1
My mom raised me to be super independent, which is why I dutifully fill her in on the details of my Saturday like a field reporter.
“And then I ran out to buy some cheese at this really cute little place that opened up not far from—” I say.
“How close is it to Times Square?” Mom interjects. “I saw on AOL News a hot dog vendor got robbed there!”
A laugh snorts out of me before I can stop it, though my shoulders hitch, bracing for what is sure to be another barrage of well-intentioned safety advice. I adore my mom, and her concern is born of caring, but no crime statistics will ever shake her certainty that New York is a cesspool her precious daughter is ill-equipped to handle.
“Mom, I promise you, no one who lives in New York City willingly goes to Times Square on a Saturday. And besides, that area is very safe.” I palm my mug of steaming chamomile tea tighter, the heat biting into my palm. “Scariest thing there is the price tourists will pay for a pic with knock-off Elmo.”
“Stone Harbor is safer, just saying,” she sniffs.
“Didn’t you just tell me Mr. Marino was arrested yesterday?”
“Oh, Penny, you know he likes his whiskey. He was a little rowdy. It happens,” Mom says.
“He stole someone’s dog! And resisted arrest. And then pulled down his—”
“It wasn’t as bad as all that!”
I flick my gaze skyward, asking the divine for patience. It was definitely “as bad as all that” five minutes ago, when Mom shared the latest hot gossip from my sleepy beachside hometown. “Okay. It wasn’t as bad as all that. Make sure you take your pills.”
“I took them already. Are you talking to me on those ear things? I told you to only use speaker phone. The radiation—” Mom starts.
I set my scalding cup down, pull out my earbud, and flick it onto a table with a sigh. “Sorry. You’re on speaker now.”
“Good. Now don’t think I missed that bit before the cheese. Tell me why you were working on a Saturday. We talked about this.”
“I know…” I stand, filled with a sudden rush of restless energy. I fluff the navy blue pillows on my couch and drift to the tall windows that look out on a row of brownstones freckled with air conditioner window units. “Rochelle needed some slides for a conversation with a sales leader.”
In the dying light of another summer day, I peek at my fire escape Eden, which makes up for being totally illegal by adding some much-needed greenery to the otherwise cement-colored landscape. My botanical babies look ready for a night of beauty sleep. I lovingly pull closed the glorious, gauzy curtains that set me back a week’s pay.
“So you needed to work on a Saturday”—Mom’s voice fills the room—“because Rochelle’s arms are broken and she can’t do it herself?”
“No, she’s my manager. It’s an assignment,” I say, gaze bouncing around my apartment for more to do. A moment later, with my telescoping duster in hand, I demolish an errant cobweb dangling from the crown molding overhead. Can’t blame a spider for having great taste in New York real estate, but these high ceilings are all mine.
“If I’ve said it once, Penelope, I’ve said it a thousand times: they don’t pay you to work on the weekends. Or much at all, for that matter.”
She makes a disappointed noise and my stomach tenses—Pavlov’s daughter, reacting to a familiar bell. I settle cross-legged in front of the Carrara marble divot in the wall where there was once a working fireplace. Now the divot floor is covered in pools of hardened wax from the pricey coconut-scented candles I’m addicted to. I take up the little bowl and scraper tool I left there earlier.
“I mean… I could’ve done it Monday, but I figured I’d knock it out.” Proving Mom’s point about my salary, I peel chunks of wax off the floor and toss them in the bowl, which I’ll set over a pot of simmering water later. Why pay for an obscenely expensive candle twice, when you can destroy your manicure rescuing the melted wax and painstakingly repour it into a Mason jar later? The heavenly smell reminds me why I risk my super’s wrath to light candles in the fireplace at all.
“Milk gallons keep longer than your relationships, Penelope! You need to worry less about your job and more about finding someone. I don’t want you to end up like me, alone and without resources. Maryellen’s son Brian asked about you the other day, you know? I ran into him at the grocery store. He’s a realtor now.”
I wince, reducing the volume on my phone, hoping that last diatribe wasn’t loud enough for my neighbor—my nemesis—to hear. Jack usually announces his arrival by banging on our shared wall or vacuuming nonstop, but hell’s waiting room is quiet for now.
“I have resources. I have a job, remember?”
Mom continues on, ignoring my gainful employment and pivoting hard into advice for finding the right man. “I was with Monica the other day at the garden center. She said her little Sarah ended up with a guy who’s downright homely, but he’s got a great personality and is completely family-minded.”
I pause my increasingly aggressive scraping, realizing I’ve left dark streaks on the marble. “That’s nice,” I say, picturing my mother and my old high school friend’s mom discussing Sarah’s husband. Poor guy.
“Look what happened when your father left us,” Mom says, and my throat tightens. I don’t need to be reminded of the days we had a negative balance in the checking account, the times before we got back on our feet when we didn’t have enough to even buy bread. I jerk to a stand, bringing my bowl and scraper back to the kitchen.
“…so I told her,” Mom continues, oblivious to the mental rabbit hole I’m in danger of falling down, “if you ask me, those societies with arranged marriages have the right idea. You need to look at the family. The bank account. The whole package. Leave the emotion out of it. Forget about looks unless he’s got money enough to pay you out when it all ends. If your father had at least had any money… No, forget looks. You need to tell your boss you—”
Her advice is interrupted by the roaring drone of Jack’s vacuum, so loud and close it might as well be hoovering my ear canal.
