The Perfect Mistress (21 page)

“Good morning.”

Joyce turned toward the scratchy voice coming from the entrance to her room. Ernest was standing there with his big toothless grin.

“How are you this fine morning?” he asked.

She flicked him off. “What do you want, Ernest?”

“Thanks for asking. I'm doing okay,” he replied.

She walked over and blocked his way because he had already taken two steps into the room and Joyce didn't want him to get any ideas. She was not in the mood for company.

He didn't lose his grin. “Well, I just stopped by to see if you want to come play bingo with us. We're about to get a game going in the rec room.”

“No,” she said.

He shook his head, undeterred. “So, what, you're just going
to stay cooped up in this room? You didn't come to breakfast. You're just going to stay in here and stare out at that old tree?”

“What part of ‘I don't want to play bingo, bid whist, shuffleboard, or any other games you old people play' do you not understand?”

His smile finally faded. He reached over to her dresser and picked up Joyce's handheld mirror and thrust it in her direction.

“Why are you giving me this?” she said, taking it.

“Look at it. What do you see?”

“What are you talking about?” she said, her eyes going down to the mirror. “I see me.”

He folded his arms. “I see an old person just like the rest of us around here. Only the difference is she's grumpy and mean.”

Joyce almost threw the mirror and hit him upside the head. But she held herself back. She merely set it back down on the dresser.

“Bye, Ernest.”

He threw his hands up. “You know what? You can sit up here and wallow in whatever misery you choose to put yourself in. Because that's what this is. It's a choice. We can choose to live or we can choose to die.”

The look on her face caused him to add, “And we can choose to live even if we're dying. You choose to be miserable and unhappy, and you want everyone around you to be miserable and unhappy, too.”

She glared at him, but he wasn't fazed.

“Not only are you mean and bitter,” he continued, shaking his head, “but you're negative, too. Instead of having folks
around you—who are going through the same thing as you—to help you understand and deal with what's happening, you just push people away. Well, stay on up here in your room. You don't have to worry about me no more.”

This was the first time that she'd seen the perpetually chipper Ernest upset.

“Good,” she said, even though his vow had touched a nerve.

He turned around and stomped out of the room. Joyce stood there, no longer so sure she was right. Then she retrieved the mirror. She stared at the image and what she saw brought tears to her eyes. For years she had been wrinkle-free. She had given new meaning to the phrase “black don't crack.” But now she saw bags developing under her eyes. She peered a little harder and saw a couple of moles that were sprouting up on her face as well.

The image made her heart hurt. Joyce was once model material. In fact, she had once been approached by someone as she walked down the street, asking if she had ever considered modeling. Her mother had crushed that dream real fast. But she always felt good to have been approached about it.

Joyce stared harder at her image, wishing that she could see inside her head. See what was happening to her brain. Were the parts that were being ravaged by cancer turning a dark black? She swallowed the lump in her throat and set the mirror back just as the nurse appeared in her room.

“Good morning.”

“Hi,” Joyce said.

“So Ernest told me that you won't be joining them today.”

Normally, Joyce would have come back with a snarky
reply. But she was feeling some kind of way so she just said, “I'm not up to it.”

“That run-in with your daughter got you down, huh?”

Her eyebrows furrowed as Joyce exclaimed, confused, “What?”

The nurse stopped what she was doing and turned to Joyce. “The run-in with your daughter yesterday. When you slapped her.”

“What?” Joyce repeated.

Concern spread across her face. “Oh. You don't remember?”

“No,” Joyce said, racking her brain to form an image of what the nurse was talking about. “I . . . I know that Lauren usually comes and visits me on Saturdays, but I don't remember her coming. I remember feeling out of it, then woozy.” She continued trying to recall yesterday, but it was all a blur.

“Oh, she was here,” the nurse replied. “She was here and she left after you hit her and told her that she wasn't your daughter.”

Joyce's hand went to her mouth in shock.

The nurse looked sympathetic as she stepped toward Joyce, “If I'm being honest with you . . .” She waited until Joyce nodded for her to go on. “Frankly, I'm surprised that she still comes because you treat her real bad.”

A part of her agreed. But then that other part, the part that felt like Lauren deserved it, caused Joyce to shake away any sympathy. “Well, I'll just talk to her next time.”

The nurse shook her head. “If there is a next time.” She set down the medicine that she had brought in Joyce's room. “Ms. Joyce, I suggest you deal with whatever is ailing you before
you are left all alone. I see it too much around here, and that's where you're headed.”

“That's why I'm here,” she replied. “So you all can try and help me deal with this stupid disease that is destroying my brain.”

“I'm not talking about the cancer.” She walked over and touched her heart. “I'm talking about what's ailing you here. You better fix that before you run off the only person that seems to care about you. I've seen a lot of misery here, and the last thing you want to do is go through this alone.”

She gave Joyce one last pitying glance before walking out of the room.

L
auren hadn't been able to get that painful scene with her mother out of her head. It hurt her more than anything had in a very long time. She didn't know if it was the slap, or the fact that in the midst of her madness, her mother had managed to forget her own daughter.

“How did we get here, Mama?” Lauren mumbled as she laid an outfit across the bed. But even as she muttered the question, she knew the answer. The betrayal cut deep. So deep that Lauren didn't know if they would ever heal.

She shook away thoughts of her mother and returned to the task at hand: getting ready for her date with Matthew. Lauren couldn't believe how much she was looking forward to tonight.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was excited about the upcoming date. Too excited. A different kind of excitement. When she went out with one of her stable of men, she was doing what she needed to do. She considered it business. But being with Matthew felt more personal, more pleasurable. The fickle feeling inside her stomach both excited and terrified her.

They had reconnected only five weeks ago, but they had
spent every day talking for hours on end. If she didn't know any better, she'd think he didn't work, with the amount of time they spent on the phone. It felt like old times, and that's why she was once again anxiously waiting for him to come pick her up. She had made sure that her house was immaculate. She had just lit a candle to send a sweet fragrance throughout the room when her doorbell rang. She opened it to find Matthew standing there with a bottle of chardonnay, her favorite.

“My two favorite things, you and the wine,” she said, lightly kissing him on the lips and then taking the bottle of wine from him. “That's how you greet a woman.”

He laughed and then followed her inside. “How was your day?” he asked.

“Stressful,” she replied. She usually didn't get into her personal life with the men she dated, but she needed to vent with someone about what happened. She wanted to be comforted by Matthew. “I went to see my mom today.” She set the wine down on the bar.

“How was she?”

“Today was not a good day.” Lauren motioned for him to take a seat, which he did. “It didn't end well. Actually, no, that probably would be an understatement. It was a disaster. She slapped me.”

“What?” he said, his hand immediately going to check on her cheek.

“No, I'm okay.” She was moved that his first concern would be for her.

“What happened?”

“I don't know. My mom was having some kind of spell. She got mad and the next thing I knew, she slapped me.”
Lauren's shoulders sank with the weight of retelling the story. Then she voiced an opinion that had been forming all afternoon: “I'm done.”

Matthew looked shocked. “What do you mean, you're done?”

“I can't take any more of her abuse.”

“But didn't you say she's sick?”

“Yeah, but does that mean I'm supposed to take all that she dishes out? We have some major issues that I had hoped to work out, but that's not going to happen. I give up.”

He took her hand. “I know it's hard, Lauren, but if ever there was a time when your mother needed you, this is it.”

She unhooked her arm from his grasp. The last thing she wanted to hear was words of support for her mother.

“Please don't be mad, but you know I'm going to be honest.”

“I'm never going to see her again,” she said with finality.

Matthew shot her a disappointed look. “Did you do anything bad when you were younger or a teenager that drove your mother crazy? That made her want to drop you off at the nearest orphanage?”

That made her chuckle. Oh, she had been a fireball in her preteen years, so she could only imagine the gray hairs she had given her mother.

“Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, it's her turn to drive you crazy,” he pointed out. “You'll get a chance to have your kids do that later.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. If only he knew that she had no desire to ever bring a child into this world.

“But my point is, she didn't give up on you then, so you can't give up on her now,” Matthew continued.

“So, I'm supposed to just take it?” She shook her head. “You sound like my brother.”

“Well, from what I remember of your brother, he was pretty intelligent.”

“Whatever,” Lauren said, nettled that he was still pursuing this line of argument.

“No, no one is saying that you have to take abuse. You can leave at that moment, but you can't give up. Your mother is going through a storm, and sometimes that means you're going to get wet in trying to save her. You just can't give up.”

Lauren didn't want to admit it, but what Matthew said was making sense. Her mother was dying. And dying with a broken heart. That had to be a hard pill to swallow. Lauren just hoped she'd be able to go see her mother and pretend that nothing was wrong.

“You know what? Let's forget about all that,” Matthew said, standing. “Tonight is all about making you feel better. So get ready. I'm about to take you out for a night on the town. You're going to enjoy yourself. But”—he eyed her feet—“those three-inch heels need to turn into some tennis shoes.”

That caught her by surprise. “What? Tennis shoes? What kind of date is that?”

“I got a night planned that you won't forget.”

She smiled and bounced into the bedroom to change.

An unforgettable night. With Matthew. Yep, that was exactly what Lauren needed.

L
auren found solace in only a few places: her home, the beach, and here, at her aunt Velma's house. A robust woman with a smile that lit up the room, Velma Robinson had never been married, never had children, and she seemed just fine with that. A humorous woman with a big personality, Aunt Velma was always the life of the party.

For the longest time, Lauren had believed that she would end up just like her father's sister—only now Matthew had her rethinking her plans. Their date had been amazing. He'd taken her to play paintball. And while she'd vehemently protested at first, she'd given in and ended up having a lot of fun. Afterward, he'd taken her out to Jordan Lake for a midnight picnic.