I’M LUCKY TO HAVE HER, I’M LUCKY TO HAVE HER, I’m lucky to have her.
Sophia had repeated that phrase to herself in her head more times in the last week than she had in the entirety of the previous seventeen years—and that included the fiasco preteen era when Maisey had been scarily intent on setting Sophia up with her then-best friend’s recently divorced dad.
But ever since Sophia had gone to see Ms. Kneller—Nathalie, as she’d been told to call her after having given her a smoky-eye look that would no doubt tantalize her husband and high school sophomore boys alike—Maisey had gone from acting like an aloof but levelheaded responsible teenager to a . . . well, to a complete and utter Teenager.
The shift had happened almost immediately. Sophia had made a concerted effort to get up early the next morning (night shoots had them not finishing up until nearly 3 AM) and talk to Maisey before she left for school. She was going on less than two hours of sleep, but she knew it was important enough to warrant a little bit of a sleep schedule interruption.
It was also important enough to warrant waffles, she thought. For Maisey. It had nothing to do with the fact Sophia was craving carbs covered in maple syrup.
The waffles were made and on the table before Maisey even emerged from her room, her school bag slung over her shoulder.
“There you are!” Sophia had said brightly, as she quickly swallowed the bite of waffle she had just taken.
“What’s all this?” Maisey asked, as she headed to the fridge.
“Waffles. And talking.”
Maisey’s eyebrow went up. “Talking?”
“Come on kiddo, I texted you yesterday that I wanted to talk today.”
“I figured you meant after school,” Maisey replied, nonchalantly grabbing a yogurt squeeze pouch and readjusting the heavy school bag on her shoulder. “You know that night shoots do a number on you.”
“Well, this is too important to wait until after school. Or after night shoots. I had a conversation with Ms. Kneller yesterday.”
Maisey hesitated for just a second. But then sighed. “Yeah, so?”
Sophia blinked. “So? So . . . I hope there are some finished college applications in that overloaded backpack. And the paper you owe in your lit class from last week.”
It only took a second. A fraction thereof. But Sophia’s eyes were glued to Maisey’s face, so she saw it. She saw the shift. From wary and aloof, to combative. To spoiling for a fight.
“God, Mom, you have one conversation with a teacher and suddenly you’re a helicopter parent. Nice of you to show up.”
Show up? Like she hadn’t shown up to every recital, soccer game, and parent-teacher night in seventeen years.
“Hey now,” Sophia said, warning. “Ms. Kneller is just concerned about you. As am I.”
“What’s the big deal? I didn’t turn in a paper? I assure you, my grades can take it.”
Sophia felt her frustration rising. What her mother used to call “her blood getting up” whenever she had to deal with a teenage Sophia. “It’s the attitude that accompanied the lack of paper. Not to mention your college applications.”
“My attitude is the problem? Okay then, I’ll smile and be super-duper cheerful and then you won’t care that I didn’t do my paper or my college applications.”
“Maisey! This is your future we’re talking about—now is not the time to devolve into a spoiled brat!”
“Right, Mom, I’m so incredibly spoiled.”
“Maisey—” Sophia’s voice had taken on a warning tone. One that she knew only too well, from having heard it employed against her during her own teenage years.
God, she needed to call her own mother and apologize for . . . everything.
She took a deeeeeeeeeep breath, and tried to dredge up the memory of how close she and Maisey were.
“This is important. I don’t care about the lit paper. You’re right, your grades can take it.
“But these colleges—they don’t know you. They’re not going to wait for you, or give you leeway. I know you’re still disappointed about Stanford. And maybe, after a year or two at a different school, you can transfer. But right now, you need to finish your other applications so you can go to school in the fall.”
During her (rational, well thought out, good job, Mom!) speech, Maisey had dropped her eyes to her bag, begun fiddling with the zippers. And when Sophia was done there was a long pause, the only sound Maisey’s breathing. She hoped that she got through to her. She crossed her fingers behind her back.
But then, Maisey looked up, and if possible the edges of her eyes had gotten even harder.
“Why? Eager to have me out of the house so you can paint my room blue?”
And with that, Maisey stormed out of the room, out of the house, and off to school, in a perfect teenager huff.
Oh, yes. Sophia had learned in her last doctor’s appointment that she was having a boy. She could only hope that seventeen years from now, he was less stubborn than his sister.
Over the course of the next week, it was as if Maisey, ever the overachiever, was determined to work through all the steps of stereotypical teenager-dom in rapid succession. Her interactions with Maisey ran the gamut from sullen silences, to disdainful sarcasm, to slammed doors and even to missing curfew. Not that Maisey had ever had a curfew, as she’d never tested the upper limits of what was allowed.
But when Sophia came home one morning at 3 AM from night shoots, and discovered that Maisey was not in her room, she had called two police stations and one hospital before Maisey responded to her texts, saying that she had gone over to her dad’s for dinner, and decided to spend the night.
Her phone call with Maisey’s father the next morning was in no way productive.
“If you’re going to be working nights, Maisey should stay with me,” Alan barked, irritated. “She’s still a kid, you know.”
“I have no problem with her staying with you,” Sophia said, trying to keep her calm with the man who’d only decided to be a parent a handful of years ago. “If she’s going to go out, she needs to tell me. But she’s being a brat right now, because she’s mad at me.”
“Why?” Alan asked without sympathy. “What did you do?”
Had a sex life, apparently.
The fact that Fargone was on night shoots didn’t help. When Maisey was home in the afternoon, Sophia wasn’t. When she and Maisey overlapped for those brief few minutes in the morning, she was practically brain-dead and couldn’t find the energy to face off against her newfound teenager.
But she was brain-dead most of the time to begin with. The flipping night-and-day schedule of sleeping until noon and working until dawn had been doable when she was in her twenties, but now that she was thirty-six, and pregnant, it was beyond exhausting.
Not to mention, ever since the Golden Globes peach lip gloss incident, work itself had not been her oasis of calm, creative expression amid chaos that she normally enjoyed.
Vanessa had been glowing at the awards. She was featured in all the glossy checkout line magazines and online awards show fashion roundups. But she had become remarkably frosty toward Sophia, blaming her no doubt for the almost catastrophe of the peach lip gloss.
It was on the first night of the night shoots that it all came to a head.
“No, I want Kip to do my makeup,” Vanessa said, as soon as Sophia sat down in her ergonomic rolling stool (usually she worked on her feet, but once she told the producers about the pregnancy it had shown up in the makeup trailer with no other explanation). “I’m sorry, Sophia, but this is such a pivotal episode, and Kip and I talked over the exact look I wanted when we were in the limo to the Globes.”
Sophia’s eyebrows went up as she shot a look to Kip, who seemed both frozen and guilty at the same time.
“ . . . okay. You know we had long discussions in the production meetings about what the look for this episode would be. We showed you sketches. I’m sure Kip’s ideas are great—”
“Exactly, Kip’s great,” Vanessa replied, keeping her face neutral in the mirror. “I loved the sketches, and Kip is just going to add that little extra oomph. You understand, don’t you, Sophia?”
Sophia had bit her lip. “Sure. But Kip has a lot of other people to prep, too . . .”
“And now you have time to help him with that! Come on, Kip, let’s go.”
Then Vanessa actually clapped her hands, and Sophia had no choice but to scoot away.
Kip mouthed an I’m sorry as they traded spots.
“Just . . . stick to what was approved?” Sophia whispered back, and Kip nodded vigorously.
Immediately, Sophia felt this total loss of intimacy, being taken away from her work, her canvas, and her friend, as Vanessa laughed and began reminding Kip exactly what kind of look they had talked about.
The next touch-up on Vanessa’s co-star this episode wasn’t scheduled for a half hour, and rather than sit around and watch, Sophia slid out of the trailer. She found her way to the office of Roger, the executive producer, and told him what had happened. Leaving out the peach lip gloss, of course. She tried to be as neutral as possible, but if Kip was going to be co-opted the production needed to know, especially if they had to hire on an extra hairdresser for the episode.
“I’m sorry.” Roger sighed. “Ever since the movie came out, she’s gotten more demanding with wardrobe, too. It’ll blow over. In the meantime, do what you can to keep the ship steady—no one’s better at that than you.”
So she focused on the co-stars, the guest stars. They’d never had better makeup in their lives. But still, watching Vanessa and Kip every day (or rather, night) was like a knife to the gut.
“Well, is it really that big of a surprise?” Kip had said, after one particularly excruciating night as they put their trailer back in order, readying it for the next day of shooting. “Vanessa is crazy jealous of you.”
“Jealous? Of me?” Sophia said in utter disbelief.
“You know how all the entertainment blogs write about her. That she and her rock star hubby broke up because she wanted kids and he didn’t. That she’s baby crazy.”
“There’s no truth to that though.” Sophia grunted. “You didn’t put her in this Pale Moon foundation, did you? You know the way the DP lights the scene.”
The director of photography was an Australian gentleman with a keen eye for framing a shot—but no idea about how lighting and makeup worked together. The one time that Sophia had used the Pale Moon foundation on an actor, she saw one frame from the video feed from the camera and forced the crew to stop shooting for an hour while she took the actor back and made him not look like a translucent zombie.
Roger had thanked her for it . . . eventually. Once he saw the dailies.
“Of course I didn’t, you’ve taught me better than that. And isn’t there?” Kip said. “You’re not only pregnant, you’re pregnant by her friend and her ex’s bandmate. Like, it’s okay for the band if Sebastian the bass player has a kid but not the lead singer? And all of this happens as she’s under massive pressure from doing the awards circuit and her marriage is ending.”
Sophia took a moment, let that settle under her skin.
“I’m not saying she’s right,” Kip said. “I’m just saying . . . give her a break. This will blow over.”
But as the week progressed, and the drudgery at home and work continued, Sophia had to wonder—which would blow over first? Maisey or Vanessa?
The only thing that kept her sane was the thought of Sebastian. But unfortunately, at the moment, that’s all he was—a thought. And the occasional phone call.
As much as Sebastian said he had promised to force the band to cut back and play only local gigs, those local gigs hadn’t transpired. In fact, they had instead decided to join another couple indie bands on the road through the Southwest to Texas—the tickets were all presold, they were filling in for a band that had been told by their label they couldn’t tour, it was a great opportunity! At least, that’s how Sebastian had put it.
“Look at it this way—better to get all the touring done before the baby gets here, right?” he’d said as he packed. A little too enthusiastically, to Sophia’s suspicious mind. “And this way, it’ll give the manager time to get us local gigs for the fall, when the baby’s here. Once that happens, I’m never leaving your side.”
She couldn’t do anything but agree with that. But it meant that the only person Sophia could lean on in that time was reachable only by phone, and he was on as sporadic and crazy a schedule as she was.
“HEY HON WE’RE IN PHOENIX.”
“Sebastian! Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice. I’m having the longest day. Still at work past midnight, of course, and I just put lipstick on my 100th pig—literally pigs, we’re on a farm and it’s a plot point—but you won’t believe the craziness I’ve been dealing with. Maisey is still—”
“IT’S CRAZY HERE, TOO. THE SHOW IS PACKED. WE’VE NEVER PLAYED CROWDS LIKE THIS.”
“It sounds like it.”
“WHAT?”
Sophia took a deep breath. “I SAID IT SOUNDS LIKE IT.”
“LISTEN, GOING BACK OUT FOR AN ENCORE. WE’RE GONNA DO ANOTHER SET WITH THE GUYS FROM THE OTHER BANDS. LOVE YOU!”
That was how their phone calls tended to go. It was no wonder Sophia’s blood pressure had spiked slightly.
She took her blood pressure every morning (or rather, every afternoon once she woke up) with the machine Sebastian had given her. And steadily, over the course of her night shift/teenage Maisey week, it inched up.
Not crazily, but whereas her blood pressure was usually in the 110s or 120s over 70s, for the past few days it had been in the 130s. A slight uptick. She called her doctor, who told her that 1. She probably shouldn’t be taking her blood pressure every day, as it was likely added pressure and stress and threw the results a bit, and 2. It was good information to have, and she should come in and they would record the results so they could keep an eye on it properly.
She went in. The doctor ordered her to pee in a cup for the next twenty-four hours (it was a very big cup) to test her protein levels.
Like that didn’t add to her stress, too.
The tests came back negative. The doctor reassured her, quelled her fears. And she didn’t mention any of it to Sebastian.
He would ask her if she wanted him to come home. And God help her, she would say yes, and he would. But it would be a lot to tear him away from the band. And he was working so hard to arrange things so he could be there when the baby came. Besides, the crazy was dying down. Night shoots were done by the end of the week, and they returned to a normal schedule on Monday. Once her sleep schedule flipped back around over the weekend, her blood pressure went down five points.
And once she settled things with Maisey, it would go down another five, she was sure of it.
So come Monday morning, when she was getting ready for work in the predawn hours, she also got the waffle iron out, and whipped up a new batch of delicious carbs by which to interrogate one’s teenage daughter.
But this time, she would do it better. It would be Waffles Take Two.
She would go into Maisey’s room, and wake her up by rubbing her back and singing softly, the way she had since she was a little girl. Then the smell of maple syrup would no doubt make her pliable enough to get an honest conversation out of her. The subsequent meal would, no doubt, make everything normal again.
But two things turned that hope into a pipe dream. While Sophia was waiting for the waffle iron to ding, a similar ding came from her pocket.
It was a web notification. Which Sophia got all the time. She had a notification set up for the show, and every morning after an episode aired her phone sounded like a pinball machine lighting up with all the watercooler articles being written. But she also had a notification set up for the band, and ever since they had been on tour, those notifications were building in frequency. In fact, she had gotten so many notifications for them recently she was about to ignore this one, but she didn’t.
Although she sort of wished she had.
It was an article in the online edition of one of those glossy rags she only ever got to read when she got a manicure. It wasn’t exactly a think piece—it was little more than a gushing blog post about “Hanging Out Backstage with the Hottest Band!” And there was a picture of a group of young enthusiastic groupies with Deegan, Mick, all the guys . . . and Sebastian.
The guys all had their arms around the groupies’ (tiny) waists as they posed for the pic. Sophia knew—she knew—it wasn’t any more than a photo. But Sebastian wasn’t looking at the camera. He was staring deep into the eyes of one of the groupies.
Sophia knew that look.
It was the one that made her feel like the only woman in the world.
So . . . that waffle got a little burned.
However, Waffles Take Two could still be salvaged. She would just get Maisey up, and they would commence with the bonding.
But when she gently knocked on Maisey’s door and poked her head in, it was to find Maisey already up and dressed with her headphones on and packing her bag.
“Where are you going?” Sophia blurted, the smell of waffles forgotten.
Maisey pulled an earbud out of her ear. “To work.”
Sophia blinked twice. Twice again. “Work?”
“Yeah—I got a job.”
“ . . . what? Where?” Sophia stuttered. What kind of job did a high school student get that started at five-thirty in the morning?
“At a florist. I’m a delivery girl.”
“You can’t be a delivery girl—school starts at eight AM!”
“Not for me it doesn’t,” Maisey said.
A cold panic shot through Sophia’s chest. “You didn’t . . . you can’t drop out of school!”
“Oh Jesus, Mom, chill out. I didn’t drop out of school. I have first period free this semester, remember? Dad signed a waiver so I can use that time for a job—an “externship” is what the school called it. So, I don’t have to be at school until nine, at which time, I’m done with morning deliveries.”
Sophia put a hand to her chest, to calm her racing heart. Thank God, she hadn’t dropped out. In fact, it was ludicrous she’d even thought it. Maisey, for all her week’s worth of temper, loved school. And probably, considering all the extra courses she’d taken over the years, she could skip the rest of the year and still get her diploma. Not that Sophia would ever want that to happen. But falling down a rabbit hole of self-pity was not Maisey’s way.
Still . . . she had a lot of questions. And she asked them all at once.
“Where is this florist? How are you getting there? How are you allowed to get a job without your parents’ permission? Why do you want a job? I thought you used your free period for tutoring!”
Maisey shouldered past her mother, leading them into the kitchen where the waffles sat, still steaming.
“The florist is located in the flower district downtown. I’m taking Dad’s old car—he says I can use it from now on because they just got the minivan. And since Dad knows about the job, I do have parental permission, not that it’s required by law. And I wanted a job, because . . . because I don’t want to be here.”
Those words echoed across the small kitchen, as Maisey grabbed one waffle off the table, and took a bite, before slamming the door on her way out. The only sound louder was Sophia’s heart breaking.
Sophia managed to sit at the table before her knees gave out. Her daughter didn’t want to be there. Didn’t want to be anywhere near her mother.
So much for Waffles Take Two.
Sophia’s eyes fell to the plate on the table. The last swirls of steam rising from the golden beveled circles.
It only took a second for the plate to go flying. Crashing and breaking against the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen. The maple syrup was going to be hell to get out of the hinges.
Yup, everything would be back to normal, Sophia thought as her nose stung with held-back tears. Soon.