Page 16 of The Write Track
“What about your dad?” Bree asked.
I shrugged. “He took off when I was three. I saw him periodically until I was about eight or so. That’s to say, he would blow into town once a year to try to get money from my mother and pretend he cared about me. Then he ghosted us until I was about sixteen. I saw him once that year, and he swore he wanted to make amends. I haven’t seen him since.”
Bree was grim. “I get that. Trust me. I do.” She jerked her thumb at Hayley. “She grew up in a Norman Rockwell painting, but I didn’t. I had kind of a similar experience, except your mother sounds great, and mine was a flake.”
Laughter burbled up. “My mother could be described as flaky, but she has the best heart of anybody I know. My whole upbringing was very… witchy. She loves all the kitsch in Salem.
“We went on tours all the time—that’s what she does, she’s a tour guide—and her friends had picnics in the summer and bonfires in the fall,” I continued. “I assumed everybody was raised like me because all of my friends had the same upbringing.”
“That upbringing sounds like the dream to me.” Bree took on a far-off expression. “We moved around a lot. Did you live in the same house the whole time?”
“We had an apartment before my dad left then moved into a house a few years later. My mother still lives there.”
“So, get to the part about Preston,” Hayley prompted.
“You’ll have to forgive her,” Bree said dryly. “She has zero patience for anything that doesn’t revolve around her.”
“Hey.” Hayley bristled. “I listen to you go on and on about how perfect Brody is on a regular basis. How is that me not listening?”
“And you never say anything snarky when I’m doing it, either,” Bree teased.
I sipped my cocktail again. Then I got to the heart of the matter. “In college, I realized that not everyone had been raised like me. I met Preston my senior year, and his stories about his family, about all the money they had and the fundraisers they went to with celebrities, well, they wowed me. I had stars in my eyes.”
“I think anybody would,” Bree said. “I know I would have been wowed too.”
“He was good looking and always so together,” I continued. “I had never known anybody so together. Since he was young, I figured that meant he was going to do great things.”
I paused as I collected my thoughts. “It started as subtle digs. He liked my clothes, but he was curious what I would wear when I got arealjob. He thought my hair—it was much longer then—looked good wild, but wouldn’t it be more pragmatic to cut it a little bit so it was easier to put up in a corporate setting?”
Bree’s mouth was a hard, firm line.
“Mind you, I went to school to be a writer,” I explained. “My mother saved up as much as she could, and I had loans and scholarships. I knew better than going to school just for writing, because that wouldn’t pay any bills. My actual major was in public relations, with a creative writing minor.”
“That’s smart,” Hayley said. “I did a similar thing, only my major was in accounting. What?” she challenged when Bree gave her a weird look. “I like numbers. Sue me.”
“I stopped writing when I was with Preston because he said that it was a waste of time. No author actually makes a living from writing books unless they’re James Patterson,” I explained. “I showed him the first few books I’d written. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them. As you know, the first few books are always a mess. You learn by doing.”
“My first book was genius,” Bree countered. “It’s still genius, locked away on my computer somewhere. I will never look at it again so it can remain a genius work of art.”
Hayley snickered, and I nodded.
“I wrote through college, and then Preston got me a job for his father. It was a secretarial position.”
Bree made a sound like a furious cat.
I smiled. “It wasn’t that bad. It just wasn’t what I wanted to do. Preston kept saying I had to learn the ropes, though. He opened his own real estate company under his father’s banner.”
“And didn’t take you along for the ride?” Hayley challenged.
“No. He didn’t think it was right for us to work together. He thought it might cause static if he was my boss.” I exhaled so heavily my hair ruffled. “I know now—I learned it after the fact—that he was having affairs with his secretaries.”
Bree nodded knowingly. “And having you in the same space would have cut down on his extracurricular activities.”
“Yup. This went on for a long time. I hated my job, but Preston seemed to think it was best. He kept talking about getting married, wanting the proposal and planning to be perfect. He never proposed, though, and the one and only meeting between his parents and my mother didn’t go well.”
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. “They belittled her. She didn’t realize it. She was always a sunshine girl, and she just didn’t see it. I saw it, though, and it made me bitter. Still, I kept telling myself that once Preston was a success, he wouldn’t be such a shithead.”
“Language,” Hayley warned, although there wasn’t a lot of heat behind the word.
