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Chapter Two
***Autumn***
“Honey, I just can’t believe you’d go through this elaborate ruse to avoid moving in with your Granny and me.” Mom shoved my underwear into a bag, stopping to hold up a lacy pair. “Who are these for?”
I snatched them away from her and shook my head. “First of all, it’s not an elaborate ruse. It’s a way to make some really great money. Second of all, this is why I’m avoiding moving in with you two. These panties are none of your business.”
Granny Lane blew into my soon-to-be ex-bedroom, waving around a bright blue vibrator. “Why the hell was this in one of the kitchen drawers?”
I snatched it away and held it and the panties behind my back. “I was wondering where that had gotten off to.”
“Baby-cakes, if you didn’t remember where your vibrator was, you’re not using it enough.” She looked around the room and then to my mother’s wide eyes. “Oh, relax, Ruthie. It’s a vibrator, not a gun.”
I left them arguing about which would be better, the vibrator or a gun, and walked out on the tiny balcony connected to the bedroom. Sighing, I shielded my eyes against the sun and looked out at the tiny sliver of ocean I could see in the distance. It wasn’t a sweeping ocean view, but it had been mine for five whole years.
A bitter taste still filled my mouth every time I thought about losing my apartment. It wasn’t fair. I’d been a good tenant. I’d always paid early, and I’d even baked cookies for the property manager. Cookies were a sorry substitute for money, I guessed. Rent was going up by almost a thousand dollars. All because the owner could charge that much. Even the small parts of the Hamptons, places that had once been full of hardworking blue-collar folks, were being bought up and turned into vacation rentals and beach homes for the rich.
I was just another casualty of the wealthy. I wiped an angry tear away and realized I was still holding my vibrator. Groaning, I carried it back inside and tossed it into the bag with my underwear.
“Are you really sure you want to take this job, Autumn? I hate that I won’t be able to pop by and see you whenever.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted the job. Especially knowing that Con was going to be there. Rubbing my face, I tried to smile like I wasn’t silently panicking. “It’ll be fine, Mom. I’ll get the weekends off once a month. I’ll come see you. Plus, it’s just a couple of months. And you can call me.”
“Don’t think I can’t see the dread in your eyes. What aren’t you telling me?”
Granny Lane sank onto the bed that would be taken to my storage unit by movers later that day. “Your mom’s right. Something’s going on.”
I gestured around at my home. “Besides this?”
“Yes. I know you’re upset about the apartment, but this is something else.” Sitting next to Granny, Mom gave me her serious face. “Talk to us.”
A version of the truth wouldn’t be too bad. “Some things never change. We’ve all been working for rich assholes our whole lives. In the midst of losing my home because of some rich asshole, I now get to go live in one of their houses and take care of their kids. The house is a mansion. It’s ridiculous. I’m getting a tour in the morning, and honestly, I’m going to need a map.”
“Honey, someone’s always got to be downhill, if you know what I mean. Life doesn’t get lived without folks like us. Sucks that we have to be the broke ones always, but someone’s gotta do it.” Mom’s gentle smile was full of warmth. “Your daddy always said that.”
My chest ached as I thought about Dad, always the positive realist. He went to work on his boat for over fifty years, working his body to the bone, and never made a penny more than he needed to survive. It’d never stopped him from being happy, though.
“It’s bull that you’re losing this place. It’s bull that a teacher can’t afford a home in this country. You’re going to come out on top, though.”
“I remember being on top. I always preferred it to looking up into the double chin of whatever schmuck I was screwing.” Granny Lane shrugged when Mom gasped. “What’d I say?”
I laughed and joined them on the bed. “I’m pretty sure that was too much information.”
Mom groaned. “Way too much.”
“Too much information would be telling you that I once made it through the entire Karma Smutra one time with a man named Eddie in Oregon.” She held her hands out in front of her, about a foot apart. “He put your little toy vibrator to shame.”
“When were you in Oregon?”
I snorted. “That’s what you’re focusing on? And that’s not what it’s called, Granny.”
“Oregon? What do you call it?”
“No, the Karma Smutra. That’s not the name.”
“I think I’d know what it’s called. After all, I did it.”
“Mom. When the hell were you in Oregon?”
Granny Lane giggled. “The time your father and I split up. He went to Atlantic City, thinking he was going to get with a dancer and show me. Joke was on him when I came back from my trip, walking bowlegged like some cowgirl.”
“You know what? I think this apartment has been ruined for me. Thank you, Granny.”
Mom gagged. “Don’t say things like that, Mom!”
“I don’t shame you when you wear those mom jeans of yours! Don’t sex shame me. Don’t yuck my yum.”
I stood up and walked out of the room. “You two are ruining my brain.”
Mom followed me. “Don’t leave me in there with her.”
Granny Lane was right behind us. “You think you can just leave me talking to myself in a room?”
I stood in the middle of my almost completely empty living room and looked around at where all my pictures had hung on the wall. Pictures of the insane women arguing behind me, pictures of Dad. There’d been too much loss in my life that year. Dad had been a complete shock. He’d been so healthy. My apartment hurt less, but it was still brutal. I just wanted things to stop hurting.
Unfortunately, working and living in the same house as Con Phoenix wasn’t going to let that be easy. The man dealt out pain like it was his profession, even when he didn’t know it. And I was the idiot who hadn’t even known his last name. Never would I have accepted an interview with a Phoenix if I’d known Con was one. For any amount of money.
“Stop harassing me and hug your daughter. She’s crying again.” Granny Lane pulled me into her thin arms even as she told Mom to hold me. “Come here, baby-cakes. It’s all going to be okay.”
I really wanted to believe her. I wasn’t the positive person my dad was, though. A realist, yes, but hardly ever positive.
