The second thing I held dear was my paid for, but not really nice anymore, ninety-seven black Honda Accord. Yes, I had money to purchase a new car. Yes, I probably should have purchased a new car, but my car had been with me through thick and thin. Well, not really the thin, more like the thick and thicker. Referring to anything in my life as thin was just wrong in so many ways.
Finally, the third thing that I couldn’t live without was ice cream. As far as I was concerned, ice cream could heal broken bones if applied directly to the skin. Think about it. If you considered how many broken hearts ice cream had mended, it wouldn’t really seem that outlandish. Not to mention, ice cream was full of calcium.
Calcium + bones = good!
I thought doctors everywhere should buy stock in ice cream products. It would save a ton of money in health care.
This kind of logic was what got me through a pint of cookies and cream without the guilt of knowing two more pounds were coming my way. Hey, whatever got you through your day, right?
Needless to say, the amount of suckage in my life was mind blowing for a girl with more money than she could count. I should’ve been happy. I should’ve been lying on a warm beach somewhere while my newly liposuctioned body was being massaged by my sexy boyfriend, who had a really hot name like Damon. I wasn’t. Instead, I went to work. I sat behind a jewelry counter, working for money that I didn’t need, in an attempt to achieve some form of normalcy.
The space between my chin and the heel of my palm started to sweat as I stared out the store window at the people walking by. Okay, so today was going to be a bad day. Technically, since my day at work was almost over, it was already a bad day. Not to mention I had a coffee date with my mom that was rapidly approaching. Other than the fact that I’d have a reason to leave work early, I dreaded meeting my mom. Our little coffee dates rarely ended on a good note.
As much as I’d love to put off facing the dragon, it was time to go.
“Shannon! I’m gonna go ahead and leave, okay? I’ll keep my cell close in case you need me,” I yelled.
I seriously doubted that anything would happen in the next thirty minutes that would require my excellent management skills, especially considering we might have had one or two customers all day.
“Go ahead, honey. See you when I get home!” she called back.
“Remember, call my cell if you need anything and please don’t forget to lock the top lock. Mrs. Franklin will have a fit if you forget again,” I said as she came from the back of the store.
I watched as Shannon stumbled around with way too many tiny jewelry boxes piled in her arms. She tossed them on the front counter and smiled innocently. A stray lock of bright red hair attacked her eyes, and I laughed at the face she made as she blew it out of her vision.
“I got ya covered, Lil. Have fun with your mom,” she teased.
Rolling my eyes, I walked out of the store and made my way toward my car.
When I got my license, my mom tried to convince me to let her buy me an expensive sports car. I think she was more worried about my sixteen-year-old reputation than I was. As if a girl like me would ever be happy with a car that was too small. I had to deal with things that were “too small” my entire life—why the hell would I torture myself more? Did she seriously think I’d want to stuff myself into a skinny girl car every day? Um… no thanks! Feeling like a sardine was never my thing.
All skinny sports cars aside, things mean more when you buy them for yourself anyway. If I let my mom buy me everything she offered, then I wouldn’t have room in my life for anything else.
Thankfully, my mom moved past the point of trying to live my life. That was only after years of trying to make her understand that I was nothing like her.
I had always been the kind of person who liked to do things for myself. I wanted to work for anything that I acquired in my life. For instance, I loved my car, and not because it was the greatest car ever, but because I paid for it with my own money. Money I earned back before my life was changed forever, before Grandma died and left me millions. It was my car. My mom didn’t understand that. She had never worked a day in her life.
I had never hated her for that—she was just playing the cards she was dealt. My grandparents were always wealthy, so she never knew any different. I was raised with money, too, but my dad dumped tons of reality into my life before he ran off to California without me.
Simply put, the money was mine. The huge amount was dropped on me from my grandma’s will. I received it on my twentieth birthday, but I’d give it all back for just one more day with her.
She was a lot like my mom, meaning she loved to spend money. The difference was she wanted me to be happy with myself—she never made me feel like a disappointment. Her pride in me was evident, while my mom always looked down on me, made me feel like I was just one step below where I should be.
My mom always was a snob, though she’d never admit it. If you removed her impressive bitch mask, you’d see that she had a seriously diluted sense of self-worth. If she had an honest moment, she’d admit that having money made her feel superior to everyone else. I thought she got off on it.
I never felt the need to make my life less abnormal than it had always been by being flashy with cash that I never wanted to begin with.
Normalcy was in short supply for me. My permanent single status ruled the all-girls private school I grew up in, and I was dubbed Large Lilly, aka the Virgin Mary. Just call me the president of the twenty-year-old virgins’ club! The member list included me and a bunch of unattractive nuns.
When it finally happened for me, it would be real. I had no desire to be in the kind of relationship my parents were in before they divorced. They were miserable and hated each other. It was the perfect example of what not to be. I wanted love… the kind they wrote books about, but my fear of rejection refused to make it possible.
A special shout out to all the awesome high school girls who taunted me daily—thanks for the fabulous fat-girl complex.
There was a sense a comedy surrounding my situation. Technically, I could have anything I wanted. I could buy anything, but the one thing I couldn’t buy was the one thing I craved. It wasn’t like you could run through the closest drive-thru and grab a relationship.
One hot boy toy to go, please!
My inner ranting was cut short by the bell over the door to Mirabelle’s, my favorite little cafe. My mom was already seated as she sipped her vanilla espresso. I hated the fact that she chose to sit in a booth instead of a table. I’d pull my fingernails out before I admitted that the booths were too small for me.
Guess who got to play squeeze the fat girl into the tiny booth?
“How was work?” Mom asked.
My presence didn’t even warrant her to look up from her daily newspaper—the financial pages, no doubt.
“Good,” I said. “How was the spa?”
I held my breath as I sucked in my stomach and slid into the seat. The table dug into my mini-muffin top.