Confessions and Olivia (Olivia #2) (6 page)

I quickly stand fro
m my seat with all eyes on me and shake my head lost and apologetic. "I’m sorry. I can't...."

Macy stares at me utterly confused, while my mom looks on with pain in her eyes.

I rush out of the room hearing the model saying behind me. "Was it something I said?"

I need to get outside. I need fresh air.

I get outside and lean against the wall trying to calm myself down, trying to control my breathing, it's relentless.
Why oh why can't I get a grip
. He still has a hold of me and it will never let me be.
"Olivia, darling? Why did you run out like that?" I stand trying to compose myself, hearing my mom’s voice. Then she’s beside me, looking at me in a little lost. "Olivia?”

I sigh closing my eyes briefly,
leaning the back of my head against the wall. "I don’t feel so good mom, it’s nothing."

"That was nothing?"

"Nothing." I repeat in a breath, trying to close her down, but she can see the torment I’m hiding. "Go home Olivia,” she advices me, passing me her car key, “I’ll take it from here."

I
shake my head trying to act professional, pushing her keys away. "No mom. I appreciate it but it’s my job, I’ll finish it. I’ve just got a stinking hangover that’s all."

My mom nods and smiles short at me, not convinced by my display of lies but I don’t want to talk about it again. It’s hurting me enough as it is.

It's almost midafternoon and we have chosen our models excluding the familiar late one, and scheduled the photo-shoots. Now my mom wants to take me for lunch.

"Macy, would you like to join us?" My mom asks as we gather our things together.

"That’s so nice of you Ronnie, but I’ve brought lunch with me. I like to work through my lunch hour."

My mom drives us to the nearest deli. It’s raining by this time, the sky is turning dark from the weather and it's unbelievably cold, but not as cold as it has been. I’m hoping this rain will wash away the snow we have left.

We get seated at a small table. I’ve ordered a bacon and cheese sub with a full fat coke, and my mom ordered a salad and bottle of water.
What's the point?

"This is nice. We haven’t done this in a while."
She places her bottled water down onto the table and picks up her fork.

I shrug distant running my fi
ngers up and down my coke glass looking absent.

"No we haven’t. We haven’t really done anything together in a while."

"Would you like to talk about what's on your mind because I know there is something? You don’t run away like you did earlier for nothing."

I look up from my gl
ass and raise my eyebrow at her. "Now you wanna talk about it? Four months too late?"

She frowns a little hurt.
"What do you mean? I always talk to you."

I sigh picking at my sub.
"You used to. I don’t mean anything by it mom and I certainly do not want to row with you, all I mean is, I never know what mom I’m going to get. You never want to talk to me. I tell you what’s on my mind and you don’t want me talking about it for some reason. So what I mean is,
now
you want to talk all of a sudden? You know what’s up with me mom. But you ask like your hoping it’s something else. Like you hate I’m still feeling this way over some man you dislike. You never act this way towards me, I don’t get it."

I know this might not go down well with her
because she hates being confronted with the truth especially in a public place, but I have no qualms at the moment. What more in my life could go wrong?

She shifts in her seat looking around, opening her mouth to talk but nothing comes out.

I sigh annoyed at her. Even now, she can’t talk to me. Even when I’m hitting her in the face with the truth.

"Exactly what I mean." I
throw my sub back down onto the plate, annoyed at her silence. It proves my point.

"Now that's not true Olivia. I have been there for you."

Is she kidding me?

"Really mom? Have you really been there for me? One day your fine and yourself and the next it’s like I don’t even know the women I call mom. I ask you what's going on and you change the subject. I know we had this conversation the other night but you did it then, you changed the subject."

She faces away from me knowing I’m right, taking her water into her hands. "Don’t be so childish. I’ve always been the same person."

What the... "Me? Childish? No mom, I needed your support more than ever these last couple of months and where have you bee
n? Running around with Mauricio, that’s where. You kiss his backside so hard." I’m exasperated. How many times have we had this conversation? I’m sick and tired of her excusing her own irrational behavior.
She just doesn’t get it.
Just because I’m an adult now means I don't need my mom?

I bite into my sub aggressively as she looks on appalled. I can feel the animosity building between us, but I really couldn’t care less, she needs to hear it.

"I don’t like your tone Olivia, since you’ve been knocking around with that boy
you’ve
become a different person, not me. That was the problem in the first place and I know your hurting right now I really do, but I think...” She pauses on a breath. “It was for the best you finished. And as for running around with Mercy, we went to New York to sort the mess you left us with. Just because you decide to ruin your life for some stupid crush, you expect our lives to be put on hold too? The way you have been speaking to me and your dad, the way you’ve been acting, it's not on, and you wonder why I’ve been distant?"

I can feel my face heated up the more I stare at her,
but I’m trying to keep my infuriating thoughts that are tallying up towards her toned down.

"Because you both think you know what’s best for me mom, both of you, and you don't. I’m not a child anymore you can’t protect me forever. You can't run my life for me like you always have and keep things from me just because you think its best. You didn't want me to go to New York because you wanted me here, where you could control what I did. The same way you didn’t want me going to
college and only let me after I promised I’d start working for Mauricio when my studies were over with. Then all of a sudden I meet Calvin, he helps me find my own voice for the first time in my life, and then out of the blue, you buy me somewhere to live in New York? Acting like it was your idea all alone. Do you think I’m stupid?"

She shakes her head again like I’m being absurd, laughing her
false over the top laugh at me.

"No one is controlling you Olivia, or keeping anything from you for that matter. Calvin was a bad influence on you from day one and nothing else. We thought you wanted to go to New York with Tyler, we actually come around to the idea, and then you didn’t want to go. How is that
our
fault?"

My mom stabs in fork aggressively into her salad trying to end the conversation but I’m not finished. I lean over the table a little more so she can hear me clearly.

"It wasn’t because I didn’t want to go and you know it. The reason I said no was because I would have be going on your terms, not mine. So there for, you would have still been controlling my life. Don't think I haven’t noticed the way you've been acting mom, this isn't just because I got with Calvin at all. How was my relationship so effective to yours and Mauricio’s? It had nothing to do with you but you won’t tell me what it is."

My mom grits her perfect teeth.
"It did because we do know what's best for you and he wasn’t what was best. Now you work for Mercy we can keep an eye on you, it's not controlling, it's called caring. I will not have you saying we control your life. The very idea is absurd and darn right ludicrous."

I throw myself back in my
seat feeling exhausted, shaking my head in amazement.

"Ludicrous? No it's the
darn right
truth. I bet you love that I work for Mauricio now, after all, that was your plan for me at the start. You both took great advantage of my state of mind, getting me to work there. Well now you have your wish, don’t you?"

"So why are you working there if you hate it?" She snaps.

"I have no choice." I snarl through clenched teeth, pushing my plate aside to my mom’s irritation. She looks from the plate back to my face and sighs.

"Olivia, I really don't understand you. You have been put in MF tailors as head and really, you have no clue how to run things, you’re just a talented artist. Your father has done all this for you, pulled so many strings, so don't you forget it. You have everything anybody could ever want, a lovely home, a car, money and you’re still not happy."

I rub my forehead with my fingers at my mom’s materialistic concept of life.

"Pulled strings? He owns the damn place of course he can do what he wants. He only did it so he coul
d get me there and nowhere else. Not for my benefit but for his. And he gives us everything? Mom, you should know by now I do not care for all those things. Mercy just springs it on me and I’m sick of it."

My mom purse h
er lips hating what I just said. "Olivia, you can be so… impulsive."

"Why? Because I finally have the balls to say what I think?"

"No, because you don’t think before you speak." Her tone becomes louder and snappy, making her look around in case of onlookers.

"Eat your lunch Olivia, we don’t have long."

"I’m not hungry."

She slams her palm down
on the table making me jump. "For Christ sake Olivia, you and your damn attitude since that boy and after that boy, the sooner you get over him the better. Good riddance I say."

I stare back
at her stunned by her uncharacteristic outburst, and quite frankly hurt. It feels like someone has just slapped me in the face with a load a bull shit.

"H
ow can you say that?" I’m livid. Has she any idea at all what I’ve been going through? This heart ache I’ve been put through? And she tells me this is a good thing? A good thing for who?

She explains her comment to me e
xtremely pretentious. "Oh, Common Olivia, don't look at me like that. It was just a fling, he didn't love you. He doesn’t love anyone apart from himself, that's obvious. You were just a pretty face to pass the time for him. I’ve seen it all before. He didn’t care about you the way myself and your father do. No one will care about you the way I and Mercy do. No one knows what’s best for you except us. He had no business with someone like you anyway, you need someone with prospects, aims in life, just like Tommy." She says so matter of fact pointing with her red painted finger nail. Can she honestly not see the look on my face? Never mind feeling slapped in the face now I feel punched in the chest. What has got into this women?

"Tommy? Oh, because Tommy would be so good for me like Mercy is for you? Because you know all about love don't you mom? You and Mauricio? You both no so much about love." I roll my eyes frantically throwing my arms around trying to make my point as I speak forgetting where I am.

She looks on confused and a little wounded, changing her mood again.

Welcome to my world.

"You don't know what you’re talking about, me and your dad love each other very much."

Ha! "
Don’t I? Okay mom, where is he now huh?"

She stays silent as I question her, looking around warning me with her eyes to keep my voice down. The hustle and bustle of the deli is too loud for our conversation to be heard but my mom has to be prim and proper, not to argue in a public place.

"Exactly,” I throw my hands up. “You don't know because you never know,
we
never know where he is and we’re just supposed to deal with it and not ask questions and you’re meant to put on a brave face and play happy families every day when I know you’re not happy anymore. We have done this for years, gone along with what Mauricio wants and for what?"

"None of that is true. I am happy and I always know the whereabouts of your father. We never keep secrets. This isn’t what this is about. This is about you getting your life back together. What is wrong with you, throwing all these accusations around?"

She knows I’m exactly right that's why she's so mad.

"Nothing’s wrong with me mom it's this family that's the problem. It's just taken me a while to realize it but now I see it. You think I’m not conscious of the fact something’s going on between our family? And instead of telling me, you turn the blame around on me, making out Calvin was the problem instead of facing the real problem head on. It’s all a big joke, a big joke run by Mauricio."

My mom lowers her head so the anger in her voice can't be heard.

"Stop cursing Mercy right now. He’s your father and he is good to us. You’ll do better not to forget it. Don’t you dare mock what he does."

She then stands up in a haste taking her bag off the back of the chair. She takes one more look at me, and walks out.

I leave the table quickly after her, following her outside. It’s still raini
ng and I can see her polka dot brolly up in front of me as she walks to her car. I reach her as she's about to get in. She puts her brolly down and opens the car door, then turns to me taking an exhausted breath. "If you’re going to get in Olivia, don't speak to me Okay. I’ve had just about enough."