“And it never will be,” she agrees with a laugh.
We spend the first half of breakfast rehashing the party, as we always do. My mom loves to gossip over who was wearing what and who is sleeping with whom. I’m exhausted, but I try to keep up as my mom chatters on and on. Better to suffer through and get it all out now, than have to talk about everything again later. Still, the longer she prattles on, the harder it is to keep my eyes open.
I pour myself a third cup of coffee, hoping it will help. I take a long sip, doing my best to look attentive, but she must notice because she stops mid-description of Cassidy Barber’s dress. “I’m sorry.” She puts her hand over mine. “Am I boring you, love?”
I smother a yawn. “No, not at all. I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”
And just like that, her eyes sharpen. “Were you with that writer?” she asks. “Ian Sharpe?”
I’m tired enough that I don’t think before admitting, “I was, yes.”
I expect her to be overjoyed—the lead actress hooking up with the esteemed writer weeks before the movie drops and Oscar noms come out? It’s a match made in publicity heaven. But she just sighs and looks concerned.
“Oh, darling. Are you sure that’s wise?”
“What do you mean? The movie’s been made for months, Mom. No one is going to think I slept with him for the part, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Of course not! Anyone who thinks that is small-minded and petty and completely beneath your notice.”
“As long as it’s not an Oscar judge.”
She sighs again, even more heavily. “I was only trying to help, Veronica. But I understand if you need to be angry with me about it. Just like I’ll understand if you need to be angry with what I’m about to tell you.”
Everything inside me freezes at the sadness in her voice. Someone who doesn’t know her might take it as genuine, but I can hear the manipulation in her voice. Can see it lurking in the depths of her eyes. Goddamn it.
“I guess that depends on what you need to tell me, Mother.”
“It’s about Ian.”
“I figured as much.” There’s nothing she can tell me about Ian that I want to hear from her and part of me thinks I should just get up and walk out right now. And yet, experience has taught me that it’s better to hear her out than to try to avoid it. Otherwise, she’ll just keep dragging whatever she wants to say out again and again until I finally listen.
“I’m so sorry to tell you this, but Ian isn’t what he seems.”
I stifle another yawn against the back of my hand. God, I’m just so tired. Too tired to deal with her shit right now. “Oh?” I reply, a little more sarcastically than I intended. “He’s not an award-winning true-crime writer whose every book has been optioned for film?”
“Of course he’s that. But…” She sighs. “Do you know what he’s working on now?”
“I don’t know if he’s working on anything, actually. I mean, besides the Vanity Fair article.”
“Oh, he’s working on something. It’s why he wanted to do the Vanity Fair article to begin with. Why he had his agent go after it months ago.”
“I think you’re confused. They went to him and he had to work to fit it into his schedule.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“He didn’t tell me anything. The editor of the piece told me that.”
“Yeah, well, my sources tell me that’s not quite how it went down.” She picks up the coffee carafe, delicately refills my cup.
“And what sources are those exactly?”
“When I realized you were interested in him, I asked around.”
“When exactly did you realize that? We haven’t even spoken about him, Mom.”
“I’m your mother, Veronica. We don’t have to speak about a man for me to know when you’re interested in him. And considering who you are—and who he is—it seemed better to make sure his interest in you was real and not because of some hidden agenda.”
My coffee cup slips from my suddenly clumsy fingers, hits the table with a bang and spills everywhere. I start to get up to get a towel, but my foot catches on the leg of my chair and I stumble a little. “Don’t worry about it,” my mom says, and she’s already across the kitchen, pulling a rag from the towel drawer. “I’ve got it.”
I watch in silence as she cleans up my mess, my thoughts a little muddy as I try to figure out exactly what’s going on here. After she’s done wiping up the coffee, she crosses back to the sink and rings out the wet rag. Then she grabs a folder from the other counter and carries it slowly back to the table.
“I didn’t want you to have to see this,” she says as she slides it across the wood toward me.
I make no move to take it. “What’s in it?”
“Information about Ian’s latest project. He’s already sold it—in fact, according to Publisher’s Marketplace, he got a major deal for it.”
“A major deal?”