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“Howlovelyfor the children here!”
“Isn’t your niece attending the high school at Winchester Academy?” Monica politely asked. “It’s a good school. The elementary school, at least. All I know about the high school is that Eva went there.”
“Cece has not complained too much. Nothing that most teenagers do not complain about no matter where they are, or that culture shock cannot explain.”
Monica nodded. “Now, as for the investment…”
Before she could get another word out, a loud, contentious yell echoed in the hallway through the open door of the salon.
“Ididn’t do it!” Monica leaped out of her seat, face as pale as the crisp white cloth napkins on the table. Becca looked up from her typing, realizing a few seconds too late that she wasn’t supposed to transcribe something a small child shouted at the top of her lungs. “She’slying!She’salways lying!”
“Excuse me.” Breathless, Monica rushed to the salon door, where not only Justin had appeared to assess the situation, but so did Henry Warren, who had been walking with his daughter after bringing her home from school. “What is going on out here?”
Jane picked up her phone and pretended to not pay attention while Becca’s ears rang.
“I didn’t touch her!” The girl in a cotton dress and with her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail thumped against her father’s chest as he picked her up. A face scrunched with tears and the red, righteous anger of a first grader wronged graced thedoorway as the whole family turned around to head toward the east wing. “Why won’t you believe me?”
The screams gradually died as the girl was taken away from the scene. Jane released her pent-up breath while Becca hoped that nothing serious had happened.
“Everywhere I go,” Jane said, “people are having troubles with their daughters.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. At that dinner with the Monroes, their daughter had an outburst too.”
“School’s tough these days.”
Monica returned with a frazzled demeanor that made Becca wonder if she should bother typing what was said next. “I amsosorry, Ms. Wong, Ms. Pruitt.” She sat with a gentle huff. “Abigail has been dealing with a situation at school. I thought we had moved past it, but…” She shook the thoughts out of her head as if she could simply snap her fingers and get back to doing what she was before. “Never mind that. My husband will handle it. Now, where were we?”
Becca brought her laptop out of the sleep it had lapsed into. Jane did her best to get back on track. For the rest of the meeting, however, Monica was visibly and audibly distracted by what had happened with her daughter. Becca was careful to not reflect this in her notes.
Not our circus…She’d have to teach Jane that idiom later. Right now, she had to concentrate on her typing.
Chapter 14
Caitlyn
After three weeks of nonstop training, dieting, and fussing, Caitlyn needed a night off. Preferably with alcohol.
Of course, Izzy didn’t think much of the alcohol part – because it had calories, ahem – but Christine was on board as soon as she heard they were heading to a tavern in town.
“Here’s to getting back in the saddle, hon!” Christine kicked off the round of beers as a Kenny Chesney song blasted over the speakers. All around them, locals and vacationers alike ate dinner, drank with buddies, and likened themselves to side-stepping superstars as they simultaneously watched football andDancing With the Starson the screens above the bar.
After the trio of women clanked their beers together, Caitlyn inhaled the jalapeno poppers she had ordered.So. Good.That wasn’t merely the clean diet she had for the past three weeks talking. There was something about “hometown Iowa” that really hit the spot when it came to bar food.It’s the lard. Let’s bereal.Nobody was air-frying anything inthatkitchen, God bless them.
She recognized Izzy’s stink eye and decided to ignore it. The Caitlyn of thirty-six was a far cry from the one who took everything her coach said to heart.
“If they ask me during the interview what I think of modern diets…” Caitlyn held up a barbecue chicken wing, admiring the juice dripping off the skin before taking a bite. Her mother was right behind her, lauding the cooking at this humble small-town tavern as“Just as good as my grandma used to make!”“I’m going to tell them that I don’t give afuckwhat we’re eating as long as it tastes good. Take forever chemicals, for instance…” That part was for Izzy, who had been grilling Caitlyn on political questions that may or may not come up during the interview process. “They’re in everything!” She drank beer as if it were her nightly beverage of choice.Definitely not an IPA.It was a national brand that advertised on TV and took out Superbowl commercials. The kind of brand that nobody would be caught dead drinking back in her current home in New England. “What is the damn point of personal responsibility with one’s diet when everything is full of crap that’s going to give us cancer anyway?”
“Cait…” Izzy said with a saccharin level of sweetness that only proved Caitlyn’s point, “Please, for the love of the crown we want you to win, donotsay that on stage.”
“Kids are fat because food tastes good.” Caitlyn slammed down her beer and jiggled a half-eaten chicken wing in front of her coach. “I said what I said. Ain’t that right, Mom?”
“You were a very healthy eater as a child,” Christine said as she delicately pulled apart her chicken with the help of a fork and a napkin. “She was the biggest fan of my meatloaf and my no-bake cookies. Sometimes I would do both in one night to cheer her up.”
“Still haven’t had any of your dank meatloaf, Mom.”
Izzy looked like she was on the verge of having a stroke. “Do not say ‘dank,’ either. Or I will kill you.”
