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17
Rylie
I endthe phone call with my dad and decide I need to take a breather from my mother’s break neck pace. She means well, but I can’t keep up with everything she wants to accomplish in one day. Lunch with friends, shoe-shopping, clothes-shopping, drinks with more friends, more shopping, pilates. She’s also eager to set me up with local men before I have a chance unpack my suitcase.
“Mom, I have to study,” I tell her on more than one occasion.
“You need to take your mind off that guy,” she insists, like she knows what’s going on with me.
“What guy?” I ask her. I never told her about Ethan.
“Your father told me that there was someone,” my mother states as if that settled the fact-of-the-matter.
“He doesn’t know anything about it, or me” I argue.
“But you’re not denying you made a mistake.”
“I guess not,” I reluctantly admit. Realizing that Ethan was in the office when my dad had me on the speakerphone ruined my day worse than it had already been spoiled when my mother announced we had dinner plans. I was going to be forced to meet a yet another couple, the Johnson’s, and their son who had just graduated from Boston U. I’m sure he’s nice but I want nothing to do with men at the moment. I need a break for a month or two. Maybe longer. Like forever.
We finally finish our day of mall-trawling at five-thirty and I am exhausted.
“Mom, I need a nap,” I announce when we get home.
“Okay, but not a long one. Charles will be home in less than an hour, and I want us to have a cocktail before we leave to meet the Johnson's.”
“Hell, mom—”
“You language, Rylie. Is that what being around your dad’s military friends turned you into? A potty mouth?”
“A potty mouth, mother? Am I twelve again?”
“Would I take a twelve-year old shopping and spend four thousand dollars on dresses and shoes?”
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” I groan. “Don’t make me feel guilty for going along with your plans.”
“Go take a nap. You’re being very cranky,” she says. “I’ll call for you in an hour.”
At eight pmwe’re seated for dinner. The arrangement is awkward, to say the least. Apparently, my mother and her friend Betsy Johnson had hinted at, or rather assured, Betsy’s son, Wayne, that I’m single and looking to date a nice man. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Wayne’s polite and well dressed in a double-breasted suit.
“Hello, Rylie, I’m so pleased to meet your acquaintance,” he says extending his hand formally.
It’s cool and clammy as a turtle’s underbelly. He can’t even maintain eye contact with that soft grip. I’m close to faking an illness and calling for a Lyft. But if I do that, I’ll never hear the end of it.
“Pleased to meet you as well,” I say without any enthusiasm. The last thing I need is for him to think I’m remotely interested.
By the time the salads arrive, I’m lost in imagining Ethan sitting across from me. His filthy dimpled grin promising all sorts of under-table pleasures.
“Rylie…Rylie!”
“Sorry, what?” I look at my mother, and she glares.
“You’re being rude,” she mouths just a little too loud.
“Jet lag,” I explain. “Excuse me, what were you explaining?”
“My Master’s thesis project,” Wayne says. “I was explaining the influence on the exchange rate between the US dollar and the Peso in the early nineteen sixties as caused by the Vietnam War and fluctuation of the price of gold.”
