“I need to ask you something,” Hudson said carefully. “And I just want to say, in advance, that if I offend you or something, I’m really sorry.”
Across from her, Jenny frowned slightly and rested her chin on her wrist. “Okay. Go ahead. Offend me.”
Sitting across from Jenny at her wooden kitchen table, Hudson thought her aunt looked just as beautiful as ever. Her eyes were a little puffy from sleep, but her cropped hair had been highlighted with warm caramel streaks and her lips shone with clear gloss. When she’d called her that morning, Hudson hadn’t expected an invitation for homemade crêpes suzette and tea. But Aunt Jenny had been incredibly gracious under the circumstances.
“First, I want to say I’m so sorry about the party,” Hudson said. “I should have just told my mom in the first place that I forgot. I don’t know why I didn’t. I’m so sorry.”
Jenny nodded, and then spooned some powdered sugar onto her crêpe. “Obviously, it was worse for your mom,” she said. “I can’t believe you did that to her. And I can’t believe I missed all those macaroons.”
Hudson didn’t say anything.
“But at least your mom and I started e-mailing again because of it,” Jenny admitted. “And we’re having lunch next week.”
“Really?” Hudson asked, impressed. “You are?”
“Not at your house; at a restaurant,” Jenny said, holding up one hand as she cut into her crêpe with the other. “Neutral territory. Of course we’ll probably have to close down the restaurant so she doesn’t get mobbed,” she added.
Hudson smiled and then took a small bite of her crêpe. “Oh my God,” she said. “This is incredible. You’re a really good cook, you know that?”
“Thanks. But don’t tell your mom I fed you white flour,” Jenny said in a mock whisper. “So, what did you want to ask me?”
“When you decided not to audition for Martha Graham the second time,” Hudson said carefully, “it was because you didn’t want to compete with my mom, right?”
“That’s what you want to know?” she asked.
Hudson nodded.
“Ye-es,” Jenny said. “But I also don’t think I wanted it bad enough. I didn’t want that life.”
“But don’t you regret it?” Hudson asked. “Don’t you wish you’d at least tried?”
Jenny reached across the table and took Hudson’s hand. “Is this about what happened last night?”
“I told you how my mom changed my album because she said it wouldn’t sell?”
Jenny frowned again and nodded.
“And at first I didn’t care if it sold or not. I just wanted it to be my thing. My vision. But to my mom, it’s like there’s no point in even trying if you’re not going to be huge.”
Jenny nodded. “Right.”
“And sometimes I think there’s a part of me that believes that. I joined this band, up in Westchester, which you probably realize,” Hudson said, embarrassed.
“Yeah, I got that,” Jenny said knowingly.
“And I was finally doing my own thing again. But my mom found out and she’s hurt. She thinks I’m crazy for wanting to be in some high school band and play these tiny clubs. She doesn’t understand why I don’t want what she has. We’re all supposed to want that, right?”
“Oh, Hudson,” Jenny said, shaking her head as she looked down at her plate. “I wish I could have been there for you a little more. I really do. It’s my fault I wasn’t.” She leaned so close that Hudson could smell her fig-scented perfume. “Your mom is an amazing person. She’s accomplished a lot. But you know how you’re scared of being in the spotlight? She’s scared of being out of it. She’s been doing this since she was ten. It’s all she knows. And sometimes having thousands of people love you from a distance is easier than living in the real world, where people can reject you and leave you and see you. And I don’t think your mom knows how to be seen. As a real person. I think that scares her. More than anything else in the world.”
Hudson bit her lip. It hurt to hear these things about her mom, but she knew that they were true.
“So my question is, do you really want to be like that?” Jenny asked. “Does anyone?”
Hudson shook her head.
“You don’t have to be like your mom,” Jenny said. “Not even if you want to do what she does. That night you got stage fright? That was your inner self, telling you that what you were doing didn’t feel right. And so you ran off that stage. That was the bravest thing you could have done.”
It had never occurred to Hudson that running off the stage at the Silver Snowflake Ball had been brave.
“We’re living in a time where we’re all told we’re nothing if we’re not famous,” Jenny said. “Sometimes it’s easy to forget how crazy that is.”
“But you’re the one who told me that it’s in my chart, being famous,” Hudson said. “You’re always telling me that.”
“I should have just said successful,” Jenny said. “When you were little, you used to love to hold your mom’s awards and sing her songs. I thought that’s what you wanted. But there are many kinds of success. You can play music and put all your passion into it, but it doesn’t have to be your whole life. There’s a middle road out there, Hudson. Your mom had no idea what she was getting into, and now she’s stuck. She doesn’t have a choice. But you know what that life is like. You have a choice.”
Hudson looked at the glass vase of early spring daffodils on Jenny’s kitchen table. A middle road. She had never thought of it that way.
“Sometimes I wish I could talk to my dad about this stuff,” Hudson said.
Jenny nodded. “I know. But you can always come see me if you need some reminding.”
“And you’ll have to let me know how lunch with my mom is.”
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Jenny said, taking another bite of her crêpe. “It’s going to be very, very healthy.”
Hudson smiled and picked up her fork. A middle road. She liked how that sounded.