ravishes her.”
“You’re avoiding the subject.”
“I thought you came over here to cheer me up after my ordeal.”
Cass sighed. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I’m being a total bitch.”
“You’re really bothered by this whole Drew thing, aren’t you?”
“I guess I’m just trying to distract myself from it.”
“By focusing on my failures. Thanks a bunch.”
“Why don’t I put in one of these movies so I can stop talking.”
“I’d rather watch Dream Kitchen. It’s coming on next.”
“What is it with you and these home-improvement shows? I don’t get the appeal.”
“I’m fascinated, that’s all. Everything on these shows is so normal and domestic. And there’s always a happy ending.”
“Of course there’s a happy ending. The biggest conflict is whether to mix stripes and prints.”
Yasmine realized for the first time that she loved the banal domesticity of these shows, loved the glimpses into a glossy version of everyday America’s home life, loved the makeovers of kids’ bedrooms, the family rooms remade to accommodate adults, children and pets—the sort of thing that had not happened in her home growing up.
Her toys had been relegated to her room, which had been decorated in a tasteful botanical theme more suited for a grown-up’s room than a kid’s. That’s how her mother had wanted it. Her brilliant, ambitious mother, who had been so determined not to let having a child sidetrack her from her career or her vision of a perfect home.
God, all this time, she’d just been trying not to become her mother….
And if she engaged in another minute of this angst-ridden navel gazing, she was going to have to find a gun and shoot herself in another major body part.
Cass had put a movie in the DVD player, and now she was flipping through the bonus material with the remote.
“Are you really going to subject me to this? Maybe we should just play a board game or something.”
“Don’t even suggest it. I know you only own Trivial Pursuit.”
“But I just got the newest edition from my parents and haven’t tried it out yet!”
“Forget it. We’re watching the movie,” she said, staring straight ahead at the TV with grim determination.
“Am I really that obnoxious when I play?”
“I’m not going to answer that.”
Yasmine sighed and curled up on the couch, resigned to her romantic-comedy fate. She had to admit, Renee Zellwegger did have a certain squinty-eyed charm, and a half hour into the movie, she was starting to buy the message that love could solve all of life’s bigger problems.
“Do you think I screwed up dumping Alex?” she dared to ask.
“The more important question is, do you think you screwed up?”
“What if he was my one and only shot at true love or something?”
“I think you of all people have at least a couple of shots at true love.”
“But what if he was the one shot I was supposed to make?”
Cass glanced over at her. “If you believe that, then why did you break up with him?”
“I broke up because I was scared. I thought he’d always remind me of being a convict.”
“Hmm. I guess that’s true,” she said, sounding more interested in the movie than Yasmine’s plight.
“That was not the voice of sincerity.”
Cass grabbed the remote and hit the pause button. “You’re the one who’s always talking about the importance of accepting yourself for what you are. So what if he reminds you of your past? At least you know he doesn’t have any issues with it.”
“Is that part of the reason you didn’t want to get serious with Drew? You didn’t want to tell him about your stripper years.”
“We’re talking about your screwed-up love life here, not mine.”
On the paused TV screen, the heroine was frozen in the middle of a lonely New Year’s Eve crying jag. Bizarrely appropriate.
“So what are your New Year’s resolutions?”
“No more sex with nerdy guys who don’t know the deal about me and my romance-free lifestyle.”
“Would you stop calling Drew a nerd. He’s just a little offbeat. He doesn’t try to be cool, which in my book is a definite plus.”
“What’s your resolution? No more gorgeous, available, perfect men?”
“Alex is not perfect. Remember, I didn’t even know his name was Alex until a few days ago!”
“So he testified against you and sent you to a juvie center. Is that really so awful?”
“No, but it’s pretty damn bad that he slept with me just to find out if I was still doing anything illegal.”
“Come on, Yasmine. You know that’s not the whole truth—the man’s got an overly guilty conscience. He slept with you because