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“Good morning, Hillary,” I reply with a nice coat of sarcasm.
I’ve been up for a while, but conveniently managed to avoid her.
“I swear you were raised by wolves,” Hillary complains, not for the first time.
I bite back a venomous reply, pasting on a politely neutral smile.
She shoots me a harsh glare.
I respond with one that’s colder than ice.
Cow.
“I have breakfast,” Syd says, cutting through the tension. She even lifts two fairly large bags as proof.
“You’re a good friend,” I say. “Let’s go into the backyard.”
“Sounds good,” she says. “Got to go,” she tells Hillary. “Have a great day, Ms. Twatt,” she grins wide before letting herself into the house.
I join her at the foot of the stairs, avoiding my stepmother’s pointed gaze by grabbing the second bag from Syd’s hand. Hillary is quick to blame me when the wind blows the wrong way, so I do my best to avoid her and her girls.
I lean into Sydney and murmur into her ear, “You keep giving Hillary reasons to hate you.”
“I can’t help it,” she says. “I love getting under her skin.”
And she does it well.
“I could live off these huevos rancheros burritos and the pulled pork ones from Mamá Carlota,” I say, scooping up the rest of my salsa before popping the last bite into my mouth.
“Same,” Syd agrees.
“Now I’m stuffed,” I lean back in my chair and rub my tummy in delight. “Thanks again for looking out for me.”
When Dad was alive, Hillary excelled at preparing inedible meals. Seriously, the woman can’t cook to save her life. She’s long stopped pretending to know anything about cooking since she no longer has to brainwash my dad into believing she’s the perfect wife. She can order, though. That said, since she hired a ketogenic dietician and a personal trainer two months ago—with money we don’t have—to help her daughters lose a ton of weight for a string of auditions, I’m left fending for myself. It’s yet another ploy to distract from the real fact. Olive and Petula have zero acting talent, and their petulant—pun very much intended—attitude to life is a major turn off.
“It’s not over yet. I got us your favorite from Mamá Carlota as a post breakfast sugar rush.”
“You got tres leches cake?” I ask.
Her blue eyes twinkle. “I did.” She nods. “I also got flan.” She allows for a theatrical pause. “And I stopped by Sticky Fingers to buy you a jar of dulce de leche—they were just displaying them when I got there.”
Damn.
Left to my own devices, I could eat dulce de leche with a spoon straight from the jar—
Wait a minute.
I narrow my eyes at Sydney. “You’re buttering me up.”
“Why would you say that?”
“You’re an even worse actress than Olive and Petula,” I sneer.
“I take offense to that,” she scoffs. “I consider myself far more capable of delivering believable lines than Ever Dumb and Ever Dumber—I mean, your evil stepsisters—even if I’m only a lowly blue-collar worker who will never grace the red carpet.”
We laugh.
Hillary poo-poos all over manual labor. It’s beneath her. She has dreams of multi-million-dollar contracts and shelves lined with Oscars. She’s banking on her daughters to make her a bona fide stage mom. Good luck with that.
