Page 83 of Love Expert

It’s suffocating and mean. Heavy and all-encompassing.

Then their song cuts off completely, replaced instead by an incoming call and my mother’s name on the screen.

Sighing, I tap the button on my steering wheel and accept the call. “Hi, Mom. How are you?”

“Maggie.” The Erina Sava I know today sounds nothing like the Erina Sava who existed twenty-five years ago. She was vibrant and loud once upon a time. Loving and sweet. Back when she enjoyed the extravagance of being loved by my father, she was radiant and lively. Now… she exists above ground, instead of six feet under, but I’m not sure she truly lives at all. Not since the day we buried her beloved husband. She exhales a long plume of cigarette smoke, painting a picture in my mind of the newly wafting cloud above her head. “What are you doing?”

“Driving to work.” I settle back for the remaining few minutes of my trip. “What about you? Are you well?”

“Eh.” She makes a sound in the back of her throat. It’s a grunt. A dismissal. “Which work are you heading towards?”

“Brienne’s… why?”

“So you’ve finally set that other thing aside?” She sucks on her cigarette again. “Good.”

“No, Mom. I haven’t set it aside.” I decrease my speed and transition from the open road to the beginning of a new town. “I still work on my thing every single day.”

“Why? If you have to pick up shifts with Brienne, that means your other thing isn’t paying.”

“Mom—”

“I’m just saying!” she huffs. “You’ve gotta know when to cut your losses, Magnolia. Love doesn’t sell, babe, not unless you’re lucky like that girl… the…” She searches for the words. “What was her name?”

“Who?”

“The Page girl.” She draws a long breath, shifting on her seat so the frame creaks under her weight. “She’s famous now. You know who I mean.”

“Alana?” Tears prickle the backs of my eyes as I bring my car around the corner and pass the small-town airport. “I wouldn’t call herlucky, Mom. She worked really hard to write her book and get it into the right hands. And we both saw that television interview. The inspiration behind her book isanythingbut lucky.”

She dismisses me with a scoff. “That wasn’t my point. She writes romance books, so for her, romance sells. Her agent was a genius with all that press, though.”

“Mom!”

“Get her story onto the morning shows, marry a Watkins boy, get rich.”

“Stop.” Alana’s texts continue to pop up on my screen, despite the jealousy my mother carries about her behind her back. “What happened to Alana was absolutely atrocious. If writing a book helped her process her trauma and heal, then good for her. That doesn’t make her lucky.”

“I guess if you want your business to succeed, all you’ve gotta do is come up with a sad story and splash it all over the news.” She snickers, mean and dry enough to turn her laughter into a cough. Too many cigarettes, and too many years of bitter benders. “But you’re too honest for that. Your integrity is holding you back. That’s why your love thing didn’t work here, and it’s why it won’t work there, either.”

“It does work.” My voice audibly trembles, which somehow gives my mother strength.

I can’t relate. I don’t even have children of my own, but I have Jeremy, and I know for a damn fact there isn’t a pain he could experience that would bring me joy. No matter the life I’ve lived, no matter the pain I’ve endured.

Isn’t that the point of love?

Erina Sava missed the memo on motherhood, because from the moment my father died and she packed me into our car that summer, it’s like shechoosesto bathe in anger. She could’ve lived for me, the daughter she loved once upon a time. She could’ve worked on healing, if only for the child she’d birthed. She could’ve gotten help to deal with her grief.

Instead, she chose to hate. And there’s this saying about misery wanting company.

My happiness was never her priority, not from the moment my dad’s casket was lowered into the ground. She preferred my suffering, because at least then, we werebothmiserable.

“I have three massive events coming up.” I sniffle. “And a client I’ve been working closely with for the last several weeks.”

Billy. Billy is my client, and he doesn’t even pay for my services.

“Seventy-five percent of all small businesses close, Magnolia.”

“Eighty percent of them make it through their first year,” I counter. “I’m determined to make this a success.”