Condemn Me Not (12 page)

“Exactly,”
Mariah chimed in.  “Same with my mom.  It’s all about control with her.  If she
can’t tell me what to do, she’s not happy.  Who can argue with a woman like
that?”

Rob
sighed heavily.  Apparently there was more work to be done here than he first
thought.  He’d been here almost an hour and hadn’t made a dent.  “Okay.  I hear
ya, I hear ya.  So tell me, Rebecca,” he said, casting his net wide and
subtle.  “You went behind your parents’ backs in order to be accepted to the La
Sorbonne.  You wasted their time and effort with your charade of an application
to Rhode Island, got your mother’s hopes up, your father’s budget allotted for
the next four years only to drop the bombshell a month before graduation that
it’s all been for naught.  Now you expect them to forgive and forget and pay
the difference in tuition, along with the added travel costs and time spent
away from home.”  He lifted his brow in question.  “Have I missed anything?”

Rebecca
shrank beneath his scrutiny.

“Mariah,”
he began, and detected the girl on the other end of the couch was already steeling
herself against his assessment.  “You waltz in during high school grad party
prep and declare you’re dropping out of college—the college to which you’ve
already been accepted—to start a company for which you have no written business
plan or contract in effect.  You intend to start this business with your
boyfriend, the one who legally owes you nothing in the event of success or
failure of said business, because you haven’t allotted for such detail, and to
top it off, you demand to use your parents’ money to fund this operation
without the first bit of discussion or consent on their part.”  He grinned. 
“How am I doing?”

Mariah
glared at him.  She was not amused.

Rob
held up his hands and said, “Hey, I don’t see the problem, either.”  He
chuckled, finding comfort in his role as arbitrator.  “You guys are dream
children!  If only Todd had the first clue what he wanted to do with his life,
I’d be grateful.  You could call me Uncle Happy Feet, ‘cause I’d be dancing
from here to the South Pole and back.”  Rob continued to indulge in his
merriment.  He shook his head at the image of his son approaching him with the
first shred of a plan.  Not gonna happen.  Not anytime soon.

“Uncle
Rob, be serious.  What are we going to do?” Rebecca pleaded, brushing long
bangs behind an ear.  “I have to go to Paris.  It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I’m
starting my own business,” Mariah added, “whether my parents help me or not.”

Rebecca’s
position was firm, yes, but Mariah’s anger was visceral, seething.  It gave him
pause.  Determination he understood, but this girl was packing a jaw full of
venom, ready to bite.  If she wasn’t careful, someone was going to get hurt. 
Probably her.  “You want my advice?”

“Yes,”
Rebecca answered for the both of them.

“Begin
with an apology,” he said, a watchful eye to Mariah’s reception.  “Say you’re
sorry for the way you handled it and that you want to move forward, together.”

As
Rebecca contemplated his suggestion, Mariah shut down.  As if to prove it, she
made a point of perusing the glossy pages again.  Seems there was no way in
hell this one was going down without a fight.  Respect pulled at him.  The
fiery spirit would serve her well in the dog-eat-dog world of business, but it
would freeze any attempts at family cohesion.  Rob knew Simone well.  He’d come
to learn the woman was more than saber rattler.  She sliced and diced without
regard to the size of her opponent, and she wouldn’t take kindly to her
daughter trying to assert power over her dominion.  Mariah would have to draw
blood before Simone allowed that to happen, and buckets of it—if she planned to
get her way.

“But
Uncle Rob,” Rebecca’s voice drew him back to her.  Crossing her legs beneath
her, Indian-style, she zeroed in on him.  “Even if I do apologize, she still won’t
want me to go to Paris.”

Agreed,
he thought.  His sister was dead set against it.  This is the last thing she
wanted to hear, especially after Sarah left.  Claire had been devastated.  But
Rebecca wanted this, deserved to go to Paris, and by God he was going to help
her get there.  Rob’s focus softened.  Wrapped around his favorite niece, his
heart went out to her now.  “Then you have to give her solid reasons why you
should, why it makes sense.”

“That’s
a pretty tall order to fill.”

He
shrugged a shoulder.  “So is moving to Paris.”

SIMONE

Simone
glanced up from her computer at the sound of her daughter’s entrance.  Edgy and
stiff, Mariah wore a pair of drawstring cotton pajama pants and matching green
top as she sidled into her mother’s home office.  Her hair was clipped back into
a loose knot behind her head, her usual style when holed away in her room for
the evening.  Frankly, Simone was surprised to see her at this late hour.  Ten
o’clock on a school night usually found the child reading before lights out. 
She, on the other hand, had yet to finish reconciling the personal bank
statements.  Her lot of the household duties included paying the bills and
handling the investment accounts.

A
sudden tide of exhaustion washed over her and she paused, mouse in hand, on the
desktop.  “Hey.”

Rather
than sit, Mariah remained standing several feet away.  Spying the statements in
her hands, she asked, “Do you have a second?”

“Sure.” 
At the distance in her daughter’s voice, a pang of guilt pricked her heart. 
Simone loathed the building separation currently wedging between them.  She
knew Mariah was angry—as was she—but Simone also knew that
she
hadn’t
handled the situation with as much grace and aplomb as she could have.  As it
warranted.  She was the adult in the room.  It was her job to act like one.

Mariah
glanced around the room, the wall of books to one side, the leather sofa tucked
beneath an oversized Malcolm Liepke painting to the other, her gaze settling on
nothing in particular, as though she was processing the layout of a new place. 
Simone waited, giving her daughter whatever time and space she needed to begin
the conversation.

“I’ve
been thinking about what you said,” Mariah began, but paused.  Crossing arms
over chest, she shifted her weight from bare foot to bare foot, her toenails
painted a glossy black.  After a brief dodge to the window, Mariah returned to
face her mother.  “And I’ve made a decision.”

Buoyed
by a rush of hope and relief, Simone wanted to ask if she had changed her mind. 
Had she realized the error of her ways?  Had she come to her senses about this
inane business idea?  But she held herself in check.  Backing down wasn’t an
easy thing to do.  Years of practice with her father taught that patience and
compassion from the knowing adult made life easier for the idealistic child.

“Logan
and I are moving in together.”

Simone
gasped. 
What
?

Mariah
stared at her expectantly.

Unable
to speak, she stared back.  Nausea filled Simone’s mid-section.  The computer
screen went black.  Mother and daughter stared at one another through the
silence. 
Moving in together
?

It
was not the decision she wanted to hear.

“Did
you hear me?”

Bolted
to her swivel chair, Simone couldn’t move, could barely think.  The screen
saver flashed white across the computer monitor as the time display made a slow
bounce in and out of sight, its motion fluid, repetitive.  Mind-numbing.

Mariah
shifted from side to side again, her impatience a thin disguise for the fear
rising in her eyes.

“Have
you told your father?” was all Simone could think to say.

Mariah
lowered her lids, the dark line of lashes shielding the shame most definitely
consuming her.  Mitchell Sheridan was an easygoing man.  He was lenient when it
came to discipline.  He was forgiving of his daughter’s contemptuous attitude,
almost indulgent regarding her reckless ideas about starting a business. 
But
living together with her boyfriend
?

This
would not stand with him.  No daughter of Mitchell’s would live with a man
before she was married.  His parents were staunch in their refusal of the same,
as were Simone’s.  There would be no playing house—for reasons emotional,
financial or otherwise.  But rather than argue the point, Simone asked, “Why,
Mariah?  Why move in with Logan?”

She
swung her head up and wrath thundered across her expression.  “
Why
?”  Mariah
flung her arms open and cried, “How can you ask me that when it was you who
insisted I move out!”

“I
asked if you had an apartment,” Simone replied calmly, an inferno of emotion
churning within her breast, nerves spitting open as her child tossed her into
the flames.  “I never said anything about living with Logan.”

“Well—where
else am I going to live?”

“You’ll
get an apartment, like every other young, single, adult female does when she’s
on her own.”  It took effort to breathe, to speak.  It required every ounce of
control not to shout her objection at the top of her lungs.

“Like
I can afford an apartment in Boston.”

“That’s
what roommates are for,” Simone responded in a daze, her mind only
half-engaged.  But inside, her heart raged for its chance to express—to denounce—to
alter the changing tides.

Mariah
appeared incredulous.  She pulled strands of bangs taut against her head.  “Who
am I going to live with?  You know all my friends are going to college.  There’s
no one left but me.”

Exactly.

Comprehension
swamped Mariah’s gaze in a gush of realization.  “This is your way of forcing
me to give up my plans.”  She punched fists into a knot across her chest.  “You
think that making me find some place to live and struggle for money will make
me fall on my face—which is exactly what you want.”

A
sudden sadness enveloped Simone.  Mariah wasn’t listening to herself.  She
wasn’t hearing the obvious, that she was running straight into a brick wall
built of her own making, one that would stop her in short-order, and with a
painful bruise, to boot.  Simone wanted her daughter to succeed in life, not
fail.  She wanted only the best for her.

But
the bull-headed mind of youth was not listening to a word of it.

“Well
you’re wrong.”  Fury spit from Mariah’s eyes.  “I’m
going
to start this
business and I’m
going
to succeed.”

“Fine,”
Simone said, resigning herself to the imploding mess of Mariah’s future. 
“Should I tell your father about your living arrangements, or would you prefer
to do the honors?”  It wasn’t a question.  It was another stake through the
heart—one that would stain the relationship for life.

“I
hate you!” Mariah cried.  She whirled around and stormed out of the room.  “I
hate you!” she bellowed down the hall.  “I hate you!”

Simone’s
thoughts shadowed her daughter’s every step as she envisioned Mariah scaling the
stairs two at a time, heading for her bedroom on the third floor.  It’s where
she usually went after one of their bouts.  She’d lock herself inside and
sulk.  At this late hour it wouldn’t include an outburst of music or
television, but would likely entail a fierce pressing of characters into the
keypad of her cell phone.  She’d text the unfairness of her life to her best
friend Rebecca, her boyfriend Logan, and anyone else who would listen.

Shoving
the financial papers aside, Simone fell back into her chair.  There was no
winning with Mariah.  There never had been, really.  And why not?  Was it
because she was gone all those years?  Was Claire right that her relationship
with Mariah wasn’t as close as it could be, because she had been putting in the
long hours at the bank to achieve the success she had today?

It
was an age-old argument between them.  A fundamental difference of opinion.  Claire
believed she made the right decision by staying home to care for her children
and Simone was wrong in going to work.  But Simone wasn’t Claire.  She would
die if she had to stay home.  She couldn’t forego her own desire, her own need
for fulfillment in lieu of her family’s.

Did
that make her selfish?  Did it make her an unfit mother?

Simone
expelled a ragged sigh.  She glanced around the wood-paneled office, the rich
sheen of mahogany glowing in the lamplight.  This was her work space within her
home space.  She shared it with her husband, as she did most things.  Time and
money—she and Mitchell split the cost of life, yet somehow it felt like she
paid all the consequences.

It
wasn’t like she was trying to avoid time with her children—quite the contrary. 
How many times had she wished for one extra hour, half-hour, anything to give
her the crucial minutes she needed to claim her seat in the front row?  Whether
it was the spelling bee or a school play, her daughter’s kindergarten
graduation or parent’s day, Simone wanted to be there and she wanted to be
there on time.

Hauling
her body up from the chair, she walked over to the window.  She pushed the heavy
sateen drapes aside and looked out over the darkened streets.  Did people think
she liked standing in the back, or staring through the window while her child
performed, because she was on a conference call—the one dictated by a client’s
schedule and not hers?  Did it ever cross anyone’s mind that she worked hard to
be there for her daughter, that she knew every shortcut through the city, every
light and how long it burned, that she would move skyscrapers if that’s what it
took?