“Um, you know, just stupid sibling stuff.” She shrugged it off. “I should probably dig into these books, though. I have another class in a half hour.”
“Of course. I should get back to the desk. Lots of books coming back in today. Good luck on your project, and it was nice meeting you.”
“Yeah, you too.” Savita smiled weakly, her enthusiasm diminished.
What the hell did he tell you, Savita?
I’d managed to keep Dev mostly out of my mind since leaving the ski resort by busying myself with yoga, reading, and spending time with Maren, but he popped up every so often. I’d hear his voice, remember a joke from the weekend or, unfortunately, I’d remember one of our many fights and how angry he was at me after our disastrous elevator ride. It wasn’t my proudest moment. Not at all.
I’d thought about texting him to apologize but figured he needed some time to cool down. And then, after a few days had passed, it seemed like I’d missed my moment and figured I should just let things go. And so I’d done that, fighting the urge to ask Maren and Peter how Dev was doing every single time I saw them. I was playing it cool and I was succeeding, suffering in silence.
Meeting Savita, though, took it to another level. I missed him. Good God, did I miss that man. And I hated myself for it.
Normally with men, it was very easy for me to turn off my feelings if I felt we weren’t right for each other. But this time…this time, I knew Dev and I were an absolute disaster and yet, I still ached for him. I still wanted to see where that night could have gone if not for our friends walking through that door.
Would it have lasted a night? A weekend? Would I have hated myself for hooking up with him knowing he would be going back home to Trupti? The questions swirled constantly in my mind, and now that I knew Dev had told Savita about me, the questions were starting to snowball in my already distracted brain.
“Vern, I’m going on lunch a little early if that’s okay,” I said a couple of hours later when I still couldn’t get my head on straight to focus on my work.
“Whatever,” he said, reading the newspaper with his reading glasses sitting awkwardly on the tip of his nose. “Still getting me some coffee?”
“Of course.”
After grabbing myself a grilled chicken salad and seltzer water, I found a small table in the corner of the school’s cafeteria. I had three missed text messages.
First was from Maren: Still on for drinks tonight?
I replied to her right away before moving on to the others. Yes, please!
Second was from my mother: You didn’t call me yesterday. I expect a call today, Lyra.
I rolled my eyes as I continued to the third message. This one was from Peter.
“Interesting,” I muttered to myself. Peter and I had become friends, but it was on the rare occasion that he reached out himself and not through Maren. That was just how guys were.
His text read: I really need to talk to you. Can you call me after work?
My stomach flipped a bit as I read and reread that message, wondering what he could possibly want to talk to me about. I replied to Maren, then called my mom to get it over with.
The thing about my mom was that we’d always had a relationship of the extremes. I would literally do anything for the woman. Like anything. I would lay my life on the line for hers, but when she harps on the fact that I was almost thirty and still single, I literally wanted to kill her. There was no in-between.
Did she mean well? Yes. But it was hard to remember that when she was driving me crazy trying to marry me off to any single man her girlfriends told her about.
By the way, that was not a joke. She once texted me from the house of her best friend, who was having a new refrigerator installed. She sent me picture after picture of the installer because she happened to notice he wasn’t wearing a wedding band. It didn’t matter that I reminded her I no longer lived near her in California, and that I was a plane ride away from the dude. She. Would. Not. Stop. Until she tried to sell him on her beautiful daughter who lived in Seattle. He politely informed her he didn’t wear his ring on jobs so as not to damage it.
Smart man.
“Finally,” she huffed into the phone. My mother didn’t say hello. Ever.
“Nice to hear your voice too, Mama.”
“Oh stop it, you know how I worry. You make me wait days to hear from you. Why? Why is that acceptable?”
I liked to compare my mother to Marie Barone on that old sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. She means well, yes, but good lord in heaven she can wear you down with her “love.” And at least Ray had a brother to share the load with. I was an only child. And she was really bored. With Dad busy giving flamenco guitar lessons at the local music shop and golfing whenever he had a free day, she was left alone a lot. And she resented it. With that extra time, she focused on her unmarried daughter and never failed to remind me of the fact that I hadn’t yet settled down.
“Mama, that’s not true. I texted you last night, remember?”
“Whatever,” she huffed, knowing I was right. “What’s new?”
“First day back at work. Nothing much else.”
“Seeing anyone yet?”
It was the yet in that sentence that really bugged me. It always insinuated that I should have already found someone. I rolled my eyes. It was nothing new, but it still annoyed me to no end.
“Nope.”
“Same answer every time. Knowing you, you’re in love and hiding it from your mother. Chica obstinada.”
“Mama, relax. You know if I was seeing someone, I’d tell you, if for no other reason than to get you off my back!” I said with a laugh, hoping to soften the blow of my blunt reality. I hadn’t told her about Dev, but I was still being honest… He and I weren’t dating. We weren’t anything really anymore. So it was the truth.
“I met a really nice man at the supermarket the other day. Manager of my Whole Foods.”
“Is that right?” I asked, popping a bite of salad into my mouth, half-listening and half-people watching the other people in the cafeteria.
“Maybe you should come back to L.A.”
“And do what? Live with you and Dad? Marry the Whole Foods guy?”
“Don’t sass me. I just want what’s best for you.”
“I know that. Please, you know I love Seattle. I know it’s hard having me live so far away, but you have to trust that I’m happy here. I hated L.A., and you know it.”
“Fine, fine.”
I could tell that her patience was wearing thin. I was getting to the point with my mother that I was considering making up a boyfriend. I could think of someone that fit all of her criteria…wealthy, handsome, and fit with ambition and drive. She would be positively thrilled. Until I had to end said fake relationship before she flew out to Seattle to surprise me and meet my too-perfect-to-be-real boyfriend.
It could happen. No, it would happen. No boundaries. Not one.
“Listen, Mama, lunch break is ending and I’ve barely touched my food.”
“Are you eating enough? Should I send you something?”
“Ahh, you know I can never turn anything down.”
“I’ll surprise you, sweet girl. Something delicious.”
“Thanks, Mama.” And again, I was back to wanting to do anything for the woman, loving her infinitely. When we didn’t talk about my marital status, we were usually on much better paper. And it never hurt that she was almost as good of a cook as my abuela. Almost.