“Why not?” I asked.
“Because it’s not polite.”
I crossed my arms and grinned. “Baby, you lost me.”
She turned her attention back to a palette of colors and started swiping some of them on her eyelids. “We’re going to breakfast,” she said as if that explained anything.
“With family,” I added.
“And I don’t want to show up looking like I spent the last twenty-four hours having sex with you. Waylay needs a role model. Besides, my parents have enough to worry about without adding a second promiscuous daughter to their plates.”
“Naomi, having sex doesn’t make you promiscuous,” I said, torn between amusement and annoyance.
“I know that. But every time I make a decision anywhere in the neighborhood of what Tina would do, I feel like it’s my job to make it clear that I’m not her.” She put down the eye shadow and picked up one of those eyelash curler things.
I was starting to get a clearer picture of the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about naked.
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
She managed to give me a scowl despite the fact that she was using that contraption on one of her eyes. “Not everyone can strut through town, not giving a shit about what other people think.”
“Let’s get one thing straight, Daisy. I don’t strut.”
She crossed her eyes at me in the mirror. “Fine. You sashay.”
“Why do you feel like you have to keep proving to your parents that you’re not Tina? Anyone with eyes and ears who spends thirty seconds with you can tell that.”
“Parents have expectations for their kids. That’s just the way it is. Some people want their kids to grow up to be doctors. Some people want their kids to grow up to be professional athletes. Some people just want to raise happy, healthy adults who contribute to their communities.”
“Okay,” I said, waiting for her to finish.
“My parents were in the latter group. But Tina didn’t deliver. She never delivered. While I was bringing home A’s and B’s in school. She was bringing home Ds. In high school, when I joined the field hockey team and started a tutoring program, Tina played hooky and got busted with pot in the baseball dugout after school.”
“Her choice,” I pointed out.
“But imagine what it was like seeing the parents you love so much get hurt over and over again. I had to be the good one. I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t afford any kind of teen rebellion or bounce between majors finding myself in college. Not when they’d already struck out with one daughter.”
“Is that why you decided to marry that Warner guy?” I asked.
Her face shuttered in the mirror. “Probably part of it,” she said carefully. “He was a good choice. On paper.”
“You can’t spend your entire life trying to make everyone else happy, Naomi,” I warned her.
“Why not?”
She looked genuinely baffled.
“Eventually you’re going to give a little too much and you won’t have enough left over for yourself.”
“You sound like Stef,” she said.
“Now who’s being mean?” I teased. “Your parents don’t want you to be perfect. They want you to be happy. Yet once again, you’re jumping in and cleaning up your sister’s mess. You stepped into the role of parent with no notice, no preparation.”
“There was no other option.”
“Just because one of the choices is shitty doesn’t mean it’s not an option. Did you even want kids?” I asked.
She met my gaze in the mirror. “Yeah. I did. A lot actually. I thought it would be through more traditional means. And that I’d at least get to enjoy the baby-making end of things. But I’ve always wanted a family. Now I’m making a mess of everything and can’t even fill out an application correctly. And what if I don’t want this guardianship to be temporary? What if I want Waylay to stay with me permanently? What if she doesn’t want to stay with me? Or what if a judge d