Cassie sat on Parker’s bed and leaned back on her arms. Erin wasn’t that bad, and certainly no worse than Adam. Cassie thought of his smarmy smile when they met and wanted to punch him all over again.
“I mean, she’ll probably be okay because you’re not her daughter,” Parker said. “But I don’t want her to work you too hard.”
She can work me as hard as she wants. Cassie fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. Ran a hand over her face.
“Everything I do means there’s less for you to do,” she said. “So your mom gets less stressed so she’s less mad at you and you’re less annoyed by her and everyone’s happy.”
And Cassie was happy, too, both to be around Erin and to not be around Adam.
As Parker headed out the door, Erin said, “Remind your father he’s bringing ham tomorrow.”
“I know, Mom, you’ve told me three times already.”
Erin sighed. Parker gave Cassie a wave and the door closed behind her. Erin turned in a full circle, eyes darting from the table in the foyer to the entrance to the kitchen to the hallway toward the bathroom.
“You don’t have to help,” she said, looking very much like she needed help.
“Let’s eat lunch,” Cassie said. “Then we can work.”
“I can’t break for lunch,” Erin said. “I have to go pick up loaves of bread from the bakery and make the pecan pie; the apple can wait until the morning. I want to mop the floors but we probably don’t have time. The downstairs bathroom needs to be—”
“Whoa, Erin,” Cassie interrupted gently. “One step at a time.”
Her smile was brittle. “There’s too much to do for one step at a time.”
Cassie wanted to squeeze her arm or something, give some kind of reassurance. She didn’t. “Look, I’m going to make us sandwiches, just peanut butter and jelly, nothing fancy. If you’re dead set on not taking a break, you can eat it while you mop or whatever.”
Erin sighed again and finally relented, following Cassie to the kitchen. She got peanut butter and bread out of the pantry, and Cassie found strawberry jelly in the fridge.
“Why are you so worried about this?” Cassie asked as she slathered peanut butter on two pieces of bread.
Erin gestured, vaguely but wildly. “There are so many people coming over!”
“Yeah, but aren’t they your friends? Like, they’re not going to care if the floor’s not mopped.” Cassie heaped strawberry jelly on top of the peanut butter, swirled it together with the knife. “Don’t you do this every year?”
“Yes, and I always want it to be perfect.”
Cassie slid a plate with Erin’s sandwich on it over to her, then joined her on the same stools where they’d had coffee together earlier. Erin took a bite of her sandwich and chewed it slowly.
“If I work hard, I can get mostly everything done,” she said. “There’s just so much I should do.”
Cassie bumped her knee against Erin’s. “Fuck should.”
The comment made her laugh, and suddenly Cassie remembered the bathroom at Parker’s a cappella concert, saying we shouldn’t right before they absolutely did. Cassie pulled her knee away from Erin’s and picked at the crust on her sandwich.
“It’s going to be perfect because your friends are going to be here and it’s going to be fun,” Cassie said. She was trying to be good, but the memory of Erin’s teeth on her collarbone wouldn’t go away. “Parker has told me these things are always fun. It’s all going to work out. Don’t stress out about it.”
Cassie kept her eyes on her sandwich.
“Think I can get that embroidered on a pillow?”
Cassie’s brow furrowed. She tilted her head to look at Erin. “What?”
“‘Fuck should.’ I think it’d be a great pillow.”
Her smile was cute and crooked and Cassie spent too long looking at her mouth.
“You could,” Cassie said finally, getting up to put their plates in the sink. “But after we do all the things we need to do. I’ll text Parker to pick up the bread on her way home. You do the pecan pie, I’m going to work on the bathroom.”
Erin kept smiling at her. “I have no idea how my daughter made friends with someone as willing to do housework as you, but I’m really glad she did.”
“I am, too.”
It was true. For a lot of reasons. Including Erin’s crooked smile.
By the time Parker returned from lunch with the loaves of bread, the pecan pie was finished, the bathroom was clean, and Erin and Cassie were laughing over reviews of Roomba-style robot mops on the internet.
“Hi?” Parker said.
“Hey, honey,” Erin smiled at her. “Thanks for picking up the bread.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
Erin turned back to the computer, and Parker gave Cassie a WTF face. Cassie grinned and shrugged, rather proud of herself for getting Erin to de-stress.
“Come upstairs for a sec, Cass,” Parker said. “I need help with Acacia’s present.”
Cassie followed her to her bedroom. Before closing the door, Parker checked the hallway like her mom might somehow be there even though they’d left her in the living room.
“Who is that and what have you done with my mother?” she whispered.
Cassie laughed. “I just talked to her and helped out a little.”
“You’re a magician. She’s never this happy before a party.”
“It literally isn’t difficult to make your mom happy,” Cassie said. “Maybe you’re just bad at it.”
“I take it back,” Parker said. “You’re not a magician. You’re a jerk.”
“You love me.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t contradict Cassie.
Eight
ERIN
A decade ago, Erin had taken over her mother’s annual Christmas Eve party. And she’d never done it as well as her mom.
She opened her house for the entire afternoon for guests to drift in and out as they pleased, stopping in after seeing family, or while on the way to a Christmas Eve church service. Erin invited everyone they knew, like her mom always had. Their dining room table got pushed against a wall and completely covered with food, even with both leaves in. Erin fashioned a wet bar in the corner of the living room. She made a nonalcoholic punch and provided multiple types of alcohol for people to add to their own glasses if they liked. She made most of the food, too, though guests who were regular attendees tended to bring a dish. Every year, Erin forgot how much work it took.
Her mom had been the perfect hostess. Her house was always spotless, the food was always delicious, and she never let anyone sit long with an empty glass. Even with Cassie’s pep talk yesterday, Erin couldn’t stop herself from double-checking that she’d gotten all the dust bunnies out from under the living room furniture.