Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

Marla raises a brow. I hold my breath, waiting for her to make a wisecrack about that being my problem. How maybe if I loosened up a bit, let myself have fun for a change, my bed wouldn’t be quite so empty.

“How long are you in town?” I ask.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

She hesitates, and I can tell she’s holding something back.

“Okay, two, three nights max. Who knows if I can even find a room, with the holiday. If I do, it will probably cost a fortune. I promise I won’t be too much of an imposition.”

Cressida and Tallulah are watching us as if we are the cast of a dysfunctional mother-daughter reality show. Like it’s the calm before the storm when one of us flips a table or yanks out the other’s hair extensions.

No extensions for me, that’s for sure, but Marla might have some. Her hair looks a little too perfect after the flight from Florida.

There’s no denying that my mother’s still a natural beauty underneath all the accessories. Her flawless ivory skin, bone structure, and willowy figure have opened doors for her throughout the years from modeling jobs to wealthy boyfriends to general preferential treatment.

It’s her curse and her blessing. If I’m perfectly honest, I can’t help but be a little jealous.

I did not inherit her delicate looks. I like to imagine that I got my nose that’s a little too big and my lips that are a little too full from my father, though I’ve never met him. Marla swears she doesn’t know who he is. When I was younger and would ask about him, she would say, “Oh, Hannah, don’t ask so many questions.” As I got older, she added, “It was a crazy time in my life. There were lots of men.” As if that was supposed to sate my curiosity.

“Two or three nights?” I ask, snapping back to the present. “You show up and expect us to accommodate you? And on New Year’s Eve no less!”

“Oh, come on, Hannah. Surely you can take pity on your ol’ mum and put up with me for a couple of nights?”

When I don’t answer, she laughs. “Your roomies said it would be fine. Didn’t you, girls?”

Cressida and T smile but say nothing. It’s not the show of support Marla was expecting, and I thank God her fun-mom act doesn’t have them completely bamboozled.

That’s what I love about my friends. They may not always have the best judgment—case in point, the holy trinity of bad blind dates—but they have good intentions always and my back when it matters.

“Are you en route to somewhere?” I ask, unmoved. There’s no way she wouldn’t have mentioned this transatlantic trip when we spoke last week, unless she had an ulterior motive. “Surely you didn’t fly to London to surprise me on New Year’s Eve.”

Marla purses her lips. She glances at Cressida and T, who are trying really hard to look like they’re not listening. Cressida is flipping through a magazine and T is scrolling through her phone.

“I’m glad you brought that up,” Marla says. “Why don’t we go somewhere we can talk and I’ll fill you in?”

“Or we can give you two some time,” Cressida offers. “I need to pick up a bottle of something to take to Jemma’s tonight. T, why don’t you come and help me pick it out?”

“That’s a great idea,” T says a little too enthusiastically.

“No, really, you don’t have to leave,” I insist. The subtext is please don’t go. Don’t leave me alone with her.

She’s not a serial killer or anything—don’t get me wrong—but she is an emotional vampire, and having Cressida and Tallu here is much-needed moral support.

“No, it’s fine, really,” Cressida says as she makes her way toward the foyer. “I’d rather pick it up now than wait until later.”

“We’ll be back in twenty or so,” T says. “That should give you girls time to catch up.”

They’re out the door and then it’s just the two of us. My mother and me, staring at each other. Or at least me staring at her bug-eyed sunglasses.

Suddenly, the room feels very cold.

“What is going on, Marla?”

“Why don’t we have something to drink?” she says.

“You’re drinking again.” My voice is flat. A statement, not a question.

She winces and looks wounded. “No, I’m not drinking alcohol, if that’s what you’re insinuating. Though most people do believe it’s bad luck if you don’t ring in the New Year with a toast.”

The way I remember it, it was always bad luck when she drank. Alcohol landed her in jail and then kept her away after she was released.

“I was suggesting that we share a spot of tea,” she says.

I raise my chin, refusing to let her relegate me to the role of disapproving parental figure, even though our roles have always been reversed. When Gram was alive, she did her best to shelter me from my mother. She let me have as much of a normal childhood as possible, but there was nothing she could do on the occasions when Marla would swoop in and take me away.

Before Marla went to jail, Gram didn’t have legal custody, because she didn’t want to put me through the court battle. When my mother would come around, she always seemed so earnest, swearing that she’d cleaned up her act and the only way she could prove herself was if we gave her a chance. She’d always manage to make us feel like the bad guys—me for not wanting to go with her and Gram for trying to protect me. That was vintage Marla: deflect and play the victim.

“It would’ve been nice if you’d let me know you were coming,” I say.

“I tried. You weren’t picking up my calls.”

“I mean before you landed in London. You could’ve mentioned it when we spoke last week.”

Marla does a full-body shrug and sighs like I’m being unreasonable.

“When we spoke about Gram’s house last week, I had no idea I’d be here.”

“How could you not have known?