I reach for the pages and pull at the ends, wishing I could tear them apart.

If Miranda only knew how much my mother had done. If she only knew the full truth of why I’m writing these awful, horrid memoirs. I push up the sleeve of my shirt, grip my shoulder, as if the red ribbon will give me strength to finish, courage to get this monkey off my back. To leave Miranda behind me, say goodbye to this debt, and move into a new life.

I jam the pages into the envelope and tuck the envelope in my purse.

My phone rings. “It’s your mother. Neil just called me. Darling, I’m so sorry.”

“Hi,” I say, trying to collect myself, to let go of the rage. Of the sadness. So I can make her happy as she has always needed me to do. To be her best friend.

“I want to apologize. I feel terrible that you ran into Neil.”

“It’s nothing,” I mumble into the phone. I want to get out of here. I want to go. I want to finish this damn book. I want to rid my body and my mind of all these memories. And Miranda is wrong – it’s not the memories of the men that hurt so much.

It’s the other ones. The memories of her. Of us.

“Oh good. I’m so glad it didn’t bother you,” she says, and I can hear her clapping once, Happily. I roll my eyes. Seriously? She believes me? But I guess that’s what you get from spending your life pretending you’re fine with your mom’s parade of lovers.

“So,” she says in a flirty voice. “What did you think? He’s not too shabby in the downstairs department, right?”

My eyes go wide, they practically pop out of my head like a cartoon character’s, pupils bobbing on the end of their coiled wire springs. “What did you just say, mom?”

“Well, you know. He’s got it going on, right? He’s no Phil, of course,” she adds wistfully. “But not everyone can be Phil.”

“Uh….” My jaw is hanging open. I can’t believe we are discussing the size of Neil’s penis or Phil’s for that matter, like we’re a couple of girlfriends, like we’re Carrie and Samantha having Cosmos and discussing our conquests.

“What’s going on with you, darling? I feel as if I haven’t seen you in ages. Do you have a date tonight?” She can’t mask the hope in her voice. She’s dying for me to say yes. Dying for me to share every detail. It’s been so long since she heard anything. So long since I shared. There’s a part of her that’s probably wasting away from the lack of oxygen. “Maybe someone new? Someone you haven’t told me about yet?”

She might as well be saying, “Just a quick hit, Harley? That’s all I need.”

Maybe we are all addicts. I consider making up a name to make her happy. Creating a fake boyfriend, a fake date, a fable she’d lap right up and love. I could spin thousands upon thousands of tales, I could make up fantastical stories of boys and men, men and boys, and she’d love them. But I don’t.

Maybe this is progress. Maybe I will tell Joanne I had a little victory.

“No. Not tonight.”

“Anyway,” she continues, like my run-in with her lover is no big deal because it isn’t to her. “I know we were going to chat this afternoon about summer plans, and I want to. But I need to reschedule. I had to rush back to the office. I landed a tip on a new story and it’s terrible. A terrible blackmail story,” she says, and I nod. Blackmail is a shitty, shitty thing. “But I have another piece I’m snooping around on too, and I was hoping you could do me a little itty bitty favor. You know that lawyer I work with from time to time on stories? I need him to take a look at a document I received from a congressman’s intern. It’s on the thumb drive in my laptop on the dining room table. Can you grab it and drop it by his office? He’s only a few blocks from the house.”

“You have a lot of sources, mom. Who do you mean?” I ask because I’ve helped my mom on stories before. Ran errands here and there. Dropped off documents. Ferried information.

“The one who looks like Vince Vaughn.”

I grin, a wicked, thrilling grin at the description. Little does she know. Little will she ever know.

“It would be my absolute pleasure,” I say in my best happy daughter voice. If she’s going to be all delighted over me seeing her boyfriend’s dick, then I can act happy about seeing my ex-pimp.

Because you know what? It’s not an act. I am happy to see Cam.

Cam doesn’t lie to me. Cam doesn’t hide things from me. Cam isn’t hot or cold, turning me on or off, telling me secrets, then backpedaling. Besides, whatever sweet nothings, sweet somethings, sweet everythings that came out of Trey’s mouth last night were all lies. Probably lies to get me undressed.

There is no such thing as real love. There is only agenda. There are only expectations. And if you can remove the sticky mess of feelings from the equation, you’re better off.

Cam is a one-track man, and he brings me out of the mess of my life.

Page 203…

Mac, short for MacDougal, was the first man I saw naked. Such a fond memory from the year I turned nine. He was a Scotsman visiting Manhattan for a summer for his dissertation and quickly became my mom’s lover.

One time when he stayed over, I woke up in the middle of the night to pee. As I left the bathroom, he was walking down the hall without anything on. I froze and so did Mac. Then he laughed and his laugh even had a Scottish accent. He kept walking and patted me on the shoulder.“Someday, you’ll like it.”

He didn’t even shut the bathroom door, just started whizzing with it still open. I slipped back into bed and tried to fall asleep. But I couldn’t because Mac and my mom were going at it again. It’s really hard to get some shut-eye when your mom is crying out, “Oh my god Mac, I’m so wet. I’m so turned on. I want you to fuck me hard, Mac.” I pulled the pillow over my ears, so tight and hard I was drowning my ears in pillowcase, but it didn’t matter. My mom’s cries rattled through my skull, then burrowed into my skin and I was never going to erase them ever. Because once you’ve heard something like that you can’t blot it out. Those bedroom moans are tar you can’t wash off your hands.

Chapter Thirteen

Harley

Cam’s towering skyscraper comes into view and memories race back. Day after day I walked into that building, pressed the elevator button for the fifty-fourth floor, put my hand on my belly as that weird twisty feeling from shooting up into the sky kicked in, then told the receptionist I was there to see him. I have no clue if she knew about his side business. Nor did I care. She gestured to his office down the hall and my stomach flipped and wiggled in a different way as I walked to him because he was my power broker, he was the man who set me free from how I’d grown up. He grinned when he saw me. Then shut the door, and gave me the details of the job. Like I was a hired assassin. Like he had a top secret classified file about the target and he was giving me the download.

We were comrades, partners, pulling off heists.

Wednesday was our big day. I’d head straight for his office when the final bell rang at my school, and we’d review the gigs for the next week. Sometimes I’d have one, sometimes several. It all depended on my schoolwork and my mom’s schedule, whether she was in town or out of town chasing a story. But even if she was around, I knew how to concoct cover ups. I said I was at study group, or extra field hockey practice, or I made up the name of a boy I was seeing, spinning my own tales of a date with Cody or Hunter or Jay or some other random nonexistent boy, stories of dates and ice cream and kisses in Central Park. But we always broke up too soon for her to meet this fictional mate.

When I had my regular appointments with Morris, Cam wanted me to prep at his sprawling Upper East Side brownstone, not far from the hotel where I met the political adviser for his doggy trysts. “It’s safer,” Cam said. “Safer for you. I’ll have a car waiting to take you to the hotel.”