Free Another Shot At Love by Niecey Roy Page A

either blasted Evanescence or Bach; it really didn’t matter, because I was in my creative zone and eventually, sound faded and I swam through color. Art made me come alive.
    My family understood it as a passion of mine, but they didn’t understand why I’d chosen to major in it. My family was afraid I wouldn’t be able to make a career out of an art degree, and now that I was pounding a keyboard inside a gray cubicle, I imagined they were all holding in a collective “I told you so.”
    I needed to prove them wrong.
    “Warm it up a little,” Mom advised, her eyes on the plate I’d piled high with food. She then turned to point at a fabric swatch Lexie had tossed onto a pile of swatches on the table. “That one is a beautiful color. You sure you don’t want it?”
    “It’s too light. We’re getting married this fall. I need a darker purple.” Lexie covered up the swatch in question with another shade of purple. She winced at the sight of it before moving on to another swatch with little enthusiasm.
    It hadn’t been more than two weeks after Lexie announced her engagement that Jeremy’s parents pressured the betrothed to move their wedding date from a spring wedding next year to a shotgun fall wedding this year. No, Lexie wasn’t pregnant. The Buchanans thought a wedding right before the senatorial election, one depicting a beautiful, happy family, was just the political push Gerard Buchanan needed to land a seat in the Senate.
    I felt so bad for Lexie—she’d always wanted a spring wedding. She’d been dreaming of her fairytale wedding every day for most of her life, sketching it out in her scrap books, lovingly pasting in cutouts from her favorite magazines. No wonder she’d morphed into bridezilla.
    “Why don’t you just tell those voter hungry Buchanans you’re not going to be bullied into having a fall wedding?” I pushed the start button on the microwave and it hummed to life. Lexie looked up at me with narrowed eyes. We’d been having this conversation for weeks. I raised my hands. “Just a suggestion. I’ll keep my mouth zipped.”
    I leaned against the counter, my attention now on Catherine wiping the counters with unnecessary elbow grease. They were spotless. Something was up.
    “Shouldn’t you be home doing Lamaze with your husband or something?” It was all Catherine had been talking about lately. I divided my attention between the microwave timer and Catherine attacking an invisible spot next to the sink. She was so preoccupied she’d stopped washing dishes to take on the counters.
    The microwave dinged just as Catherine threw down the washcloth. “I don’t have Lamaze every day,” she said curtly.
    I leaned against the counter to really give her my full attention. She was back to scrubbing a plate in the sink full of sudsy water, as if she wouldn’t be content until she wore down the print pattern on the ceramic.
    Lexie shrugged at my raised eyebrows.
    “So…” I said as nonchalantly as possible. “What’s up?”
    “It’s nothing,” Catherine said.
    I kept a steady eye on her. She’d crack eventually.
    “Quit looking at me like that.” Catherine’s annoyance deepened her blue-eyed glare, so I quit looking. Catherine angry was a little scary, and pushing the subject wouldn’t bode well for anyone in the kitchen, especially me. Plus, I’d come for a meal, not an ass-ripping.
    I took the nuked plate of food to the table and sat down at a tiny spot not covered in magazines and fabric swatches, cards and envelopes. I dug in like I hadn’t eaten in a week because the granola bar and latte I’d had earlier, and the candy bar I’d just scarfed down wasn’t cutting it. Mom’s hash browns were the stuff foodies wrote poetry about, and I closed my eyes, savoring the garlic and onion flavors. I couldn’t help the moan of pleasure—my taste buds were in heaven.
    When I opened my eyes, both my sisters and Mom were staring at me, horrified.
    “Chew your food,” Mom said,