AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER
2
Though she expected some kind of tectonic shift, perhaps cosmic acknowledgment that there was now a three in front of her age—a sore hip, a chin whisker, a wave of suffocating Millennial guilt that she hadn’t accomplished anything despite her achievements—Lucy’s birthday began like any other day.
She woke in her bed, alone because Caleb had in fact not shown up for drinks. Sorry, babe. I have to cancel. I’ll see you tomorrow night. Although not surprised, she had been disappointed. She stared up at her powder blue ceiling, which she’d painted in a fit of freshening up her small living space the previous summer—she’d found the tip in an article called “How to Freshen Up Your Small Living Space”—and took a deep breath. It was a big day. Yes, her thirtieth birthday, but also the day she would secure her promotion at J&J Public, a Hollywood institution, and best the insufferable Chase McMillan, her workplace archnemesis.
His rise in rank right alongside her—intern, junior assistant, assistant, junior publicist—had earned him the nickname Chase McMillan the Supervillain in Lucy’s innermost circle. Admittedly, he was excellent at his job, but he was also callous and often handed things Lucy deserved. They were both vying for a seat at the table with the senior publicists that had been left vacant by a recent departure, and Lucy would be damned if he beat her to it.
She wanted it so badly she could taste it. She could taste it like a champagne toast on the rooftop at Perch, the exact restaurant where she’d be holding her birthday party later that night.
After she got her promotion.
First, she had to nail her lunch date with Joanna and Lily Chu, the hottest new starlet in Hollywood, who was already generating Oscar buzz for her breakout role in an indie film. Lucy was no stranger to lunch with celebrities—it was literally in her job description. Like half of Hollywood, J&J Public was competing to reel in Lily, and Lucy was going to be the one to land her. Lily & Lucy: she already liked the way their names sounded together. She would win her over, she knew it. And Lily Chu as a client was the exact edge she needed to land that promotion.
All in a day’s work.
1. Lock down Lily Chu.
2. Secure promotion.
3. Gracefully ascend into the divine decade of her thirties.
4. Have one hell of a birthday bash on a rooftop in downtown L.A. where her boyfriend would finally propose to her.
She was ready. She was ready. All she had to do was get out of bed and start her day.
She stretched her arms over her head. Her elbows popped, but that was normal, definitely not a sign of age. She threw back her duvet, swung her legs over the bed, and saw that her mother was calling her.
In fact, she saw that she had a missed call and two texts from her mother already—alerts she didn’t hear because she gave herself the birthday gift of sleeping with her phone on silent.
She lifted her phone from her nightstand and looked at her mother’s name on her screen. She considered giving herself another gift by not answering. Without a doubt, the phone call would include a birthday wish coupled with a reminder that Lucy was now in her thirties, not married, and had no children—things Maryellen Green had accomplished by the time she was twenty-seven.
Lucy was an only child, so her mother put all her reproduction stock in her, which meant things like publicly noting that her left hand was still void of a diamond and stockpiling hand-knitted baby clothes and blankets. If she listened closely enough, Lucy was sure she’d hear knitting needles clicking in the background while her mother pinched her phone between her ear and shoulder, refusing to acknowledge that speakerphone made life much easier.
She marveled at her mother’s ability to instill guilt at the mere sight of her name, and surrendered.
“Hi, Mom,” she answered.
Click, click, click.Right on schedule.
“Lucy, sweetheart. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
Needing to get her day going, Lucy sidestepped a moving box full of books and headed toward her bathroom. Always one to be prepared, she had started packing belongings that could stand not being used in the coming two weeks until she moved. Boxes littered her small apartment like bins at a rummage sale, half full of a random assortment of art, dishes, seasonal shoes. Her efficiency would pay off in the long run, but the early preparation made her daily routine a bit of an obstacle course.
“I assume you’re preparing for your big day today? You know, I saw that movie with Lily, and she is just fantastic. I hope you make a good impression on her,” her mother said.
Annoyance prickled Lucy’s scalp. Her mother fancied herself a coconspirator in her life, always knowing what was going on if she wasn’t trying to orchestrate it herself. Lucy didn’t even remember telling her about Lily, and Maryellen had remembered the date of their meeting. She even called her by her first name like they were acquainted.
“That’s the plan, Mom.”
Click, click, click.
The sound of the knitting needles was like a little bomb counting down to detonation. Lucy loved her mother, she really did, but she knew where their conversation was heading, and she quite honestly didn’t have the patience for it on her big day.
“Good. And what about you and Caleb? You know, you better get married soon if you’re going to have ch—”
