“It’s just dinner, Hope,” Matt interrupts me. “I’m not proposing to you.”
My cheeks are suddenly on fire. “Of course not,” I mumble.
He laughs and reaches for my hands. “Relax, Hope.” When I hesitate, he smiles slightly and adds, “You have to eat. How ’bout it?”
“Yeah, okay,” I say, and it’s at that moment that the front door of the bakery swings open, and Annie comes in, her backpack slung over her shoulder, her dark sunglasses on, even though dawn hasn’t yet broken. She stops and stares at us for a moment, and I know instantly what she’s thinking. I pull my hands away from Matt, but it’s too late.
“Great,” she says. She rips her sunglasses off and tosses her long, wavy, dishwater-blonde hair over her shoulder, fixing us with a glare that makes her deep gray eyes even stormier than usual. “Were you going to, like, start making out if I didn’t get here?”
“Annie,” I say, standing up. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Whatever,” she mutters. Her new favorite word.
“Don’t be rude to Matt,” I say.
“Whatever,” she repeats, rolling her eyes for emphasis this time. “I’ll be in the back. So you can, like, go back to doing whatever it is you’re doing.”
I look after her helplessly as she charges through the double doors to the kitchen. I hear her throw her backpack onto the counter, the weight of it rattling the stainless steel bowls I keep stacked there, and I wince.
“Sorry,” I say, turning back to Matt. He’s staring in the direction Annie disappeared.
“She’s really something,” he says.
I force a laugh. “Kids.”
“Frankly, I don’t know how you put up with it,” he says.
I smile tightly at him. I’m allowed to feel annoyed with my daughter, but he’s not. “She’s just going through a hard time,” I say. I stand up and glance toward the kitchen. “The divorce has been tough on her. And you remember seventh grade. It’s not exactly the easiest year.”
Matt stands up too. “But the way you let her talk to you . . .”
Something in my stomach tightens. “Good-bye, Matt,” I say through a jaw clenched so tightly it hurts. Before he can reply, I turn away, heading for the kitchen, hoping that he takes the hint to leave.
“You can’t be rude to customers,” I say to Annie as I come through the double doors into the kitchen. Her back is to me, and she’s stirring something in a bowl—batter for red velvet cupcakes, I think. For a moment I think she’s ignoring me, until I realize she has earbuds in. That damned iPod.
“Hey!” I say, louder. Still no reply, so I walk up behind her and pull the earbud out of her left ear. She jumps and whirls around, eyes blazing, as if I’ve slapped her.
“God, Mom, what’s your problem?” she demands.
I’m taken aback by the anger in her face, and for a moment, I’m frozen, because I can still see the sweet little girl who used to crawl onto my lap and listen to Mamie’s fairy tales, the girl who came to me for comfort after every skinned knee, the girl who made me Play-Doh jewelry and insisted I wear it to Stop & Shop. She’s still in there somewhere, but she’s hiding behind this icy veneer. When did things change? I want to tell her I love her, and that I wish we didn’t have to argue like this, but instead, I hear myself coolly say, “Didn’t I tell you not to wear makeup to school, Annie?”
She narrows her overly mascaraed eyes at me and purses her too-red lips into a smirk. “Dad said it was fine.”
I mentally curse Rob. He seems to have made it his personal mission to undermine everything I say.
“Well, I’m telling you it’s not,” I say firmly. “So get in the bathroom and wipe it off.”
“No,” Annie says. She puts her hands on her hips defiantly. She glares at me, not yet realizing that she’s streaked red velvet batter on her jeans. I’m sure that’ll be my fault too when she figures it out.
“This isn’t up for debate, Annie,” I say. “Do it now, or you’re grounded.”
I hear the coldness in my voice, and it reminds me of my mother. For a minute, I hate myself, but I stare Annie down, unblinking.
She looks away first. “Whatever!” She rips her apron off and throws it on the floor. “I shouldn’t even be working here!” she yells, throwing her hands in the air. “It’s against child labor laws!”