Page 129 of Gilt

“Let’s go back to being 12,” I suggest, “when our biggest problem was hoping we could finally get our periods.”

As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I wish I could take it back, but she just gives a hollow laugh.

“Yeah. I actually kind of feel like I’m hoping to get my period all the time at the moment.”

“And the award for shitty friend of the year goes to”— I clutch my chest dramatically—“me. I’d like to thank my mother, who taught me everything I know, my father, who also contributed, and generally just being surrounded by the worst possible role models a girl can have.”

Josie’s false laughter turns into bemused giggles. “What award do I win? Most likely to become her mother?”

I wince, then nearly jump out of my skin when Josie’s mother actually opens the door. If there was an award for appearing innocent, neither of us would be winning it at the moment.

“Em, your mom called me.” She stares me down.

I kind of expected that. “I might have blocked her phone number.”

Marion pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing heavily and forming the perfect image of the maternal archetype at the same time. “You can’t block your mother.”

“Funny, my iPhone says I can.” I tack on a smile as if to indicate I’m joking, even though we both know I’m not.

“She says that she really needs to talk to you.” Marion bypasses the passive-aggressiveness and goes straight for the kill. “I can’t have you staying here if your mother doesn’t think it’s okay.”

“My mother wouldn’t care if I was living under a bridge,” I grumble, but I take out my phone and pull up her number. “I’ll call her.”

Marion disappears with a look of triumph, and Josie bumps her shoulder against mine.

“You want a minute?”

“Nah.” I’d already told her everything that had happened. What I’d discovered about Becca, how Hans had tried to corner me. She’d gotten the blow-by-blow. Whatever mitigating factors my mother wants to add to the drama, I won’t be keeping from her either.

Mom answers on the first ring.

“Emma,” she says breathlessly as if she’s been pacing while waiting for my call.

“Vivian,” I respond coolly. She doesn’t bother to correct me, even though she hates that I call her by her first name. More than ever, I need that detachment and whatever small sense of self-confidence it grants me.

“We need to talk.”

We’ve needed to talk for the last eight years, but I’m glad she’s finally getting the memo.

“I’m not coming to Palm Springs,” I say.

Mom isn’t the type to have serious conversations over the phone. She believes in tearing someone down to their face, the good old-fashioned way.

“You don’t have to,” she assures me. “I’m here in Las Vegas.”

“What restaurant?” I ask.

“I think it’s better if I come to you.”

It’s taken a lot of years for me to build up enough scar tissue where my mom is concerned that her barbs and dismissals don’t hurt me anymore, but apparently, she can still catch me off-guard.

“I’m staying at Josie’s,” I tell her in broken fragments while I try to piece together what could be so terrible that she would deign to leave her five-star life and slum it in the burbs.

“I’ll come over this evening,” my mom says. “Should I bring McDonald’s?”

“Yeah, mom, get me a Happy Meal,” I say flatly. We hang up, and I wonder if she’s experiencing some type of medical incident that’s caused a temporary bought of amnesia. Maybe she hit her head and thinks I’m nine years old and that I’ve been at Josie’s for an extended sleepover.

“What was that about?” Josie asks as soon as I’m off the phone.