Stilettos & Scoundrels (8 page)

“Is Ri
ck going to be joining you?” my
mother asked.

“No mother, I told you last week we were still broke
n
up
.
”
Here we go,
I
thought. Now
I
wa
s going to have to listen to my
mom
go on and on about
how
horrible it was to be single.

“
You’re not getting any younger you know. If you had listened to me
,
this would never have happened. But no, you never listen to me.”

“Mother, he cheated on me. How do you figure me not listening to you could have impacted it?”

“I agree he’s a jerk, Presley.
But
, I told you when you moved in with him
that
you were rushing things. I don’t see a ring on your finger, so I guess I was right,” she replied, with a smug sense of satisfaction.

“Let’s not have that conversation
.
Rick was a jerk
.
H
e’s history
.
C
an we please just move on
?
Let’s not talk about me losing my job either or anything else negative, let’s just enjoy each other’s company.”

“I ran into Brian Ames the other day. He’s such a nice boy.”
My
mother changed topics with minimal effort. She seemed to accept
my
request to move on,
but I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t
bring it up again later.

I kept eating my
pot roast, mashed potatoes, and green beans, all
,
of course
, smothered with gravy. I
thought
that maybe if I ignored my
mother, she would lose interest. Besides, dinner was so good
that
it commanded
my full concentration. When I
sat down at the table
, all resolve to adhere to my diet went out the window. I
already dec
ided to start my
diet when the weeken
d was over. There was no way I
was turning down any of this
food. It was worth starving myself later. My God, I wished I
could cook like thi
s. Though maybe not, because I would never fit into my
skinny jeans
or my fat jeans if I did
.

“I told him you would be here this weekend,” she said to
me, giving me a disapproving glance as I
reached for seco
nds of the gravy. Obviously, my
mother wasn
’t distracted enough by what I
was saying to not notice
how much I
was eating.

“You did what?” I
said through a mouthful of food. “Why would you do that? You
never even liked Brian.” I
wasn’t sure
she
ever
really
liked Brian
. He
was the star football player, which in high school meant
that
he was the coolest boy ever. Brian Ames had been
my
high school boyfriend. The typical high school thing
:
hot and heavy one minute
and
breaking up over something stupid the next. T
ypical
high school love played out in high schools everywhere.
Brian and I
were together off and on
until after graduation. Then I
realized his big plan for the future was to stay in Alkon and be a mechanic. Not that there was anything wrong with being a mechanic
, but he also thought we
should get married and settle down in Alkon while
I
, on the other hand, didn’t think so. When he clea
rly expressed how he expected me
to be little Susie homemaker
, I decided I
had enough
of the relationship
.

House
keeper of the year wasn’t on my
agenda. Since the age of fourtee
n, I
wanted out of th
is town as soon as possible. I
wanted to go to the big city, be ind
ependent, and have a career. I had big plans; I
was destined to be somebody important. Brian wanted Betty Crocker;
I
wanted to be Katherine Graham. Things weren’t pretty at the end
, but
what break up was
good
when you
were
eighteen
?
At that age, it’s about drama. Drama
that I
hadn’t thought about for years, until now. It was funny to think about
now
.

“Well
,
you were too young and way to
o
serious
,
”
my
mother replied. “But he’s grown up nice
,
and he has his own garage now, making a good living. I hear he’s the best mechanic in town. Isn’t that right, Clark?”

My
dad just looked at her and smiled, clearly amused
by
the situation but
not willing to
be drawn in. I
could clea
rly see where this was going. My
mother
was
afraid
I
would end up an old maid. All the town girls
my
age and younger were married with babies
,
and she was mortified
that I didn
’t even have a boyfriend
. To my
mother t
hat was the unthinkable. I
could see
that my mother felt I
needed help in this area, so
much so that she was pimping me
out to an ex-boyfriend who she never even liked in the first place. Were all mothers like this or just
my mother? My
single girlfriends in the city didn’t seem to have their mothers on their backs this much.

“Anyway, I…”
Sue
started to say.

The doorbell rang and I immediately knew what my
mother was starting to say.
I
looked at her, eyes narr
owed and steam coming out of my
ears.
I was going to kill her. I couldn’t believe this; my
mother invited him over. Of all the nerve.

“
…
invited him over for dessert
.
” Sue avoid
ed
my
gaze and jumped up from the table to answer the door. She was almost at a sprint in two steps, which
,
at her age
,
was impressive. Who knew she could move that fast? “I thought you two might like to catch up.”

“How could you?” I whispered angrily. I looked at my
dad. “How
could you let her do this?” I jumped out of my
seat
, furious. My
dad threw up his hands and smiled
.
“I had no idea
,
King.” Sur
e, he was telling the truth, I
still gave him a dirty look simply for being amused at the situation. This was in no way funny.

Following on my m
other’s
heels to the door, I couldn’t believe my mother would do this to me
.
Actually, I could believe it. My
mother just didn’t understand
that I
was fine being alone. Many women stayed single forever a
nd were extremely happy. I
was just about to unleash a verbal tirade o
f biblical proportions, when my
mother hurriedly opened the door
. She knew it would shut me
up, at least tem
porarily. One of the things we
had in common was
our ability to
put up a good front. Thurmans never let you s
ee them
sweat. It was one of the things
I was grateful to my
mother for
—
it was amazing how handy this skill
had been in my life
.

“Hello
, Brian,” my
mother gushed, instantly changing her attitude, always the hostess.
No wonder people thought she was
the nicest person. When I
was a kid
, all my friends thought my
mother was the nicest. That’s because they didn’
t have to live with her, I
tried to tell them, but they never believed
me
. “Come on in.”

I
looked up at Brian
. I needed to be polite and to say
hi,
but I
was momentarily taken aback. Brian
had been
cute in high school, but he had not grown into a handsome man
. H
e was
a
lready losing his hair at thirty-three or thirty-four. To think
, I
could have married him. What was
my mother thinking? I
would admit
that I
was a little superficial, but it was hard to believe
that
he
had
changed so much.
Brian’s l
ooks notwithstanding,
I didn’t need my
mother interfering in
my love life. I
was perfectly able to screw it up o
n my own. I
loved men and having them around
,
but there were many drawbacks
to being in a relationship
that sometimes overshadow
ed the positives. I
knew most women agreed with that.

“Hi
,
Brian
,” I
said. Not a particularly witty opening line, especially after
not seeing him for years, but I
was still taking this all in. On a positive
note,
he went from a scrawny teenager of average height to a well-muscled man just over six feet. His blue eyes were the same as in high school, but they were in a face that
had transformed
from boyish good looks to a not
-
so
-
kind maturity of fine lines and no hair over the years. He also looked scruffy
, but
not the cute scruffy, more the…well...
scruffy
, scruffy
.
When he smiled at
me though, I
could see
he had kept the
same twinkle in his blue eyes. He had always been mischievous, with the ability to seem
sincere even when he wasn’t. I
had fallen for it many times
,
but
I was
older and wiser
and not
about to be taken in by it. It was comforting to see
that he still had that spark. I
looked over and
my
mother was beaming as if she just discovered the Holy Grail.
I resigned my
self to having Brian over for dessert
. M
aybe it wasn’
t such a bad idea. After all, I still had my
mother’s chocolate cake to look forward to and that made anything tolerable.

******

Dessert wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Brian was charming and super nice to
my mother, although I
really didn’t need her mother to have any more reason to like him
. She’d only bug me
even more about why I
couldn’t live happily ever after with Brian and give her the grandchildren
she
wan
ted. Afterward Brian and I
decided to take a drive up town to the newly opened Coffee Café
.
W
hen I
last came back to town, this place had been a Dog ’n Stuff, not a hot dog stand as one might think, but rather pet store, and before that
,
a dry cleaners.
I
hoped the Coffee Café would last a little longer.
I
couldn’t imagine not having any options
for coffee other than
McDonald
’
s. Not that their coffee was bad, and they did just com
e out with lattes. While I
was somewhat cheered by the thought of coffee
, I
was still annoyed
by my
mother’s insistence
that I change my
clothes before going out. Right in front of Brian, which
was what really got on my last nerve. My
mot
her said she didn’t want me
to embarrass her by showing up
in
town in a sweat
suit.
I
tried to explain this wasn’t just a sweat suit
,
but the finer points of Juic
y Couture completely escaped my
mother
. I
t was easier to give in and put on some dark denim boot cut jeans and a screen-printed t-shirt with a peace sign on it.
Sue
wasn’t much happier with this choice and frowned when she saw the black high
-heeled boots I
had paired with it. I loved the
se boots; they showed off the jeans well.