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“Uh, I’m Carly.” I give her a lame little wave and shut the door.
Me, with my coffee-stained blouse, no make-up, eyeglasses on, and feeling absolutely inferior and dumpy-looking after the dragged-through-the-dirt day I had.
Her mouth goes tight. “Aiden’s living with someone?”
“I work for Carmichael. I’m in the spare room,” I point toward the hall. “Excuse me.” I close the door and go right to my room, red-faced.
I shut the door and drop my bag and then throw myself onto my bed.
What a day. What a fucking day.
I take off my high heels and massage my feet. They are killing me. One of Aiden’s foot massages would be in order about now.
Hah. I’m so ridiculous it isn’t even funny. In fact, it’s the opposite of funny. I’ve felt like I’m on the verge of tears all day.
I turn the TV on and change into pink satin pajamas. Forget the bath. Forget dinner. I’m going to veg in front of the TV and probably last ten minutes until I fall asleep. I’d already told the girls we’d do dinner tomorrow night at the steakhouse instead. I had my fill of fruit and granolas and the lunch Ally bought me, so I’m not even hungry at this point.
My phone rings. Do I even wanna look?
Mom.
Oh. Oh.
Just seeing her name makes my chin wobbly.
I answer. “Hi Mom.”
“Carly. So good to hear your voice!”
I start to cry. “M-mom?”
“Oh no. What’s wrong?”
“It’s all screwed-up.”
Twenty-five minutes later, I’m off the phone after getting a Mom-style pep talk, which actually helped. I spewed all of it through the phone like word vomit. She now knows all of what I’ve been through that brought me here. She knew about Jon, but didn’t know all the Cait details. And now she knows about Steph. She, too, is fed up with the Caitlin stuff, but has no news on that front. She admits that she gave Jon my San Diego number because he sounded so sincere in his desire to talk to me to “work things out”. I told her he had a date with the office skank the day he broke up with me and now is hinting that he wants me back.
She talked me into a calmer state, which she’s great at doing.
“You’ll prove yourself at work. They promoted you for a reason. They know you’re new.”
She’s right.
“Let Jon plead his case and then tell him you’re not giving him a second chance. He’ll get the message. Right now, he probably thinks you’re just making him prove he’ll work for it. He probably thinks groveling will help. It’s up to you to set him straight.”
She’s right there, too. He might stop calling if I tell him to stop calling.
As for Stephanie, Mom is angry with her, too and I know this because she goes quiet on that subject. She’s been a mother figure to Steph for years. Steph didn’t have a Mom.
I let her go when I heard shouting from the other room.
“Gotta go, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you, sweetie. Call me on the weekend. You’re gonna be fine.”
“Thanks, Mom. Give my love to Dad. Bye.”
Now that I’
