Happy New You by Laura Lee EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Laura Lee
- Language: English
- Genre: Contemporary Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
ALLISON
NEW YEAR’S EVE
SPARKLY DRESSES and champagne glasses filled with bubbly make the
modern New York City brownstone look like the inside of a disco ball.
Cheerful voices announce toasts, promising success in the new year.
Partygoers cheer and laugh, and I think I’m the only person in the sea of
smiles who just can’t get into it.
It’s New Year’s Eve. I’m in my finest red, slinky-yet-not-slutty, floorlength dress. My makeup is on point, my nails have been buffed and
manicured to perfection. There are coworkers and business associates every
five feet or so. It’s practically a smorgasbord of good-looking, happy and
successful people. Hell, I fit into some of those categories.
And yet I don’t hear the music, I don’t listen to the toasts and gossip.
All I hear is Mom’s voice in my head, her words torturing me.
I keep waiting for you to settle down, Allison, but I can see you’re never
going to stop making me worry about you. You’re turning thirty, and all
you’ve got to show for it is your job. Are you even happy?
The words circle in my mind like a possessed merry-go-round. Round
and round since the last night of Hanukkah. Mom, my sister, Miriam, and her
fresh-faced husband, Stephen, sharing in the joy of their news. Miriam is
having a baby and with that announcement, has cemented herself in the place
of favorite child for all of eternity.
Oh, my first grandchild, and before your older sister!
Right, rub it in, Mom. I’m the older sibling and I’m single with no babies
in sight. The ultimate crime.
“Two hours till the new year!” a voice cries out over the music. Cheers
and whoops echo across the posh West Village home. I raise my glass half-
heartedly and then take a deep sip.
The look on my mother’s face after I told her I’m more focused on work
than relationships was akin to a death knell tolling.
She narrowed her eyes at me and took aim. Words of guilt handed down
by a Jewish mother, one wielding the sharpest of weapons: good intentions.
Mom always has good intentions, but when it comes to rating the offspring of
my family, I’m consistently found lacking.
“Miriam is having a baby; are you ever going to lean into your
responsibility?” she asked me at the end of the night, after Miriam and
Stephen had left.
“Responsibility to do what?”
“To provide me with grandchildren I can dote on. I don’t think you
understand. Now that you’re a self-sufficient adult, that’s your main purpose
in life.” She was kidding. At least I hope she was kidding. I honestly never
know with Mom; she likes to keep me on my toes.
“It’s not to provide you with love and a source of comfort in your old
age?” I tried not to be too sarcastic but couldn’t help myself.
“Watch it, missy.”
Mom has a good sense of humor, so I know it’s okay to tease. But after
years of questioning my choices and comparing me to Miriam—the perfect
child—it’s starting to weigh me down.
In fact, it’s driving me crazy.
I’ll always be second-best now, which is really fucking annoying, to be
honest.
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