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My mother strolls in, my father at her heels. She’d married into my father’s wealth, but she always carried herself like she’s the haughtiest queen in the world. I swear she would make actual monarchs feel like peasants..
Her nose wrinkles. “You need some air freshener in here, Lavender. It smells like sweat and dirt.”
“Hello to you, too, Mom.”
“This place is a beacon of civilization. We saw nothing but the poorest neighborhoods, driving here, didn’t we, Brad?”
My father perks up, hearing his name. “Oh yes. More mobile homes than I have ever seen in my life.”
“I have no idea why you could call this place a vacation destination, Lavender. It’s atrocious. I’m already second-guessing our decision to join you up here.”
Slow, deep breaths. I want to defend Evergreen Valley. To tell her about all its wonderful people. All the sights I’ve seen. How I’ve felt more at home here than in the high-rises of Smithport.
“You shouldn’t be up here, either, Lavender. We need to get you out of here before I start to hear banjos and someone rushes us with a chainsaw.”
I snap at her. “That isn’t going to happen, Mom. You do know that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is fiction, and not a documentary, right?”
She glowers at me. “Well, it’s far more likely to happen for real out here than it is back in our penthouse.”
“Yeah, instead, a plane is going to crash into our home with how high we are..”
Her brow furrows. “Are you making fun of me, Lavender?”
“I’m just trying to tell you not to treat everything like it’s how you see it in a movie, Mom.”
“Listen here, young lady, I am just looking out for you. It’s my job to protect you, and to make sure you are the proper and right heir to the Van Schneider empire. If you’re out here dying of dysentery, you’re obviously not doing that.”
I throw my hands up in disbelief. “Do you think dysentery is something that you catch out in the boonies, Mom?”
“Yes? They vaccinate for it in civilized places. Keeps it from spreading.”
I stare at her. I want to scream at her it’s something you can’t vaccinate for. That it’s not contagious.
It’s all irrelevant. She probably knows this. She just thinks I’m stupid and will accept whatever she says as an excuse to get me to leave.
“Let’s go, Lavender. I thought we could relax out here, but clearly not. You need to come back home with us. You should be preparing for grad school instead of wasting your time out here.”
“I’ve wasted no time out here, Mom. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can’t be doing anything productive here. There’s nothing to do out here that's worth anything.”
“I’m learning how to be a baker.”
“A baker?” She cackles loudly. “Did you hear her, Brad? Our daughter—a baker. How terrible, as parents, would we be if we allowed her to do something so lowly?”
My father is completely shut down. He spent most of the time here just staring out the window, enjoying the view that my mother pretends doesn’t exist. “Yeah, sure, dear. I’ll call back Matt Baker about the merger.”
She rolls her eyes, and ignores his disinterest. “Stop the charade, Lavender. Stop this teenage rebellion. You have a duty to us. Fill your role, your purpose.”
“I’m twenty-one, Mom. This isn’t teenage rebellion anymore. This is like... young-adult rebellion?”
The situation is already pretty bad.
I didn’t know that it could get a whole lot worse.
“Lavender,” a deep, sweet voice announces as he throws open the front door.
Hawk. His heavy footsteps ring against the wood floor, and he sees my parents for the first time.
