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A plea to explain the past decade.
Anything that made even a little sense, so she could decode my inability to find a wife.
She must’ve been holding the question in for years.
“No.”
If I were, I wouldn’t be alone.
“You know you can tell me?—”
“I’m not gay. It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about?”
My inability to tolerate whomever I cannot use or exploit, let alone be affectionate with them.
“I have standards.”
“No one meets them.”
“Well, they’re not very social. Just like their owner.”
“I did hear a rumor.” Mom knotted her arms behind her back and strolled to the opposite wall. My Damien Hirsts and Warhols bracketed each side of her. “That you were here with some young woman at the party?”
My jaw locked at the mention of that little fugitive. “She was a nobody.”
“A nobody you spent three hours with.”
She appraised me, returning to the coffee table and retrieving the Polaroids from beneath Ayi’s boba. She swatted off the condensation.
We were alike, Mother and I, in the sense that we did not tolerate imperfections in anything we did.
“We played Go.”
She stopped. Sneered. “Is that code for something?”
“Yes.” I resumed my aimless journey, searching for a shred of evidence my unwelcome guest had indeed intruded a couple nights ago. “It is code for playing Go.”
I touched ornaments, documents, and furniture. Made sure everything was where it should be.
So far, it did not seem as if the little octopus had helped herself to a souvenir. Everything was here, not an inch out of place.
“I heard that she’s…” Mom’s shoulders rattled with a slight shudder. “Ablonde?”
Funnily enough, I didn’t even remember her hair color.
I remembered that it was pale.
And that she wasn’t horrible to look at.
That I didn’t feel bile rising up my throat when we stood too close for comfort.
That I did not immediately step back when her scent invaded my system.
“Is she now?” I stopped in front of the shelves behind my desk screens, inspecting them. “That may well be. I didn’t pay attention to her. Only to the fact that she had two brain cells to rub together and might be considered a decent player by a mediocre player.”
Behind me, Mom’s breaths came out in tremors.
