Page 34 of The Design of Goodbye
I stepped back in shock. They’d never involved me in their arguments, and I’d never offered my ideas. My job was to fix stuff, notdecidehow to fix it. But Bev and Taylor stared at me expectantly, as if they were truly interested in what I had to say.
“Oh, um...”I swallowed thickly. “Both your ideas are...good.”
Taylor snorted. “They aren’t, actually.” She flopped into a chair so forcibly she almost fell over. “They’reboring.”
“Madison, do you have any ideas?” asked Bev. She pulled her glasses down her nose and raised her eyebrows at me. She had the same brown eyes as her daughter. In fact, other than shorter hair and an extra twenty years, Taylor and Bev looked almost exactly alike.
While I had a great solution, I almost lied. I remembered the times I’d suggested clothing ideas to my mom, and she’d never reacted well. But I hated lying to Bev, so I nodded.
“Then, come in here”—Taylor pulled me into the room so I was in front of the dress—“and tell us!”
“Okay.” I cleared my throat.
“Madison, seriously,” said Taylor. “We don’t bite.”
“I know.” I nervously twisted some loose hairs back into one of my braids. “Since the dress is long and flowy, I think chiffon off-the-shoulder straps would look good.”
Silence permeated the room.
“That wouldn’t look good,” said Taylor.
Embarrassment flooded through me. Iknewit. This is exactly why I never—
“That would lookamazing,” finished Taylor.
Bev came to stand next to me, and I tried to prepare myself for her list of reasons why my idea wouldn’t work.
“Charlotte willloveit.” Bev hugged me. At first, I became a statue in her embrace. I wasn’t used to motherly hugs, and I was shocked at her openness to my idea. But, soon, my eyes involuntarily closed at her warmth, and my body relaxed. When I finally pulled away, Bev said, “Thank you for trusting us with your idea. Taylor and I get focused on what we want and fail to think outside the box.” She clapped her hands together. “You know what this calls for?”
“Special tea?” asked Taylor hopefully.
Bev grinned and nodded.
“But—” I gasped. Bev was obsessed with tea. She had an entire cabinet filled with loose-leaf teas from all around the world, some so rare she only steeped a pot of them once a year. Those were her special teas. “But you save those forspecialoccasions.”
“This is one,” said Taylor. “Mom and I’ve been arguing over this dress all weekend. I know it sounds silly—it’s just sleeves. But, last night, Dad threatened to get a hotel until we hashed it out.”
Bev and Taylor met each other’s gazes and laughed like they were part of some secret club. Their bond hurt. I’d never had a relationship like they had with my mom. And I never would.
“Let me guess,” said Bev, breaking me out of my thoughts, “you want a masala chai?”
I nodded, a grin spreading across my face to match hers. Tea would never come close to my love of pumpkin spice lattes, but her spicy chai held a special place in my heart.
Once Bev left, Taylor and I filled out the order form for Charlotte’s dress. When we crammed the dress onto the pending orders rack, the rack almost toppled over. November started tomorrow, which meant we’d be busy through the New Year.
We both grabbed a dress off the rack to work on, but I couldn’t focus. I was afraid I mightruinthe dress if I didn’t get my jumbled thoughts in order, so I cleared my throat and said, “Hey, Taylor?”
“Yeah,” she said, not bothering to look up from her work. “What’s up?”
“I don’t—” I started hesitantly, not sure how honest I wanted to be. “I don’t understand how you can argue with your mom like that.”
At that, she looked up to find me staring at her. “Oh, I don’t know...we’ve always been like that.”
“Aren’t you worried she’ll get mad?”
“I mean, she does,” she admitted. “But it’s like an annoyed mad because we both want to be right. Does that make sense?”
It didn’t. My mom hadalwaysbeen right. One time, I’d suggested a dress needed three buttons instead of five, and she’d ignored me for days.
