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I was with a group of my high school friends, and after an hour of exchanging sultry looks, he sauntered over and pulled up a chair next to me.
“I heard you were back,” he’d said, his eyes boring into my soul.
My phone vibrates, jolting me back to the present. The timing is perfect as I’m taking the turn onto Pine Place. I park the car in the drive, kill the engine and reach for my phone.
The missed call is from my mother. My heart skips a beat. It is rare for my mother to call unless she has something important to say. She has a very vibrant social life back in Arlen. One of the happiest days of her life was when I left home for good.
I hit call, and she answers on the first ring.
“My busy entrepreneurial daughter,” my mother says with pride.
“Mom, hi, is everything okay?” I ask.
“Of course, it is,” she says in a cheery voice. “Why do you always have to think that something is wrong?”
Maybe because whenever you call me, it’s to tell me about a crisis. I don’t say it out loud, though. Despite her cheerfulness, mom’s ego is a little fragile. After Dad left her for his secretary, Terri, a much younger woman, she’d been distraught.
What made it worse was that Arlen was a small town, and she ran into them wherever she went. I had begged her to come to LA and live with me, but she said no. She wasn’t going to run away from the only home she had ever known because two people couldn’t keep it in their pants. Her words, not mine. At first, I received many phone calls updating me on what had happened that day or week. Then the calls had petered off as she came to terms with the divorce and Dad’s new life.
Then, the hysterical call, almost three years ago now, when Terri’s pregnancy had started to show. So yeah, I have a two-year-old stepsister I’ve never met. My family life is all sorts of fucked up.
“What’s up, Mom?”
“It’s exciting news. Very exciting news,” she says, her voice rising. “I am ... wait for it.”
I chuckle at the heightened drama in her voice. In her best moments, Mom is hilarious. In her worst, she’s hysterical and needy, but despite all this, I love her to death.
“I’m getting married,” she screams into the phone.
That wipes off the smile on my face. “Married? Are you serious?” My head reels with that information. I haven’t even told her that I’m married.
“Yes, his name is Josh, and he’s a lecturer at the university,” she says breathlessly. “I can’t wait for you to meet him, so we’re coming down this weekend. You’ll love him.”
I grip the steering wheel of my car to steady myself even though I’m seated. “Wait.” This is moving at a mind-boggling pace. “How can you be getting married when I didn’t even know that you’re dating?” The irony of my words is not lost on me.
But my marriage to Declan happened under the influence of too many shots of something. Mom is stone sober, and she doesn’t drink alcohol. She likes to joke that she’s hyper enough, and if she is drunk, the added hyper-ness would be like helium, lifting her off the ground.
“I know,” she says. “It happened fast.”
“When did you meet?”
“Two months ago,” she says.
“Two months?” I shriek. “Mom, what’s the rush?”
“At my age, darling, when you’re offered a ring, you grab it with both hands.”
I slouch back into my seat.
“Anyway,” she continues. “We’ll come down on Saturday evening and spend the night in your new big house. I can’t wait to see it. We’ll spend Sunday together and drive back in the evening.”
“I’m meeting my in-laws on Sunday.” I close my eyes as soon as the words fly out of my mouth. That was not how I planned on telling my mother that I’m married.
“What? I don’t understand. Please don’t tell me that you and Leonard are back together?” she says, her voice heavy with horror.
“No, of course not.” I feel like a child again. “I didn’t tell you this, but I went to Vegas a week ago.” It feels like months back since I was in Vegas. “The wedding was for one of the firemen and …” my voice trails off.
“Go on,” she says.
I feel sick. I’ve never had to explain to anyone how I ended up married. It’s a ridiculous, embarrassing story to tell. Painstakingly I tell her the whole thing, and she’s at a loss for words at the end of it. My mother never runs out of something to say.
“This is so unlike you, Marian,” she says quietly. “Why not just annul the marriage?”
“Declan and I decided to make a go at it. We get along really well,” I say. “Think of it as an arranged marriage in India. The couples rarely know each other beforehand, and it works. Their marriages work.”
