Just Perfect by Dara Girard

Author:Dara Girard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ilori Press Books

Chapter Three

Evelyn Brown could spot a blemish on a porcelain vase from twenty feet away. So when her daughter took a seat in front of her at the café where they’d agreed to meet, she instantly knew what was wrong.

“Have you gained weight?” she said, her Jamaican accent giving her words a cutting bite.

Julia sighed. “No, Mom.”

Evelyn narrowed her gaze. She was a refined looking woman with cashew colored skin and black hair, stylishly streaked with silver, swept back into a French roll. Except when she was pregnant, she’d maintained the same slender frame she’d had since her twenties and marveled at her daughter’s more curvy shape. “Has your face always been that puffy? I’ve never noticed before.”

“Yes. Round face and round cheeks that’s me.”

“Perhaps the color of your blouse emphasizes it. I’d suggest a different color. You’re more of a warm—”

Julia sighed again. “That’s not why I asked to see you.”

Evelyn frowned. “Please don’t tell me you’re here for your father.”

“I could say I wasn’t but then I’d be lying.”

“Sometimes lying is good for the soul.”

“He needs—”

“Money,” Evelyn said in disgust. “And do you know why he needs money? Because he’s a cheapskate. He does not dye his hair and keep his beard white for a fashion statement, it’s because he’s too cheap to buy two bottles.”

“Mom, I think—”

“Don’t be fooled, he has money somewhere. Always did. While you were doing your little after school jobs did you ever wonder how he was able to afford new equipment? Get studio space?”

“He got scammed.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Not hard to do with his ego.”

“The business really is in trouble. I don’t think he’s hiding anything.”

“I’m not giving him money.”

“I’m not asking for money. Just a reference. You have connections.”

Her mother tapped her lip with a manicured finger and feigned a pensive expression. “Let’s see. Am I in the mood to use my contacts to help my ex-husband’s business?” She folded her arms and shrugged. “No, I’m not. He can use his own connections.”

“Mom, please.”

“It’s not my fault that he devoted the last days of our marriage to growing that business and left all our friends in the dust.”

“Mom.”

“Especially me. All the time I gave to that man and he wakes up and turns a tragic event into all about him. He has to live his life. He doesn’t want to die without fulfilling his dreams.” She patted her chest. “As if I didn’t have dreams too. He tells me that his life needed meaning, implying that I wasn’t meaning enough.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be that way.”

“He’s free and happy now. Why would I help him?”

“You’d be helping me.”

Her mother clasped her hands together and began to smile. “Work for me then.”

Not in a million years. She loved her mother but could only take her in small doses. Unlike her father, her mother had done well after their separation. She’d gotten a real estate license before the separation, built a lucrative business and enjoyed the hard earned success that followed.

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