Stardom

Peace Offering

After spending a few hours in a trendy beachside cocktail bar with Crystal, I returned home with a plan in mind. It wasn't something massive and overly extravagant, but I hoped that it would be enough and that maybe, without all the bells and whistles, it would still show him how genuine I was about loving him and being partners in creating this life together.

"Mom, seriously, can you just give me a lecture when I'm not holding a pot of boiling water," I snapped, narrowly avoiding spilling the sauce everywhere.

"Fine," She replied dramatically, "Why are you making this meal anyway?"

"It's like a welcome home dinner," I lied, covering the fact that I'd fucked up in less than twenty-four hours, and was already resorting to make-up dinners in attempts to patch things up.

"I think he'd have been safer with a take-away," She laughed.

"That's why you're helping me," I replied, glowering at the phone whilst I waited for further instructions.

"Okay, okay," My mother said swiftly, before diving into the rest of the instructions for the recipe, talking me through each step until I'd finally finished.

"Right, now what?" I huffed as I closed the oven door and set the timer.

"Now you take it out when that thing goes off, and not a second later. In the meantime-"

"I can pour myself a drink?" I finished brightly.

I heard her mutter something under her breath before she spoke up again:

"No, in the meantime, you clean up the mess that you've made. You don't want him getting home to a bomb-site."
I looked around at the mess and winced. There was sauce up the wall behind the stove, pots laying on their side across the counter and even flour on the floor.

Yeesh!

"Gee, Mom, how did you know it was so bad?" I asked, plucking a sauce-stained tea towel from the counter and launching it into the laundry basket. "You have a nanny cam set up in Ross's suitcase or something?"

Wouldn't surprise me. I thought to myself snarkily as I attempted not to laugh.

"I don't need to see you, to know the disaster that you've undoubtedly created. I know you, Selena. You're your father's daughter when it comes to your culinary skills. I love the man, but he's the only person I know who can burn a boiled egg. I don't know what you've been eating out there this long."

I glanced at the stack of take-away menus that I'd compiled since my arrival and shrugged.

"It's mostly been those easily prepared meals," I replied.

The ones where you pick up the phone and let someone else make it.

"Well it's nice that you're doing this for Ross, he's been so lonely out here these months. He really missed you," She said.

I felt even more guilty hearing it from my mother too.

"It was lonely out here too," I said quietly.

"Yes, but you chose to go out there before he was able to leave. You knew that would mean you'd be alone."

"And we've come back to that now have we?" I asked exasperatedly.

"To what exactly?"

"To the lecture that you always seem to want to give me, Mom."

"It isn't a lecture, Selena. It's just concern. You had so much out here and threw it all away for-"