“Why not?” I said it a bit flippantly, winking at him.
He gave a step closer, so that our bodies were pressed up against each other. I looked up and his mouth found mine, holding my lips in a kiss that brought back the memory of us pressed up against each other, our bodies entangled beside the couch, sharing the same breath.
Then he went back to check on Zoë and I decided to go for a walk.
I needed the fresh air.
I was giddy from what had just happened and I had no idea how this would work.
How could I work for a guy I was so incredibly attracted to?
And how did that fit in with my plan to somehow find my Mr. Right as the fortune teller had said?For years, I had been acting in ways that would help the universe, whatever it, or he, or she was, to bring my true love to me.
I had even plunged myself into debt in aid of this crazy scheme. When Zane wanted to go skiing last winter, he invited me to come along but warned me that I’d have to pay for my side of the trip. I didn’t have that kind of money. Then I had a dream of us skiing and thought this was a sign.
Honestly.
In my book, almost everything was a sign.
Keith gave me the number of a friend of mine who “could help me”. This guy turned out to be a loan shark and by the time he wanted his money back, I had not only started to realize that Zane was not the guy for me, but that I had to be more careful with money. I was being reckless in my pursuit of my dream guy. My idea of skiing holidays involved drinking wine and reading a book by a fire in the chalet. But the skiing boyfriends tended to want you to go skiing with them, preferably from high and jagged peaks that had been described as dangerous and take-your-life-in-your-hands by experts in magazines.
They wanted you to love the hiking as much as they did. And while I did love nature and the outdoors, I was beginning to think my feelings were more theoretical. Why couldn’t we stare at the view from a lovely balcony high up in the mountains. Why did we have to be in the actual forest, tripping over rocks and falling into crevasses because laid-out trails were for wimps who didn’t know how to really survive in the wilderness?
The streets were filled with people going out and coming back from friends, laughing loudly and discussing where to go to next; where the coolest new hang-out was and how to get into clubs. Older couples more soberly dressed and speaking in sophisticated muted tones passed me by too. I watched them fondly, the way they were able to block out the rest of the world and exist only in their own world.
This was all I wanted.
Someone I could create my own little world with.
Will seemed so perfect in every way but the most obvious one – he was not into mountains. But maybe, that didn’t matter. So what if he wasn’t Mr. Right? We could spend time together, have a bit of fun. I would try to find a job closer to home and in the meantime, we could spend time together. Sooner or later, he would probably get bored with me anyway, I thought. He needed a mother for Zoë and that wasn’t me. An older woman, someone who could cook, definitely, butknew how to do laundry so that the big stuff didn’t shrink, and the sock partners didn’t disappear into a dark hole somewhere in a parallel universe. Someone who knew clever hacks on how to take stains out of clothes without ruining them.
I didn’t know any of that stuff.
My mother had never been much of a housewife, our house was always messy and untidy. Raising three kids with a husband who was always at work and never making quite enough money resulted in her being spread too thin and exhausted most of the time. As a teacher at a junior high school, she spent most nights marking essays and trying not to fall asleep while preparing lessons for the next day. I often woke up to find her slumped over the kitchen table, drooling over some kid’s math homework.
My mother barely made it through our high school years, and she never tired of telling us that being a parent was not so much hard work as the hardest job anyone could ever do. She claimed each kid was a job by itself, by which she meant that she had three jobs looking after each and every one of us, in addition to her job at the school too.
My brothers rolled their eyes, but I could see what she meant. When Kevin was in high school, doing wrestling, he had to be taken to his matches, and extra money had to be found for the right gear and travelling to places for matches. When Sean developed diabetes, my mother had to change his diet and find ways to feed the rest of us too. As the youngest, I tried to make things easier for her, but often found myself feeling lonely and isolated. I wanted someone to talk to, to sit next to on the couch and watch TV together. But the boys were always watching sports and my mom was in the kitchen, coming up with ideas for the school concert or making paper clocks to help her teach analogue time.
A group of young men came towards me, and I felt their eyes on me, tried not to hear their comments.
I quickly crossed the road and decided to head back home.
For now, this was with Will and Zoë, and that didn’t feel too bad.
Chapter 12
Will
I took Zoë over to my mother’s place two weeks later, as soon as she was ready to eat proper meals again.
Simone said she’d make us lunch.
“I hope it isn’t something fancy,” Zoë said, looking nervously at me.
I had to laugh.
When Simone started out her chef training, she often cooked for Zoë and I, expecting detailed feedback on the texture and mouthfeel and success of certain combinations. She was looking for thoughtful critiques, and instead got a young child yelling “yucky!” and running from the table, pinching her nostrils, supposedly to block out the horrid smell. I tried telling Zoë that the food her aunt made for us was very sophisticated and that we had to be more polite or we’d hurt her feelings.