Read You Dropped a Blonde on Me for Free Online Page B

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    Connor tipped his chestnut brown head in Maxine’s direction, a question in his thickly fringed eyes. “So you did get the job at the Cluck-Cluck Palace, Mom?”
    Oh, the degradation of having to tell your sixteen-year-old you were a Cluck-Cluck Palace reject. “No. It was just a figure of speech. Or basically what any salary I end up making will boil down to. I just meant that our horizons ain’t so pretty. I can’t afford to buy a six-pack of Pepsi—and college costs more than four ninety-eight.”
    Connor leaned his back against the fridge, his dark eyes, so much like Fin’s, gazing into hers. “So what you’re saying is I should let him blackmail me so his son can have a college degree?”
    Yep. That was what she was saying. Harsh. “I think I’m just saying that re-establishing your relationship with your father wouldn’t be a bad idea with graduation a year away. It’s a big time in your life, and he should share it with you.”
    “Yeah. Him and Laceeeeyy.”
    Maxine gripped the edge of the table before she spoke. This was where decency and holding your tongue were like getting a Brazilian wax. “I’m sure he’ll bring Lacey. She is going to be his wife. Don’t judge Lacey. You don’t even know her, and you could fix that if you’d just see your dad.”
    Connor’s eyes narrowed at her, his body language screaming “end convo.” They’d been down this road and it always ended at the same dead end. “I have to do my homework, and then I have to walk Mrs. O’Brien’s dog.” He grabbed his binder with a final dark glance in her general vicinity and headed to the guest bedroom where he slept.
    Maxine groaned, slipping off her heels to let them clunk beneath the table. “He’s gonna kill me, Ma. I don’t know what to do to get through to him.”
    “Let him be. Sometimes you have to let the little shits make their own choices and hope it all works out.”
    “Like you did with me when you told me marrying Fin was the stupidest thing you’d heard of since Paul Newman asked Joanne Woodward to marry him?”
    Mona raised a silvery eyebrow. “Just like that.”
    “Do you want to hear me say I should’ve listened to you? That instead of marrying Fin I should have gone to college so that I’d have something of my own to fall back on in my time of need?” Because that was true, too. She’d let Fin handle everything, never thinking he’d leave her with absolutely nothing and tie everything else up for an eternity.
    Even when her marriage had faltered, when Fin had been the unfaithful piece of shit he was on two prior occasions, had she crawled out from under her cashmere blankets and maybe considered her marriage wasn’t going according to plan? Nay. Instead, she’d glossed over his wandering dick. She’d made promises to herself to be more attentive to his every need. To stay in shape, she’d worked the elliptical like a whore at a singles’ convention seven days a week. She’d gotten bigger hooters. She’d justified Fin’s cheating by blaming herself and her imperfections, for having the audacity to grow older.
    “Nope. I want to hear you say you’re not going to let that deadbeat whip your keister. Stop letting him intimidate you. He owes you, honey. Can’t change what’s done, Maxie. There’s no going back. But you can change what’s happening to you right now.”
    Right. Like she could ever change what she’d done.
    The heat, her anxiety, and her helplessness made her rise to the bait her mother dangled in her face each time she was rejected by a potential employer. “I’m not sure how else you’d like me to change what’s happening to us. I’ve applied for more jobs than all of us combined have fingers and toes. I’ve begged. I’ve pleaded. I’ve humiliated myself on more than one occasion—today being the mack daddy of ’em all. So, got any tidbits of inspirational change for me, Mom? I’m all ears.”
    Her mother’s crocheting hook clacked on the scarred