Page 34 of Fun Together
I curl my legs up under me. “Yep.” I keep my voice distracted, wishing I hadn’t brought up the pool game. I wonder if it’s one of those things where you secretly want someone to ask you about something, but you don’t want to make it obvious.
“Were you on a date?”
“No!”
“I hope he’s not like Andrew.”
“I thought you liked Andrew.”
He shrugs. “He was a good guy. Not for you.”
“So, he was too good for me?” I say this in a joking way, but I’m curious because we’ve never really talked about Andrew. He’s always been tight-lipped about his opinions on my love life. And if he doesn’t ask, I don’t tell.
He makes a brushing off motion. “No one is. He was too . . . preppy.”
“Preppy?” I hear the word preppy and think of polo shirts and mint juleps. Andrew’s parents are preppy, but he’s not. I think this word is my grandpa’s shorthand for saying that Andrew was a little too formal for him.
We watch the show for a couple of minutes and when it goes to a commercial break, I finally get up the nerve to ask what I’ve wanted to ask since I saw that invitation.
“She’s living in Charlotte now?”
He hums in assent. “Moved out there last year, I think.”
“Are you going to the wedding?”
“Yeah, guess I’ll go.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s my daughter.”
Is it that simple? If I was engaged to Andrew right now and sent my mom an invite, would she come to the wedding simply because I’m her daughter? Good thing I won’t have to find out the answer to that one.
“You could come with me,” he says. “She told me she sent you one, too.”
“I haven’t gotten anything.” She probably doesn’t even know I moved or that Andrew and I broke up. We don’t exactly talk that much. She sends me aHappy Birthday, honeytext every year and occasionally, she’ll call me to ask how things are going. Superficial conversations that are easy and don’t involve getting into anything that might stir up unwanted memories or feelings.
“I didn’t go to the last two. Why would I go to this one?” I hate the way my voice wavers a little bit when say this. I’m being stubborn and more than a little resentful. Is it completely her fault we have a strained relationship?
Or if I hate that I felt myself falling into the same pattern she fell into? She’s always been so afraid of being alone that she’d marry any man who asked her. And I felt the draw of that when Andrew asked me.
But Andrew didn’t deserve a proposal acceptance brought on by platonic feelings of love or, even worse, avoiding loneliness. Neither did Alan or Steve. I always felt sorry for them. But the more I’ve thought about this since my own breakup, I realized that I really felt sorry forher, because for the first time in my life I think I finally understood her decisions.
“I brought an activity for us to do today,” I say, swiftly changing the subject.
“I just want to watch my show.”
I pull out the two paint by numbers I bought at the grocery store on the way here. Maybe painting can be my new hobby. “You want the sunflower or the city skyline?”
“I want to catch up on my show,” he repeats.
“Sunflower it is.”
I set up our painting stations on the TV trays he keeps by his recliner.
“What’s with the arts and crafts?”
“We need to broaden our horizons. Try new hobbies.”
