AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her mom gave her a tight smile. “They’re both single moms with small children and no other jobs. I have the baking side gig.”
While delicious, the small batches of cupcakes, cookies, and bars she sold to neighbors and occasionally for events were not going to pay the mortgage, and Jed’s pathetic excuse for alimony wouldn’t close the gap.
Allison did some quick math in her head. Her grad stipend was thirty grand a year. It covered her rent and insurance and other bills and left her only a smidge of pocket money, but if she scraped together all her extra cash for the month and dipped into her meager savings, she might be able to give her mom half the mortgage.
When she offered as much, her mother grimaced. “Honey, I’myourmother, not the other way around. It is not your job to pay my bills.”
“It is if you can’t afford them.”
Most of the time, Allison relished being an only child. She liked never having to share her mother or her things and not having any siblings to be compared to (which meant she was always the best). But at times like this, she wished she had someone else to help her shoulder the responsibilities, someone to worry with about their mom alone in that big house with its big bills, refusing to lean on anyone.
“Honey, I’mfine.I promise.”
Allison’s chest felt like someone was standing on it. She pulled Monty into her lap, and raised one of his little paws, waving it at her mom. He’d been a graduation gift, though secretly Allison thought he was more likely a graduation appeasement to make up for the factthat Jed hadn’t bothered to show up to see his only child graduate with highest honors from an Ivy League school.
Not that that should be surprising, given that he’d walked out of her high school graduation in the middle of her valedictorian speech to “take a work call.”
No matter how low she held her expectations for her father, it gutted her every time he didn’t meet them. And he never did.
“Hi, my little Montague,” her mom cooed.
“Monterey, Ma. As in the cheese. Monterey Jack.”
Her mother frowned. “TheRomeo and Julietreference would have been more on brand for you.”
“My lifelong obsession with cheese isn’t on brand?”
“Cheese is so high in cholesterol.”
“Annndddd… here we go with the food stuff again.” Allison tried her best to avoid it, but food seemed an inevitable part of every conversation with her mother. She was a frequent fad dieter with an inexhaustible love for calorie counters and nutrition labels, while Allison strove for balance but refused to obsess about the numbers. If food became a math problem, she’d be much more likely to become unhealthy about it.
Her mother cocked her head in frustration but didn’t push the issue. “Anything else going on at school besides the new class? What about with Sophie?”
For a second, Allison considered telling her mother about Colin. She’d met him twice at Brown while he and Allison were dating, and her mother had always liked him, though she could never remember his name, referring to him as “glasses boy” or “Cody.” But if Allison admitted to her mother that Colin was at Claymore and that they shared classes and a TAship, she would ask about himdaily,and Allison had enough trouble shoving him out of her head as it was.
She opted for “Sophie’s good.”
“Is she home? Can I say hi?” Her mom treated Sophie like she was her own kid.
“She’s out.”
“Again?”
Allison shrugged. “She’s having dinner downtown.”
Her mother’s brow furrowed. Somewhere out of sight, Cleo’s collar jangled as she shook herself out. “And she didn’t invite you?”
Monty squirmed in Allison’s lap, channeling her own discomfort. “It’s some sort of designers’ thing. I’d be bored; she knows that.” This was just another of the many pieces of Sophie’s life lately where Allison didn’t fit. She forced back a sigh. “Besides,” she added, “I have a mountain of reading to finish for Victorian Lit tomorrow.”
Her mom tugged at the ends of her shoulder-length blond bob. “Honey, don’t make your schoolwork a place to hide.”
Allison dropped her head back and closed her eyes. “I’m not thirteen anymore. I’m not hiding from the world. Grad school is myjob.Plus, my classmates and I are getting together this weekend.” It wasn’t even a lie. They’d planned the gathering weeks ago, after their first class with Professor Behi.
“So you’re making friends—”
“Ma.”
Her mother raised her hands, dropping her phone in the process. Cleo’s big meatball face appeared, hovering above the camera. Then she licked the screen. Everything was a potential snack to that dog.
