Hurricane Maggie has other plans.
She blasts into my room, mascara streaks running down her cheeks, but her eyes are still rimmed in black, which makes me think she hasn’t washed her face in a couple days. I rub my own eyes, wondering if sleep is just clouding my vision. Nope. Her face is a mess, her hair stringy and greasy-looking, and her white tank top has a smear of something that looks like raspberry jam. She looks like absolute crap.
“Get up,” she says, throwing my covers back.
“What’s going on?”
“We have to go.” She opens my closet and digs around, emerging with the empty boxes she unpacked only a couple weeks ago.
“What? Why?” I slide off the bed, but I feel paralyzed as I watch her open my drawers and start throwing clothes in the boxes. This is all too familiar. The last time we lived with one of her boyfriends, she lasted three weeks and we hightailed it out of there in the middle of the night. I thought she’d last at least a month this time, especially since it’s pretty clear Pete isn’t a bad guy. Poor judgment, maybe, but not a bad guy.
“We just do,” she says, pulling the sheets off my bed. “I’m not going to stay here another minute with someone who doesn’t trust me.”
“Just hang on a second.” I grab her hand to stop her. “What happened?”
“Pete’s a misogynistic ass, that’s what happened, and I—?”
“Maggie.” Pete’s form fills my doorway, but he backs up a little when he sees me in nothing but a camisole and sleep shorts. “Sorry, Grace.”
I wave him off, more concerned about what the eff is going on than what I’m wearing.
“I didn’t say you had to leave,” Pete says from halfway in the hall.
“Yes, you did,” Mom says. She keeps tossing my stuff into boxes.
“No. I said things between us won’t work if you keep taking my money.”
My heart plummets. “What? Mom, why—?”
“I’m not having this discussion in front of my daughter,” Mom says, glaring daggers at Pete.
“I think she needs to know why you’re dragging her away from yet another home.”
“This isn’t a home,” Mom spits out. “This is a prison.”
Pete’s face grows increasingly red, a sure sign he’s getting more and more pissed. “You took a grand from the safe in my closet, Maggie. A grand. I gave you that combination to store your own valuables, not steal mine. Did you expect me not to notice? Or to say it was fine? Whatever you need for your little project or birthday party or whatever that is you were up all night decorating for?” He throws a hand toward the living room.
“What?” I say. “A thousand dollars? Jesus Christ, Mom. For a party?”
She finally stops whirring around. “It’s important.”
“It always is,” I say, a bite to my tone that makes her flinch. I push past her, and Pete moves out of my way as I all but stomp into the hall.
And come to a very abrupt halt.
The living room is decked out in all different shades of purple. A cluster of lavender and periwinkle and violet balloons surrounds the light fixture over the table. Little poms made out of tissue paper cover the floor and counter. Purple napkins fan out over the table, and a centerpiece of gorgeous roses blooms majestically from the center.
Purple roses.
A tray of amethyst-colored macarons sits near the stove. Mom’s apple muffins, dyed purple. Purple, purple, everywhere. On the kitchen counter, there’s a roll of foiled wrapping paper the color of grape jelly, a small white box next to it. I walk over, approaching even though there’s a loud voice in my head screaming at me to stop. But it’s like a car accident on the side of the road, I can’t stop rubbernecking. I flip the top off the box. Inside, it’s exactly what I expected. The necklace. My necklace. No, Eva’s necklace. Three triangular pieces of that beautiful aqua sea glass wrapped up in copper.
I turn my back on the necklace and blink a few times, hoping the scene is different every time I open my eyes, but it never is. On my last attempt, I catch a swath of lilac stretching from one side of the living room windows to the other.
Happy birthday, Eva. We love you.
“Happy birthday, Eva. We love you,” I whisper, staring at the banner.
“Gracie.” Mom comes up behind me and puts her hand on my back. I barely feel it.
“Happy birthday, Eva. We love you?”
“It was going to be a surprise,” Mom says.
“Well, I’m definitely surprised. I didn’t even know it was . . .” I whirl to face her. Because maybe that’s it. Maybe she screwed up Eva’s birthday too, and that’s why I didn’t even know about this. She’s throwing this whole shindig for Eva, and it’s the wrong day. It has to be. The thought settles in, filling me with this sort of sweet, cool relief, but then it turns acidic. Because how effed up is that? Hoping my mother once again can’t keep dates straight in her head. Hoping she’s wrong, messed up, flighty, and flaky, because if she isn’t, what does that mean? That she remembers for Eva, but not for me? That my girlfriend didn’t tell me about her own birthday?
And all this—?all this purple—?was bought with Pete’s money. Was stolen.
“Is her birthday today?” I ask.
Mom nods. “And I know you two are close. I wanted to talk to you about helping me get her here. Maybe Luca and Emmy too. It was going to be a quiet thing. You know, after your dad died, I didn’t celebrate my birthday for years. Just pretended it was any other day . . .”
Her voice drifts off as she runs her eyes over the beautiful world she’s made. It does look lovely. All the shades of color. My mother is creative and organized and driven when she decides to be.
“But,” she says, sighing, “it won’t happen now because Pete has his panties in a wad.”
“Come on, Maggie,” Pete says from the hallway. “That’s not fair. You can’t tell me this is how normal relationships are supposed to go. You don’t steal.”
“For the millionth time, I wasn’t stealing—?”
“Call it whatever you want, sugar. You took my money without asking.” He glances at me, his expression softening. “I’m sorry, Grace. Y’all can stay here until you find a place. Long as it takes. But me and your mother . . . it’s not going to work.”
I nod, grateful for the stay of execution, but Mom’s having none of it.
“Oh, no,” she says, waving her arms around before snatching up the box with the necklace in it and stuffing it into her pocket. “We’re leaving today. This minute, in fact. Grace, go finish packing.”
“What? Where the hell are we going to go?”
“Just do it, baby.”
Pete runs a hand over the back of his neck. “This is ridiculous. Grace, you can stay here if you need to, all right?”
I start to say something, but Mom explodes. “Don’t you dare try to take my daughter away from me!”