At least, that’s what he had hoped when he was a teenager. Alas, no invitation had arrived, and instead he’d gone off to UMass Med School. Which, while more expensive than Harry Potter’s world, still taught him a means to fight evil. In a manner of speaking.
They knew the menu backwards and forwards and ordered Injera, the giant sourdough pancakes that came in a communal dish with various savory meals piled on top. From curried cabbage, carrots and potatoes, to some unidentified beef dish with a little bit of field greens, tomatoes, and feta in the middle, this was his favorite meal and his favorite restaurant. Meribeth tolerated it—she enjoyed the food well enough, but Thai was more her flavor.
As they waited for their food to be delivered, she ordered a mango drink. And then, the formalities dispensed with, she leaned forward, elbows on the table, and said, “Who is she?”
“She?” Alex said, playing the game.
“Alex.” Meribeth drew the word out. “Don’t make me drag it out of you.”
Mom would like Josie, he thought. They were both small and feisty, smart with sharp wits—but where Josie was closed off and behind a shield, Meribeth was all open and out there. She’d never held any secrets and she’d never really patronized Alex as a kid, choosing to err on the side of letting him explore the world and discover for himself where his own boundaries were. As he’d grown into adulthood he’d appreciated that more.
Josie was more the type to set up the boundaries and stay inside the lines until forced out of them. While Meribeth had never given him any lines, she’d just let him draw them himself. Except when it came to talking about his love life. Then she crossed all the lines.
Josie was sharper. Fiercely loyal and very open-minded. The way she’d handled everything with Laura’s birth, how she accepted the threesome’s unique relationship, and the way she could read Alex so well...there was something so special about her that his throat tightened and his heart soared thinking about her.
The waitress delivered his mom’s mango drink and she sipped as she stared at him expectantly. “There’s a woman. She’s different from the other ones—this isn’t someone you just hop into the sack with—”
“Mom!”
“And you’re not talking about her because… something is wrong.”
“You should try out for a reality TV series, Mom. You could call it My Mom, the Medium or Honey Mom Mom. No”—he held up one finger—“how about The Hover Mother. You appear in a helicopter at moments where I’m trying to be my own man and—”
“I don’t need a reality TV show. I just get to torture you—that’s all the fulfillment that I require.”
They would spar for a few minutes if he let this go on, but she would win and he knew she would win. She knew she would win. So, Alex decided not to try to play.
“She’s not—”
“Does she have a name?”
“Josie.” Even letting her name roll off his tongue filled him with a warm comfort. Unfortunately, it also came with a touch of concern. Not hearing back from her for days was making him nervous. His mom could smell it from miles away, her mother-sense as acute as Spiderman’s spidey sense.
“Josie? Your grandfather’s nurse in the research trial?”
“You’re an encyclopedia.” He stuffed a large amount of food in his mouth just to get a break from talking.
“No. I’m a woman. We remember details. Josie is a pretty old-fashioned name. It’s not exactly common around here, where all the children are named Emma and Jacob. Or Caleb. Or MacKenzie.”
“Don’t forget Renesmee,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“She’s an interesting choice for you,” Meribeth continued between bites. “Not the shallow type you normally pick.”
“Mom!” he barked, wiping his mouth with a napkin and sucking down half a glass of water. The curry was particularly spicy today, the sourdough pancake not cutting it. He reached for a handful of salad to cut the spice.
“Please. I’m not telling you anything you didn’t know.”
He shrugged in acquiescence. Point taken.
And then she added, “You don’t know how to have a long-term relationship because I didn’t model one for you.”
Oh, boy. The never-ending dissection of Alex’s relationship issues.
“I don’t have long-term relationships because I haven’t met anyone I like enough for that. Oh, and the hundred-hour weeks I work. And the babies born at odd hours. And—”
“And because I didn’t bring a man into your life until you were in high school, so you missed out on that kind of relationship modeling during your formative years. You didn’t see the emotional and sexual—”
“MOM!”
Meribeth pursed her lips and took a big bite of potato, pointedly ignoring the outburst. He knew he couldn’t win; dissembling about his love life and the psychological underpinnings of it with a psychologist who was his mother was like trying to convince Rick Santorum to be the master of ceremonies at Pride Week. Not gonna happen.
“Do you like her?”
He shot her a look that said duh. “Yes.”
“More than the others?”
A few seconds of hesitation was all she needed. Really, it was all he needed, too.
“A lot,” he said.
“Finally!” she said loudly, golf-clapping for him. “And someone I’ve met, too! We need to have her over for dinner.”
“We?”
“You do have a stepfather,” she said drolly, picking out a spicy carrot and folding a ragged piece of pancake around it.
“Of course I do. Can he keep his pants on this time?” The last time—the only time—he’d brought a woman home, John had been in the living room sans pants.
“He was putting on a kilt for his bagpipes.”
“Uh huh. Is that the euphemism your generation uses now? I don’t need to know about your sex life, Mom,” he teased.
She threw a piece of pancake at him.
“That’s it. He’s playing a nice Scottish piece for your Josie when she comes over for dinner next week.”
Your Josie. My Josie. It had a nice ring to it. Nervous again, he checked his phone.
No texts. No calls.
No Josie.
Ignoring Alex’s texts was like listening to a Justin Bieber acceptance speech at the Billboard Music Awards.