzz that’s setting in because I forgot I hadn’t eaten since the muffins at the Broadens’ house that morning.
I’m quickly scrolling through my phone, hoping to find that an Uber is only one street over and can pick me up, like, two minutes ago, but instead, I’m met with a disappointing twenty-minute wait. That won’t do.
I feel pathetic, small, and broken—basically, what I like to call the Melony Jones special—and I want more than anything to get in a car of my own and peel out of that restaurant parking lot, leaving glorious black tire streaks in my wake.
I dial the next best thing: Joanna. She’ll probably peel out just to make me smile.
She answers my call with, “It’s going that well, huh?” She knew that I was having dinner with my parents tonight.
“Can you come get me?” Suddenly, I’m twelve years old at summer camp, and I want to go home because the popular girls are picking on me.