Page 61 of The Dixon Rule

She proceeds to gush about my little brother for the next five minutes. How proud she is of him for getting into his first-choice college. How he’s going to make a brilliant doctor. How she hopes he considers getting a PhD along with an MD, because what’s better than one doctoral degrees? Two doctoral degrees!

Finally, as an afterthought, she inquires, “What are your plans for tonight?”

“Chinese takeout and bad reality TV,” I answer. That’s right, Mom. Thomas isn’t the only one in the family with lofty ambitions!

“I don’t know how you watch that garbage.” Disapproval rolls off her tongue. “You could be doing something so much more productive with your time.”

“Well, I’ve been rehearsing hard this past month, but Kenji just left me in the lurch.”

“Kenji?” she says blankly.

“My dance partner.”

“Dance partner?”

“For the ballroom dance competition, remember?”

“Oh yes. Right. You competed last year. You came in…?” She lets the question hang.

“Fifteenth,” I supply with some embarrassment. To an overachiever like my mother, fifteenth place is a disgrace. A stain on our family name. “We were up against some incredibly talented pairs, but it was still super fun. Dad, Thomas, and Larissa were there to cheer us on.”

And you weren’t is my unspoken reminder. Even my stepmother, Larissa, cares more about my interests.

But Mom is too intelligent not to pick up on it and too no-nonsense not to address it. My mother doesn’t tolerate passive-aggressive.

“Sweetheart, I think we can both agree that my time is better spent on more meaningful pursuits.”

Yes. I forgot. Dance is a useless, pedestrian pursuit. Pardon me. I remember when I first showed an interest in it as a kid. I begged my parents for lessons, and Mom put her foot down and said, “I’m not going to be a dance mom, Diana.” Like it was so beneath her. Dad convinced her to let me take dance and gymnastics, but he was the one driving me to and from practice, and the only one who attended my meets and recitals.

The ironic part is, when I caught the ballroom bug a few years ago, I thought it was the kind of thing that would finally attract Mom’s approval. Ballroom is viewed as “serious,” not as pedestrian as the modern and hip-hop dancing I enjoyed as a kid. But my mother’s approval doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me. If anything, ballroom dancing only makes me even more frivolous in her super-serious professor eyes.

Look, don’t get me wrong. Academia is a respectable field. I truly believe that. But it also breeds some very pretentious people, and my mother happens to be one of them. It seems like she’s gotten even more insufferable since she left MIT to lecture at Columbia. Although I suppose the upside to that is she’s no longer in the same state as me.

Sensing I’m two seconds from hanging up on her, Mom changes the subject to one that’s even less appealing.

“Have you spoken to Percival?”

“Nope.” I don’t mention that he tried to bring me breakfast last week and I essentially told him to get lost.

“I don’t know why you broke up with him.” The disapproving tone returns.

“Because we weren’t compatible.”

There’s a long pause.

“What?” I say, my irritation rising.

When she speaks again, it’s cautiously. “Diana, I know dating intellectuals can be challenging—”

Intellectuals? Oh my God. That’s such bullshit. Sure, Percy could teach an advanced physics class in his sleep, but when it comes to emotional intelligence or interpersonal skills, he was completely lacking. I tried bringing him out with my friends once, and he spoke in monosyllabic responses the entire time.

I, personally, think there are different kinds of intelligence.

My mother, however, subscribes to the theory that there’s only one measure of intellect, and it’s determined by an IQ test.

“—believe he was a good match for you.”

Oh, she’s still talking.

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