Playing the Game (26 page)

“
I’m not sure,” I said. I
told her about the conversation I’d had with Jon and the hope
continued to grow in her eyes. “But I might not do it, Mom. I might
decide to stay behind the scenes.”

She clamped her mouth shut, though I could
see the questions and suggestions lurking in her eyes. “Okay,
Aubrey Rose. If that makes you happy.”

“
So far it
has.”

I watched as my mother gave a deep,
shuddering sigh and appeared to shrink before my eyes. A couple
stray tears streaked rebelliously down her face and I had to suck
back my own emotions.

“
Oh, Aubrey. I just wanted
you to have what I never did.” She swiped at her cheeks and I
wanted to wrap my arms around her and agree to whatever she wanted.
I hated to see her in such pain but I knew if I gave in, we’d go
right back to square one. “Maybe I wanted it more than
you.”

Her voice softened toward the end but I
heard every word as if she’d shouted it from the mountains.

“
I appreciate everything
you’ve done for me, Mom, but I just need a chance to live a little.
I just need to see what else there is to life.”

She crumbled before my eyes and I panicked,
not sure what I should do. My fists clenched as her head fell to
her arms crossed on the table. I heard her muffled sobs and looked
around frantically, hoping an answer would appear from thin
air.

“
I pushed Gwen away and I
pushed you away,” she said, lifting her puffy face. My heart
shattered at the pain in her eyes. “I never meant it to happen,
honestly, I just wanted a better life for you girls.”

I could stand it no longer as my own tears
escaped. I made my way around the table and fell beside her,
throwing my arms around her shoulders. “I know that. I do
know.”

She patted my cheek with a watery smile. “I
need to deal with this, Aubrey. I need to figure out how I screwed
things up and fix them.” She drew in a deep breath and
uncharacteristically wiped her face on her sleeve. “I’m going to be
a grandmother and there’s going to be a wedding. I need to fix
things.”

“
You will,” I said, eager
to please again.

She smiled but it immediately slipped into a
thoughtful frown. “You’re a talented girl, Aubrey Rose. Very
talented. I was most certain you’d be number one on all the charts.
I just wanted to support you like I’d never been supported.”

I understood completely, but I just couldn’t
make her understand my point of view. And I didn’t think I’d be
able to tonight, either. I didn’t think I had the energy, anyway.
“Mom, I…”

“
No, Aubrey Rose, don’t
explain. You don’t have to. I’ve been
thinking…realizing.”

My heart seized and I was desperate to rip
the pain from her face. “Mom, it’s okay.”

“
It’s not,” she said,
brushing my arms away. She got to her feet and stood before the
sink. “When you left, I was angry. No, I was angry before that. I
was mad because you allowed Jess Rivers back into your life. I
couldn’t believe you would after the way he hurt you but he showed
up at the show.” She whirled around and her lips twitched. “The way
he looked at you. And the song you sang. I knew you loved him and
he loved you.” She bowed her head in defeat. “And I knew he was
taking you from me. I lost Gwen early and I held on to you so
tightly, I know I suffocated you. I guess it took you leaving –
that and a long talk with your father – for me to realize what I
was doing.”

I didn’t know what to say. I bit my bottom
lip and watched her grow weaker and weaker by the moment.

“
I’m so sorry, Mom,” I
muttered.

“
Don’t be,” she said. She
looked at me. “Be glad you broke away and did what you wanted to
do. I wasn’t able to do that when I was your age. I guess I was
trying to make your life into what I’d always wanted mine to be.”
She pushed away from the sink and gingerly held me in her arms. “I
need to be a mother first. I’m working on it.”

“
I know,” I murmured in
her shoulder. “You’ve made a good start.”

“
Not really,” she laughed.
“But I hope to get there.”

I broke out of her arms and pointed at the
pizza. “Eat your dinner. I have to work in the morning.”

“
Okay, honey,” she said,
tentatively picking up a slice and dropping it on her plate. “Um,
are you…living…with Jess?”

“
Well, I’m staying at his
place for now,” I said. I didn’t want to get into my whole living
arrangements issues. That was a discussion for another
day.

“
Oh. Do you think, maybe,
you could come by this weekend?” she said, eyes as hopeful as a dog
begging for a bone. “Maybe we could talk.”

“
I have a wedding
Saturday,” I said, heart sinking. “But I could come by
Sunday.”

“
That’d be nice,” she
smiled.

***

“
So you’re going to spend
Sunday with your mother?” Jess asked in total astonishment. “After
all she’s done?”

I took a breath to hide my sigh and
discourage my eye roll. “She is my mother. And she’s trying hard to
fix things.”

“
She just wants you back
in her house so she can mold you into some sort of
superstar.”

“
No, she’s not, Jess,” I
said through clenched teeth. “Didn’t you hear a word I said?” I’d
just spent the last fifteen minutes describing my talk with my
mother.

“
Yeah,” he said. “We
should order pizza.”

With a groan, I stormed out of the living
room to the kitchen. I yanked the refrigerator open and surveyed
the contents. How could he be such an idiot at times? Jess ambled
in, amusement sparking little lights in his eyes. It only served to
rile me up further.

I slammed the fridge door and glared.
“What?”

“
Nothing,” he said,
leaning against the counter. “Just came to see where you stomped
off to.”

“
You’re an ass,” I fired
at him. “I’m trying to tell you something and you make it into a
joke.”

His eyes changed quicker than a flash of
light and anger burned in their depths. “No, Aubrey Rose, I am not.
I just don’t want you falling for her act.”

“
It’s not an act!” I
shouted. “It was genuine. She didn’t guilt me like she used to do.
She’s honestly sorry.”

“
Sorry that you’re not
making money for her?” he asked, nonchalant, brow
lifted.

“
Is that what you think?
You think she used me to be her money maker?” Bile burned my throat
and for a second I was afraid I’d projectile vomit on him worthy
of
The Exorcist
.

“
That’s exactly what I
think.”

I yearned to throw something at him – to
hurt him some way. Even though I’d not seen eye-to-eye with my
mother for years, I never once felt as though I was some scheme to
make her rich. “You don’t understand.”

I was horrified to feel tears again. I was
so damn tired of crying at the drop of a hat.

And he knew. In two strides he was before
me, gripping me shoulders. “So make me understand. Tell me what
makes your mother tick. Why is she the way she is?”

I deflated. I sank to a chair as all hot air
left my body. I was the only one she’d shared her secret ambitions
and failures with - I wasn’t even sure she’d told my father. My
heart ached as I pictured my mother as a teenager or maybe a young
woman close to my age.

“
She can sing. She has a
beautiful voice,” I said as mine grew scratchy. “She had more
potential than me. She didn’t need some reality show to tell her
that. She was in a talent show at a country fair and was approached
afterwards by an agent.” I sighed, tears blurring my vision. “Her
parents embarrassed her. Her father physically threw the agent out
of the tent while her mother rushed her away. When they got home,
they told her she was finished singing – it wasn’t proper. They
told her they’d only humored her but they wouldn’t allow her to
pursue it as a career. They told her it would be an
embarrassment.”

I paused to breathe as Jess’s expression
changed to one of wild wonder. “No way.”

I nodded. “She always wanted to sing. She
had three older sisters who married well and when my mother entered
the contest at the fair, my grandfather thought it would be a good
way for her to attract a husband. He thought it was only a hobby.
When my mother tried to explain that’s what she wanted to do with
her life, he exploded.”

“
How old was she?” he
asked.

“
Sixteen,” I said,
matter-of-factly. “I think she craved their approval so much –
wanted to stand out from her sisters – that when they called her
talent a waste of time, she lost her heart. She didn’t dare try to
strike out on her own.”

“
Geez, Aubrey, it’s not
like it was the medieval times or anything,” Jess said with a bit
of disdain.

“
No, but she once told me
that she was always last in everything she did. She thought she’d
finally get noticed and when her father acted the way he did, she
said she just couldn’t sing anymore.”

He snorted. “So she thought she’d mold you
into the life she always wanted?”

“
Yeah, I guess,” I
admitted. “And I guess when she told me the story, I felt horrible.
I just wanted to do it for her. That’s what drove me.”

“
You did it for her and
not you.” He wasn’t asking.

“
Yeah,” I admitted. I took
a deep breath and finally, from the depths of my soul, brought
forth the jiggling idea that had tickled me for days. “And now I
think I might want to do it for me.”

I cringed, waiting for him to explode.
Surely he would after all I’d said – after all the times I’d railed
about how my mother was forcing me into this life.

“
It’s about damn time,
Aubrey Rose,” he said with a grin. “I’ve been waiting to hear you
say you want to sing for you and not for anyone else.”

My jaw fell as I stared at him. “You’re
not…mad?”

“
Why the hell would I be
mad?” he asked, eyes wide.

“
Oh, I don’t know,” I
said, sarcasm rolling off my tongue. “Because of all the indecision
I’ve put you through.”

He ran his hands through
his hair. “Aubrey, I know you love to sing. I see it in your face
and I hear it in your voice. The only thing stopping you was that
you thought you
had
to do it. Now that you’ve kind of sorted things out and
realized that you want to do it, maybe you’ll do it for the right
reasons.”

I opened my mouth to speak but ended up
closing it. My eyes narrowed as I looked at him and a smirk touched
the corners of his mouth.

“
You know me too well,” I
whispered.

He grabbed my hands and tugged me to his
chest. “Good thing, too,” he said as his lips crashed into
mine.

Chapter Twenty-One

“
Let’s go, Aubrey,” Jess
bellowed.

Startled, I finished shoving my cosmetics
into a bag before hurrying down the hall. I smiled, heart pumping
wildly, as I faced him. He was dressed in a black tuxedo, his hair
curling slightly on the collar of his jacket. His face was screwed
up in a scowl as he tugged on the bow tie around his neck.

“
Let’s get this over
with,” he muttered, taking the bag from my hand. I grabbed my dress
from the kitchen door and followed him to the car.

He fussed the entire way to the church about
his tux and the shoes and the tie – whatever he could think of –
and I had to turn my head and grin.

“
We’re not dressing up
this fancy when we get married, Aubrey Rose,” he threatened. “We’ll
run off to Vegas or Mexico or something.”

“
Whatever you want, Jess,”
I murmured, patronizing him. I knew he’d give me what I wanted if I
insisted.

He glanced at me, his scowl changing to
astonished confusion. “Really?”

I shrugged, still waging a battle with a
smile. “Sure. Not every girl needs a fancy ceremony with a gorgeous
gown, you know.”

He snorted scornfully. “Just the ugly ones
who are desperate to get married.”

“
Jess!” I chastised.
“That’s not very nice. It’s downright rude.”

His lips curled into a smirk. “It’s
true.”

I shook my head in disgust and watched the
scenery fly past my window. To be perfectly honest, I’d never
really thought about what I’d want my wedding to be like. I didn’t
think I’d like to have a tacky drive-thru Vegas wedding but a
ceremony on the white sandy beaches of Mexico didn’t sound too
bad.

We pulled into the church parking lot and I
gathered my things, pecked Jess on the lips, and scurried to find
Kendra. She was sure to be a trembling ball of nerves.

And she was.

“
Aubrey! I’m so glad
you’re here,” she said. I literally lost my breath at the sight of
her. Her gown was simple, but lovely. It clung to her waist and
flowed to her feet in swirls and swirls of lace. The bodice was
strapless and sparkled with tiny beads. Her hair had been pulled to
the top of her head and adorned with white roses. She’d balked at a
veil, telling me once that the dress was fancy enough.

“
You look beautiful,” I
gushed. Her pretty face radiated happiness through the nervousness
and she smiled.

“
Thanks. Can you help with
this stupid skirt so I can sit for a second?” Laughing, I gathered
up the material, allowing her to sit in a chair. She fanned her
face and took a deep breath as she introduced me to Troy’s two
older sisters and to her sister-in-law, Kelly.