“How did your class go?” I asked, steering away from the elephant in the room, knowing if we talked about Mariel, we’d only lock horns again.
“The class? Oh, it’s great. Nine people. An easy group. And a couple of them are quite good. One actually did some summer stock in college.”
“And who was the guy?” I suspected Mom would feign ignorance.
“What guy?” she asked with perfect nonchalance.
“The one you were flirting with.”
She smirked. “Owen? Oh, don’t be silly, Sara. I wasn’t flirting with him.”
“He’s got to be ten years younger than you.”
There was a beat of silence. “Really?” She looked surprised. “That’s all?” She looked relieved.
“Mom!”
She shook her head and sighed. “All right, maybe I was flirting a little. What harm does it do? Nothing will ever come of it. And besides, you know your father was my one and only love.” She gazed across the rows of empty seats. “I sang that song to him, you know. At his thirtieth birthday party. Did I ever tell you about that?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It was at Twenty-One. In New York. You girls weren’t around yet. We had a wonderful band playing, and some people started in on me to sing. Of course, I didn’t want to.”
“Ha,” I said. Mom had never met a microphone she didn’t like.
She gave a little shrug. “But they finally persuaded me. And I sang ‘My One and Only Love.’” She looked down, fiddling with the strap on her handbag. “It was one of your dad’s favorite songs. Of course, he loved Sinatra’s version, but that night he told me my version was the best.”
The story made me smile. I imagined my parents in their younger years, before my sister and I came along. “I’m sure it was beautiful.”
“Well, my point is, I’ll never find that again. And that’s okay. Je comprends. One true love is more than many people ever get.” She sounded wistful. “But having a nice-looking fellow on your arm when you go to a charity dinner isn’t all bad,” she added, glancing at me as though she thought she needed my permission.
“I never said it was.” In fact, I’d told her plenty of times she should date if she met someone she liked. Mom was a pretty woman with a warm smile that made people gravitate to her. And she still had a nice figure. I’d seen men look at her. And I knew how hard it was to be alone. Not to share your life with someone you loved. The years since Dad’s death had been difficult for her, as they would be for anyone whose spouse was also her best friend. She’d told me once she felt she had to get her bearings and, in a way, start her life all over again after he died. I wasn’t sure she’d actually gotten her bearings yet.
“I haven’t met anyone my own age,” she said. “They’re either twenty years my senior or ten years my junior. It gets harder and harder the older you are. The pickings are few and far between. What am I supposed to do at sixty-five? Start hanging around Teaborne’s?”
Teaborne’s was a bar a mile outside of town where the twenty-something crowd gathered. Famous for its pickup scene, it was full of bare-midriffed girls in micro-miniskirts, guys shooting pool, and people dancing on the bar after midnight.
“I just want some male companionship. I get lonely.”
I almost said Me too, but I was afraid I’d go into a rant about Carter and Mariel, and I wanted to mend fences with Mom, not tear more holes in them.
She took a compact from her purse and reapplied her lipstick. Then she pulled out her phone. “Excuse me a second, honey. Siri, please remind me to call Barbara Knox at eight o’clock tonight.”
Siri’s voice came back: Okay, I’ll remind you.
“Thank you, Siri.” Mom turned to me. “I’m sponsoring Barbara’s daughter and son-in-law at the club.”
“Why do you always do that?”
“Do what? Sponsor people?”
“No, say thank you to Siri. And to that Google thing in the kitchen. They’re computers.”
Mom looked at me as though I’d asked her to go out in public with no makeup. “Sara, we should always be polite.” She lowered her voice. “And besides, someday it’ll probably be them running the planet, not us. We might as well start building up goodwill now.”
Who knew? Maybe she was right.
Mom’s phone lit up, vibrating in her hand. She glanced at the screen. “Sorry, let me just take this. Hello?”
She listened, nodded, and said, “Sure, that’s fine. I can do it then.” She hung up and turned to me. “They want to do tomorrow’s photo shoot at two o’clock instead of one now.”
“What photo shoot?”
“The civic association is giving me an award for fund-raising, and Connecticut magazine wants to do a little article and photo.”
“Oh, that’s nice.”
“Mariel’s going with me in case my hair or makeup needs a touch-up. And she wants to watch them take the photos.” Mom pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Then she looked around the auditorium and sighed. “I wish you’d stayed at the house last night.”
“I couldn’t, Mom. Not with her there.”
And I’d thought we’d be able to have just one conversation that didn’t involve Mariel. The two of us sat there, not speaking, and I knew we were both thinking about her. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” Mom said, finally breaking the silence. “I shouldn’t have done that to you. Or to your sister.”
I wished she hadn’t added Mariel to the equation. She’d barely been inconvenienced. She would have been coming to Connecticut soon anyway to get ready for the wedding, while I hadn’t been planning to come at all. I’d had to leave work; Mariel didn’t have any work to leave. The last job she’d had was as a receptionist at a place where people took yoga classes while they charged their electric cars, but she’d quit when she got engaged to Carter. I could have pointed all that out to Mom, but I didn’t.
“I accept your apology,” I said. More fence-mending. “But please don’t ever do that again. Don’t tell me you’re terminally ill. I mean, unless you are. You had me so worried.”
“I won’t,” she said, giving me a two-finger salute. “Scout’s honor. But I wish you’d change your mind and stay for the wedding. Your sister could really use your help. She’s in way over her head. She planned it all herself. I helped a little, but she’s done the lion’s share. She didn’t want to use a wedding planner.”
Probably because that would be giving my profession too much credit.
“She didn’t think she needed one,” Mom went on. “And now things are going off the rails. Something about the flowers. And a problem with the transportation people. I can’t handle it. I wish she’d stuck to picking out the dresses and the tuxes. She’s got a good eye for that. But she didn’t, and she’s driving me crazy. Can’t you do something, Sara? You’re the one with the level head. You always know how to deal with things. And this is your area—you’re the expert. Please stay and help us.”