“Hi Barb.” I leave my purse by the door as I head into the kitchen.

“I’m making Moroccan stew tonight in honor of you being nearly done with your second year of college,” she says coyly. I’m not sure why she says it coyly, but perhaps she’s flirting with the stew.

“But of course. British lit originated in Morocco,” I say, since English is my major. I love to write, but not the kind of writing she does. And not the kind of writing Miranda makes me do. I like to make up fantastical tales of talking animals, magical doorways, portals to other worlds. Only I don’t really have the time to do that kind of writing anymore. I used to have notebooks and journals full of tales, until Miranda subverted my love of words with her twisted debt.

But I don’t like thinking about Miranda when I’m here.

My mom winks at me, loving our sisterly banter and jokes. That’s what we are. Sisters.

“Who’s coming over tonight?”

She screws up her forehead. Maybe she can’t remember. Or maybe…no…not this…not now. Her eyes go glassy, and her lower lip quivers. “Not Phil,” she chokes out, dropping the spoon and covering her eyes.

I pull her to me, wrap an arm around her. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” I reassure, even though I wish she’d never met Phil, her last boyfriend. Tears leak onto my shirt as she heaves out several thick sobs.

“I miss him,” she moans. “I don’t know why he left.”

I do. I know why he left. I won’t tell her though. “Because he’s a jerk and you deserve better, Barb,” I say, because she doesn’t like me to call her mom.

She nods against my chest and sucks in her breath. There. She’s pulling herself together. One hug from me, one firm but loving reminder, and that’s the magic formula to make Barb Coleman happy again. “Forget about Phil, okay? Get that dick out of your head and your heart for once and for all. Now tell me about this new guy.”

She pulls back, exhales, brushes a hand across her cheek to wipe away the streaks of her sadness.

“His name is Neil. And he has a son who’s just as good-looking,” she says, and winks at me knowingly.

She picks up her dropped spoon and resumes stirring. “I want you to meet him. I think he might be perfect for you.”

I cringe inside and a new knot of nerves takes hold. I hate being set up. But I don’t know how to tell her this. Not when she’s given me everything. Not when she’s the only one who’s been here for me since my dad is quite simply gone. Off in Europe with his new bride, or so I hear. I don’t talk to him and he doesn’t talk to me. I haven’t seen his parents either – my grandparents – since they split, and we used to visit them often. Some days, when I am feeling hollow and empty, I miss those visits even more. They don’t even write or call, not even on my birthday, and they promised they would. They promised they’d tell me stories of the times I spent with them. But when my parent split, I was excised from everyone. All I have is Barb.

“It would make me happy. You know I love playing matchmaker,” she adds.

That’s what I want. The desire to take away her sadness fuels me every day.“What’s his son’s name?”

“Connor. Lovely name, don’t you think?”

No. It’s just a name. It’s neither here nor there. It tells me nothing about him.

“Yes. Great name.” I press my fingernails into my palm so I can feel the flesh starting to pierce. The prospect of one of her set-ups makes me desperately want to return to Cam, the man who made me Layla, the man I miss. I dig harder. I need the visceral reminder to stay strong, to keep on course. I will not bend. I will not break. I will not go back to the way I was. Layla is gone. Layla has been put out to pasture, and I am my mother’s daughter – good, honest, righteous.

I picture my red ribbon tattoo. My reminder of how much I love my mom. Of all the good times we had. Our mother-daughter bonds. All the tests she helped me study for, all the times she took my temperature when I was sick, all the nights she tucked me into bed, the only parent there for me. Every single night.

How I will do anything for her. Including protect her from the truth about me, and my call girl days with Cam.

I try to practice all the mantras SLAA has taught me.

This too shall pass. The three-second rule. Let the past be the past.

There. Better. I won’t think of Cam, and his baby blues, his sandpaper stubble, his faith in Layla to reel them in. We were partners in crime. Partners in secrets. Partners in power.

I miss my partner terribly.

My mom stirs her concoction. “One of my sources sent me this recipe. She knows I love to cook. It calls for peanuts and carrots and sausages…”

“Gotta love a sausage fest,” I say with a smile.

“Harley.” She pretends to shoot me a chiding look. But she loves that I’m one of her girlfriends.

“Want me to set the table?”

“That would be divine. And don’t forget wine glasses,” she says, then wags a finger at me. “But none for you.”

“Of course not, Barb. I’m underage. I don’t drink.”

She gives me a soft peck on the forehead. “You are such a good girl.”

I flash her the smile she loves. I am her good daughter. I am her prize pet. I make her happy.

I reach into the cabinets for the yellow plates. They are her middle-of-the-road place settings. If she can’t quite remember the guy’s name, he hasn’t earned the fine china yet. I lay them neatly on the table, then align the silverware and cloth white napkins. Wine glasses are next.

“Red or white?”

She purses her lips and considers. “Stew calls for red, don’t you think?”

I nod, as if I’m a wine connoisseur. “Absolutely. Merlot?”

“You always know the perfect pairing.”

Yup.

Soon, the doorbell rings, and Neil arrives with his son Connor, one of the very many men my mom has set me up with throughout my life. Connor is a decent-looking guy, and he’s studying finance in college, and he likes the Yankees, and I put on my best pretty pony show, laughing, and flirting, and bantering with the best of them, and I know that Connor is falling hard for me because it’s so easy to reel them in. She trained me. She taught me. She made me who I am.

Then Cam made me better. Cam made me the best.

When dinner ends, my phone rings, and it’s Trey, reminding me he’s closing up in thirty minutes.

“I have to go. Forgot about my study group,” I say, and excuse myself as soon as dinner is over.

“But Harley,” my mom calls out, truly saddened by my departure. “We were having such a nice time.”

“I know. But I have a calc test, and I need to go.”

I’m lying because I don’t have any more tests, and after another show, I need to be with the one person who requires no lies.

“Wait!”

She scurries from the table, pops into the kitchen, and returns with a tupperware container of blond brownies. My favorite. “For you. I made them earlier.”

I take the brownies. “Thanks, mom,” I say, slipping in a mom, even though I know she’d rather be Barb.

Page 12…

When I was in grade school, my mom hosted elaborate parties every month. She was celebrating her liberation, she claimed, from a marriage in chains. A marriage to someone who didn’t want her, didn’t love her, who loved other women far too much, who cheated and strayed like he was earning points in a video game.

Before the very first party, more than a year after my parents split, she brushed my blond hair til it shined and tied a red ribbon in it. She dressed me in a red dress with spaghetti straps and a sparkly bodice. When I watched her do her makeup I asked if I could wear some. “Of course,” she said and thus began my first lesson in how to apply makeup properly. She let me wear blush and eyeshadow, even demonstrating ever so carefully in the mirror how to use a shadow brush. Then she paraded me around, introducing me to everyone the same way: