Not wanting the entire afternoon to be just one big awkward silence, I ask her to tell me a little bit more about herself.

“What do you want to know?” she asks. “I’m pretty boring.”

“I doubt that,” I tell her. “Where did you grow up?”

“Not far from the city,” she says, “although I never really believed that I’d live here. You?”

“I grew up in the Bronx,” I tell her. “I came to Manhattan after I took over the company.”

“How’d that happen anyway?” she asks.

“My dad retired,” I answer. “It was either I take the business or someone else did or we just close the whole thing down altogether.”

“You know,” she says, “for giving your whole life to it, it doesn’t really seem like something you’re all that interested in.”

“I don’t know about that,” I smile. “I love what I do, or at least it pays the bills. To tell you the truth, I think I’m just doing it because there’s really nothing else for me to do.”

“I’m kind of the same way,” she says. “I started Lady Bits because I wanted to make some kind of statement, but it seems like a lot of other people wanted to make the same kind of statement around the same time, so I don’t know if I’m a trailblazer or just someone who jumped on the bandwagon.”

“I think what you do is important,” I tell her. “Granted, I haven’t seen a lot of action in the plus department because we were always working through there, but the racks and shelves you had set up for the interim seemed like they were filled with stuff you don’t normally see.”

“That was the goal,” she says. “For some reason, people always think that if you’re a bit bigger than the average, you’ve got to end up in some frumpy crap or else it’s muumuus until the end of time. I think one of the reasons that women don’t feel beautiful is that they’re forced into choosing only one kind of clothing that’s deemed appropriate for their body style, but you give someone the freedom to choose the same things that are available to all other types of women and you just see her eyes light up. It’s a pretty wonderful thing.”

“Having a purpose is a hell of a thing, isn’t it?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says, “I guess. After all that bullshit with Burbank, though, I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to keep the place open. Once the construction was done, we started getting a lot of our customers back, but once they got a look at the new prices, I don’t know. We haven’t bounced back yet.”

“Give it time,” I tell her. “Things have a way of working out, and until then, I’d say start looking for other suppliers.”

“I just don’t have the time for that,” she says. “I’ve made a couple of calls, but Burbank’s got agreements with a lot of the people in town not to undercut his prices. He really fucked me there.”

I rub her leg, saying, “I’m sorry about that. I know I’m partially responsible for it.”

“No,” she says. “I wanted to blame you—I did blame you for a while, but what it really came down to was the fact that I was already so on edge that the slightest thing would have sent me over just as much as you did.”

She leans toward the coffee table and grabs the remote. Flipping on the television, she surfs through the channels for a while before turning the TV back off again.

“You know what’s funny?” she asks.

“What’s that?”

“Well, I have these boxes at my parents’ house, boxes full of all the medals and certificates and shit that I won over the years. I used to go home almost every night and think about those boxes at least once. When I was stressed, I used to go through my apartment and figure out where to put everything,” she says. “I haven’t done that since the last time I stayed at my mom’s, just after she got sick.”

“What’s stopping you from picking the boxes up?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she says. “The same thing that’s always stopped me, I guess.”

“And that would be…?”

“Most people look at stuff like that from when they were a child or a teenager and they get all misty-eyed and revel in how proud they are that they accomplished blah, blah or blah, but every time I try to talk myself into opening up that closet, I just shut down,” she explains. “I guess I don’t want to be reminded of all the disappointment each of those trinkets ended up being.”

“Let’s go get them,” I tell her.

“No,” she says, shaking her head, “I really think I’d be much more comfortable, you know, not doing that.”

“Why not?” I ask. “I’ll even help you unpack them and set them up. While we’re doing that, you can tell me about them.”

“They’re really not that interesting,” she says. “It would end up being like forcing you to look through a photo album for hours, and I just really don’t feel like it.”

“Come on,” I say in an intentionally petulant voice.

“Oh yeah,” she mocks. “That’s sexy.”

“I just want to know more about you,” I tell her, “and I think it might help you think of better times.”

“I don’t know that they were better times,” she says. “They were just a little less bad.”

“Well,” I tell her, standing up, “let’s change all that. The best way I’ve found to feel better is to get up and do something. So, grab your shirt and I’ll help you load up the car.”

She sits up, the blanket falling from her breasts.

“Or, you know, we can just go now and leave the shirt here,” I smile.

Finally, she laughs.

It’s soft and it’s short, but the sound is sweet in my ears, her smile invigorating.

“Would you mind if we stop by the hospital first?” she asks. “I’d kind of like you to meet my mother. I know that’s the sort of thing that usually happens after the fifth date or something like that, but you know, I think it would be better if it happened now when we know that…” she trails off.

The end of the sentence, as far as I can tell, would have been something to the effect of, “she’s going to be alive when we get there.”

I bend down and pick up her shirt from the floor.

Handing it to her, I say, “Yeah, let’s go see your mom.”

Chapter Seventeen

Bring Your Daughter to the Cancer Ward Day

Jessica

The closer we get to the hospital, the less confident I am in my suggestion to have Eric meet my mother. He’s a perfectly nice guy. Why would I want to throw him into the lion’s den?

When we come around the corner and the hospital comes into view, I’m ready to just turn around. Apparently sensing my growing unease, Eric puts his hand on mine.

“How do I introduce you?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” Eric responds.

“Well,” I start, “I can’t really call you my employee, and I don’t think the nature of our relationship would make than an accurate explanation anyway. I could call you my friend, which is true, but it doesn’t seem to quite capture things. At the same time, we’ve never really had the boyfriend/girlfriend talk either, so when we walk into the room and I say, ‘Hey Mom, this is Eric,’ what do you think comes after that?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I guess we’ve never really defined the relationship, have we?”

“No, we have not,” I answer. “Thoughts?”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t mind being your boyfriend,” he says, “if that’s at or around where you are.”

He grabs my hand and rubs my knuckles with his thumb.

“You and your honeyed words…” I titter as we pull into the parking lot.

“I don’t think it really matters,” he says. “I think it’d be enough if you just said, ‘Hey Mom, this is Eric.’ Why overthink it?”

“Well, maybe I’d like to know for my own reasons,” I slip.

This is about the worst time possible to define the relationship, but I do like to be prepared whenever I know I’m going to have any kind of interaction with my mother.

“I’m assuming something along the lines of ‘the sexy guy that gives you mind-blowing orgasms’ wouldn’t work, huh?” he asks and, if nothing else, at least I’m laughing as I pull into the parking spot and turn off the car.