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Max
Saturday
I wanted to leave the second I stepped in the Muirlands Country Club’s ballroom.
Instead, I sip my watered-down cocktail as I receive congratulations from my stepdad’s friends, patronizing pats on the back, and stares from my mother’s friends. The room is littered with “Congratulations, Fred!” banners, complete with his face partially covered with a surgical mask. There’s also a Bon Voyage station, since my mom is finally getting her Around the World cruise my stepdad promised her two years ago, when the plans for me to take over and for Fred to retire first began.
They hired a cover band, and the lead singer is belting “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi into the microphone. His voice grates on my nerves. Everything about this party feels fake and forced.
How can everyone be so happy for a man who ruined my life? He told me he cared about me, just to rob me of a chance to have my own family.
I’ve been coming to this country club for years, and the white walls never felt as stark and sterile as they do now. This sports coat feels like a straitjacket, the air too balmy and stale in this room. This cocktail tastes like garbage.
Murmurs float over me. I’m not sure if my mother told her friends about my love child, that she’s finally a grandmother. It doesn’t bother me. I’ve looked at the photo I took with Olive five times today. Whenever my mind drifts to anything other than Olive, my mind is snapped right back. To her voice, her unintentional jokes. How she cuddled into me when we read Goosebumps.
I think about her mother most of all.
All of the feelings I had that first week in Goldheart came back with a vengeance. She was exactly who I thought she was and more. I told her I loved her back then, and I left her—them—again. Finding out the trajectory of my life was changed because of a lie… It was a lot for me to handle.
Everything makes me want to curl into a ball in the men’s locker room and stay here until the party is over. I left her. I left Olive. All to go to this stupid party all for something I’m not sure I want.
He’s the villain in all of this. The kind older woman’s words course through me as I stand here, watching that very man be congratulated. He was someone I looked up to my entire life and wanted to make proud. His approval was all that mattered at times.
Now, I couldn’t care less.
“Honey, aren’t you enjoying the party?” Mom asks. She’s wearing a sparkly jacket and a long cream skirt, her wrist and neck dripping in my stepdad’s diamond presents to her. She is thriving under the attention. It was always intoxicating to be in Fred Sawyer’s inner circle.
“It’s fine.” I take another drink but it tastes like bourbon-flavored water.
“Emily and Olive can come live here,” Mom says. “I’m sure Olive would love being so close to the beach.”
Their entire life is in Goldheart—their family, the business, their friends. Olive has only known small town life amongst redwoods. Asking them to come to a town Olive has never lived feels cruel. “I’m not sure, Mom.”
“Well, I’m sure you can convince them. An influential person of the community like you. What woman wouldn’t want that?” Mom’s smile drops when she sees my stoic expression. “What’s wrong, Button?”
“It’s just—” Everything.
Fred steps onto the stage next to the band playing, clapping, but his stance signals the lead singer to retreat and let him have the mike.
He is, after all, the man of the hour.
“Let’s hear it for these guys.” He can’t even remember the name of the band, but he claps with floppy hands, and his friends mirror his enthusiasm with whoops and hollers, drunk off of champagne and power.
I’ve never felt more sober in my life.
“Thank you so much for this. It’s shocking it’s finally happening, isn’t it, Molls?”
“Yes, dear,” my mother says, raising her glass.
Fred sways, his short glass of amber liquid sloshing. “My beautiful bride has been on me for years to retire, and it’s finally happening. I’ve served this community for decades, and it’s been an honor to be in your mouth.”
The crowd laughs, but I cringe and flinch. Fred constantly makes tiny jokes that sound like sexual innuendos. I used to laugh it off; now it just makes me sick.
“Never fear though, because my brilliant son, Maxwell Sawyer, will be stepping in so Sawyer Dentistry can keep you flush in veneers and crowns for years to come. Max, come on up here.”
Oh God. I grumble as I walk toward the stage. It feels like an out-of-body experience to take the steps, to pass the drummer, who looks at me with pity.
I feel my stepdad’s thin finger grip my shoulder, his sharp nails digging into my muscle.
