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Her mother uttered an indelicatehmph,and she crossed the faded carpet to start folding Sloane’s castoffs with military precision.
“What’s so great about this Belinda, anyway? You can write anything you want. But you insist onthosebooks.” She paused to mutter under her breath in Italian. “You know what Mrs. Delvecchio calls them?Bodice rippers.”
Sloane bit back the rude noise welling up in her throat and unearthed a sweater from her suitcase with a snap sharp enough to test the delicate fabric. “Please. First of all, that phrase is derogatory. I write romance novels. Period. Secondly, Tina Delvecchio used to swipe books from her mother’s collection all the time. Mrs. D has no room to talk.” Half the girls in Sloane’s eighth-grade class had learned the logistics of French kissing from Mrs. Delvecchio’s romance novels.
Her mother was not deterred. “Don’t you want to have a respectable job like your sisters?”
Irritation bubbled higher in her chest, but Sloane pushed it down. “I do have a respectable job. I just don’t want to be a full-time parent.” Which was also a respectable job, just not one Sloane wanted to do. Ever. God, this conversation needed a hand basket because it was headed directly to hell.
A frown settled over her mother’s stern features as she arranged the last of Sloane’s garments into a ruler-straight row. “You’re nearly thirty-two. Your eggs might already be too dried up for making babies.”
Sloane let out a belly laugh that burst through the tension brewing between her shoulders. Time to set her mother straight, once and for all. “Guess it’s a good thing I don’t want any, then.”
Try as she might, no way could she envision herself in charge of another human being. Her one attempt at domesticity ended up with a cactus so dehydrated, it defied recognition. To fathom taking care of a kid was like asking her to sprout wings and fly.
Both were utterly crazy, and neither one was going to happen. Plus, why would she pin herself to one place when there was still so much of the world left to see? And more importantly, more books to write.
“Look, I appreciate your concern for my, um, eggs, but really…I’m not like Angela and Rosie.” Sloane kept her smile, but crossed her arms over her non-chest so her mother would still know she meant business.
Again. Lord, this conversation was practically scripted, complete with Sloane’s refusal to acquiesce and her mother’s resulting chagrin.
Her mother paused, but her frown didn’t lose any steam in the silence. “I only want you to be happy. You don’t want to be single forever, do you?”
“Not necessarily.” After all, you couldn’t really do what she did for a living and not believe in some form of happily ever after. “But the right guy hasn’t come along yet.”
“Mr. Right could be just under your nose! You might find him, if only you’d stop moving long enough to take a look.”
“Just because I do things differently than everybody else doesn’t mean I want to end up alone. I write romance novels for a reason.”
Of course Sloane believed in happily ever after. Hers just involved a beach in Cabo San Lucas instead of a couple of kids and a house with a yard in Brooklyn, that’s all. Until she got sick of the beach, anyway, and then she’d find it in another gorgeous locale.
Her mother threw her hands in the air. “Don’t remind me. I should have known you’d give me fits over this. You don’t do anything the regular way. You didn’t even come into the world like most people.”
A grin poked at the corners of Sloane’s mouth at the reminder. “You’re not really going to give me grief about how I was born again, are you?”
Ignoring the question, her mother barreled on. “Both of your sisters were born right on their due dates. Like clockwork.”
“Mmm hmm. Just like the doctor said.” Her smile picked up momentum as her mother continued, gesturing with her hands to emphasize the words.
“Looking back, you were never like them, not even in my belly. Your papa swore you were going to be a spitfire, the way you tumbled around. You were always kicking, always moving. So eager to get out and do your own thing.” Her mother’s expression flirted with a smile for an instant, before shifting into the knowing brow raise Sloane was so accustomed to. “But never in my wildest dreams did I think you’d be brash enough to be born in the back of a cab on Atlantic Avenue.”
Ah, the pièce de résistance. Personally, it was Sloane’s favorite part of the story. “See? The conventional route just isn’t in my nature.” She tossed a glance over her shoulder, calculating the trip to Manhattan with a grimace. “And as much as I’d love to rehash my offbeat childhood and have a discussion with you about the decrepit state of my eggs, I really do have a meeting to get to. You might not like it, Ma, but Belinda’s my editor. My job is important to me.”
Her mother pursed her lips, her frown clearly suggesting the conversation wasn’t a done deal. “Fine. At least promise you’ll call Joey. A nice dinner out never hurt a girl. Not even one who marches to her own drummer.”
She made a face, flipping a swath of too-long bangs out of her eyes as she glossed over the request. “Gotta get ready, or I’m going to be late.”
Sloane served her mother one last smile before nudging her out of the sun-filled bedroom and shutting the door. Flinging the contents of her suitcase around in earnest, she managed to get ready in record time. Fifteen minutes and two wardrobe changes later, Sloane smoothed her hands down her black and cream wrap dress, forgoing traditional pumps in favor of a pair of purple suede boots. At least her drummer had good fashion sense.
She hooked the clasps on her lucky fleur-de-lis earrings and breezed out the door, biting back a shudder at the frigid air sneaking past her coat to swirl under her dress. With her boots keeping steady time on the bleached gray pavement, her mother’s words made a repeat performance in her brain.
You don’t want to be single forever, do you?
She headed down the stairs toward the subway, the question tumbling to the tune of the staccatoclack clack clackof the incoming train. Just because she wasn’t conventional didn’t mean she was dead inside—of course the idea of being a permanent party of one was unappealing. But equally unappealing was the thought of marrying a nice, steady man with a nice, steady income so they could raise a handful of nice, steady children. Not that there was anything wrong with settling down in a traditional sense, per se. Both of her sisters were thrilled to the teeth to live like that, and Sloane was thrilled for them.
But deep down, she knew that for her, settling down would be…well, settling for less.
* * *
