yourself again? I worry about you getting lonely, with Penny gone.”
“I’ll be fine,” I tell her, but the truth is, she’s right. I already am lonely.
“Let me go over to Bess’s and get the address. If the place is still available. Apparently, it’s real cute. ‘Just darling!’ Bess said. And one of the women who lives there is a chef!”
Well, my mother knows how to play her cards. I love to eat and I don’t really like cooking that much, especially when it’s just for me.
“I’ll be right back. Talk to your father.”
After my mother leaves, I look around her kitchen, thinking of how difficult it was for her when she moved out of her beloved house and into this place a few years ago, though she never complained. It must have been a hard adjustment, complicated by the fact that my father had just died. But now she really likes it here.
In a couple of minutes she’s back, handing me a piece of paper with an address in Saint Paul. “The room is still available, but Bess said they’re meeting with someone who might rent it this morning. She called and made an appointment for you this afternoon. She told them not to make a decision until they’d met you.”
“Mom. I—”
“Oh, just go over and meet the people. What have you got to lose? It might just be an option to consider until you decide what you really want to do.”
This is codespeak for settle down and get married, which my mother has been waiting for me to do for … well, I would say since I was born.
My mother looks at her watch. “You’d better go, you don’t want to be late.”
“Where’s the phone number? I should call and cancel; I’m really not comfortable with this idea.”
“I don’t think she gave me the phone number,” my mother says, a tad vaguely, and before I can accuse her of purposefully not taking it, she says, “Is my lipstick in the lines?”
I lean forward to look and tell her that it is. This makes for a little prick of tenderness in my heart and now I can’t yell at her for trying to help me.
“Let me know how it goes,” she says, as I pick up my purse to head out.
“Yeah you too,” I say. “Have a nice time on your date.”
My mother puts her finger to her lips and points to my dad’s chair.
I smile. “You said it was his idea!”
I ARRIVE HALF AN HOUR EARLY TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD IN SAINT Paul where the house is. I spot a coffee shop and am about to go in when my cellphone rings. It’s Brice.
“Hey!” I say. “How are you?”
“Good, good; how about you, sweetheart?”
“I’m okay. Considering.”
He sighs. “Yeah. I know.”
“Are you doing okay?”
“Well, actually, I’m calling to tell you that I … met someone.”
I stop breathing.
“She’s not Penny. But she’s really great. And we just decided to get married.”
“Oh, wow.”
“And I wanted to tell you because …”
I manage to say, “I’m glad for you, Brice.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
“Good. I guess that’s why I was calling. I guess I wanted your permission or your blessing or something. I thought about waiting longer, but …”
“You know what Penny used to tell me all the time, Brice?”
“What?”
“People with people, good. People alone, bad. Over and over. She told me that all the time.”
“She did tell me she wanted me to get married again.”
“And I’ll bet she didn’t say a thing about waiting.”
“No, she didn’t. She told me to do it right away, in fact. Anyway. Thanks, Cece. I wanted to tell you first because you and Penny were …”
My eyes fill. “Yes. We were.”
“So.”
“So! When’s the wedding?”
“Two weeks. Would you …? You don’t want to come, do you?”
“Oh! Thanks. But … no.”
“How’s everything else? How are things with you and the dentist?”
“The dentist?”
“Yeah, isn’t your boyfriend a dentist?”
“Seamus? No, he’s a carpenter.”
“A carpenter! Right! I wonder why I said ‘dentist.’ ”
“I don’t know. They both have drills?”
He laughs. “Probably. So are things good with you and him?”
“Well, we, you know … we kind of broke up.”
“I’m sorry. Penny thought maybe he was the one for you.”
“Yeah. Almost!”
I look out the side window, where two women are getting out of their car and going into the coffee shop. They’re laughing so hard one of them has to stop walking.
“Listen, I’m just on my way to an appointment,” I say. “But I’m really glad for you. Be happy, okay?”
“Thank you. And, Cece?”
“Yes?”
“I just want to … You