It was my mother.
Hey Girl! Meet you at our favorite place for lunch! 1pm. Don’t be late! Kisses!
Just when my day was about to look up. A few hours later, I was dressed in gray instead of black, about to meet my mother at her favorite salad/sandwich shop. I got there, and she wasn’t there yet. No surprise there since she was always late.
But she made her arrival known when she called out, “Yoohoo!” from the doorway, waving to me and blowing a kiss.
Dear Lord.
My mother. What words were there to describe her? If I was a sexist man, I’d probably use terms like ‘floozy’ or ‘gold-digger’, but I didn’t want to call her those things. She was still my mom, even if she drove me crazy. But she was trying to live a life that I wanted nothing to do with.
“Hello, my dear girl.” She leaned down to kiss me on the cheek and then putting down her designer bag, she slid into the seat opposite me.
Her lips were swollen, and her face was slightly rigid. “Just had a procedure?” I asked, waving down the waiter.
“Oh, you noticed? That’ll go down soon. But yes, thought I’d get it in before I came to see you. I don’t care what you think, Cassandra. It’s just for those lucky boys who get to take me out now.” She winked at me, and I was glad the waiter had just arrived.
We ordered our drinks, and then my mother reached across the table and grabbed my hands. “I’ve let go of old fustypants,” she said. “Now, I can move on to greener pastures. But don’t worry, I made sure he got me a few things before I ended it.”
I bit back a sigh. She was always doing this. Dating one old millionaire after another, getting what she wanted from them, and then ducking out. We were as different as night and day, and I had no idea how I came out of her. I didn’t even know my father. He apparently had died a year after I was born. He was that old, I guess.
“What was his name again?” I asked, trying to be nice.
“Carlton. Wonderful man. A bit on the old side, though.”
My mother was almost sixty years old, no matter how many treatments she liked to get. Soon, she would be considered a bit on the old side. The waiter returned with our drinks, and we ordered our mains. As I sipped my iced tea, I wished that there was vodka in it, so that I could get through this lunch without screaming.
“So, tell me.” My mother’s eyes flashed. “I heard that there’s a brand new billionaire in town. That he owns a bunch of labs and magazines…”
My heart nearly stopped. I froze, afraid that my expression would give away something I did not want my mother to know.
“And that he owns your lab now. I will have to meet him.” She grinned and tapped her fake nails on the table. “What’s he like? Is he gorgeous? Not that it matters much.” She winked at me as if we were in cahoots to bag the richest men in Louisiana.
“I don’t know him very well, Mother, but I’d say he might be a bit on the young side.”
“Oh? How delicious.” Her classic mischievous grin told me she was up for the challenge. “How young?”
“Not sure. But not older than fifty.”
“My my. Cassandra, do you think I could come visit you at the lab? You know I love to meet a new man. The old ones do get so very boring after a while. We could have lunch, and it would be an excuse to meet your new boss.”
Really, my mother was quite delusional. She acted as though we both felt the same way about things, but we were completely the opposite, and I didn’t know how she thought otherwise.
“Sorry, mom, I don’t think so. I don’t think it would be very appropriate for a grown woman to have her mother coming to her workplace to meet her boss. Makes it sound like you’re coming to a parent-teacher conference.”
“Oh, come now,” she said with a laugh. “You could pass me off as your sister, you know.”
Fluttering her eyelashes at me, I knew she expected me to say that I could do that. That she looked young enough to do that, but it wasn’t true. And right then, she just looked like a puffed-up bird with a swollen beak.
“No, Mom. It is my workplace, not a meeting place. It is where professionals go to achieve noble goals and work on difficult projects. It would be totally inappropriate. Besides, he’s kind of temperamental. No one wants to get on his bad side. Maybe later, when we’re all a bit more at ease with each other.”
I smiled, amazed at my brilliant excuse, and she pursed her lips in thought before she nodded.
“All right, then. So, Cass, will you tell me if you’ve a man in your life? It’s about time, girl.”
I hated how my mom wanted to be my friend always, when I just wanted a mother. I already had plenty of friends.
“No, no one in my life, Mom.”