Page 5 of Mom Com

W:You think I’m not?

M: Romantic? I don’t know. Maybe??? Should I ask one of the girls you took to the movies this summer?

W:That or you could just come to the movies with me and find out.

I remember hesitating then, a thrill shooting up my spine. A lot of our conversations had skirted up against this type of thing, something safe enough that it could be dismissed as friendly banter, but charged in a way that felt more like flirting. I could feel him watching me, noting the extra time I was taking to respond.

In a flash decision, I decided to push the envelope.

M:Okay, Wilder, I’m calling your bluff. Woo me.

He silently chuckled when he saw the paper.

W:With pleasure, Madeline DeLuca.

And he did take pleasure in it. He was always the type to hold doors open and offer to carry your bag, but all of a sudden it was like I came first in everything. He was aware of me wherever I was in the room, always anticipating me. He knew when I was cranky and when I really needed an ice cream pick-me-up. He brought me small presents—not showy things like flowers, but smaller and infinitely sweeter things like my favorite lip balm on a cold day, or a pen that had a secret compartment he could fit a note in. And my God, did it work. By the time he kissed me three weeks later, I was helplessly in love with him.

I fold the note up and place it back in my journal with a heavy sigh, promising myself that this was a one-time indulgence. I do not want to think about Wilder Buenaventura. Unless it’s to imagine kicking him in the shin. But I don’t have time to dwell because my door opens.

“I told Spencer I would make him up a bed on the couch,” my mother says, coming into the room, and I shove the diary back in the drawer. She eyes me as I take a fast step away from the vanity likeWho me? Reading love letters? That’s just bananas.My lack of subtlety earns me a raised eyebrow. “But he said he wanted to stay in here with you.”

Spencer squeezes around her and plops his bag on the floor. He’s afraid of the dark, and while we have a routine at home that makes him feel comfortable in his own room, he always stays with me when we travel.

I grab him around the waist and pull him onto the fluffy comforter, blowing a raspberry against his cheek. “Gotta get the kid snuggles while I still can.”

He laughs and wipes his cheek. “Gross. You totally slimed me.”

My mother watches us, seemingly unsure if she’s horrified or oddly fascinated by our caveman behavior. She opens her mouth to comment just as a wet finger pokes into my ear. I yelp, which causes Spence to double over in laughter and my mother’s eyes to double in size.

“I’m headed to bed myself,” she says, fluffing the ruffles on her white blouse. “We’ll talk about the matter concerning your father’s will on Sunday.”

And just like that, I stop laughing. I know that’s what instigated this trip in the first place, but her sudden declaration feels off-putting. “Is it a good matter or a bad matter?” I ask before I can stop myself.

She was cryptic on the phone, leaving me to draw my own conclusions. As far as I ever knew there were only three major things in my father’s will—this house, his collection of antique leather-bound books, and the bakery. She mentioned it only once right after he passed, and I got the impression that it pained her to delineate the summation of their thirty years together in such plain terms. My mother came from old money and has always acted like it, even though she lives in no such luxury and hasn’t since the day she married my father and her parents cut her off. Which leads me to conclude that this will issue most likely concerns the bakery. Part of me wonders if she’s ready to sell, a thought that makes my pulse unsteady and my stomach sour with guilt.

“We’ll discuss it on Sunday,” is all she says. “10:00 a.m.”

It’s official. I’m back in Eleanor-Land, a totalitarian kingdom where you plan a meeting time for personal conversations.

CHAPTER3

Speak of the Devil’s Food Cake—

extra potent chocolate for rich color and a heaviness that’s sure to sit in your stomach like an anvil

The promise of coffee propels me down the stairs, dressed and already braced for the comment from my mother about how I slept late. I head for the kitchen, and before I reach the doorway, I hear the clink of a cup on a stone counter. As I step through, she’s pulling a tea bag from a tin.

“Good morning,” she says without looking up, “or should I say good afternoon.”

I smile at the predictability of it. “Oh, come now,” I say, amused. “It’s only 11:15. I’ve been known to sleep till two.” Humor is the only way I survived our relationship as a teen. Of course, my jokes were largely underappreciated, but you can’t have everything.

I pull a bag of coffee beans out of the cupboard and switch on the coffee maker.

She glances up at me, her steaming kettle poised to pour. “I wasn’t trying to be funny,” she announces and I stifle a smile. “I just don’t know how you can get anything done when you miss half your day.” Her tone is perfunctory, not like it’s an insult but a matter of fact.

“I manage,” I say. It’s difficult to resist the urge to defend myself—to explain how I usually average only six hours a night between picking up freelance catering work, hunting for a job in a patisserie or upscale restaurant, and taking business classes at the community center to one day start my own café. Not to mention that I spent what tiny savings I had to get us here and now I havejetlag. But I know that if I say those things we’ll be back to my least favorite conversation, the one that involves all my squandered potential.

“I guess you do,” she replies, dunking her tea bag in her porcelain cup.