It’s Complicated (Her Billionaires #5)(49)
Author: Julia Kent

“Heeeeeey, it’s my baby girl.” The smoker’s rasp rattled so deeply in Josie’s ear, she could almost smell and taste the cigarette smoke. Her mom and her aunt Cathy had plenty of things that were different about each other, but on this one, they were united. Chimneys who filled their homes with the ever-present houseguest of nicotine residue.

“What’s up, Mom?” Josie tried to keep it light. If she engaged in any possible way, this could get nasty.

“I was just thinkin’ about you, and you didn’t answer my voicemails.”

“I was on shift, Mom.”

“Oooooooh, okay.”

From the tone in her mother’s voice, Josie could tell she wasn’t drunk or high. It was a rare moment of getting what was left of the real Marlene, one to one, and a thin tendril of hope allowed itself to unwind inside her. Maybe she’d get one good conversation, after all.

“I hope you’re not overworking yourself. You know how hard that…” Marlene stumbled, and Josie could imagine her, cigarette in her right hand, waving it, as if the smoke could somehow coordinate to form the word that her stuttering brain couldn’t find.

“Yeah, nursing can be hard, Mom,” Josie helped.

“That’s right.” Marlene’s voice became more confident. “That’s right, nursing is hard, but I’m proud of my baby.”

Josie’s teeth felt like steel edges grinding against each other. “Thanks, Mom,” was all she said. She wasn’t going to fall for it and ask, “So what are you calling for?” She knew that if she did that, it could go one of two ways; she could be told “why do I need a reason to call my baby girl?” or she could be told “because I need money,” and then hear a diatribe about how she was the rich nurse who lived in Boston who didn’t send her mother enough.

Josie knew her mother’s monthly income. Between working a couple of pity shifts at the local bar, where Jerry let her work mostly to work off an ever-increasing bar tab, and survivor’s benefits from her father’s death, she knew that there was enough to at least pay the mortgage, cover utility bills and basic food. There wasn’t, though, enough to cover cigarettes, booze, and pills. When Josie had come home from college in her senior year she’d found the stash of Percocets, a hundred or more, in her mom’s top drawer. She knew enough not to ask, and she knew enough to realize that her mother was probably going to multiple doctors to get that much. Traumatic brain injury, and neck and back muscles that were permanently twisted as she recovered from the accident, gave her the perfect excuse when it came to getting pain meds. Josie’s problem was that teasing out how much of it was legitimate and how much of it was bullshit had driven her crazy for years. She couldn’t let it continue to drive her crazy, so she’d cut it off at the knees and quit wondering. Now she just tolerated the phone calls from Marlene.

“When you comin’ home next, Josie?” Marlene asked, the question a formality; she knew damn well that Josie came home once a year, typically in August.

“Oh, you know, same time.”

“You’ll be here for a week?”

“Yep.” She would spent most of that week with Darla, hanging out and chatting, and trying to convince the younger cousin to come back to Boston with her. This would be a different trip now, wouldn’t it? Because Darla could be out here soon, if Josie took the job with Laura and asked to have Darla be her assistant. Darla had a natural acceptance of the surreal that made Josie think she’d be perfect for the very unconventional dating service Laura and her guys were proposing.

The rattlings of the implications of getting Darla to move out here made her teeth hurt even more. Marlene would ask the inevitable question, “Well, if Darla can move in with you, then why can’t I?” and that was a whole conversation that Josie didn’t want to have.

“Mom, how are you doing?” Josie asked, giving her the entry that she needed.

“Ah, same old, same old here,” Marlene said. “You know, I’ve been having a hard time with the house, though.”

Here it goes, Josie thought—the house was going to be her excuse.

Sometimes it was the car, sometimes it was her health, sometimes it was Darla and Cathy. When they were brought up it was easy to give Darla a call and say “So, my mom tells me your cat died,” and Darla would say, “Oh, the fifth one this year?” and they’d laugh, because who else can you call when you need to talk about your crazy mom, and nobody else has a crazy mom. Aunt Cathy wasn’t quite crazy, but she was depressed, and it meant that Josie and Darla could commiserate.

“What’s up with the house, Mom?” she asked.

“Oh, the gutters, there’s this problem with ’em, and they’re rotting, and they’re saying it’s gonna cause all this roof damage and it could be thousands and thousands if we don’t get it fixed now.”

Familiar. Josie figured it had been about two years since she’d used that one. Back then it was the gutters were being ripped off the house by angry squirrels, and that she needed to have all of the leaves that had built up in there cleaned out, and that that was going to cost $600. Josie paused to see whether Marlene was recycling entire stories.

“Really, what’s wrong with the gutters?” she finally asked.

“Oh, it’s these damn squirrels!”

Closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead, Josie hated to be right. “How much will it cost to fix, Mom?” she said, haltingly, mentally running through her own savings, wondering how much she could manage without putting herself in jeopardy.

“Oh, it’s actually not too bad, there’s some guys in the neighborhood who say they can do it for four hundred.”

“Four hundred.”

“Well, maybe $300 if, you know, I flash ’em some tit and flirt with ’em a little bit.” Marlene’s throaty chuckle made Josie’s own throat tighten, choking her on a ball of disgust and resentment, anger and embarrassment. And sorrow.

“I can get a check for you for three hundred, Mom, it’s a little tight here.”

“Oh, it’s tight here, too, Josie. If you’ve got it tight then it must be a completely flat pancake here.” She cackled.

Their laughs, despite Marlene’s smoker’s rasp, were similar, and Josie hated that. She didn’t like to be reminded that she was anything like Marlene. Unless it was the Marlene from before the accident. Everyone noticed, though, as soon as they met Marlene. She had a moment of horrified dread at the thought “when they meet Marlene.” Suppose one of these days Alex met Marlene?