whine about wanting a nicer house. She says she only reads those magazines for work, but, honestly, they’re like crack to her.
Sure enough, I find her nose-deep in the Mother of All House Porn, Architectural Digest, her frosted hair covering her face. She doesn’t look up, but I hear her sniff.
“Mom?”
She shakes her head a little, turning away. Is she crying?
“What’s the matter?”
Finally, she looks at me, her face streaked with rivers of black mascara, her eyes red, her lower lip trembling. What the heck? She so isn’t a cryer.
“What’s wrong?”
Her hands are shaking as she holds the magazine out to me, saying nothing, as if the pictures and words do that for her. But all I see is some museumlike place with fountains and statues and water views from every floor-to-ceiling window. The headline reads “Living a Flawless Life.”
“This could have been mine,” she says in a strangled voice.
Hers? Her what? “Your listing?” I ask.
“My house.”
I give it another glance, still clueless. “What are you talking about?”
“Him.” She flips a page and points to a guy in scrubs, hands on hips, big phony grin. “Jim Monroe.”
“Who is he?”
“Dr. Jim Monroe,” she repeats, sliding her hand to another picture, where the same guy stands in front of a building with two giant gold intertwined F’s behind him. “The cosmetic surgeon who started Forever Flawless?”
“Oookay.” I think I’ve seen this guy on TV, hawking a chain of plastic-surgery centers popping up all over the country like they’re McDonald’s, but that doesn’t explain the tears. “Why are you crying?”
“I could have married him, Annie,” she says, another harsh whisper, as though saying the words out loud is somehow wrong. “I dated him in college. He went to med school at Pitt.”
“Really?” Totally did not know Mom had a doctor boyfriend pre-Dad. I take another look at the magazine, and Jim. Not bad-looking, in a young Ben Stiller kind of way, maybe midforties. And, whoa, dripping in dollars. “Yowza, this guy’s loaded.”
She snorts softly. “Estimated net worth of over a billion.”
Holy crap. “With a B?”
“Billion,” she repeats, swiping some mascara and smearing it across her cheek. “Look at that house, Annie. Just … look.”
“It’s nice.” Which is like saying the ocean is wet. Mom hands the magazine to me so she can dig a tissue out of her bag, and I skim the article, picking up key words. Words like … “twenty-three-thousand square feet” … “Star Island in Miami Beach” … “pizza oven in the kitchen.” “He’s got his own pizza oven?”
“Look at the last paragraph,” she says, her voice cracking. “Read it.”
Our tour ended in the master bedroom, where Dr. Monroe showed off the cavern of a “Hers” walk-in closet. Only there is no “her” in Jim Monroe’s life. “I’m still waiting for my princess,” he says with a wistful smile. “And, no, she doesn’t have to be flawless, just fabulous.”
I throw up a little in my mouth.
“I came so close.” Mom blows her nose, and I cringe, praying that no one hears. “So close to having that.”
She stuffs the tissue back into her purse and takes the magazine from me, staring at it again.
“How close?” I ask, a little fascinated by this new side of a woman I never thought about with anyone but my dad. And am not sure I want to.
“When he finished med school, he went to do his residency in Florida. He asked me to go with him, but I still had my senior year left.”
“And he wouldn’t wait for you to graduate and marry you then?”
She hesitates, a little color returning to her face. “Well, to be honest, he never really … proposed—he just talked about us being together. But he would have,” she adds quickly. “I’m sure he would have. But he wanted to live together first.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Oh, probably because of Nana. She said men don’t pay for the cow if they get the milk for free.”
Yep, that sounds like my grandmother. “But this dude can pay for a whole farm.” Interesting that he never bought one, staying single long past the age when it’s cool. “Did you see him after he moved?”
She stares at the page. “After college I met Daddy, and I was going to go see Jim, but …” Her voice trails off. “Things happened, you know.”
I know. My birthday is seven months after their wedding anniversary.
She blows out an exasperated breath and gives me a shaky smile. “Jim Monroe never really offered more than … cohabitation. Then I met your