Chapter Nineteen
Allie
“So, have you given any more thought to coming down here?” my mother asked. “The weather’s been just marvelous. There’s no better place to be than the city when the weather is this gorgeous.”
“It’s not like I live in a different hemisphere,” I said. “The weather’s been pretty spectacular up here, too. Minus all the smog and traffic and everything.”
“This isn’t Los Angeles, Allie,” my mother said. “There isn’t any smog here. And the traffic hasn’t been so bad, either.”
“Says the woman who hardly ever drives. Boston is specifically designed to cause as many traffic jams as humanly possible.”
“Oh, stop it. I’m just trying to figure out a time when you and Cole and Declan can come down here. I think that’d be really nice. Have you mentioned it to him yet?”
“No, but I seem to recall you mentioning it several times when you guys dropped in on us that day.”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing, us stopping by.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting you.”
“If you had checked your phone you might have known. I wanted to show Bill where you were staying. He’s been asking about you.”
I’m sure he has. “I’ll talk to Cole,” I said.
“How’s it going with him, anyway?”
Part of me wanted to tell her that I was finally no longer a virgin. She’d be excited. She’d probably send me flowers or something. But she’d also be prying and want to know details, and I didn’t feel like getting into it with her. And she’d also probably try to somehow claim that she was responsible for the whole thing, that if she had never called me that night to tell me about all this simmering sexual tension between him and me that it wouldn’t have even happened in the first place.
“It’s good,” I said. “We’ve been hanging out a lot.”
“Well, I think it’d be nice if you guys came down here to visit at some point. It would go a long way in terms of you and Bill patching things up between the two of you, too.”
“Why do you think I want to patch things up? I’m actually all set if I never see him again.”
“Oh, come on, Allie. Let’s try to be an adult about this, can we? Bill isn’t going anywhere, so I think it’d be good if the two of you could try to put whatever you seem to think happened in the past, okay? I did talk to him about what you said. The accusation you had against him.”
“You did?” I asked, unable to keep the surprise from my voice.
“I did. And quite frankly, he had no idea what I was talking about, which is what I expected. It was so long ago that I don’t think you can really expect to have an accurate memory of it, either. You were probably upset about something—do you remember how turbulent your teenage years were? And he was just doing what any normal father would do, and that was comfort his child. You’ve always had an overactive imagination, and I’m sure that you took it to mean something that it didn’t.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but then I decided not to. There was no point in getting into an argument with her; this wasn’t going to go anywhere. I knew this even before I had told her, which was why I hadn’t wanted to tell her in the first place. But she was crazy if she thought I was just going to pretend like none of this ever happened, and that we were all going to just come down to the city and hang out with them for the day, like we were one big happy family or something.
“You know what, Mom?” I said finally. “I’m actually happy right now. I am happy with the way my life is, where I’m living, and what I’m doing.”
“I’m glad to hear that!” she said. “You’re acting like I’m actively trying to sabotage you or something. I’m not, Allie. I am happy for you. I just don’t see why you don’t want to come down here and spend a little time with us here, let Cole see what your life was like in the city. Don’t you want to share that with him?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.” I hung up the phone.