“And where’d he take you for dinner?”
“A cozy little Italian place in the city. Red-checkered tablecloths. Pasta, wine. The kind of place where half the men looked like they belonged inThe Godfather.”
“Served by Don Corleone himself?” Nora teased.
“Could’ve been.” Leanne’s smile was wry as she teased back, “He had an Italian accent and kept muttering about a deal. I was just relieved there weren’t bullets in our spaghetti instead of meatballs. Kidding.”
Nora smiled, picturing her parents on a date surrounded by possible mobsters. Her mother, years younger, dressed up, sitting across from her future husband in a restaurant that smelled like garlic and danger. Would she have looked nervous or excited?
“Why do you ask?” Leanne slanted a glance.
Nora shrugged, but not casually. “I guess I’ve just never heard you talk about your past…past boyfriends or anything before Dad, really. Sometimes it just feels like you two have been together since birth.”
Leanne nodded thoughtfully, but she didn’t say anything else right away.
Then, after a beat, she said, “What about you? Any romance I should know about?”
“You know Jack, my prom date.” Nora paused, tracing the rim of her leftover cup from breakfast. “He was…fine. But I told him I wasn’t really interested in a long-distance thing. He wasn’t either.”
“Understandable. You want to concentrate on college, not a boy hundreds of miles away. I think I remember him saying he was joining the army.”
“Yeah.” Nora nodded, pursing her lips on a thought, hoping Jackwould be far away from the fighting. “I’m hoping boys will be more mature in college and the relationships less…silly.”
Leanne gave an assured nod. “They will be. Teenage boys are mostly just out to have fun. They have no responsibilities yet. They’re just…sowing their oats, as the saying goes.” Her mom’s tone was matter-of-fact.
Nora raised an eyebrow, imagining the boys from kindergarten growing older and spreading a bag full of oatmeal. Then she laughed out loud. “I’ve never understood the correlation between breakfast cereal and, well…that.”
Leanne chuckled. “It’s a strange one, for sure.” Their conversation broke as she tapped the paper map and asked if the highway ahead was their exit. After they were on another stretch of road, she said, “But once they get to college, something shifts. Most of them know what’s coming. They’ve got to pick a major, finish their degrees, start a career. They’re not boys anymore. Not entirely.”
“But there’ll still be parties.” Nora planned to study hard during the week to keep her weekends free.
“Plenty of them. Mixers, bar nights, bad decisions. But underneath all their wild behavior, most of them know it won’t last forever. They start to look around and think about what’s next.”
Nora gazed at the horizon, the car humming along the open road. She tried to imagine what it would be like—falling in love with someone you might actually marry.
“What if I don’t want to think about what’s next?” she murmured.
Leanne didn’t answer right away. When she did, her voice was soft. “Then don’t,” she said. “Not yet. Just live, honey. Enjoy your classes. Make friends. And when you’re ready for romance, you’ll know.”
“That makes sense,” Nora said, turning the thought over.
All the high school boys she’d known had really only lived for two days a week—Friday night and all day Saturday. And if she was beinghonest, she had too. Especially Saturday mornings, when she could sleep in, listen to music, and not think about anything heavier than what record to spin first.
“Do you think I’ll get to sleep in while I’m at college?” Nora joked, ready to lighten things a bit and veer away from romance.
“That depends.” Her mother flicked on her blinker, pointing to a sign for a scenic overlook.
“On what?”
“I think everyone should get to sleep in on weekends. But you have to remember—you’re at college for a reason. And it’s not to catch up on your sleep.”
“You mean to find a husband?” Nora asked, half joking…half not.
She fiddled with the Polaroid camera in her lap, spinning the lens idly. She could feel her mother’s head swivel toward her—and when she glanced up, the look of sheer horror on Leanne’s face was priceless.
Click.
She snapped the photo.
