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She loved…
She clenched her phone so tightly she worried the screen would break.
She and Devin had told each other that their time together was limited. He wasn’t interested in anything serious; all he wanted in this world was a house of his own outside of town, and he never imagined sharing it with anyone, least of all her. He definitely wasn’t interested in upsetting the balance of his relationship with her family.
Ever since Han’s dinner party, when he’d opened up to her about his dad, she’d known that eventually he’d break her heart.
She just hadn’t been prepared for it to happen so soon. Maybe it didn’t have to. A bubble of hope filled her chest. Maybe she wouldn’t get the job. Maybe she could just stay here forever, working at the bar and helping Arthur run the food kitchen and sleeping with Devin and it would all be okay.
Right.
The bubble popped almost instantaneously. She needed this job. If it was offered to her, she’d have no choice but to take it and go. This was the moment she’d been waiting for, working toward, training for.
So why did everything about it make her feel so terrible?
Before she could even begin to get it all sorted out, the front door opened.
“Crap.”
Instinctively, she scrambled to look busy, but sitting at her laptop with her spreadsheet open was about as busy-looking as she could get.
“Oh, look, you’re awake,” her mom said, deadpan.
Zoe drew in a breath and forced herself to smile. She hadn’t gotten home until two a.m. yesterday after closing up the Junebug. The fact that she was up before ten was a miracle.
Try telling her early-bird mother that, though.
“Han went to the restaurant already?” her mom asked.
Zoe shook her head. “Took the dog for a hike first.”
“Good. Ling-Ling needs more exercise.”
“Ling-Ling needs you to stop slipping her extra treats.”
“Me?” Her mother put her hand to her chest dramatically. “Never.”
Right. “How was brunch?”
Zoe’s mother ate with May and June’s mom and a few other old ladies almost every morning down at the Sweetbriar Inn on Main Street.
Her mom waved a hand dismissively. “Same as ever.” She headed into the kitchen to start a pot of tea. Managing to sound both casual and pointed, she mentioned, “Mrs. Smith’s son got a big promotion. Branch manager.”
“That’s great.” Zoe dug her nails into the meat of her palm.
The competitive instinct in her told her to brag about the interview she’d just landed, but she knew better. Her mom would get obsessed with it and have her cramming for it like the SATs. Better to keep mum.
But as her mother puttered around, getting everything together for her tea, Zoe kept running around in circles inside her head. She wanted to talk this out with someone. Devin, namely. He was so grounded, and he asked her questions that made her see things in a new light. Could she bring up her mixed feelings about moving without letting on that she was getting too attached to him? Probably not. He was working right now anyway. So were June and Lian and pretty much all of her other friends she might try to talk to about this.
Which left her with her mom.
With her teapot and little porcelain cup and saucer balanced on a tray, her mother returned to the table and took her usual seat at the head. She put on her reading glasses and opened up the newspaper.
Zoe fidgeted, glancing between her open laptop screen and her mom, but she couldn’t quite figure out how to open up her mouth and say what was on her mind.
Talking—really talking—with her mother had never been easy. Her mom had this unique way of shutting Zoe down and making all her ideas seem foolish. Sometimes Zoe had enough force of will to barrel right through.
And sometimes she ended up picking a stupid major she didn’t even like anyway.
