"Heart attack? What the fuck!"
Barbara Jones' eyes were alight and round with disbelief and shock as she sat up in bed. A continuous soft, puffing sound came from the air purifier in the private hospital ward she was attended to, releasing a scent that seemed to be a fruity mixture of lemons and citruses.
Scarlett had spoken to the room attendant assigned to her mother's hotel room the previous night before seeing the doctor and the young lady had spoken in broken Italian over the phone, trying hard to incorporate some English into her words because she thought Scarlett wouldn't understand her as she explained how she had been replacing the towels in Barbara's bathroom when she suddenly heard a scream.
She claimed she'd ran out of the bathroom immediately and on getting to the balcony where Barbara had previously been having a glass of wine, she'd found her on the floor, clutching at her chest and unable to breathe. She called 911 right after she identified her symptoms as that of a heart attack, but before the paramedics got there, Barbara had stopped breathing.
The hotel attendant explained ambiguously to a confused Scarlett who had thanked her and then decided to speak to the doctor and see if he would make more sense, and he did.
"Yep. We got a phone call from the hotel management saying you'd stopped breathing and was being rushed to the hospital and when we got here, I spoke to the hotel attendant who was in your room at the time over the phone and she said you'd had a heart attack." Scarlett explained to a wide-eyed Barbara.
Her initial shock begun to wear off and was slowly being replaced by a small smirk that showed how much humor she was finding in the whole situation.
"So, wait. Hol' up, a bitch called and told you I had a heart attack and died, and you straight up believed her?!"
Scarlett sighed heavily and ran a hand through her hair in irritation. "It's this behavior of yours that makes me never wanna let you go anywhere by yourself, ma. Imagine that was you getting a call about some bad thing happening to me. Would you really have had the time to try to figure out if it's a lie or not? Besides you haven't called in months, ma! Months! You claim you want the freedom you never had and I give you everything! I let you travel around the world against my better judgment and the least you could do is call and let me know where you are and if you're doing okay! Even when I call, you never answer the damn phone!"
Scarlett's anger stemmed higher with each word she yelled in frustration. She had stood up from the chair and was pacing the length of the hospital room now.
All traces of amusement was gone from Barbara's face, and Kelly was sat in a corner of the room, caught in the midst of all the tension between mother and daughter.
"If something really bad had actually happened to you-"
"I'm sorry," Barbara interrupted Scarlett's angry outburst. "I'm sorry I stopped calling. I'm sorry for taking this whole thing as a joke when it's clearly not. I'm sorry." She sighed and leaned back into the pillows, unable to hold Scarlett's angry gaze any longer.
Scarlett continued staring at her mother for a while, her chest still heaving in anger, but then she sighed after a while and sat back down on the chair beside Barbara's bed and put her head in her hands.
"I was so scared..." she muttered after another while of silence, her face still hidden in her hands. She had begun to cry.
"I'm sorry, honey. I really am. I just..." Barbara's eyes had begun to water too and Scarlett looked up at her, her eyes filled with tears and an intense emotion that seemed to be a mixture of anger and fear.
"You just what?" She prodded, her eyes still holding her mother's.
"I've lived off of you so long, Scar." Barbara began and quickly held up a hand when Scarlett started to interrupt her. "No. Don't try to tell me it's your duty to take care of me. It is my duty to take care of you. It's been so since the day you came into this world through me, and yet I haven't been able to provide you with the best of everything you deserve. And it kills me. It kills me that I failed you as a mother and you still turned out to be the best kid anyone could ever hope for."
She stopped and took a deep breath, tears streaming down her cheeks as she closed her eyes tight as if trying to will her pain and shame away.
"It just hurts being unable to be the best for you when you're the best for me."
Scarlett stood up from the chair once again and walked over to the large window in the hospital room. It was locked but the blinds were opened, and the sky outside was brilliant shade of blue with beautiful white clouds that simply floated about without a care in the world.
Scarlett drew a long breath and wiped her tears, then let her hands clutch tightly at the windowsill.
"So you think cutting yourself off from me would make things better?" She began, her back still turned to her mother. "And, I don't think the judgement for your performance as a mother is yours to hold."
Her voice had returned to its usual calm and collected state, and she turned around to face her mother.
"I am the daughter you raised. I am the judgment and evidence of your motherhood. Everything I am today, is because of you. So tell me, dear mother. Do I look like a failure to you?"
And Barbara's head fell heavily to her chest, silent cries stuck in her throat at the validation she knew she didn't deserve.
•
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Barbara Jones rolled up the sleeves of her sky blue shirt, and fanned herself with slim slightly wrinkly hands, an irritated frown outlining the smile lines underneath her eyes.
"The air conditioner in here done spoilt? Or what's with this prickly heat!"
The tension from earlier had waned after the doctor came in for a routinely check up, and even though a lot still remained unsaid, some sense of normalcy was back in the air.
Scarlett laughed. "Ma, you haven't changed one bit! Still as sarcastic and irritable as ever!"
And Barbara spoke as a matter-of-factly "Oh well, I bet I'm still damn sexy too!"
Everyone laughed at that, even Kelly too who was still huddled in her corner of the room.
"The bitch must have have shocked you a great deal, eh? I mean, you flew over here in just three hours amidst your surely busy "celebrity" schedule!" Humor shined in Barbara's eyes as she wriggled her brows.
"She said you were dead ma, she said you had a heart attack and that she thought you died immediately." Scarlett responded flatly, a frown working itself onto her forehead as she reminisced how the call had went with Kelly, and how her own heart had stopped like it would never beat again when the message was relayed to her.
Barbara sighed, no longer finding sarcastic humor in the situation as she leaned back in bed. "It must have been really alarming."
Comfortable silence reigned afterwards, and Scarlett was sitting at the base of her mother's bed with her hand secretly rubbing calming circles on her foot.
Kelly who sat on one of the metal chairs, watched mother and daughter with a warm feeling in her heart, even as weird as the whole scene still was to her with all the drama that had been unfolded in front of her only a few hours ago. Plus, Scarlett wasn't particularly known for her caring nature.
Seeing her like this with her mother was a...new sight.
"I miss you, ma." The silence was lifted with Scarlett's declaration, eyes dark and heavy with a storm of emotions shining through.
Barbara's sigh was long and tired. "Me too, Scar. Me too. But I can't live in Paris, sweetie. You know I can't."
"But you could still go anywhere you want. There are so many places to see in Paris, ma! So many, you'd even get tired!" Scarlett was back to being eighteen years old, trying to convince the adventurous spirit in her mother to settle. She had spent the past decade trying to convince her mother to move to Paris and live with her, but the woman was as stubborn as a mountain goat.
"Doubt that," Barbara shrugged.
"Seriously ma! Please?"
At this, Kelly's eyes widened. Scarlett Jones never begged anyone. Ever.
"Kelly sweetie, I can call you that right?" Barbara suddenly turned to Kelly who'd been silent all along.
"Sure ma'am, you can call me anything you want." Kelly beamed, a little nervous at the attention suddenly turning on her.
"Oh I bet you wouldn't want me calling you an idiot, honey. Don't say anything, Kelly's a pretty name." Barbara gave her a rueful wink and Kelly laughed a little.
"So, do you also think I should let go of my independence and go live with my celebrity daughter?"
Kelly's laughter this time was a nervous one, eyes darting from her boss' to her boss' mother as she found herself wondering whether she would have taken up the job if this type of questioning had been in the description.
Her throat was tight with want of saying what she really thought but also fear of Barbara disliking her because of it. But in the end, she had to say something, and she chose to say what she really thought.
"Um, well, you're not...uh...a very young woman anymore. But even so, you're so high-spirited and so alive, and I think its wonderful that you have such a flair for travelling around the world and the physical stamina for it. That's not something many people have the luxury of these days. But at the same time, your needs override your wants and I think it would be nice to be around family and people who genuinely care about you."
Scarlett beamed with happiness, glad for the umpteenth time that Kelly, and not some slow-witted person was her PA. But then the devil herself was yet to speak.
Barbara remained silent, eyes betraying none of her thoughts as she mused over Kelly's words, then she finally opened her mouth to speak.
"Well, all I can say is, Scar? You've got yourself some damn sensible assistant!"
Kelly blushed deeply, covering it up with a laugh yet again.
"It's settled then! We leave for Paris immediately you're discharged." It took Scarlett courage to keep from squealing or pulling someone into a bear hug. That would be a tight decision, considering the fact that both Kelly and Barbara deserved one at that moment, and she herself absolutely hated hugs or people invading her personal space.
"Okay, calm down young lady! I've got tons of stuff to pack and you didn't even ask what's really wrong with me!" Barbara shook her head unbelievably and Scarlett rolled her eyes, her smile still beaming.
"I checked in with the doctor already. Said it was food poisoning and nothing to do with your heart at all. Some expired canned food maybe. But you're good, and they'll bring your discharge papers in a few."
"Whoa! I am stunned! How can somebody who flew down all the way from Paris know more than I do about sumn' that happened to me?!" Barbara exclaimed dramatically and Scarlett rolled her eyes playfully.
"I'm your legal guardian."
Barbara let a false appalled look take over her face. "See that?" She turned to Kelly. "This is why I ain't wanna live with her. She's so bossy!"
Scarlett laughed at this, her dark eyes glowing with joy and humor. "You already agreed, old woman! You can't back out now!"
Barbara groaned, rolling her eyes and trying fruitlessly to hide a smile, when the door opened and a nurse walked in with papers in her hands.
"Your discharge papers are ready, ma'am."
•
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•
Barbara Jones' resort suite was a lavish, baroque styled vip condo at the very top of the hotel building, with glass-paneled walls, giving a breathtaking view of the historic city below.
Contemporary art, renaissance art, abstract art—every art form you could think of—appealed to the high-spirited woman in her mid-fifties, with strong shoulders and long, agile legs moving about the room. Her fit body donned a white nike sweatshirt that had their trademark phrase 'Just do it!' sprawled across the front, paired with black sweatpants that accentuated sporty hips.
She was currently eyeing a carved stone angel that was sat on the dark wood dresser—an item she'd bought at an antique-shop in Barcelona. Then she eyed the miniature obelisk placed just beside it, and wondered if both would fit into the already full travelling bag on the bed.
The room was cold, the air-conditioning blasting cold air, with the afternoon heat accustomed to the Italian weather intense outside and Scarlett eyed her mother from her sprawled position on the long leather couch.
"You seriously do not intend to pack all these, do you?" She gestured at Barbara's closet with an amused brow raised.
T-shirts, Arabian Kaftan's, Korean hanbok's, small sculpted antique statues, her closet contained almost literally everything, ranging from underwear to souvenirs collected from her travels around world.
"Like hell I do!" Barbara panted, pushing the stone angel into the pile. A wing stuck out, refusing to stick in properly and she cursed and yanked it out. "I ain't never really liked you anyways."
Scarlett seemed puzzled. "Are you talking to me?"
"Oh no, silly! I was talking about this damned overpriced stone angel. What was I thinking when I bought this shit for two-thousand grand!" Barbara muttered a few more curses as she returned the artifact to it's place on the dresser and Scarlett shook her head in amusement.
A phone rang, interrupting Barbara's incessant cursing and Scarlett reached for the device on the coffee table next to her, ignoring her mother's dramatic antics as she pressed the phone to her ear and listened for a while, then spoke.
"Okay. Ready the car. Come pick us up in ten."
Barbara's nose turned up at the words she heard. "Was that your PA?"
"Yeah, our flight's ready. Hurry up ma, I have to be at a meeting in Versailles in five hours. I can't miss it." Scarlett put down her phone and slid off the couch gracefully, shaking out her hair as she did.
Barbara rolled her eyes, then sighed. She'd gotten discharged last night and the only thing that had stopped Scarlett from carting them off back to Paris immediately was Barbara's complaints about having too much to pack. So Scarlett had lodged herself and Kelly into the same hotel resort her mother was staying at, to fly back the next morning.
Barbara sighed again, knowing fully well she wasn't done touring Rome and its ancient churches, when an idea popped up in her head. Scarlett was almost out of the bedroom area to go get ready in her own suite when Barbara's impulse-driven yell got to her.
"Sweetie wait! I've got an idea!"
Scarlett sighed and halting in her steps as her mother hurried towards her at the door. "What is it again, ma?"
"Look, I know you're really busy and all that, yeah? But I've been thinking, we need some time together to bond, y'know? Mother-daughter time?" Barbara explained with exaggerated hand gestures, hoping her daughter would agree with her.
"Okay?" Scarlett raised a brow, knowing fully well how cunning her Mom could be.
"So, why don't you go back to Paris first and attend your important meeting in Versailles, and then cancel your plans afterwards so we can spend some time together, here."
Scarlett sighed and shook her head with a knowing smile on her lips. "We can spend time together, in Paris."
Barbara bit her lip, resisting the urge to shake her daughter to see things from her perspective. She knew her tactics weren't working, but she pressed on still. "Scar baby, you've always wanted to visit the Pantheon! Don't you remember? When you were little, you wouldn't stop bugging me to take you. But of course we couldn't go. And it's right here now, honey! Its right here!"
Scarlett shook her head again, a part of her leaning into her mother's trap out of sheer childhood curiosity that was never sated. "We can't, ma. You kn-"
"Yes we can! You know damn well you need a break for yourself. You've been working too hard and you need to take a breather. This is a perfect opportunity for that! Actually, its even more perfect because you'd be killing so many birds with one stone!" Barbara was unstoppable now. Like a broke newspaper vendor determined to sell all their papers before the day runs out and they're rendered outdated, she went on.
"You'd be taking time for yourself, you'd be spending some girl time with me! And you'd be fulfilling yourself one wish you've always had. Who knows, maybe you could even get yourself a man eh? Heaven knows you're overdue for some good dick treatment." Her smirk was rueful and sarcastic at the same time, confident she had her daughter in her grasp now as she watched Scarlett's eyes widen in utter shock.
"Mother!"
•
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"I can not believe we're really doing this!" Kelly squealed, resisting the urge to jump up like a kid who just got the Christmas present she's always wanted, and Scarlett rolled her eyes, a lazy smile on her lips as they both ascended the extended stairs, into Scarlett's company jet.
She had finally succumbed to her mother's charms, and agreed to spend some time in Rome, but first, she had to fly to Versailles for her meeting.
"If I didn't before, I legit love your mom now!" Kelly was still grinning.
"You know this would just double our work right?" Scarlett groaned, a part of her happy at the prospect of a holiday with her Mother and the other part, worried about how much work would be left undone.
"We can handle it," Kelly shrugged. "Besides, you don't have a lot of meetings this week and you can always reschedule or make it a zoom meeting. The only important events I think you'd miss are, the NY fashion week and your fittings with Vetements once production starts. But the fittings could also be rescheduled and you could fly down to New York for the show and then y-"
"What!" Scarlett suddenly interrupted, eyes wide in shock. "The New York fashion week?!"
Kelly looked puzzled. "Yes, your invitation was sent a couple weeks ago."
"Oh my God! You didn't inform me, Kelly. What is wrong with you!"
Kelly looked abashed now. She had personally received the invitation on the company mail and then forwarded it to Scarlett's personal mail immediately. This accusation was out of the blue and in as much as she understood her boss's mood swings, this was simply too disconcerting for her.
"But I mailed it to you right after I received it..."
Scarlett's irritation was stemming higher. "Don't you dare lie to my face! You did nothing of the sort and let me tell you young lady, do not treat this job like a charity foundation because I fucking pay you. So you better do it like you're supposed to!"
Kelly was baffled, shocked right down to the bones and she just stood on the stairs, mouth agape as her boss disappeared into the cabin of her private jet with the strongest urge yet, to quit her job.