It’s just that I happen to love fun and sex more.
She watches me closely. “Good. I’m just trying to say that even though I love your father and I’ll never be the same without him, the bad outweighs the good. Even if I knew I would lose him, I would have still fallen in love. I don’t regret a thing. I just want you to know, to realize, that even if you lose love, it’s never really gone. It stays in you forever. The risks of love are always worth it.”
I sigh, feeling a brick in my chest. “Okay, okay,” I say, but I’m not sure what else there is to add. I know how it must look to my mother, always perpetually single ever since I left Kyle. But I swear, I’m not afraid of love. There’s just no one out there for me and I’ve made peace with that. If you can’t find a man to share your heart with, well…share your vagina with him instead.
Of course, at the moment I’m not doing that either. Maybe that’s why I’m getting so worked up and frustrated about life.
I leave my mom’s and head back into the city, my mind running over her words. She tells me not to be afraid of love, but it blows my mind how she can even say that. She said she would never be the same without my father…how can that not scare you? How can you just keep going with that loss, believing in love even when it’s left you? The amount of hope and faith involved is staggering.
That night, I barely sleep a wink. It isn’t just what my mother said. It’s my nerves. Stupid nerves. I can’t remember the last time I was nervous. I don’t get nervous.
And yet here I am, a nervous pervous, thinking about the interview tomorrow, feeling all the pressure that wasn’t there before.
I’m still anxious when I wake up. I head into work, feeling like I swallowed a ball of electricity. I’m like this all the way until before lunch, then it intensifies until I’m practically jumping out of my skin.
I have to admit, the excitement, even over something so simple, is intoxicating. I decide to roll with it, to stay positive. I’m going to win this man over. I’m going to get the best interview of my life. Well, so far, the only interview of my life.
I grab my bag and head to the washroom to make sure I’m looking just right. I’m wearing skinny black capri pants with zebra print loafers, and an eggplant silk blouse that shows just a hint of what little cleavage I have. My hair is loose today, long and wavy, and so shiny it resembles a pool of oil (thanks to me going overboard this morning with hair glosser). My dad was from Iceland (that’s actually where my parents met), and while I inherited my mother’s thick black hair, I also inherited his wavy texture that goes AWOL when it’s humid.
I look…respectable. Maybe even hot, especially if I toss my hair over my shoulder and slick on some nude lip gloss. I hope he’ll take me seriously and want to bone me at the same time.
I make some last minute adjustments, ignore the texts coming in from Nicola and Stephanie and Bram who are all wishing me luck (and therefore making this out to be a bigger deal than it actually is), and make my way across the streetcar tracks to the ferry building.
Blue Bottle Coffee is an SF institution and kind of a hipster mecca, and just as I suspected, there’s a giant line snaking out into the building’s airy hall. The café attached has limited seating, but I was hoping that once we got our coffees we could go outside and stare at the ferries and the Bay Bridge. I mean, pretend to stare at the ferries and the Bay Bridge, while I’ll be scoping out his ass. Thank god for dark sunglasses.
But for the life of me, I don’t see Lachlan anywhere.
I casually fish my phone out of my purse to check, but there’s nothing on the screen except for my Orphan Black wallpaper. I get in line for coffee instead and hope that I’m not being stood up.