Why I Love Singlehood: (5 page)

“Oh yeah?” I shot back, my vision blurred with tears I refused to blink away. “And you think they’d be so proud of you answering phones? That takes a lot of skill!”

She made a strange, strangled sound, and several moments passed before she spoke again.

“I can’t believe how selfish you are,” she said. I’d never heard her voice so cold. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that I might want to get married and have a family of my own? You’re my sister, not my daughter! You think I wanna spend the rest of my life taking care of you? It’s time to grow up! For both of us!”

She pushed away from the table and left me crying in silence that pounded at my ears. I didn’t see her again until later that night when she slipped into my room and onto the corner of my bed. I pretended to be asleep, but she saw right through it. She sat with me and rubbed my back for nearly an hour. It was probably the worst fight we’d ever had.

The food processor interrupted my memories as it pulverized organic graham crackers while the butter melted in a saucepan on the stovetop. I combined the two and pressed the mixture into Mom’s torte pan—I refused to use any other—before putting it in the oven and moving on to the custard.

The best part of lemon torte is making the custard. Today I had chosen two perfect lemons—bright yellow and blushing green in just the right spots—and I could almost hear my father behind me trying to coerce me into doubling the sugar, just like he used to do with my mother. Like me, he had no taste for sour things and would squinch his face after every jaw-pinching bite of the torte before licking his fork clean and spearing more. I think I could make lemon custard with my eyes closed, letting the pull of the spoon tell me when it’s heated enough to set just right. After removing the custard from the stove to cool in the fridge, Mom would give Olivia the spoon. We had a system: Olivia got the custard leftovers (her favorite part), and I got the crust crumbs (my favorite part).

I slid the bowl into the fridge, and my memories continued.

I had been vehemently opposed to selling the house at first, but Olivia said that it would be nothing more than an empty tomb if we held on to it. She didn’t want to live there, and I didn’t want to live there without her. The truth was that I was afraid to leave home, to lose the last remnant of the family I once had, to never know the feeling of home again. And I didn’t want to go out into the world where nothing was safe or sure, but I’d never considered that Olivia was itching to get out into the very world I was avoiding.

So that was that. We sold the house and split the money, of which my half went towards my tuition and living expenses at SUNY Stony Brook as an English major. From there I went on to a master of fine arts degree in creative writing at NCLA, thanks to a scholarship. And when I’d written a novel as my thesis project and it was published, receiving favorable critical reviews, my value increased tenfold.

Sitting at an oval-shaped table in yet another English department conference room, facing yet another hiring committee for yet another tenure-track position, my novel and copies of my curriculum vita were spread out like evidence in a police interrogation. Words like “impressive” and “promising” danced about the air.

And then I smelled it:
bread
.

A nearby sandwich shop in the campus student center had just finished baking several loaves, and the wind directed the heavenly aroma right into the open conference room window, like a telegram delivered just for me. My academic life then flashed before my eyes—but instead of seeing myself delivering papers at conferences and attending guest lectures or book signings, grading papers and advising students, the images were of me bringing chocolate chip cookies to study groups and baking birthday cakes for my fellow grad students. When I was a TA, I’d been invited to serve on faculty committees with hopes that I’d attend meetings armed with pitchers of smoothies or platters of lemon bars. The other stuff—grading and lecturing and publishing and all that—suddenly seemed like an indefinite sentence of manual labor.

“Eva?” the creative writing program director had piped. “Is something wrong?”

I hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

I left the interview that day vowing to never go on another, and the following day, I applied for a business loan to open a coffee shop. For the next year, I turned down job offers and stayed on faculty as an adjunct at North Carolina Liberal Arts College until The Grounds was up and running. Of course, being a tenured professor would have given me prestige, my own office with a window and my name on the door, and some job security. But being in a place where I could both bake and gather with the college crowd less than a mile away from campus seemed like the natural thing to do.

Leaving Olivia in New York was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done—worse even than selling the house and packing up all of our parents’ belongings. For the first two weeks, I had called every night (and sometimes the following morning) and cried, pleading for her to either come get me and take me home or to pack up and move down South with me.

“It’ll get easier,” she promised. “You’ll see.”

“Don’t you miss me at all?” I once cried.

A quiet sob followed a long pause before she answered, “You’ll thank me later.”

She was right. On all counts.

After pouring this year’s custard into the shell, I drizzled the raspberry glaze on with darting strokes, the spoon leading my hand and wrist.

When I dialed Olivia’s number and got her voice mail, I hung up without leaving a message, satisfied at having heard her voice, at least. I sliced the torte into slivers and arranged them on a plate for my customers to help themselves.

“What’s the occasion?” Scott asked as he sampled a sliver. I shrugged without saying a word. “Whatever it is, we should celebrate it more often. This rocks.”

I had not been conversational all day, not even when Shaun walked in and ordered a mochaccino, looking at the plate that still contained a few slivers.

“I thought so,” said Shaun.

“Excuse me?” I asked while handing him his drink and collecting his money.

“It’s Lemon Torte Day.”

He remembered.

I looked into Shaun’s eyes, and time stopped. They reflected compassion, the warm gaze of a lover who held me on the anniversaries of my parents’ deaths, when Olivia wasn’t there to rub my back while I cried. The man who kissed me after one bite of lemon torte; I could taste the custard on his tongue. My Shaun. Soon to belong to the Jeanette. Where had he been all this time? Why had he left?

“Thank you,” I said, my voice breaking just above a whisper.

I excused myself and went into the back room, where I sat on the edge of the desk in the cramped office and took several deep breaths. A photo of Mom, Dad, Olivia, and me at Disneyworld—all wearing Mickey Mouse ears—watched me from the upper right-hand corner of the desk. I was ten, Olivia was fourteen, and Mom and Dad were in their midforties. They looked so young and vibrant and healthy. We were all so happy. I buried my face in my hands and cried.

The door to the office opened, and I uncovered my face to see Norman holding it for Shaun. I’d never seen that look on Norman’s face, one of paralyzed uncertainty, as Shaun entered and hugged me close. How I wanted to hate Shaun in that moment, to tell him to go away and never come back, to curse him for leaving me just as my parents had done. At least they had a good excuse. But instead I held on to him, inhaling his scent and wishing for the moment to last, if only to have him back again.

When I regained my composure and emerged from the back room with Shaun, my eyes still glassy, Norman didn’t ask why I was upset, didn’t say a word. Just whispered in my ear that I could go home if I wanted to. I shook my head; I was already home, I said. He kissed me on my cheek.

The torte was long gone by the time Olivia returned my call.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I answered. “Happy Torte Day,” I said sadly.

“Yeah,” her voice was soft, faded like the edges of my memories. “You too.”

Friends First

SITTING ON MY
bed after work, perusing Facebook and other blogs, I stared at my laptop screen before opening up Google’s homepage. I then stared at the empty Search box, waiting for me to make a move. As if my hands were on automatic pilot, the letters appeared in lowercase form, one by one: l-o-v-e-m-a-t-c-h-.-c-o-m.

Enter.

The homepage appeared and two more blank boxes stared at me, asking for my username and password.
Not a member? Sign up now!

My focus remained fixed on the screen. An abnormally gorgeous couple practically batted their eyelashes at me. The next thing I knew, I was filling in more blank boxes with my name, address, date of birth, ethnicity, height, body type, eye and hair color, astrological sign, religion, political affiliation, likes and dislikes, and checking boxes of my ideal match. Blue eyes. Non-smoker. Six feet tall. Average build. No terrorists, stalkers, or Toby Keith fans. Libertarians and/or Independents optional. Divorced fathers optional. Married fathers definitely out.

I paused again, the cursor hovering on the tagline.
Friends first
, I finally typed. Then I found a photo—one of me leaning my elbow on the counter, wearing a slate gray shirt that almost perfectly matched my eyes. Minerva had taken it with her cell phone, I think, as I rested my chin on my hand, my unruly chestnut hair spilling down to frame a half smile. I uploaded it and clicked
Submit
.

A half hour later, as I lay in the dark on my back, staring at the ceiling and waiting to fall asleep, I spoke out loud: “Aw, crap. What the hell did I do that for?”

Busted

WITHIN THE FIRST
week of posting my profile on Lovematch.com, I’d received three “winks,” two invitations for coffee (I’d made the mistake of admitting that I spend the majority of my time in a coffee shop without mentioning the crucial detail of owning it), and one guy told me I was “incredibly sexy”—how does one discern that from a snapshot of someone who’s leaning on a countertop?