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I looked at her, incredulous. "Are you asking me for more money? After that crazy-expensive trip I just paid for?"
She shifted in apparent discomfort. "You don't have to put it that baldly."
"I'm not being bald. I'm being direct—which is more than I can say for you. How much do you need?"
She shrugged nonchalantly. "Enough for my condo association fees for the rest of the year. And some refreshing." She pointed at her eyes. "My crow's-feet have decided this is a good time for a comeback. I also need to update my wardrobe. I'm starting a new barre class—"
I shook my head, trying to ward off the headache I felt looming. "Now's really not a good time. I just gave you all that money for your trip, and the condo, and I'm probably gonna get fired when I get back."
Caroline sprang up and paced, wringing her hands. "My daughter, the famous actress, can't afford to help her own mother?"
"I can help you, but I can't foot the bill while you live like a billionaire socialite." My mother didn't understand, or didn't care, that this suite at the Plaza alone would cost me over ten thousand dollars by the time she checked out. She'd gotten so used to extreme wealth, it was as if she wasn't even aware of the value of a dollar.
"Well, that's all I'm asking for—help."
"Fine. I can help you get what you need. Maybe not what you want, but definitely what you need. So how much is that?"
"Seven hundred thousand should do it." She didn't even blink.
"Are you out of your mind?" I snapped.
She just looked at me blankly.
I shook my head. "I can't give you that much. I don't have it."
My mother snorted. "You're a famous actress. You have a premiere coming up for a movie that everyone's saying will be a hit. I feel certain that you can help your mother out."
Rage bubbled inside me. I was still too emotionally raw from leaving Kyle to handle this right now. I clenched my hands into fists. "I don't have it. I told you."
"Are you telling me you're going to leave me in the lurch? Let your own mother live on the streets?"
"You don't have to live on the street. You just can't buy a new ballet-inspired wardrobe for a hundred thousand dollars and have your tenth elective plastic surgery. I don't think I'm being unfair."
"I don't think I'm being unfair either." She tried to look serene; I wondered if that was a trick she'd picked up in Japan. "If you cannot or will not help me, I'll be forced to take other action. I have to protect myself, darling. I'm not getting any younger. I have to make sure I'm taken care of."
I stood, my hands shaking, and I grabbed my bag. "Exactly what constitutes 'other action' in your frail mind, Mother?"
Again, she didn't flinch. Fucking yoga. Must've given her all sorts of steely resolve, even though it's wildly misguided.
"Pierce doesn't want this story about you and Kyle to get out. Perhaps I'll let him know that if he wants to be as generous as he should have been during our divorce, it won't?"
I opened my mouth then closed it again, surprised by this new low. "Seriously? You're gonna blackmail Pierce? I thought you wanted to date him again."
"I told you, he didn't really seem interested. He owes me, Lowell. This would be one way of finally collecting on that."
"That's disgusting."
She shrugged. "Not as disgusting as going directly to the press to sell my story. The story of my daughter, the famous actress, hiring a male escort, who happens to be her estranged stepbrother."
I stopped dead in my tracks. "You would do that?"
"You would cut off your own mother?"
"I'm not cutting you off!" I yelled. "I'm saying you can't afford to live like Paris Hilton!"
"You're not leaving me with too many choices, dear."
I dropped my suitcase and stalked over to her, my finger jutted out at her bony chest. "You've got some nerve." I poked her, but she didn't wince. "This is exactly what you were like with husbands one through four. Your greed had no floor and no ceiling. No wonder they divorced your ungrateful ass."
