Chapter One
Letty
“That is not what you’re wearing on your first day at work, Loretta!” Mom glares at me as if I’m wearing a bikini and platform heels instead of a light blue blouse with cap sleeves and a navy skirt that falls just past my knees.
I look down at my outfit, including my stylish but comfortable black heels and nude stockings, and stare back at her.
“Yes, this is exactly what I’m wearing.”
“Oh no.” She shakes her head violently, and I wonder if she’s finally lost it. “You absolutely are not.”
I sigh and reach for all the patience I can find.
“What is wrong with my outfit, Mother?”
“It’s all wrong. Blue is not your color, and that shirt, it makes your bosoms look…well, bosomy.”
Heat flames my cheeks at her words as if I can do anything about the fact that the good Lord blessed me with boobs.
“Mother, there is nothing that I can do about my breasts before my first day of work, and blue in fact, does bring out my eyes.”
Every stylist she’d hired to dress me over the years had told me so. “What’s the real problem?”
“I just want your first day of work to be perfect, Loretta.”
“Letty,” I correct her because she is the only person on the planet that refuses to call me by the name I prefer.
She sucks in a breath, and I brace myself for the theatrics.
“Loretta was your grandmother’s name, God rest her soul, and if it was good enough for a woman who raised five children, then it certainly is good enough for you.”
“I love the name, and you know it. Grandma was the one who gave me the nickname, Letty, and I love it too.”
She went to heaven just before I started college at USC, and the nickname is one of my favorite memories of her.
“If she didn’t have a problem with me using the shortened version, why do you?”
She sputters incoherently because she’s lost this argument, and Mother doesn’t like to lose.
“Nicknames are so common.”
“I’m working at Destiny of Life Church, Mother, not a corporate office. Common is the name of the game around there.”
My jaw clenches, and my hunger to fight her disappears.
“I need to go. Don’t want to be late on my first day.” I rush off before Mom can say anything to ruin what had started as such a good day. My first real job as an adult, and this is how she chooses to send me out into the world.
“Letty, wait. Please.”
Dad’s soft footsteps sound on the marble floor of the foyer, and I stop before turning to face him. It’s easy to forget about my dad sometimes because he’s so calm and laidback you would never guess he’s a banker. Well, an investment banker, but it’s still banking.
“What’s up, Dad?” I try for a smile I don’t feel because he doesn’t need to play referee between me and my mom.
My dad, Troy Palmer, is the best man I know. He’s kind, sweet, and incredibly smart, and he’s taught me how to achieve my dreams without abandoning my values. I have no idea how my mom got together with him, but they seem to work.
“Good luck on your first day at work today, honey.”
“Thanks.”