Here Comes Treble
Late Sunday morning, I pulled into my mom’s driveway and texted her to come out. My mother, carrying a huge lavender gift bag adorned with an obscenely large silver bow, slid into the passenger’s seat of my car.
“You can put that in the back,” I told her as she balanced the present on her lap.
“I’ll hold it,” she said. “It might break.”
“Well, put it on the floor between your legs, then,” I said. “It’s blocking my side-view mirror.”
My mom reached down, pointedly picked up a grimy gym towel from my floor, and tossed it into the backseat before setting her gift down.
“How’s my celebrity baby?” Her hand reached over and squeezed my knee.
“Your celebrity baby is wiped out.” I reached for my massive coffee and took a swig before backing out of the driveway. Ever since Darius aired his segment on my practice Tuesday night, right after the second round of the trivia tournament (Dorothy and the Tin Man were currently in a four-way tie for first; we were gonna get Dax that money), Tina and I had been fielding requests from potential patients and answering notes of congratulations from other people in my life.
Darius had been right. People in Chicago now saw me as the concierge doctor, and they wanted in. It was an uptown problem, for sure, but I hated to turn people down or tell them no, which was the position I now found myself in. I had planned to take on a few more patients at some nebulous point in the future, but things were getting out of hand. I had an actual waiting list now, and I had to carefully consider how much new work I was prepared to take on, meaning how much of my already paltry personal life I was willing to give up.
“It was a great segment,” my mom said. “The knitting ladies were talking about it all week. They came over to Regina’s to watch it again with us on Friday morning.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“We kept going on and on about how Regina’s son is in love with a celebrity.”
Serenity now. “Mom, Rob and I have been on two dates together. Let’s cool it with the love talk.” And we kissed, sure, but I was a thirty-nine-year-old woman in the twenty-first century. I could kiss people without it bringing scandal upon the ton.
“Rob has very nice things to say about you.”
I drew in a deep breath and flipped on my blinker, focusing on merging onto 294. “I have nice things to say about him, too, but we’re just getting to know each other.” I left out the part about how I was also getting to know Darius, because I wanted to avoid the emotional baggage that would come with causing my mother’s head to explode. “Besides, you should watch what you say around Mrs. Casey.”
“Regina? Why?”
I veered right toward I-90. “Because she needs to focus on her health, not pipe dreams about me and Rob getting married.”
“It’s not a pipe dream, though. Not according to Rob, anyway.”
My chest tightened. “What?”
She patted my knee. “Honey, you can drop the charade. Rob told us all about how you guys are ‘getting to know each other’ with the ultimate goal of settling down.”
I rubbed my temple. “Rob told you that.”
“Yes.”
I focused hard on the cars in front of me as I chewed my lip and willed away a headache I could feel coming on. Rob knew about Darius. He knew that I’d wanted to keep our situation quiet, especially from our mothers, yet he’d gone and burst our circle of trust.
Because the truth was, I honestly wasn’t sure yet who I’d pick. I liked the familiarity and the security of being with Rob. I could marry Rob, and my life would stay pretty much the same.
But Darius offered something completely different—excitement and adventure. And, judging by how things were going after his segment aired, a lot of money and career success.
I was choosing between two very disparate options, and both appealed to me equally. In the back of my mind, Dax’s warning to marry for the right reasons tried to wiggle in, but I ignored it. Who decided “love” was the one right reason to get married anyway?
“How’s Mrs. Casey doing?” I asked my mom, changing the subject away from my romantic life.
“She’s been feeling pretty bad because of the chemo,” Mom said. “We had to bring knitting to her on Friday.”
I carefully changed lanes.
“She’s waiting on some tests now, to get a better sense of how far the cancer has spread.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I said. “She’s doing everything she’s supposed to do, and her doctors are great.” I’d done some research into Dr. Stucco, and he was legit. He’d take good care of Mrs. Casey.
“You’re probably right.”
I glanced over. My mom was staring out the window, pensive. “You okay, Mom?”
After a few beats, she said, “I lost your dad, and now I’m about to lose my best friend.”
I reached over and squeezed her hand. “You have me.”
“I know, sweetie. And your brother and the kids… But you all have your own lives.” She turned toward me, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry for bugging you so much about Rob. It’s just that…the two of you together gives me hope. Maybe you’ll get married and move next door, and maybe I won’t be alone.”
“Mom,” I said, a lump in my throat. “You can’t count on that. I mean, it could happen—really, it could; I promise—but don’t dwell on it.”
My mom had never really had to get out there and meet people. She never spent much time alone. After my dad died, she threw all her focus to her friends, doing knitting and playing Bunco and volunteering at the church. And she’d done it all with Mrs. Casey by her side.
“I know you’re sad about Mrs. Casey, but you can’t wait around hoping nothing changes or that folks will come to you. You’ve got to get out there and try new things, get to know new people, for yourself.”
That was what I was doing with Rob and Darius: being proactive, finding someone with a similar worldview with whom I could build a life. I could no longer count on Kelly and Yessi to be there for me, so I had to put myself out there and live the way I saw fit.
“That’s good advice,” she said.
“Well, I am a very famous doctor.”