Page 55 of A Bookish Story

Mami laughs. “You always had a big appetite. Just like your father.”

I’m going to ignore that jab, because it’s true, but Eddie doesn’t let it go. “She’s healthy and that’s all that matters.”

God bless Eddie. Eddie, who complains all the time that his patients eat way too much sugar. Even so, he’s got my back. As the desserts are served, Mami goes on to talk about all the weight she’s lost lately, dropping a dress size and weighing less than she did in her twenties. How and why she talks about her weight like it’s an accomplishment, I’ll never understand.

I’m now determined to enjoy every bite of this cake.

“Eddie, I’m surprised at you. All that sugar,” my mother scolds. “You’re a dentist.”

“Take care of your teeth and you can eat anything you want, in moderation.” He smiles and licks his spoon.

It takes me a moment to realize my thigh is brushed up against Ryan’s. I’m suddenly so aware of him, his leg like a weight against mine. We always keep a physical distance on the job, and it’s the first time I realize how intentional we’ve both been about this.

My mother is talking about weight training now, and how more muscle means a faster burning metabolism. Like I haven’t heard that one before. The woman is obsessed. I swear if I hear one more word, I’ll spontaneously combust, hopefully into white granules of sugar, and rain down on my mother while she screams in holy terror.

Ryan gives me a sidelong glance and half smile in the midst of this diatribe and at that point I realize our knees are touching, too. The feeling and warmth of a man this close is something I forgot how much I miss. He’s even closer now and I want to imagine he did this for the emotional support. We both understand rejection, both literary and romantic, but maybe he also understands this part of my life, too. He thought my family was so perfect but now he’s met my mother. She is the crack in our family.

Ryan hasn’t said a word but I know he sees me and that’s enough.

CHAPTER 19

After dinner Ryan and I part ways with Eddie and my mother. The insecurity I felt seeing them together is gone, replaced with the assurance that Eddie and my mother are simply old friends catching up. They’re bound together forever for the mutual love of one man, and me, his daughter. The rest of it I was imagining and it’s not surprising my overactive brain would do this. I’ve been under an incredible amount of stress lately.

I’m still thinking of Holly and what I should tell her. I’m sure Ryan’s publisher assumed everyone who knew me would think I’d taken on a pen name to write the book. But Holly is my closest writing friend, my critique partner, and I would have had to be lying to her all this time. Even the good things happening now are stressing me out. It’s as if I can’t simply accept the fullness of my life because it always comes with another complication. I want to relax and enjoy this but I keep waiting for something else to go wrong.

“Do you mind if we walk a little first?” Ryan says, holding the door to the restaurant open for me.

I’m more than willing to do this, because this stretch along University Avenue is easy walking, even if you couldn’t call Seven Trees a walking city. As we walk, Ryan doesn’t say a word. It’s like he’s left an open space. But when I don’t fill it, he does.

“Want to explain what was going on in there?” He hooks a thumb to the restaurant now behind us.

I’m too embarrassed to admit what for a few moments I thought I saw. I have to be wrong.

“My mother and Eddie?”

“You, rage eating your dessert.”

He didn’t even notice Eddie and my mother being anything more than family, and that encourages me. I’ve been reading far too much into this.

“Rage eating? That’s a new one.” I chuckle. “Thanks to my mother, I’ve had a complicated relationship with food.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“She likes to pretend she doesn’t eat and I’m rather fond of it. I eat what I like in moderation. But when I’m around my mother, I probably eat more than I would normally. We have a difficult relationship. After my father died, I felt pretty abandoned. She took off to have the career she always wanted. Unfortunately, she is obsessed with body image and I’m not.”

He nods and I remember that he also has a complex family dynamic.

“What about you? Do you get along with your mother?”

“Other than the fact she’s continually trying to fix me up with the daughter of a friend?”

“Well, you’re a catch. I can’t say I blame her.”

We walk quietly along the tree-lined sidewalks, which are old enough to have cracks in them.

“You look like your mother.” His voice is soft, almost tender.

“I know.”