“You have to learn to drive, Lindsey.” I have to work and can’t always chauffeur Mom around or pick up prescriptions.
“I said I don’t have a license. I didn’t say that I don’t know how to drive.”
“Rebel.”
She smiles. “The girls in my family live at home until we get married.”
This explains why she’d accepted a job four hours from her hometown, but it doesn’t tell me why she’d jumped at the offer to move across the country.
“Turn left.” I turn left.
“Earl’s a better driver than you.”
“I know, Mom.”
Mother’s complaint gets a chuckle from the twenty-six-year-old with no license. “I’m the first girl
in my family to move out.”
“How many in your family?”
“Counting my parents, nine. I have three older sisters and one younger, and two younger brothers.”
To me, as an only child, that’s a lot of people. Her parents must be insane to want them all to stay at home long after they should be on their own. Then I remind myself that they couldn’t be too bad if they let Lindsey go to college. “You do have a bachelor’s degree from WSU.” Just for good measure, I add, “Right?” because, at this point, I’m not sure of anything.
She nods. “I was supposed to find a husband there like two of my sisters did.”
“Women have a hard enough time finding a good date in college. For God’s sake, how can you be expected to find a good husband?”
“I don’t know. I never did.”
“Turn left in six hundred feet.” I guesstimate the distance and am shocked when I actually get it right. “You know that saying about kissing a lot of toads before you find true love.” I pull to a stop at a red light and step on the brakes only a little too hard. “It’s true, but keep in mind that finding true love isn’t about the pool of toads, but rather about the toads in your pool,” I quote myself. “So, date broadly but be selective, and you’ll find your prince.”
“Why haven’t you found yours?”
God, I hate that question. The answer is that I’ve dated broadly and selectively. That’s one of the big differences between Mom and me. She dated broadly but wasn’t very selective.
The one time I thought I found Mr. Right, everything blew up in my face in a very horrifying and public display of greed and dishonesty that threatened to destroy my company. Thank God it didn’t. “I’ll find my Mr. Right.”
“Sounds to me like you need different toads in your pool.” Lindsey tries not to smile as she leans forward and tunes in to a country music station.
Smart-ass. I don’t have any toads, and I’m not searching for any, either. Which is another difference between Mom and me: she’s still on the hunt to restock her pond.
Even though the love guru business is booming, I’ve privately taken myself off the market. No one knows that quite a few of the “dates” I’ve written and spoken about for the past three years have been fictional—not even Margie. I’m thirty-eight, and a lot of men my age want younger women. Men older than me have baggage that I don’t want to deal with. Fiction is easier than real life.
The trip to the mattress store that should have taken thirty minutes takes almost an hour, and I’m worried it’ll be closed by the time we arrive. An hour of Lindsey singing along to the radio (I’ve heard better noise coming from a pissed-off cat) and the back-seat driver yelling, “You’re kinking up my neck!”
Patience, I tell myself. Mom doesn’t mean to annoy me.
“Turn right,” the navigation system directs, but I’m busy trying to make out the names of streets and almost overshoot the intersection.
“Where are we going?” Mom asks, her tone growing more agitated by the minute.
I don’t blame her. I’m agitated, too. “To the mattress store,” I remind her so patiently I should get an award.
“I already got a mattress.”
“You need a new one to fit Great-grandmother’s bed.”