I cringe slightly as I get a close-up view of the white, perfectly creased dress pants. Only Eve Carlysle would have the balls to wear white after Labor Day. She thinks it’s okay because it accentuates the long legs she sculpts and tones with a personal trainer every other day, also courtesy of my royalty checks.
She looks just like a show business mother, minus the mothering part.
When she’s satisfied with my perusal of her outfit, she breezes past me. The click of her black, four-inch Louboutin heels across my hardwood floors echo through the cabin, and the sickeningly sweet fragrance of her signature Gloria Vanderbilt perfume wafts through the air, the scent cloying and making me sneeze.
I slide my hands into the pockets of my jeans and stare at the woman I barely even recognize anymore. My mother's not the June Cleaver type, never one to hug me when I scraped a knee or soothe me when I had the flu, but the coldness that has come over her ever since I've made a name for myself in the music industry is astounding. She takes the role of being my manager very seriously. Nothing and no one can ruin the empire she’s painstakingly built brick by brick. My mother will never be ashamed of the way she’s gone about things: coercing her young, impressionable teenage daughter into signing an ironclad deal when she’d just lost her father and found out he had grown tired of her. How could she feel even a moment’s worth of shame when she has everything she’s ever dreamed of? I'm exactly where she’s always wanted me—under her thumb, doing everything she dictates.
“I have a few photographs you need to sign for the fan club and the list of radio stations you’ll be doing call-ins for tomorrow morning starting at six,” my mother states a she pulls a stack of black and white glossy photos out of her Birkin bag along with several sheets of paper.
I make my way across the room to my kitchen table so I can stare out of the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the woods surrounding the cabin while she methodically organizes the stack of photos next to a black Sharpie marker, standing there with her arms crossed in front of her waiting for me to do as she wishes. Just like always.
I pull out a chair, the legs scraping across the floor, and sit down with a small sigh, wishing—not for the first time—that I can say no to my mother. These three days are supposed to be vacation days for me and the band, time for us to regroup and take a break from the back-to-back touring schedule Eve booked the year before. For six months, I’ve done nothing but think about these three days, dreaming about not having to set my alarm in the morning and being able to take my coffee out onto my wrap around porch so I can watch the sun rise over the hills of Tennessee. Three whole days without my mother telling me what to say, what to wear, and what to sing.
I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. It never is with Eve. She's always working, always thinking about new ways to make a buck and increase my value. I've tried many times over the years to defy my mother, to do things on my own time, my own terms. But it never ends well. My mother controls every aspect of my life, and I've allowed it to happen.
Sure, I was young at the time, and I’d just lost the one person who I thought truly cared about me, but I should have known better. Eve made me promises and dangled dreams in front of me that could be mine if I just reached out and took them. I signed every paper she put in front of me the day of the funeral, thinking I’d finally done something to make my mother proud of me, make her love me. It didn’t take long for me to realize it was all a lie.
It comes as no surprise to me as I sit down at the cedar table that the promise of vacation time was a sham. I should have known better than to dream, even of something as small as a few uninterrupted days alone in my cabin. Nothing good ever comes from dreaming except disappointment.