“That’s what I said!” I exclaim, relieved my completely rational analogy wasn’t irrational at all. Maybe my standards aren’t as low as I thought.
“I’m sorry you had such a horrible night,” she says, knowing there’s really nothing else to offer.
“Eh,” I say, brushing off her apology. “At least I’ll have an interesting story to tell.”
“Don’t let Mom off that easily.”
“You know it doesn’t matter if I get mad at her,” I argue. “She’s just going to tell me that if I could find my own dates and if I hadn’t stayed single so long after my divorce, she wouldn’t be forced to find my dates for me.”
“It’s not like you asked her to.”
“Still.”
“We’ll talk to her together,” she offers. “I’ll hold your hand, and we’ll calmly tell her this is why she needs to stop meddling in your love life.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever. It’s not like she’s wrong. I’ve been single for so long, I’m going to need a broom to untangle the cobwebs between my legs.” I look up and notice the very nosy valet’s brows shoot up. I turn toward a row of bushes for more privacy.
Jade laughs. “Maybe I can help her screen them before setting you up then,” she offers.
I shrug. “Yeah, I guess.” While I appreciate my sister’s sentiment, I wonder what good it’ll do. With every date I go on, whether it’s set up by my mom or a meddling relative or through a very unreliable dating app, I feel parts of me chip away. My confidence is at an all-time low, as is my hope. Maybe I can be one of those women who has a bunch of plants and goes to book club meetings and fills their time doing crafts. They look happy and content. The afterthought of living out my life alone forces a ball of anxiety to tumble low in my belly, and I say, “Did you know that you’re thirty-two percent at higher risk of an accidental death if you live alone? Forty-seven percent if you’re a woman.”
“Grace, don’t do this.”
“What?” I argue. “I’m just telling you a fact.”
“A fact that you probably made up.”
“I didn’t.” I may have.
“Don’t go all morbid on me because you think you’re going to die alone. What about Buster?” she asks, referring to my beloved dog at home. I guess that’s the silver lining.
“Yeah, true.”
I hear Trevor call for her, his voice distorted in the background of their home. “I gotta go,” she tells me. “You’re going to lunch on Sunday?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, you can tell me more about this date. Trevor’s going to want all the details too.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll have plenty to fill you in.”
“And Grace,” she adds. “You’re going to be fine. Stop this whole dying alone spiral you do every time you meet some douche-y mama’s boy.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you Sunday.”
It’s so easy for her to offer a string of reassuring words with nothing to back them. Sure, this overthinking blob I tend to spiral into isn’t healthy either, but neither is lying to myself. It’s so easy to be bright and rosy when you’re not the subject of said spiral.
This feels so fucking lonely. There, I said it. I’m going to die alone, most likely while choking on a piece of sweet and sour pork, and my plants will all die. And no one will take care of Buster, so he’ll spend the rest of his life looking for me. He’ll be like that dog who stayed at the train station for years and years after its owner died, living off scraps given by strangers while he waited for a ghost.
Okay, so maybe spiraling is as bad as Jade says.
I stare at my blank phone screen, thinking about how Jade and Trevor are probably wrestling Avery down for her bedtime. All while I’ll be going home alone. I’ll walk into my empty two-bedroom condo, with nothing but a bottle of wine and binge-watching Netflix to help me fall asleep. The morose frown on my face lingers while my reflection stares back at me.
The thought of scolding my mom or letting her off easy starts to totter in my brain. She meant well, and if I explain to her the reasons why a man with a “wife list” ironically isn’t parallel to my own hypothetical “husband list,” then she’ll be able to weed out the losers better. And if I completely turn her off from being my own personal matchmaker, I may completely miss my chance to find a soulmate. Who knows? Maybe one of them will be a diamond in the rough. The golden treasure she finds in the battlefield of love using her nifty Mrs. Han metal detector. It can’t hurt, right?
“Grace?”
I look up, only to come face-to-face with the last person I expect to see. “Andrew?”
