Billionaire With a Twist(11)
“All sorts,” I said cheerfully, deliberately misunderstanding her just to see that moment of shock in her expression. “Men, they’re everywhere! Did you know they make up fifty percent of the population? Who knew?”
Mother gritted her teeth, making a sound in the back of her throat that bore a remarkable resemblance to a tiger’s warning growl. “I take it from your immature remarks that you haven’t actually gone out on a date in quite some time.”
Well, wasn’t she perceptive. I stabbed at the asparagus, and briefly entertained the idea of asking her if she’d consider opening up her own psychic hotline: Mrs. Bartlett gazes into the past, present, and future! Her eyes see all—and she is incredibly disappointed in you!
“I go on plenty of dates,” I said instead, going for a reasonable, middle-of-the-road, we’re-all-adults-here-so-let-me-just-bring-up-some-facts voice. “I went on a date with Josh from Accounting just last month.”
“One date.” Her voice was flatter than the entire state of Kansas.
I resisted the urge to swig my entire glass of white wine like a medieval warrior, and daintily sipped from it instead. “Well, he spent the entire evening talking about his golf game and how women have ruined his life, so you know, I took that as a clue to leave him alone to enjoy the rest of his life with his true soul mate, himself.”
My mother’s lips thinned in disapproval so great it could probably have been seen from space. “Did you even think about taking up golf? It helps to have common interests.”
“The sport I have hated with a burning passion since I was fourteen?” I said, sweet as cotton candy. “Gosh, no, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. How could I have been so foolish?”
Mom’s lips compressed into yet a thinner line. Pretty soon they were going to vanish entirely. “I know you think I’m being unreasonable, dear, but men have very high-pressure lives. It’s on us ladies to accommodate them and smooth away their cares, in exchange for the security they provide us. And if you don’t start reevaluating your standards, before you know it—”
And here it came, the deep dark scary fairy tale of The Little Girl Who Went Into the Woods and Met the Big Bad Spinsterhood. From here on out, I could tune out the lecture; it would only be the same one I’d heard a thousand times before: I wasn’t getting any younger. There were lots of attractive partners out there. Men are basically superheroes and gods and yet somehow also dumb as a box of rocks, hence the need to ensnare them with your womanly wiles, i.e. make-up, pie-baking, and giggling at every dumbass thing they say.
Paige squeezed my hand under the table, her face still tilted towards Mom, brightly attentive. Poor Paige. I was the rebellious one, so she always had to be the good one to keep from breaking Mom’s heart. Paige with her straight As and her bright pink prom dresses and her part-time job as a receptionist. Sure, she made room for her party-planning hobby on the side, which I knew she loved, but I also knew she’d always wanted to be an artist. But she’d given up on that dream a long time ago. Instead she was Perfect Paige with her long list of Mom-approved boyfriends, whose faces she looked up into and smiled and smiled and smiled, and sometimes I didn’t think she even saw their individual faces anymore.
Mom was gathering full steam now, like a locomotive about to make the leap over a broken canyon bridge. She’d be huffing and puffing if she didn’t think it would sound less than genteel. I might be tuning her out, but I could still read her body language like a picture book: this was going to be a long one. Settle back into your chairs, ladies and gentlemen, and the flight attendants will be along shortly to offer you a complimentary beverage during this in-flight movie.
I only tuned back into the conversation when she mentioned Paige’s name: “And then that old art professor of Paige’s shows up at her work, of all places, and tries to get Paige to enter some of her old paintings in a show, really, I’d be open to it if it was some of her nice watercolor landscapes, but no one wants to see that horrid modernist stuff she got into while she was in college.” She shuddered dramatically, as if Paige’s interest in modernist painting were a particularly mangled dead mouse that had been dropped at her feet.
Paige looked down at the napkin in her lap, blushing in shame. And I couldn’t let that stand.
“Uh, obviously people want to see it if her professor is still pursuing it after, what, four years since she took a class,” I said.
My mom shivered delicately. “Yes, well, certainly not our kind of people. Imagine what that would do to Paige’s prospects for a husband!”
Paige was still looking at her lap, ashen-faced, as if she had done something terrible like set fire to a school, rather than just having some talent in a field other than husband-finding. I took pity on her and decided to try to draw my mom’s fire.
“Well, that’s too bad. Oh, hey, that reminds me of this ad we’re putting out for the Grace-and-Harmony personals site—”
I didn’t even get to the part about how I’d helmed the ad about the gender preference options that my mom would have found really offensive before she interrupted.
“Darling, please don’t bring up online personals at the dinner table, they’re unspeakably crass.” She raised her eyebrow at me. “I certainly hope you haven’t had to sink to that level. I will not have you consorting with that—that—” she pulled out the strongest insult she was capable of—“riff-raff.”