Page 62 of Keeping It Professional

“Let someone else cover. We need mani-pedis.”

I groped for a reason I couldn’t make it. If I went, Mom would want to talk about Miles. All I wanted to do was pretend we’d never met. I’d have been better off by a mile if we hadn’t.

“Just a couple of hours,” said Mom. “Come on. I’ve got snaggletoes.”

I was too tired to argue, so I said fine, I’d go. I meant to get out of it at some later point, invent some emergency, but none came to mind. So Friday rolled in and I found myself in the salon, stretched out in my usual chair next to Mom’s.

For the first little while, I thought maybe she got it. She didn’t mention Miles once, or work, or my party. She talked about TV and home renovations, and how she was thinking of getting a dog.

“A wolfhound, maybe. Or a German shepherd. Something that needs to go out for long walks. I’ve been walking a lot, and it gets lonely. I thought getting out there, I might meet the neighbors, but no one has time these days to stop and chat.”

I let her words wash over me, pleasant and soothing. Every once in a while, I’d nod or gohummm, some little signal to show I was listening. But after a while, my throat went tight. My foot started tapping without my say-so. I thought I was bored atfirst, restless. Impatient. I hadn’t sat and done nothing since my party.

“Not a puppy,” said Mom. “I wouldn’t want a puppy. I’d want an older dog, already housebroken. A year or two old, past that nippy stage.”

I clenched and unclenched my fists to let off some tension. A knot had formed deep in my gut. It hit me I wasn’t bored, but boiling with anger. I could feel it inside me, bubbling up. Where the hell did Miles get off,you’ll get it one day?Get it? Getwhat?What was to get, that made this okay?

“He dumped me,” I said.

Mom stopped talking. “Who, Miles?”

“Who else?” I hitched a harsh, ragged breath and stared up at the ceiling. The plaster was water-stained in the shape of a cow. Now the truth was out, I half-wished I hadn’t spoken. The other half of me wanted Mom’s vindication. I wanted to trash Miles and have her trash him back, and tell me my life would be better without him. The whole story spilled out of me, how he’d stood me up. How he’d seen my texts but not answered, how embarrassed I’d been. Then the breakup itself, a bolt from the blue.

“He wouldn’t say why, exceptthings got personal. And he transferred to another station. He’d rather drive forty-five minutes to work than risk running into me. Having to talk.”

Mom made a humming sound. I flicked a cotton ball at her.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“This is the part where you go ‘what a jerk.’ Where you tell me he’s stupid and you never liked him, and I’ll meet someone better in no time flat.”

“I’m just thinking,” said Mom. She pursed her lips.

I tossed another cotton ball. “Less thinking. More trashing.”

“All right. He’s stupid. I’ll give you that. But what if, aside from that, he’s running scared?”

I frowned. This wasn’t going the way I’d hoped. “Then he’s stupid and a coward. How is that better?”

“Maybe it isn’t.” Mom stretched out and shrugged. “But, hear me out. The two of you went through a terrible thing. No, don’t deny it. I watched the news. I don’t know what you two saw, and I won’t ask, but what if he’s picturing your face on that? On whatever hurt you saw, whatever loss? What if he can’t look at you without thinking he’ll lose you? That’s why?—”

“Why what?”

A pair of technicians came angling to join us. Mom waved them off.

“Still soaking,” she said. “Ten more minutes.”

The technicians veered off. Mom closed her eyes. “Why I never remarried, after your dad. You didn’t think I had offers, in all these years? But whenever I’d find one I thought I could love, I’d start having dreams of the day he’d go out. The day he’d kiss my cheek and tell meback soon, and half an hour later, it’d be the cops at my door.”

My stomach clenched up. I’d opened the door that day. I’d had time to look up at the cops on the porch, then Mom hadscreamed. I’d peed my pants. It had seemed, for a second, like the end of the world, that I’d peed like a toddler all down my legs. Then the true horror struck and my embarrassment paled — Mom sobbing. Holding me. Dad gone, just gone.

“Have you talked to him?”

“What?”

Mom sat up. “Since the split? Have you reached out at all, or…?”

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