for him to give Maya an extra week, but eventually he begrudgingly agreed.
Maya decided to crunch the numbers again. Maybe in her haste, she had typed a few wrong digits that might have thrown everything off. She carefully went through the list of bills—mortgage, health insurance, utilities, credit cards (at least the ones that hadn’t been canceled yet), groceries, car payment. When she got to the end, scratching off the reserve cash she had listed under miscellaneous expenses in order to squeeze out a few more dollars to balance the budget with, she realized her instinct had been right. She had added up the numbers wrong. She wasn’t two hundred dollars short. She was two hundred and seventy-six dollars short.
Maya dropped her head down on the table. With the way things were going, she had no clue how she was going to be able to keep the business afloat until after Frances returned from maternity leave. And at this point, she still didn’t know how much time Frances was planning on taking. Two months? Three months? Four? She felt like she was drowning in quicksand with no fallen tree branch in sight to grab hold of in order to pull herself out.
She was so wrapped up in her own internal drama, she didn’t hear Vanessa stroll into the kitchen and open the fridge to get some water. They had long cut out buying the bottled stuff because it had gotten way too expensive, but Frances had given them a water pitcher filter for Christmas last year, and it had luckily saved a lot of money.
Vanessa took a glass down from the cupboard and poured from the pitcher. “You look stressed, Mom.”
“No, I’m not,” Maya lied.
Vanessa sat down next to her mother with her glass of water and eyed the budget on Maya’s phone app.
“Yikes, that’s not good. Two hundred and seventy-six dollars short?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“I can help out more, you know.”
“Yes, I know. You’re a very capable young woman, and I’m immensely proud of you. But you need to focus on school. I don’t want you working for me all the time. God forbid your grades start to slip and then you don’t get into a good college.”
“Wow, talk about going from zero to sixty. Suddenly I’ve been rejected by all the Ivy League colleges?”
“I’m just saying I’m the adult here. It’s my responsibility to keep a roof over our heads, and it’s your job to enjoy your high school years and prepare for college without having to worry about the electric bill.”
“But winter’s on the way, and you know we don’t have a wood burner, so that bill is going to like triple what it is now by December.”
“Again, not your problem.”
“I can work and still get good grades. I’ll just drop out of the fall musical.”
“I didn’t know you were even auditioning for the fall musical,” Maya said, sitting up in her chair, surprised.
Vanessa nodded, slightly embarrassed. “Some girls dared me after they heard me singing in the locker room shower. I kind of did it on a lark. I honestly didn’t expect anything to come of it, but the theater director, Ms. Callis, says I’ll get something.”
“Well, that’s great.”
Vanessa shrugged. “It probably won’t be a big part, maybe the chorus. It’s no big deal. I don’t have to do it.”
“You’re not bowing out. We’ll be fine.”
Maya noticed her daughter’s skeptical look. She took Vanessa’s hand and squeezed it. “Really. Okay?”
“Okay,” Vanessa said.
Maya could tell her daughter was relieved because this was something she really wanted to do despite her lackadaisical attitude that she was showing off to her mom.
Vanessa’s phone buzzed, and she excitedly peered at the screen. A smile crept across her lips as she frantically typed a reply.
“Who is that? Lucy?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“Emily?”
“Nope.”
Studying her daughter’s euphoric face, the answer finally came to her. “A boy?”
This time she got no reaction, which was basically a confirmation.
“What’s his name?” Maya sighed.
Vanessa finished sending her text and stuffed the phone into her back pocket. “I’m not ready to tell you.”
“What do you mean you’re not ready? I’m your mother.”
“There’s no way I’m telling you his name yet. I know you. You’ll go all private eye on me and do this huge extensive background check on him and everybody he knows, and pretty soon you’ll know more about him than I do at this point.”
“I’d like to deny I would do something like that, but you’re probably right. Okay, you don’t have to tell me . . . yet. But if it gets serious, we need to talk about it.”
“We’re not having sex, Mom,” Vanessa said matter-of-factly.
Maya sighed with relief. “Good. But if it progresses to the point where you’re thinking about it, we need to have the talk.”
“We’ve already had the talk,” Vanessa said, rolling her eyes.
“We have?”
“Yes, like three times.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I pretty much know everything, and what I don’t know, I can find on the internet.”
“I’m happy you haven’t gone all the way, but can you at least tell me how far you have gone? Kissing? Heavy petting?”
“I’m not doing this,” Vanessa cried as she jumped up from the table and bolted out of the room.
Maya couldn’t help it. Her mind was racing. Who was he? Did she know him or his family? If she knew just his name, she could easily google him. Maybe she could swipe Vanessa’s phone when she was asleep and find out some information from all their back-and-forth texts.
No, Maya said to herself. She couldn’t do that, as much as she really wanted to, because she had to trust her daughter. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t hazard a few guesses as to the identity of this mystery boy. It was a hell of a lot more interesting than worrying about her monthly budget.
CHAPTER NINE
Sandra knew everyone in the stands was watching them. It was her first public appearance with her husband since the tawdry scandal about Stephen had been blasted across the Dirty Laundry website. They sat about halfway up the bleachers, smack-dab in the middle, where she felt trapped and claustrophobic, but she had to keep smiling.
For the
