“I’ve seen your video,” the man parried back.
She shared a perplexed look with her husband. “Which video? Jordan and I make lots of them for our More Than Just a Number blog.”
“This one was from a benefit,” the man added, raising an eyebrow.
Oh no! Gustavo could not think she was a rabble-rouser! He’d never let her into brunch!
She cringed.
“Shall I let your mother know you’re here?” the man offered.
Oh, hell no! He was trying to brunch block her!
Gustavo had over thirty years handling Denver’s social elite, but she was armed with something that gave her the license to do whatever the hell she wanted.
She was mega-pregnant, carrying a baby doll, and packing a giant belly.
She lifted her chin. “No, you shall not let my mother know we’re here.”
“Georgie,” her husband said under his breath, but she’d decided not to take his warning.
“Like it or not, Gustavo, we’re crashing brunch,” she said like a mob boss.
“Hi, there, I’m Jordan Marks,” her husband said, cutting in and shaking the man’s hand.
“Could we at least find a jacket for your husband—club dress code policy, you know—and then I could escort you in,” the manager offered, but she could sense a crack in his brunch defense facade.
She waved him down. “Look at me, Gustavo! I’m as big as a whale and could blow at any minute. We don’t have time to play dress up. Do you have kids?”
“Yes, they’re grown now,” he answered with a distinct look of terror in his eyes.
“Do you remember what it was like when your wife was pregnant? The cravings, the hormones, the yo-yo emotions? I’m going into brunch, Gustavo. And you don’t want to get in my way today,” she continued.
“I’d listen to her, man,” Jordan cautioned.
Gustavo swallowed hard. “I think we can waive the jacket requirement due to your delicate condition.”
She patted the manager’s arm. “You’re good people, Gustavo,” she said, then grabbed her husband’s hand and entered the sanctuary of chef-prepared omelets and a pastry table the size of Cleveland.
“I see them. They’re in the center, close to the windows,” Jordan said, pointing past a swath of club members.
Georgie nodded. With not a strand of gray hair on her head, her mother was back to looking socialite fabulous.
This was it!
They wove their way through the dining room when her nerves started to get the best of her. Her stomach—or the baby—did a flip-flop as another contraction took her breath away.
“Georgie, are you okay?” Jordan asked.
She leaned over, gazing down at the white marble floor, and breathed through the pain.
“Georgiana, what are you doing here?” came her mother’s surprised voice.
Georgie blew out a tight breath, rode out the last spasm of the contraction, then met her mother’s gaze.
“I’m here because we need to talk.”
“As you can see, we’re in the middle of brunch,” Lorraine Vanderdinkle replied with a demure wave of her hand toward Howard, who’d donned a sport jacket over his flowing robes.
Georgie glanced around, trying to figure out where to start, her brain temporarily scrambled from the searing contractions that seemed to be growing stronger.
“It looks like you were able to keep your table,” she threw out, then wanted to jam a tube of vegan cookie dough into her mouth to keep the idiotic comments from flying out.
“Of course, we were able to keep our table. Do you think I’d allow Muffy Bradford to steal it out from under me?” her mother replied, gesturing toward the back of the room where a miffed Muffy pretended not to notice.
“Mom, I need a minute with you and Howard.”
“It’s Wandering River, and you’ve got quite an aura, Georgie. Lots of energy. Something psychedelically powerful is about to happen to you,” Howard or whatever the hell he went by said with his hands in a prayer position.
“Thanks for that,” she replied, still floored that this guy was her formerly pragmatic, anti-yogi stepfather.
Lorraine folded her hands on the table. “Perhaps, I have an opening after brunch. You’ll have to check with my assistant.”
Georgie’s jaw dropped. “Another Nicolette?”
“No, her name is Colette. I’m moving on.”
“Mom, what I have to say to you is bigger than brunch at the club,” she replied as the room went silent.
“Bigger than brunch?” her mother repeated in horror as if anything could top brunch at the club.
“Yes.”
Lorraine glanced at her watch. “Shouldn’t you be at your baby shower?”
“I left it to come here.”
Her mother gasped. “You didn’t like it? Were the colors off? I specifically asked for spring green—not pale green. Now, I’ll have to fire Colette. You have no idea the amount of effort it takes to manage an assistant.”
“That was you?” Jordan asked. “You changed the theme?”
Her mother smoothed an already smooth lock of hair. “I know every party planner in the city. I couldn’t let the news get out that my daughter had a headless doll-themed baby shower.”
But it was more than that. She could see it in her mother’s eyes.
The emotion the woman was working so hard to hide was love.
“The tablecloths had great energy. I could feel it when we picked them out,” Howard added.
Georgie stared at her mother, who was trying to play it cool. She thought back to the picture the Gilberts had taped into the book. While her father had given her the gift of experiencing life through literature, her mother had given her the gift of rebellion—of saying my path isn’t your path. The gift of knowing her choices were her own.
All those pageants had cemented who she wanted to be. Without them, her passion to own a bookshop may have never ignited.
The strange yin and yang push and pull that made her who she was today was, in part, thanks to her mother.
“Mom,” she said gently. “We’re here because I wanted to apologize. I should have told you about the baby.”
“Well, pumpkin, you didn’t, and that’s that,” she replied sharply, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with her napkin.
“No, there’s more. I need to say this.”
Her mother schooled her features. “Say what?”
Georgie held the woman’s gaze. “I’m glad you’re my mom.”
That got her attention. Her mother stood, and not even the Botox could mask her shock.
“You are?”
“Yes,” she answered, tears coming to her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, you can be a lot. But so can I. You see, I thought that if I didn’t tell you about the pregnancy, it gave me control over the uncontrollable. But I was wrong. Life is a roller coaster—an adventure like in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The Gilberts gave me that book and told me you used to read it to me when I was little.”
A sentimental smile pulled at the corners of her mother’s lips. “Your father hated that book. He’d say, ‘what if she wants to be like Peter,’ and I’d answer back, ‘then we should let her.’”