Cowboy at Midnight by Ann Major

Cheryl’s garage, which had been built as maid’s quarters.
    Amy could just hear her bossy, persuasive mother using her courtroom tactics on Cheryl.
    â€œYou and your daughter all alone in that big house? You don’t need a live-in. You need more security. Now, if my daughter, who’s looking for a place, were to rent your little apartment…”
    It hadn’t hurt that Cheryl and Amy used the same gym and were in the same spin class. Nor that they actually liked each other.
    It was so important to Amy’s mother that Amy live in such a neighborhood on a fifteen-million-dollar property she could brag about to her law partners that, to shut her up, Amy had finally moved out of an apartment she had loved.
    â€œHow can you prefer your apartment to this?” her mother had demanded when she’d driven her by Cheryl’s for the tenth time. “Nobody at your apartment complex is anybody. ”
    â€œI don’t care. I don’t hang out with them, anyway.”
    â€œMy point exactly! Cheryl was married to that computer zillionaire. She’s exactly the kind of connection you need to get your life on track.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œYou’ve been moping ever since college. Be nice to her and maybe she’ll introduce you to someone, dear.”
    â€œâ€˜Someone’ being a man?”
    Her mother had dropped by the apartment with a hanging ivy right after Amy had finally rented it and moved in. Amy had been painting the apartment walls the color of golden honey.
    â€œYou should have gone with white,” her mother had said.
    â€œI like this color.”
    Her mother, who was black-haired, tall and reed thin, had pursed her lips. Not that she’d overruled Amy’s opinion. Instead she’d moved about the apartment, her intense, burning black eyes, taking in everything. Finally she’d paused by a window and after a lengthy study of Cheryl’s mansion and the pool, she’d given Amy the look.
    â€œYou’ll meet our kind of people here.”
    â€œCheryl’s way older than me, Mother.”
    Her mother’s brows had arched wickedly. “She doesn’t look it.”
    â€œOuch.”
    Like a lot of really rich women, Cheryl did whatever it took to stay young looking. Her present lover was even younger than Amy.
    â€œShe certainly married well, didn’t she?” her mother said in her sweetie-sweet tone as she continued to look out at the pool, studying the imported Italian lawn furniture, the fountains, the red canopies and the lush landscaping.
    â€œHe divorced her.”
    â€œWhich means she has his money and doesn’t have to put up with him.”
    â€œThat’s marrying well?”
    â€œYou missed a spot, dear.”
    Amy raised her paintbrush and swiped the place her mother was pointing at.
    â€œThe next best thing to marrying well is divorcing well,” her mother said. “She’s got money, a cute lover, a fabulous house and she looks great. Take notes, dear.”
    Amy loved Cheryl now and her blue-haired daughter, Kate, but not because she saw them as connections.They were just a mother and daughter with way too much money, who were struggling with all sorts of issues. For one thing, Kate’s rich father wanted nothing to do with either one of them. To get his attention Kate constantly rebelled. She chose friends “normal” kids considered weird, wore rags and dyed her hair every color of the rainbow. Right now it was a startling neon blue. Not that her daddy had even noticed.
    Amy knew all about rebellion, about fathers never noticing. Except, her rebellion had been caused by her mother’s tyranny, not her father’s benign neglect. She’d wanted her parents’ approval more than anything, so her rebellion had been a secret thing, like a deadly drug that had destroyed her and her parents. Not just them. Lexie, too.
    She’d been a happy kid before adolescence.