women aspire to marry a doctor?”
“I didn’t aspire to marry anyone.”
“Go ahead. Rub it in.”
Mya smiled into her chest.
“I still say it isn’t fair,” Suzette said.
“What isn’t fair?” Millicent asked.
Pouring the wine, Claire said, “Don’t mind Suzette, Ms. Donahue. She’s just bitter because Jeffrey saw her naked first and still chose Mya.”
“My daughter is a goddess.”
Drolly, Mya said, “No goddess ever had this haircut.”
“Rolf’s an idiot.”
For once, Mya wasn’t even tempted to argue.
In seemingly no time at all, her mother stepped back and handed Mya a small mirror. Although still slightly shocking, evened up here and there, the tousled style looked pretty good on her, all things considered.
Her mother said, “You haven’t had hair this short—”
Their gazes locked.
With the barest lift of one penciled-on eyebrow, Millicent said, “—in a long, long time.”
Mya should have known she needn’t have worried.
Her mother was the first to look away, and Mya was left feeling a dozen emotions, none of them pleasant. So what else was new?
Oblivious, Suzette said, “What do you say we move this party out to the dining room and away from any airborne hair?” Taking a small tray in either hand, she headed for the door, disrupting Jeffrey’s three cats that had somehow wound up at Mya’s place.
“What do you have there?” Millicent asked.
“There’s crab dip with tofu and whole-wheat crackers, goat cheese and fruit and honey, and—” The door swung shut on the rest of the recitation.
Millie reached into the cabinet for the chips and into the refrigerator for the dip. “Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.” When she was certain Suzette was out of hearing range, she lowered her raspy voice and said, “If that girl gets any perkier, I’m going to bite through my tongue.” She followed Suzette to the dining room.
Mya’s thoughts exactly. It was no wonder she worried.
It was quiet in the kitchen suddenly. Too quiet. Finding Claire watching her, Mya handed over the other tray.
Claire put it right back down again. “You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?”
“Serve red wine with cheese? I’m living dangerously.”
Claire didn’t pretend to be amused.
And Mya said, “Not you, too.”
“I’ll say my piece, and then forever hold it. You’re going to get married.”
“I thought you’d be happier for me.”
“I am happy for you.” She must have read Mya’s expression, because she said, “This is my happy face.”
Another time Mya might have smiled.
Claire forged ahead. “You don’t find it at all unsettling that you accepted Jeffrey’s marriage proposal because of something Dr. Phil said on national television? Love is a decision. Where does he get this stuff? Will I take a cruise or climb Mount Everest? Shall I fix green beans for supper, or corn? Should I flunk the kid I caught cheating today or call him in and talk to him? Those are decisions. Trust me, love is not a decision.”
“You don’t believe I love Jeffrey?”
“I think you’re fond of Jeffrey, much the way you’re fond of your new living-room rug. Jeffrey is a nice guy. In fact, there should be a law against anybody being that nice, Suzette notwithstanding.”
“What’s wrong with nice?”
Claire gaped. “You chew up nice people for breakfast and spit them out before lunch.”
“How flattering.”
“Come on, Mya. A woman like you hasn’t remained single this long for lack of opportunities. Don’t even try to tell me Jeffrey’s marriage proposal was your first.”
Mya floundered for a moment. “Now I really am flattered, because the truth is, I haven’t had all that many marriage proposals.” She prayed Claire didn’t expect her to be more specific.
“That’s because you almost never let a man close.”
Relieved, Mya said, “Jeffrey is attentive, intelligent, ardent and imperturbable.”
Claire fanned herself with one hand. “You’re making me hot. Tell me something. Why is it that your every description of Jeffrey begins with a vowel?”
Leave it to a high-school English teacher to notice that.
The kitchen door opened, and Suzette stuck her head inside. “Did you talk to her?”
Mya threw up her hands. “You two planned this?” Looking at these women whose personalities were at opposite ends of the spectrum, she said, “Let’s just suspend my personal belief for a moment. Let’s say love isn’t a decision, and the fact that Jeffrey makes me think, makes me feel special and safe, and he’s a good kisser isn’t enough reason to marry him. How does a woman decide who to marry?”
With a flourish, Suzette took a sheaf of papers from her oversize purse. “I put that question to my second graders this morning. Claire, did you ask your class?”
“That was an assignment gone wrong. Trust me, you don’t want to hear the results.”
Suzette nodded. “My students’ answers were problematic, too.”
Now Mya was curious. “What did they say?”
“Nobody believes in true love anymore. Not even eight-year-olds.”
“Maybe they’re too young to make a decision,” Claire said.
New lease or not, Mya gave her the finger.
Waving as if at a bothersome insect, Suzette said, “I asked my students how they would decide who to marry. The smartest girl in the class said you wait until you’re old, at least twenty, and you go on a date, and if you believe half his lies, you go on another, and at the end of the summer you get married.”
Mya smiled.
Suzette didn’t. “Her best friend said you don’t decide. God does. You have to wait until you’re grown up and see who you’re stuck with. The boy who sits next to her stood up and declared that no age is a good age to get married. You got to be a fool to get married.”
“Nine
