CHAPTER THREE
BEFORE SHE WENT HOME, she needed to return the call she’d been dreading. So she sat in her car and, noting that it wasn’t quite nine yet, called her parents back.
“Hi, Dad. Returning your call from earlier. What’s going on?” Maybe tried to keep her tone light. Wanting to keep the mood positive instead of the negative it generally ran to after a few moments with them.
For a year or so after the kidnapping, they had a reasonably civil relationship but it’d begun to deteriorate fairly soon after that. She just wanted it to get back to bland civility, damn it.
“Thanksgiving is coming,” he clipped out.
“Yeah, in just three or so weeks.”
“Three weeks exactly.” Naturally he had to correct her. “Your mother would like Rachel, and you, at the table for such an important family holiday.”
The “and you” part brought a sigh to her chest, but she let it go. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know they had all this difficulty between them. Also family holiday? Puhleeze. She’d never even been invited to a holiday with her parents since the age of sixteen. Not until she and Rachel had moved to Seattle and bought their house did they find it within them to include her for anything at all, much less holidays.
“I’ll talk to Rachel about it and get back to you.” Rachel had enough experience with other people making her choices for a lifetime so Maybe wasn’t going to agree without talking to her first.
She went out of her way to give her sister the reins of her life. So that Rachel made her own decisions. That sort of independence was a necessary step to the life she had to build for herself since she got out of the hospital.
“She does what you tell her to. Tell her to come to her parents’ house at Thanksgiving.”
This time she didn’t hide her sigh. Sometimes, though they adored Rachel, they really didn’t seem to know her at all. They acted as if she was fragile, but to Maybe it felt more like they wanted it to look that way, but really, they were desperate to take over. To explain away the things Rachel had done as something someone else influenced her over. So they could swoop in and control her every move.
They still treated her as if her medical situation was precarious. Constantly bringing it up. Going out of their way to baby her.
Instead of making Rachel feel safe, it made her feel constricted and weak. Helpless to guide her own fate.
Rachel needed to be her own life’s captain and they didn’t see it as anything but some phase Maybe brought on for her own manipulative reasons.
And they didn’t know Maybe at all, damn it.
Bitterness surged, even as she tried to pretend it didn’t matter they believed she’d be capable of anything to cause deliberate harm to Rachel.
“She’s a grown woman who makes her own choices. I’ll let her know she’s invited.”
“Just get your life out of the bar for five minutes and put someone else first for once in your life,” he said.
The tone he used in private with her, a hard, mean voice full of disdain was so totally different than how he spoke to Rachel. It still startled Maybe after a lifetime of hearing it.
It sent her back to a time when she didn’t have any choices. When she’d been far more helpless than she was now.
It was that knowledge, despite the pain of his treatment, that gave her the nonchalance to bat away his nasty swipe. “You have a fantastic night,” she said right before ending the call.
Boy oh boy, what a night it’d been. Horrible date with horrible, slightly paranoid dude and then a slap fight with her dad. All before 10:00 p.m.
Maybe started the car and headed home.
* * *
“VIC TOTALLY HAS a thing for you,” Maybe told her sister as she walked into the kitchen. She’d tell her about the phone call once she’d stuffed some food into her face.
“I don’t know why you’re not too busy to be up in my lady business.” Her sister’s dry response made Maybe smile.
“Because he’s so cute, Rach. And he has great hands and he smells good. Today he smelled like cinnamon rolls. Imagine that. He’s like a lifetime source of carbs. Take one for the team. Jeez.”
Years of iron-fisted lessons meant she hung her coat up in the hall closet and placed her bag on a nearby hook before cruising back into the kitchen to see what was in the fridge.
“Selfish is my middle name,” Rachel said as she set her sketchbook aside. “Since you’re digging around in there, I’m guessing the date wasn’t good?”
Maybe sighed. “He looked at his phone at least a third of the time. So I asked him if everything was all right and then he got all pissy about my asking. Said I was accusing. Which uh, no I was thinking an emergency or whatever. But once he’d said all that I was guessing he was up to something shady or had a huge anger management issue, so I was like, okay then, and got out of there before the food even got to the table.”
“Dreadful. There’s pizza. I brought it home from the shop.”
Since she was busily eating a slice of that pizza, Maybe just grunted her thanks as she put another piece on a plate and put the box back in the fridge.
“Alexsei’s mother is in town. I’m not going to lie, I’m beyond curious about her.”
Rachel snorted. “The way Irena talks about her sometimes. Ouch.” She shook her head slowly. “Or, to be more specific, it’s the things she doesn’t say.”
“She’ll tell us more when she’s ready. Or we’ll see it ourselves. I forgot to ask if she was staying with the Orlovs or not.” If so, she’d be right next door so they could get a gander. “Alexsei was bunched up today. More than usual. He barely even complained when I cut his hair.”
“They have family all over the place here. I’m sure she’ll be fine. Why are you so fascinated with this?” Her sister sent a look that said she knew Maybe’s game.
“Are you new here? It’s not like we just met yesterday.” Maybe rolled her eyes. “I’m totally nosy.”
“And you have a hard-on for your boss.”
“Well, I mean, I guess that’s true too. If you want to be so vulgar about it.”
“Vulgar is my middle name.”
“I thought selfish was your middle name?” she teased Rachel.
“Depends on my mood and the day of the week. Duh.”
“I love your goofy ass, you know that, right?” Laughing, Maybe cracked open a beer.
“When are you going to let him see your boobs already? I feel like you two have been giving one another googly eyes for years now.”
“It’s not happening while his mother is visiting from Russia, for goodness’ sake. When she leaves, then I’ll maybe investigate a little further. Probably. I mean, it’s dumb. He’s my boss. I really need to talk myself out of this. Tell me what a terrible idea this is.”
“No. I’m going to tell you what a good idea it is instead. He’s not your boss. Not really. You work in his barbershop. But you earn your own living with your clients and make him a lot of cash. You’re a total asset to his business but neither of you needs to pretend to feel anything out of fear of reprisals. And before you bring up the fiancée, she’s gone and he’s had his rebound time. Get some of that.”
Maybe groaned. “That heifer isn’t gone. She’s like herpes, Rach. She keeps coming back. Alexsei and Vic were talking about her earlier. She claims she needs him to go with her to get a replacement phone.”
Rachel curled her lip. “She can’t have him back.”
“When they were talking about her, they broke into Russian. Alexsei was super annoyed. But they were talking way too fast for me to get more than an outline.”
“For your purposes, she’s gone. She’s not going to marry him anymore. If she ever was. I still can’t see them as a couple and they were actually a couple. But now they aren’t together and won’t be again. That dumbo will be around for years because she’s besties with his cousin, but as long as they’re not involved, so what? Anyway she’s not you. And he seems to dig that fact. You need to get in there and cockblock any bull on her part.”
If only things were as simple as Rachel thought they were. She wanted to retort that Rachel should take her own advice and finally realize she could do more than bang a dude and kick him to the curb ten minutes after she came.
But she never would say that because you didn’t make fun of someone’s weaknesses. You built them up. And punched them if they stole your eyeliner, yet again.
“I got a call from Mom and Dad.”
Rachel groaned. “What do they want?”
“Thanksgiving’s coming up and they want us there.” No use mentioning the real reason to have Maybe invited was because she was their way to their oldest daughter.
Maybe always made sure to be around to stand between them before they could hurt her sister. But the truth was, she’d had a vastly different relationship with their parents. One Maybe thought her sister deserved to still enjoy. Especially if it gave her more emotional support.
“Huh.” Rachel sighed heavily.
“We’ll do whatever you want. I’ll handle them either way.”
“Why do you keep taking them on for me? You don’t have to. I’m a big girl.” Rachel was indeed a big girl, but she’d been the protector for most of Maybe’s life, so it was her turn to do the protecting.
Maybe just wished their parents saw that and appreciated it instead of reacting to it as if it was a personal attack. Wanted, so very much, not to care how they saw her, but really she wanted them to be proud of her. To see what she did in a positive light instead of always so damned negative.
She was stable. Someone Rachel could count on.
“It was just a phone call about Thanksgiving. People deal with that mundane family stuff every day. No one’s family is perfect.” If she said it often enough she might believe it.
And most important, Rachel needed Maybe to be the buffer. She wouldn’t always, which was why she didn’t say the words aloud.
“Robbie traded Thanksgiving for Christmas so they aren’t doing a big dinner at their house. But you know we can head over there and hang out. Just to be away from here. We can eat turkey here at home too. Or go there. Whatever. As long as turkey is involved I’m pretty much good to go.”
Robbie, their aunt and the woman who was far more a mother to Maybe than her biological one, was a cop, like their father had been. Like a whole truckload of Dolans had been or currently were. Cops worked over holidays, and now that Maybe was grown and didn’t live in Eastern Washington near them, Robbie traded her holidays to be around for more time in the summer for Maybe’s annual visit and Christmas or Thanksgiving when she and Rachel would come over to celebrate.
“Next year you can handle turkey dinner with them on your own. But for the next little while it’s easier for me to thwart them. Thwarting is in my constitution, remember?” And they already disliked her. They wouldn’t try to manipulate her the same way they did Rachel.
And if Rachel was around, they tended to behave better toward Maybe as well. They might actually get through dinner and have a decent time.
Rachel’s laugh sounded rusty, but genuine. “True. You’re a champion thwarter. But you’d cut them off totally and wouldn’t be in contact if not for me.”
She scoffed. Pretty much, yeah. “Well, if you and I weren’t living here, I’d probably still be in Spokane, happily existing two states away from them. Yes. That’s true. Look, they came up here to be near you. They’re not always awful.” Just most of the time. “They worry about you.”
“It’s all the times they are awful to you I have a problem with.”
Her sister had no idea the true extent of damage between their parents and Maybe. She’d seen enough to feel the way she did, to understand why Maybe had run away and gotten herself a new life and kept her parents away from it.
Maybe saw no reason to get into specifics and make Rachel feel bad. She couldn’t have changed it, or stopped it, so it would have only made her feel guilty. Maybe kept her childhood in a box marked Past and that’s where she wanted it to stay.
“Look,” she told Rachel, “nothing is perfect. But you and me? We’re a team. So until you’re ready to handle this, I’ve got it. And even when you are, I’ll still be at your side. She’s a good cook. Turkey day isn’t that bad if we go shortly before dinner and leave right after.”
Her mother would frown at them not helping in the kitchen. But she’d just tell Maybe she was doing everything wrong anyway. The kitchen and her garden were the only places totally under their mom’s complete control. Their dad ran everything else.
It was one of the few things Maybe missed about living in Spokane. At least then they didn’t really expect her to come to Thanksgiving. Once she’d left their house and moved in with her aunt and uncle, her parents generally found it unnecessary to deal with her unless they had to.
She made her own domain. On her terms with the guidance and love of her aunt and uncle. It had transformed her life, made her realize her worth in a way she hadn’t growing up.
But after Rachel and Maybe had settled in Seattle instead of Rachel moving back to Los Angeles where they’d been from, their parents had sold their house and moved up to the Northwest, and their ugly, dark need to control came back into her life again.
It made her harder, it made her stronger and in the end, if she didn’t view it like that, it would have eaten her alive.
“We’ll go, but we only stay on our terms.” Rachel’s voice had gone cold and hard. A glimpse of the woman she’d been and was working her way toward once more. Following the rules was one thing, but Rachel had never been one to get manipulated or maneuvered into anywhere other than where she planned on going.
Rachel took her hands, squeezing them a moment. “What was on that meme you sent me the other day? Oh yeah, Do No Harm, But Take No Shit. I think I need that on a cross-stitch to hang over my damn bed. Anyway. It’s time I start pushing back harder about what I want and for them to get off your case.”
“It’s cool to want to be comfortable and safe and drama free except for the dumb crap at the shop or whatever.” Maybe kept her voice calm. Rachel hated pity and she was always careful to bury it far out of her sister’s way.
“I know what it costs you to run interference with them.”
“You’re going to make me cry so stop this now,” Maybe warned.
“Thank you.” Rachel said this with utter seriousness. “I needed it and now I need to stand on my own more often. Especially with them.”
“I’ll call them back to let them know and get the details.”
“I’ll do it. Don’t argue.” Rachel gave her the stink-eye. “It’s my turn. And I can gauge how strong their when will you get serious and find a real job and stop consorting with those people game is.”
“Good luck with that. They’re world champions and you’ve fallen in with your shiftless sister and her loser friends.”
“It doesn’t matter what they think. I know you.” Rachel waved a hand, but her face was serious.
“It’s cool. I can use it in my art and shit.”
Rachel saw through the bravado, but she let it go with a smile. “Pain is prose, baby. And it pays the bills. Barely, but I’m okay with that for now. I’ve got this and I’m not arguing about it another moment.”
Maybe shrugged and held her hands up. “Okay then. Call in an airstrike if you need it. You know where I am.”