“Thank you, Gigi,” I say, my tone flat.
“How’s work going?” my mom asks, probably trying to deflect from Gigi, but instead she’s brought up the one thing I don’t want to talk about right now.
“Never mind that,” says Gigi, tugging on the collar of her light sweatshirt. “I want to know about the last date you went on with that Joshua fellow.”
Make that two things I don’t want to discuss. They don’t even know about my terrible date with Colin, the method actor. Hard to believe that was only yesterday. I saw Sam briefly this morning and explained what happened, and she was both shocked and apologetic. I tried to make her swear on her favorite pair of jeans that she would never set me up again. She wouldn’t do it.
I reach up and rub my forehead with my fingers. “It went as expected,” I say.
“No,” says my mom, giving me sad eyes.
“Still cursed, I see,” says Gigi, a smug grin on her face.
“Yes, Gigi,” I say, shaking my head, even though I’m smiling. “I’m still cursed.”
“What happened?” my mom asks, doing her best concerned-mother look.
“Oh, you know, the usual. It was the third date, things were going well, we kissed, he lost all attraction to me and ran away.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” my mom offers.
Gigi cackles. Like a witch. “What kiss number are we on now?”
“Forty-nine,” I say.
“Claire!” my mom exclaims, eyes wide. I’ve never withheld the number of first kisses I’ve had, and yet she seems shocked and appalled each time.
“Oh, you shush,” says Gigi, waving her outrage away with her hand. “You kissed plenty of boys in your time.” She gives my mom duck lips.
“I did not,” Mom says, but her flushing cheeks tell a different story.
Gigi has always been forthcoming with her kissing stories. She kissed five men before my grampa, and all lost interest after the kiss, except for him. They were married six months later. And they weretogether for nearly sixty years, but we lost Grampa to Parkinson’s three years ago.
According to Gigi, she’s just biding her time until she can join him, which, according to her, could be any day. Like she can decide when that happens.
I lean back in my chair. “I’m hanging up these smooching lips at number fifty.”
“You can’t give up,” my mom says.
“I’m tired of being rejected. Besides, I doubt it will be forever. Just for a little while,” I explain.
She pats my arm, lovingly. “Well, then, I think a break is a good idea. Just don’t give up completely.”
I let out a long, tired-sounding sigh, my head coming to rest against the back of the chair. “I’m just sick of it. Sick of dating, sick of trying. Meanwhile, Ryan is all cozied up in the living room.”
What would that be like? I’ve never gotten to that part.
“You know what almost made me give up?” Gigi says, her eyes going distant. “Your grandfather.”
I pull my head up to look at her. “What do you mean?”
“I love that man. He was my first love and my last one. But for a moment, I thought I’d almost lost him to the curse.” She looks to my mom and then to me.
I scrunch my face. That’s not the version of the story she’s been telling me my whole life. The one where she met my grampa on a bus that they both took to work each day and neither of them saidanything to the other for months until my grampa finally worked up the courage to ask her out. They dated for nearly a month before he kissed her; the curse was broken, and that was that.
“What are you going on about, Mom?” my mom asks. “Are you making this up?”
Gigi is a lot of things, but a liar is not one of them. She’ll tease you mercilessly, but the woman doesn’t fib.
