by Skylar Finn
“No, it’s fine. I get it. You don’t want your mother around.” Her voice cracked and she heaved a pitiful wheezing sigh as she let her shoulders drop. “You’ve been avoiding me for the past ten years. I wasn’t sure why I thought I had a chance to change that now.”
The pitiful sob story drew the attention of other passing guests. As my mother melted into a puddle of crocodile tears and spa products, the elevator finally announced its arrival by opening its doors. I hustled my mother inside then hit the button for the twentieth floor. A young couple wearing matching ski suits filed in behind us, eyeing my mother as her shoulders shook with emotion. They pushed the button for their floor three times, as if trying to get away from us as quickly as possible.
“Listen, Mom,” I said in a hushed tone. “I’m not trying to offend you, okay? The reason I haven’t reached out today is because I’ve been sick. I was in bed all morning.”
My mother lifted her teary eyes to examine me. “Sick? Star women don’t get sick.”
“Technically, you’re only a Star woman by marriage,” I reminded her.
The elevator stopped to let off the couple in the matching neon suits. I breathed a sigh of relief as the doors closed again. Now if I could only drop my mother off at her floor in the same manner.
“You know what I mean.” She sniffled, dabbing at the corners of her eyes to keep her mascara from running. “We don’t get ill in our family. Sickness is for people—”
“With weak blood,” I finished for her, remembering the phrase from my youth. My mother was not the type of woman to admit defeat and visit a doctor. She believed her Latin blood was hot enough to stave off any illness. “I guess I’m weak then because I came down with a stomach virus this morning.”
She drew in a dramatic gasp. “What are you doing out of bed then? This is why you have weak blood! You don’t let yourself recover!”
“Mom, that is not how the body works.”
We finally arrived on the twentieth floor. I hurried to the door of my suite, tempted to fake another vomiting attack in order to get rid of my mother, but she was stuck to me like glue. Her spa bags bumped against me as I flashed my keycard. She pushed past me, dumped her things on the kitchen table, and immediately pulled the fridge open.
“There’s nothing in here!” she exclaimed. “How am I supposed to make you something to eat?”
“Call room service.” I sat at the table and rifled through the products she’d brought home from the spa. They were all sample sizes. “Did you actually buy anything or did you just clean out the free samples?”
“They said I could try them.”
“One each, I assume,” I replied dryly. “You have twenty of everything.”
“I have sensitive skin.” She harrumphed at the empty fridge again. “Let’s send out an errand boy to bring us groceries.”
“The roads are still a mess,” I said. “I don’t even know how you found a car to drive you here.”
“Nick arranged it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course he did. You don’t have to cook for me or do anything else either. I’ve been taking care of myself for quite a few years now.”
Mom shut the fridge. Despite her cooking mastery, she couldn’t do much with a tray of ice cubes and the leftovers from Jazmin’s room service call yesterday. To my surprise and discomfort, she sat across from me at the table. I scooted my chair back a few inches, unaccustomed to being so close to her.
“I would like to rectify that,” she said. “It’s been too long, Lucia. We should put the past behind us. Don’t you agree?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why now? You’ve never had any interest in making amends with me before.”
“It’s time,” she said. “I’ve tired of not having my daughter with me.”
It all felt too contrived, like someone had given my mother a script to read off. I was grateful for the way my mother had raised me. I liked to think that I had turned into a relatively decent person, and I had never gone wanting anything as a child other than a little more love and affection. Otherwise, I was clothed, fed, and housed, which was more than a lot of less fortunate kids could say. Despite that, my mother and I had never been particularly close. Sometimes, I wondered if she had ever meant to get pregnant. Before my father’s addiction had gotten out of hand, he was the one to pay attention to me, not her. When I left home, it was a load off for both of us. We didn’t have to pretend to fulfill that obligatory mother-daughter bond anymore, which was exactly why I was so confused that she had showed up at White Oak under the pretense of reconnecting with me.
Another sharp pain stabbed at the base of my skull. I winced and squeezed my eyes shut. My mother reached for the back of my neck, but I wasn’t used to her delivering any kind of physical comfort. Back in the day, she was more likely to smack me than hug me. I jerked out of her reach.
“Don’t.” I stood up, accidentally knocking a few of her beauty products to the floor. The cans rolled across the pristine white floor. “Look, if you’re really here for me, then you need to respect who I am now. I’m an adult. I have my own life, and you’ll probably disagree with how I live a lot of it.”
“Lucia—”
“I need you to hear me on this,” I said. “Don’t harass Jazmin. Don’t push your crazy agendas. I’m not the same kid you kicked out of your house all those years ago.”
“You left,” she said.
“That’s up for debate.”
She rested her elbow on the table, looking up at me from beneath her absurdly long eyelashes. “I didn’t come here to argue with you, Lucia. I’m happy to see you again. Can I get you anything?”
“No,” I said. “You can hang out in the suite if you like, but don’t make any trouble. I’m going to take a nap.”
“Sleep well.”
“Uh-huh.”
Anxiety squeezed my rib cage in a tight hug as I left her in the dining room and slunk back to my bedroom. It was like reuniting with the college roommate that you didn’t particularly get along with, but mothers were far more complicated than old acquaintances. I still didn’t understand my mother’s sudden turnaround in attitude. I suspected that she was only here for the free swag that Nick and White Oak were providing for her. I flopped into bed and drew the fluffy duvet over my head to block out the light. My migraine, or whatever it was, seemed to improve in the dark. King and Queens hadn’t had a whole lot of natural light, but White Oak was a magnet for bright white sunshine reflecting off the snow-covered mountains. Under the cool darkness of the covers, I fell back to sleep.
When I woke up, a bowl of chicken soup and a mug of tea rested on a tray on the bedside table, along with a package of Vitamin C and a glass of water to dissolve it in. Mom had caved and ordered room service for me. I stuck my finger in the soup. It was cold, but I was hungry and I didn’t feel like walking out to the kitchen to warm it up in the microwave. I switched on the enormous television set, propped myself up against the pillows, and began to fish the biggest chunks of chicken out of the soup with the spoon.
For such a fancy resort, White Oak had a pretty limited selection of TV channels. Most of them were ones that were billed to your room if you dared access them, though I’m sure Nick thought to include TV in our stay. I wasn’t in the mood to binge watch anything, so I flipped mindlessly through the free channels, looking for something to play in the background. When I passed a local news channel, I nearly spit out my chicken. The report featured a screenshot of my YouTube channel, Madame Lucia’s Parlour for the Dead and Departed. I turned the volume up.
“Authorities are looking into Lucia Star’s involvement in the tragedy that occurred at King and Queens Ski Lodge and Resort a few nights ago,” the anchor reported as live helicopter footage of the smoldering ruins played. “Miss Star is best known as the YouTube sensation Madame Lucia, a psychic who claimed to be able to contact the dead. Her last video, uploaded approximately three weeks ago, exposed her as a fraud. Fans were devastated, and Miss Star’s bi-we
ekly video updates went silent. However, Miss Star’s latest video has proven that she’s not out of the game yet—”
I sat straight up as the news channel rolled a clip. It was filmed in the Eagle’s View, the bar at King and Queens, during the blackout. While we were stuck there, trying to pass the time, I’d put on a fake show for the other King and Queens employees who were also trapped. Someone filmed it from the side of the room, at a low angle, as if whoever was holding the camera was shorter than average. In the clip, I put on my best Madame Lucia accent and pretended to make contact with an employee’s old dog. Then, thanks to a quick trick from Jazmin, an entire table set went flying. It looked flawless on camera, as if a ghost really had yanked a tablecloth out of place. The only problem was that I had never posted this video to Madame Lucia’s official YouTube page. Not to mention, that footage had never been shared before. It was all stored on my personal hard drive. The only person who had access to it other than myself was Jazmin.
I checked my phone. I had hundreds of notifications, all from the social media accounts associated with Madame Lucia. Hordes of new followers, messages, and e-mails flooded my inbox. Most of them were talking about the new video that had been uploaded to my channel that very morning.
“Lucia!” My mother barged in, a hungry look in her eyes. “Did you see? You’re on the news!”
I was actually trying to avoid looking straight at the TV. Every time I caught a glimpse of myself dressed as the wildly eccentric Madame Lucia, I felt even more ridiculous. This was bad. I did not need what happened at King and Queens to be plastered all over for the world to see.
“I need my laptop,” I muttered, shoving aside the blankets in a frantic attempt to unearth myself. “Where is it? Have you seen it?”
“Kitchen counter,” she said, her gaze trained on my two-dimensional TV image. Apparently the news had nothing else to report, because the story about King and Queens seemed to go on forever. “My God, this is fabulous.”
I kicked off the covers. “Are you delusional?” I asked as I made my way to the kitchen. She trailed after me. The TV was on in the main room as well, so the news report screamed at me from every direction. “This is not good. They’re saying I might have had something to do with the fire at King and Queens.”
My mother was glued to the TV. “Well, didn’t you?”
“No!”
I’d never told a worse lie. The fire at King and Queens was precisely my fault, although it never would have happened if Oliver Watson hadn’t asked me to come to his resort in the first place. I opened my laptop and clicked into YouTube, but when I tried to log on to my personal account, an automatic message popped up to tell me the password was incorrect. I tried again, but the same warning appeared.
“What the—?” I muttered, clicking the reset password link.
My mother peeked over my shoulder, her breath in my ear. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I got locked out of my account,” I said. I ground my teeth together as another “incorrect password” notification popped up for my email account. I couldn’t retrieve the reset password link for YouTube. “Someone hacked me.”
My mother gasped again and seized my shoulder, her dragon nails digging into my skin.
“It’s fine,” I said wearily. “I’ll find a way to cancel my accounts. I’ll lose all my followers, but I’m starting to think I’m done with this whole social media star thing anyway. It doesn’t really suit me—”
“Not that,” my mother said. “That.”
She pointed at the television. A grainy video image had popped up, zoomed in on me and Nick from across the bar of Porter’s Restaurant. In the short clip—which the news channel kept replaying over and over—Nick leaned into me, his head dipping toward my neck. From this angle, it looked like the two of us had been caught in the middle of a romantic moment. In reality, I’d dropped my napkin under the table, and Nick had reached down to grab it for me. The news anchor returned to the screen. I turned up the volume.
“Speculation that Mr. Porter and Miss Star have been collaborating to put King and Queens out of business is running rampant,” said the anchor, arching his eyebrows every few words to emphasize them. “This is not the first time we’ve seen the pair on a romantic outing together. Rumors are swirling—”
“Oh. My. God.” My mother turned on the toe of her heel to look at me, her jaw slack. She practically vibrated with excitement. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me that you were dating Nick Porter?”
“Because I’m not!” I protested hotly. “That wasn’t a date.”
Mom leaned over my chair, way too close for comfort. “He kissed your neck.”
“No, he didn’t. It was a weird angle.” I snagged the remote to turn off the TV, sick of watching mine and Nick’s fake date play across the screen. “Listen, I have to go take care of this. If I don’t do some damage control, things are going to get out of hand. Actually, they’re already out of hand. Has Jazmin been here at all?”
My mother’s face dropped immediately at the mention of Jazmin’s name. “No, she hasn’t. Thank God.”
Despite the nap and the chicken soup, I felt weaker than ever. It took three tries to lace up my boots. I kept missing the little hooks at the top.
“What did I just tell you earlier?” I said. “If you can’t deal with Jazmin, I don’t want you here.”
“But that girl—”
I used the edge of the counter to stand up again. “Enough. I have to go find her.”
Mom grabbed my arm to help me up the rest of the way. “I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
She piloted me toward the door. I allowed myself to lean on her. In truth, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it all the way to the lobby by myself.
“You know,” my mother said as she led me into the hallway and checked to make sure the door to the suite closed all the way behind us. “If Jazmin’s such a good friend of yours, why isn’t she up here taking care of you?”
“Good question,” I mumbled. Jazmin had never left me hanging for this long before, but if something was seriously wrong with her ankle, I was sure she would have told me about it.
As soon as we arrived in the lobby, I knew something was different. Everyone—everyone—stared at me. They pointed. They whispered behind their hands. They widened their eyes and motioned to their friends to get a look at me. The news report had spread like wildfire. It appeared that everyone at White Oak knew the story of what had happened at King and Queens now, and I was at the direct center of the conspiracy theory. A young woman—fifteen or sixteen—detached herself from her parents when she saw me.
“Is it true?” she asked me in a hushed whisper, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. “Did you really sic a ghost on Oliver Watson and burn the place down so that you and Nick could own all of Crimson Basin and live happily ever after?”
“What? No!” I said. “That’s absolutely ridiculous.”
“But it’s so romantic,” she said, practically melting into a puddle at my feet.
“You should probably examine the definition of that word.” I shook free of the teenager. “And don’t go spreading that crap around.”
She was relentless, following me and my mother as we crossed the lobby. “So you’re not dating Nick Porter?”
“No—” I began.
“It’s complicated,” my mother finished for me. “They’re keeping it private for now.”
“Mom!” I stepped in between her and the teenager. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Mr. Porter and I aren’t a thing, okay? We’re barely friends. I only met him a few days ago.”
The teenager bounced on the soles of her feet. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Wait until I tell my friends that Madame Lucia is dating Nick Porter!”
“Wait—!”
But she pranced off in a pirouette before I could stop her. I rounded on my mother.
“What did you say that
for?” I demanded. “Now the whole damn resort is going to think it’s true.”
“Sweetheart,” my mother replied as she stroked my hair. “That’s exactly what we want.”
I ducked out of her hold and stepped away from her. My legs shook as they struggled to hold my weight. “This is why you came. I knew it wasn’t just to see me again. You want your fifteen minutes of fame, and you’re using me to get it.”
My mother took a split second to disguise her guilt. “No, that’s not it—”
“Oh, really?” I challenged. “How many of your friends did you tell about all of this? Huh? Did you call up Lupita and Nancy to tell them that your daughter the psychic is with Nick Porter?”
“Can you blame me?” she said. “He’s the richest man in Vermont!”
“You’re shameless,” I said. “And this little reunion of ours is over. I don’t care if you finish your stay at White Oak, but don’t come near me.”
My mother’s bottom lip quivered. “You wouldn’t abandon your mother so easily, would you?”
“You used me,” I reminded her. “We’re done.”
I tried storming off, but my whole body trembled. I stayed upright for as long as it took to get out of my mother’s line of vision, but around the corner from the lobby in the hallway that led to the indoor recreational sections of the resort, I leaned against a decorative table to catch my breath. A group of guys passed by, heading for the billiards hall. One of them—a blond guy whose hair was still damp from the shower—paused and looked back at me.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “It’s Madame Lucia. You wanna take a picture?”
My hand slipped off the table, and the blond guy darted forward to catch me before I fell.
“I don’t know who Madame Lucia is,” he said with an apologetic grimace. “But you look like you could use some help.” He propped me upright, keeping his hands in respectful places. “There you go. It looks like you might be coming down with something. You should probably get to the clinic. Do you want me to help you there?”
