Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Even though she was dressed like she was hanging around the house, she wore makeup. Mostly neutral but with black cat’s-eye, drawing focus to her eyes and the startling sea-blue color of the iris. She had some delicate chain bracelets at her wrists and a number of piercings in her ears, with studs or small hoops running up the shell, and dangling beads coming from the lobe.
She looked the picture of what a poet, photographer, novelist, filmmaker would look like. An easy style that was not unique, but she made it that way.
She was also still one of the most attractive women he’d ever laid eyes on.
In fact, he’d go so far as saying she was in the top two, vying for number one.
“Tom,” she greeted.
“Mika,” he replied, and then was surprised yet again in his short visit to her home.
He saw a soft pink rise in her cheeks, the kind a woman got when she felt nervous or didn’t know what to do with flattery, something he hadn’t offered, unless she caught it in his gaze.
She looked to her daughter and ordered, “Scram, kid.”
“I need coffee,” Cadence declared.
“You need to get to the library. You wanted this freedom, your teachers challenged you to earn it. You’ve got work to do, sister. A lot of it.”
“I’ll make coffee with you guys and take one with me.”
“You can buy one and tip someone with money we have, and they need.”
Cadence did an eye roll. “You’re the only person I know who uses the excuse to spend money so other people can have it.”
“I don’t earn it to sit on it and I don’t earn it to leave it to you. By the time I’m gone, you better be earning your own.”
“Yeah, I better. Because you’ll have spent all yours, and I’ll be taking care of you,” Cadence retorted.
Mika smiled, but said, “Get out.”
Cadence turned to Tom. “See what I have to deal with?”
“What freedom is your mom talking about?” he asked.
“I’m still in school,” she told him. “Back home. In New York. It’s a weird, hippie, progressive school that, of course, costs a million dollars a semester, so, like, less than a percent of the population can afford to go there, which is totally liberal, is it not?”
Tom started laughing at her cheeky, self-aware sarcasm.
“It doesn’t cost a million dollars a semester,” Mika said on a sigh.
Grinning with him but ignoring her mom, Cadence continued, “Mom wanted to come out here and work, I wanted to come with her. So I struck a deal with my teachers so I could come with. I’ve got all the credits I need to graduate anyway. I’m doing college courses now. So they piled it on me, since I’m independently studying. I’ve got, like, I don’t know, fifty papers to write before we go home after spring break.”
It was February.
“Sounds like you need to get to the library,” he noted.
“You can get everything you need on the Internet,” she retorted.
“You can also get distracted on the Internet and end up not studying and instead, getting in some Twitter war with some neanderthal who uses the only thing he has going for him, his opposable thumbs, to type rubbish into the hive mind of social media. Go to the library,” Mika commanded.
“Why do you have to be cool and with it and understand what a waste of time social media is and how your daughter’s brain doesn’t focus unless all distractions are taken away?” Cadence whined as she trudged toward the entryway.
“Your lot in life, I fear, my dearest,” Mika replied, caught Cadence as she would pass, and kissed the side of her head before she let her go.
“See you later, Tom,” Cadence called after she disappeared into the entry.
“Nice to meet you, Cadence,” he called back.
His smile for Cadence was still at his mouth when he turned his attention to her mother.
She was frowning and offering, “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
She moved to him, past him, and he followed.
Her kitchen was more white adobe, including that substance enclosing the fan over the range. The beamed ceilings were here too, as well as creamy white cabinets, most of the upper ones without doors so you could see an impressive stoneware collection in French gray, cobalt and cream.
“I can make you just about anything,” she said. “Like mother like daughter, Cadence replaced the blood in her veins with java at around the age of sixteen. So we have it all.”
“I’ll have whatever you’re making for yourself.”
She wasn’t looking at him as she busied herself between the machine, fridge and at the cupboard getting some mugs.
Tom went to the island, which was a contrast stainless steel with a butcher block top that worked great in the space, cutting the native southwest and giving a hint of contemporary so the top-of-the-line appliances didn’t clash with the rest, which looked molded by hand.