Chapter Four Lily #3
The man is leaning in closer and closer. Mom is smiling, but it’s hard to tell if the attention is wanted or not. Like I said, she’s a magnet, even in slippers.
The man’s younger, smarmier counterpart is leering at me, a smirk teasing his lips.
“Oh no.”
When Rose returns, her cheeks are flushed.
“Who was that?” I ask. “Did he ask you out?”
“Who?” says Rose, playing dumb.
I roll my eyes. “The man at the bar who was obviously hitting on you.”
“Oh.” Her blush deepens. “Yes, I suppose he did.”
“Are you going to go?” Josie’s glee is apparent. She claps her hands together in excitement. “He was handsome!”
Josie thinks everyone is handsome.
“Maybe,” says Rose, suddenly shy. “I don’t know.”
I often wonder why she doesn’t date more.
I know she wanted to protect me when I was younger, but I always assumed—and hoped—that when I went off to college, she would find someone.
Now, with Lottie gone, too, I worry about her future loneliness.
Nantucket is a beautiful place, but at the end of the day, it’s an isolated one, too.
I don’t want my mom to become an island of her own.
“You should go,” I encourage, even though the man isn’t exactly my cup of tea. I want my mom to know she has my blessing. “You should give it a try.”
“You think?” Rose scrunches up her nose, considering. “Maybe.”
We’re silent for a moment as she seems to contemplate the idea, but I’ve moved on to something else that is still bothering me. “Hey, Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“When we were talking earlier about the ‘can’t eat, can’t sleep’ kind of love, you said it wasn’t like that for you and my father, but it seemed like you had someone else in mind. Who was it?”
Her blush is now maroon. “Oh, never mind all that.”
“Wait, this sounds juicy! Tell me more!” chimes in Josie. I’m surprised she doesn’t know either. Rose has always been reticent, quietly stoic and self-sacrificing, but surely she must have told someone about this mystery man?
“It’s in the past,” says Rose, waving dismissively. “Ancient history.”
“Come on, tell us!” insists Josie.
Rose squirms in her seat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mom squirm before. She’s usually preternaturally composed.
“Oh, look!” she says, changing the subject. “It’s Lottie’s favorite song. We have to dance.” Over the speaker system, “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon is playing.
“But no one’s dancing!” Josie laughs. She’s right. The bar is packed but everyone is either sitting at tables or standing in their own small clusters.
“Well, then we have to be the trendsetters,” Rose declares. “You know, in some countries it’s illegal to sit down during a Carly Simon song.”
Josie shrugs and gets up, and without another thought, the two of them begin twirling each other around, circling the bar. A few sailors nod appreciatively as they dance through the crowd.
“Come on, Lily. Join us!” Mom does an elaborate moonwalk in my direction. I can’t help but laugh at how ridiculous they look.
“Fine, fine,” I give in, joining them.
We spin together in a practiced move we’ve had down since I was a little girl: the pretzel.
My mom would build a fort in the living room and pretend we were camping outside with lanterns.
She hung glow-in-the-dark stars from the ceiling.
At eight o’clock, there would be s’mores melted over oven burners until they were blackened.
At ten o’clock, we would watch Dancing with the Stars and imitate the contestants.
The weight in my chest from the Henry sighting momentarily lightens, and my heart unclenches as we sing along to the song.
“Hey, how about I step in and give you a proper dancing partner?” A man appears behind us, tapping Rose on the shoulder.
It’s the guy from the bar, the younger one who laughed at me. He makes a disgusting winking motion, the left side of his mouth pulled upward like an invisible fishhook is attached to it. He boxes me out, grabbing my mom by the waist and stepping on her slipper.
Rose jolts back a step. “Oh, that’s sweet but I’m old enough to be your mother.” She wiggles out of his grasp, trying to disentangle herself without being rude.
This is Rose’s fatal flaw; she’s always so worried about hurting someone else, she makes herself uncomfortable.
“I assure you, you do not look like my mother.”
From behind him, the sound of his cronies laughing. The older man, the one who asked out Rose, is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he went off to the bathroom or to another bar on the wharf. I wonder if he would disapprove, step in.
Rose gingerly removes the guy’s hand from her hip like she is removing a leech. “I’m dancing with my daughter tonight.”
She pinches my cheeks and wraps an arm around my shoulders, and we turn to spin away from him.
I’m still heartbroken, still a mess, and I can tell the bruises from my fall at the grocery store are already beginning to form—another physical reminder of Henry—but in this moment, I feel blessed.
I’m lucky, I think. I’m lucky, and life cannot be so bad if I am so lucky as to still be here, dancing with my mom.
The man looks from me to Rose and back again as we twirl away, beyond his reach.