The Magnolia Chronicles: Adventures in Modern Dating(57)

"Neither do I," I replied. "A manicure lasts two days on me, tops. Most of the time, I don't make it to my car without screwing the whole thing up."

My mother frowned, sniffed, and looked back at the rainbow of paint choices.

Goddamn it. Goddamn this bad mood. Goddamn this week of work disasters and weird dreams and man stress. So much man stress. I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids. "I appreciate that you demand I spend time with you on a regular basis."

Without glancing away from her fruit bowl of nail polishes, she said, "If I didn't do it, I'd never see you. It's been ages since you've shown your face at supper."

"I'm sure Ash and Linden are enjoying that," I replied. "They always wanted to pretend they were twins."

She picked up a bottle of pale blue, set it down with a wince. My mother lived by the treaty of seasonally inspired mani-pedis. Summer had to be a field of poppies, spring like an Easter egg, autumn a harvest festival. Blue had to wait for the frosty days of January.

"They've outgrown their twin antics, you know," she said. "They miss you too."

There was another sassy comment on the tip of my tongue but I swallowed it. Forced it down and reached for a better alternative because my mother didn't deserve my moody bullshit today. Our relationship wasn't fraught or complicated but we pushed and pulled at each other. We sniped and snarked. She meddled, I evaded. In the end, we always made up and moved on.

"I'm sorry I haven't been there recently. My weekends have been…" My voice trailed off as I searched for the right description of recent months. Hectic? Overscheduled? Overwhelming? All of the above. "Busy. I'm sorry. I've been busy and as I know you're aware, the drive from Beverly to New Bedford is a lot longer when you factor in all the traffic going out to the Cape."

"That's why I like visiting with you during the week," she replied. "Less traffic."

"Mmhmm."

She tapped a lemony yellow bottle against her palm before holding it up to the light. "If you don't want your nails done, you can sit there and keep me company while I get mine. Maybe then you can tell me what's happening in your life since I never hear from you anymore."

"Oh my god," I murmured to myself, sending an eyeroll skyward.

"I heard that." She stared at three bottles, shook her head, returned them to the shelf. Then she selected the original tangerine and raspberry shades and headed toward the technician waiting beside her station.

I grabbed the first bottle of dark red I spotted and followed. "I'm sorry. Again," I said, dropping into the pedicure chair beside her. "I've had a lot going on."

"Not that much. You haven't logged into your online dating accounts in months. I can tell because you haven't opened any of the new matches or messages you have."

I shouldn't have been surprised to find she was keeping tabs. "I should really deactivate those."

She shook her head, huffed out a sigh. "If you're giving up already then yes, I guess you should deactivate them. Better than misleading the men who match with you."

I blinked at her, ignoring the technician's question about the water temperature. After five or six million blinks, I finally asked, "Would you like to repeat that?"

She shot me a sharp glance before turning back to the dated copy of People magazine in her lap. "You promised me you were going to try this year. You said you were going to do it for yourself. But you're not trying if you don't even open the messages."

A laugh burst from my lips, deep and loud and unwelcome in the land of muted HGTV and hushed conversation and the illusion of relaxation. I caught a handful of indignant glimpses and plenty of side-eye action. "Believe me, I'm trying my ass off."

My mother stared at me then, her lips turned down in a frown and her brows pinched. "It's rude, Magnolia. For all you know, they're perfectly nice gentlemen and you don't even bother to acknowledge them. It's rude to ignore the messages—"

"They can fucking wait," I snapped.

A hysterical laugh followed, one that turned every head in my direction. This was where it happened. Right here in a strip mall nail salon, this was where I lost my damn mind. With adorably pretentious high school girls and exhausted suburban moms as my witnesses, that laugh turned into a wild, contagious giggle, and another, and then there was no stopping. I wasn't sure what invited the tears—the uncontrollable giggling or the suggestion I'd given up on this dating initiative. More likely, it was the men. The ones I cared for, the ones I wanted to hide from hurt.

But I went on laughing and crying and just fucking trembling through the enormity of these feelings. I was a boiling kettle, screeching and steaming while everyone watched. They offered tissues and water, and chocolate and even a Xanax at one point. But there was only one way to quiet a kettle, and I didn't know how to turn down the heat.

"Magnolia," my mother whispered. She looked at me, her eyes wide. "Magnolia, what's wrong?"

"You-you-you-you," I stammered between laughs, "you th-think I'm not trying but you have no idea what I'm going through."

"Then tell me." She held out her hands as if it was that simple. And maybe it was. Maybe I was too far down this path to see the light anymore but it felt far from simple. "Tell me what you're going through. Maybe I can help."