My mother could be alarmingly astute, often when you least expected her to be paying attention. I wondered how long she’d known about Anjuli’s interest in Pittaya, so recently revealed to me.
“Speaking more generally.” I cleared my throat. “How important is the ... physical side of things?”
“Oh, sweet.” Jasper’s spoon clattered as he dropped it into his bowl. “Is this where you explain the birds and the bees to Mary?”
I sent him a withering look. “I’m talking aboutchemistry.” It pained me to quote Alex Ritter, but I couldn’t think how else to describe it. “Whether there’s a spark or not.”
“Well,” my father began, clearly struggling to keep his voice even, an effort belied by the beads of sweat that had broken out at his hairline, “there are certainly cases wherein the ‘spark,’ as you call it, fails to manifest.”
“Either it’s there or it isn’t.” Van bit into a slice of apple. “Sometimes it takes you by surprise.” She looked like she was gearing up to say more, but Addie cut in first.
“You shouldn’t base a relationship solely on physical attraction, though. There needs to be a degree of like-mindedness. You wouldn’t want to be with someone who wasn’t your intellectual equal.”
Van looked at her sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We don’t have to be at the mercy of our passions,” Cam burst out, startling all of us.
The screen door screeched, followed by Yarb yowling to announce his arrival. The patter of paws was accompanied by hurried human steps. “Sorry I’m late,” said Bo, strolling into the dining room with an apologetic smile.
“Pull up a chair, Boas.” My mother extended a welcoming arm. “There’s plenty of soup.”
Bo sniffed the air. “Is that your signature squash bisque?” he asked, as though he hadn’t been hanging around the house all afternoon, listening to the chopping and sizzling.
“Autumn’s first harvest.” My father beamed at their shared good fortune. “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.”
Once Bo was seated with a bowl of his own, he turned to the rest of us. “What’s the latest on Planet Porter-Malcolm?”
“Mary’s learning about her changing body,” Jasper said, making both me and Bo choke.
“We’re discussing the nature of love,” Mom corrected.
“Two-second recap. Do you have to be attracted to someone or can you just have the hots for their brain, blah blah blah, stuff about books,” my brother summarized.
“That’s not—” I stopped myself midprotest. Thatwaspretty much it, in a nutshell. What did it mean when you had someone like Mall Guy, who looked every inch the romantic hero, from the solemn expression to the tasteful shoes, yet turned out to be the farthest thing from swoonworthy?
“Maybe it takes some people longer to discover that kind of connection,” I ventured.
“Absolutely,” Bo said at once. “Or one person could be powerfully in touch with their feelings and just patiently waiting for the other person to notice.”
“I pursued your mother for more than a year before she relented,” Dad volunteered.
“I’d planned to devote myself to the life of the mind.” Mom smiled nostalgically, as if we’d never heard this story, or the related anecdote about the love letter our father had written her, listing all the happy families in Virginia Woolf’s fiction. “It seems I wasn’t cut out for celibacy.”
“And I’m out.” Jasper shoved his chair back from the table with both hands.
“Then I guess you won’t be needing this.” Van’s arm snaked out to grab his plate.
They slapped at each other’s hands a few times, until Jasper licked his palm and pressed it on top of his half-eaten slice of bread. Van wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Mary.”
I looked up at the sound of my mother’s voice.
“What do I always say?” she prompted.
“Um, turn off the lights when you leave the room? Don’t stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open? Put away your laundry? Did anyone feed the cat?” I could have gone on but paused to see whether any of those had been the right answer.
Her lips pursed. “I was thinking along less mundane lines. When you’re on the horns of a metaphysical dilemma, the best course of action is to—” She peered at me over the rim of her glasses.
