Mom’s eyes narrowed and I could tell by the look on her face that she was regretting not giving me up for adoption. “For fuck’s sake, did you ever tell her that you love her?”
My eyes widened. Mom never swore, let alone like that.
“Not in so many words.”
My mother’s sigh was so deep it seemed to come from her very soul. “You’re even more helpless than I thought.”
Suddenly I was gaining a little more insight into why Julia had taken my denunciation of our relationship so hard. We hadn’t had ‘the talk’ yet. She was much better at talking about feelings and emotions than I was, so I supposed I was waiting for her to bring it up first.
It hadn’t really occurred to me that she might be doubting my feelings. I was more of an action person, I liked to show my love through my actions. But in retrospect, I wondered if she needed to hear from me how I was feeling, especially since I’d been the one to broach the girlfriend conversation first.
She hadn’t shared her own feelings either, but she’d mentioned a few times that I was hard to read. In retrospect, maybe she’d been trying to get me to open up and share how I was feeling. Maybe she’d been nervous about being rejected if she started talking about love and happily ever after before I did.
Damn it.
“We’re going to call in reinforcements. We need a plan.”
An hour later we were at the Morning Jolt coffee shop waiting for Mrs. Montego. I’d never been there before, but I knew that Madison Phoenix owned the place, and that even though Camille was a full-time writer now she sometimes picked up a shift when they were short-handed. Neither of them appeared to be here today though, which was probably good. I wasn’t really in a schmoozing mood.
I ordered an iced coffee and a cinnamon roll the size of my head, then settled at a table with my mother to wait. Mrs. Montego bustled in a few minutes later, waving at us from the counter before coming over with coffee in hand.
She gave us each a quick hug, then launched into a long speech about how Julia and I were perfect for each other and when they had dinner last night she could tell that Julia was devastated by our break-up.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I interrupted, “So do you guys have any ideas what I should do? The last time we texted I got the distinct impression that she didn’t want to hear from me again.”
“You need a grand gesture,” Mom said.
“Yes, like maybe we go to a ball game and you put something on the board to publicly declare your love,” Mrs. Montego suggested. “Wait, no, she hates public declarations. What if wego over there when she’s not home and fill the entire house with balloons and rose petals?”
After listening to them both come up with increasingly improbable ideas I realized how ridiculous this all was. What grown woman needed her mother to apologize for a stupid fight, or whatever this was?
“You know what, I just need to woman up and go over there and talk to her. We don’t need a grand gesture. We need a conversation. It’s way overdue.”
When they both tried to argue I held up my hand. “I really appreciate that y’all are trying to help, but I’ve let this go on long enough. I’m going to see if we can work things out with conversation like adults.”
“Okay Christina, but if your way doesn’t work Jeannie and I are going to need to take matters into our own hands,” Mom said, giving me a hug and wishing me luck.
Before I could change my mind I headed over to Julia’s house. She was in the front yard when I got there, down on hands and knees pulling weeds from the flower beds that ran along the front of the house. I took a second to appreciate her heart-shaped ass that was sticking up in the air before I got her attention.
“Hey Julia.”
She looked over her shoulder, then somehow managed to fall over onto her side in the grass. I noticed we were dressed almost exactly alike in white tank tops and faded jeans. That was a weird coincidence.
“Are you okay?” I asked as she righted herself and pushed to her feet.
“Yeah, I’m just demonstrating my usual grace and coordination,” she said wryly. “What are you doing here?”
“I was hoping we could talk for a few minutes.”
Her eyes searched mine and she must have been okay with whatever she saw there because she nodded towards the chairs on the front porch.
“Do you want to sit?”
We made our way to the porch, and I scooted my chair around to face Julia.
“I just came from having coffee with both of our moms.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh crap, what kind of bad karma are you paying off right now?”
