“It’s not enough, but since you won’t let me do anything else, what choice do I have? And let me just say—I think it’s super shitty that this boss of yours won’t even give you a couple hours to go to orientation with your kid at her new school.”
“Yeah,” Riley said uneasily. “I guess you can’t expect a single twenty-six-year-old to get how important this is, but I kinda agree with you. I’m trying to be optimistic about everything, for Maggy’s sake, but I’m afraid this isn’t going to be the most family-friendly job I’ve ever had.”
“And she’s a woman! There’s no excuse for that.”
“I just have to educate her,” Riley said.
Parrish took a sip from her water bottle. “Did you see who got on the ferry at the last minute?”
Riley shot her an annoyed look. “You know I did.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“No. The whole thing is impossible. If you’d seen Maggy that night, in her room, in a self-induced diabetic coma, lying in a puddle of her own vomit and urine, you’d understand. Now, can we please drop it?”
“I’m not letting you off the hook that easily, Riles. I’m a mom too, you know, and I’ve raised a child. And no, David didn’t have a serious disease, but that’s not the issue. Kids that age are manipulative little bastards, and Maggy, bless her heart, is clever enough that she knows exactly how to push your buttons and how far to push you to get what she wants.”
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable of her to expect the only parent she has to put her needs first,” Riley said. “That’s what parents do, and it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
“You’re missing the point,” Parrish insisted. “Needs aren’t the same as wants. You give Maggy everything she needs—in spades. Attention, both physical and medical, affection, education, all of it. But she wants more. She wants to dictate how you live, who you love. That’s not fair. And it’s not good for her or you. Keep this up and she’ll end up a spoiled, self-involved brat and ten years from now you’ll be a lonely empty nester who wakes up one day to discover you forgot to have a life for yourself.”
“Anything else, Dr. Freud?” Riley asked.
“Yeah,” Parrish said, looking up. “I just saw him standing at the window up there in the pilothouse. If you’d seen the way he was looking down at you—the longing, the despair, all of it…”
“It wouldn’t change anything,” Riley said. “What’s done is done.”
* * *
“Come on, Mags. Parrish is here. Let’s see how you look in the uniform,” Riley called. It was seven thirty Monday morning, Maggy had been in the bathroom for forty minutes, and Riley needed to leave for work.
“No!”
Riley looked at Parrish and shrugged.
“I got this,” Parrish said. She pounded on the bathroom door.
“Margaret Evelyn Griggs, get your tail out here. RIGHT THIS MINUTE.”
The bathroom door opened a crack and light spilled out into the hotel room. “I am NOT wearing this,” Maggy announced, walking out. “I look like that girl from Harry Potter.”
She stalked out of the bathroom, the hard soles of her saddle oxfords clattering on the tile floor. The sleeves of the boxy blue blazer stuck out from her narrow wrists by an inch, and the hem of the pleated skirt hit an unacceptable five inches short of her bony kneecaps.
“I think you look nice,” Riley said. “Now, unroll the waistband of that kilt and pull up the knee socks.” She handed Maggy her backpack. “Your kit is in there, and I packed extra juice boxes and crackers and snacks. You’ll get a hot lunch in the cafeteria, but in case you don’t like it…”
“Mom! I know all that. We’ve been over it, like, a million times.” Maggy sped toward the door.
“You’ve got the number at the station, just in case, right?” Riley called. “And the key to the room? I should be back here no later than four.”
Parrish followed Maggy out the door. “Does she remind you of Julie from The Love Boat in that getup?”
“Don’t you dare tell her that,” Riley said. “I should be off the air at two. Call me and tell me how it went.”
* * *
Riley looked at herself in the full-length mirror of the communal dressing room at WDHM and recoiled in horror. “I am not wearing this,” she muttered.
The sleeveless top was made of a clingy reptile-print fabric with a high stovepipe collar and a