30 Day Trial Period

3.26 Day Seventeen: Parker

Seeing her calling made me jump to my feet. I hurried out into the hallway, answering before the call dropped. "Hello? Mom?"

"Ashley!" my mother cheered and hearing her voice gave me goosebumps. The ache in my chest pounded as I realized it had been almost a full month since I heard her voice. "Hey, baby. How are you? How's school?"

"I'm fine. It's good," I said, feeling wildly unprepared.

"Fine? And good? Those are some sad adjectives, Ashley Marie."

"They're all I got."

A lump formed in my throat as my armpit welled up with sweat. It was hard to catch my breath past my nerves. A few people waved as they passed me, and I almost absentmindedly ignored Lizzie when she came up to me. I grabbed her arm and in my panic gave her a small shake as I mouthed, "It's my mom!"

"Oh!"

Lizzie's eyes popped out of her skull. She nearly yelled but quickly covered her mouth. She just nodded and scurried into the classroom to give me some space. Leaning back into the hallway, she gave me a quick encouraging thumbs up. Grinning, I waved her away, but I watched her walk back inside. I needed to know where Lizzie would sit. She stopped by Camille, of course. She motioned to the door and me and I spun around to avoid Camille's attention again.

"How's work going?" I asked, dying from the pause of silence. I needed to fill it. To use it up as much as I could in these rare moments. "I loved the September issue. If you didn't get Paloma Young's signature for me, I'm disowning you."

My mother laughed. "That's not how it works."

"I'll make it work."

"You always have a way...."

Another pause.

"Listen, Ashley," my mother said in that way people spoke when they were about to say they had cancer or that they were out of Coke and ask if Pepsi was okay. "I called because someone double-booked my schedule and I'm supposed to be on a plane the day of your play."

"Okay," I said because her words weren't quite landing.

"It's for a huge client and I can't say no. If it weren't in London, I could probably make the proper arrangements to swing by, but the flights are so long."

"Okay."

"I'll make it up to you, I promise."

"Okay."

"If anything, we'll see each other for Thanksgiving and I'll take you to a show, any show you like, and you can bring a friend."

"Okay..."

The bottom of my stomach fell out as a chill suddenly enraptured my body. I crossed my arm, holding myself as best as I could manage. "Does dad know you're not coming?" I said two more words than I should've tried. Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes, but I swallowed that misery, feeling it slither down my throat like cough syrup and slam into my stomach.

"I haven't told him," she admitted. "Would you mind letting him know? I don't have time to get into it with him. You understand, don't you, Ashley? He just doesn't understand our work ethic."

"Right. Yeah. Okay."

"I love you, sweetheart."

"Love you too."

She hung up, but I didn't drop the phone from my ear. My shoulder crashed against the cold concrete wall as I closed my eyes and tried reinforcing the dam again and refusing to let the waterworks flow. Refusing to break. This was normal. This was what always happened.