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“What?” Luca snapped. “He can’t just close your business down.”
It was too much to hope that my mother might react the same way.
She froze, too stunned for a moment to say anything while she stared at me with horrified eyes. “William Reed the politician?”
“Is there another? God, for the sake of humanity, I hope not.”
“Eve! Stop it! He’s a good man. A Christian with a beautiful wife and children. He’s very smart and wealthy and handsome, and—”
“Jesus, Mama. Are you president of his fan club?” Luca asked before throwing another piece of carrot up into the air and catching it with his mouth.
My mother didn’t admonish him the way she had with me.
I ground my teeth together. “William Reed called me a whore. Or was it a slut? I can’t remember. He’s trying to shut down a business I’ve spent a decade building. How Christian is that?”
Mama shook her head vehemently. “No, I don’t believe that. You must have misunderstood.”
“I understood perfectly. The man doesn’t care what the people of Saint View want or need. He wants to turn my place into a freaking yoga studio or a juice bar or something.”
“Well, a yoga studio does sound lovely. We don’t have one of those around here.”
I stared at the back of her head, disappointment coursing through me. “I employ ten people, Mama.”
“Strippers,” she muttered.
Hurt punched in. “And to you, strippers aren’t people? Wow. Tell me what you really think.”
Her silence only riled me up more. Luca gave me a ‘sorry’ pat on the arm but left the room, no more willing to back me up than he was to help me cook.
“Actually,” I sniffed, fighting back hot, angry tears that pricked at the backs of my eyes. “Only four of them are strippers. The others work the bar and tend the door. But those strippers you look down your nose at? They are people, Mama. Just like I am. Fawn is in college, completing a course I paid for. And Lyric? Her stripping pays for her daughter’s daycare. The best one in Providence.”
She just kept on stirring her pot. “William Reed is a smart man. If he thinks we need new businesses in Saint View, then I believe him.”
My hurt and irritation morphed into a sad acceptance. This was how she’d been with me ever since I’d left home. In her mind, I committed a mortal sin every time I took my clothes off for a man who wasn’t my husband. Sure, she kept summoning me to her house for family dinner because she couldn’t bear to lose face in front of her friends.
But there was no perfect family here. Nothing right, or good. It was one giant ball of hurt and guilt and shame.
One I didn’t want anything to do with. Not anymore.
I took my apron off and placed it carefully on the countertop. “Bye, Mama.”
When I walked out the door, no one tried to stop me.
10
BOSTON
The next day brought no new home invasions. No petty thefts at the shopping mall. There wasn’t even a missing kid at the park which might have distracted Jayela for a little while. From the minute we came on shift, she’d had a single-minded focus on watching the Sinners.
Sitting in the car all day, knowing it wasn’t going to lead anywhere, hadn’t improved my mood any. Neither had the random text from Eve. For hours, Jayela left me to stew, silence thick in the air around us as we’d both stared steadfastly at the target. The sun was already beginning to sink when she finally let out a long-suffering sigh. “Shift will be finished soon. Are we going to talk about what’s eating you, or not?”
“I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. We embarrassed you yesterday.”
I shook my head. “Youdidn’t.”
But Eve had. I could take a joke. But my job was important to me, and she’d crossed a line.
