She looks at me and starts sobbing words. All I can make out phonetically is something like, “I JUST, MRAAAAAA.”
“Whoa, hey, holy shit.” I drop my backpack on the floor and rush over to the sofa. She slides to the very end to make room for me, pushing herself with just her feet the way a kid would, her upper body remaining limp. A half-empty value pack of Twizzlers is tossed on the coffee table, the packaging ripped nearly in half. This is a bad sign, as Twizzlers are her sad food.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, alarmed.
She continues to cry and shakes her head.
“Can you . . . try to tell me?”
These crying jags are frequent enough that I’ve developed an efficient strategy: half Gilmore Girls, half Jeopardy! I’ll take Is It a Guy? for five hundred.
“Is it a guy?” I ask.
She nods, her face scrunching up and her eyes squeezing closed. It usually is, although occasionally it’s a work thing, and, in one particularly scary white wine–fueled instance, an “I should have been a better mother” thing. This I could deal with.
“I thought we agreed to save emergency texts for actual dismemberment,” I joke. She just looks at me. Her makeup has dripped down her face.
On our tiny TV, Bridget Jones bemoans how fat she is. In the two years since my dad left, I have watched a countless number of these movies with Dawn, but I will never get over how fucked up they are. I wrinkle my nose.
“I’ll be honest with you; I’m not sure this is helping.”
I mute the movie, and Dawn smiles, wan. She appears to have gotten a little calmer and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, sniffling.
“So, what happened?”
“I went on a really good date.” She sighs.
“From Match?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re crying? I don’t understand.”
“God. It’s just not gonna work out. You know?”
“Why? Is he married or something?” Or a squatter? Or a twenty-five-year-old who said he’s thirty-seven because he “likes cougars”? Or prone to saying “I know I’m not black, but . . .”? Just a couple of her old chestnuts.
“No. I mean, not that I know of. I just . . . something’s bound to be wrong with him, right? If he’s single at this age?”
“Not necessarily! You’re single at this age.”
Dawn glares at me.
“I mean, your age! Okay, sorry, you’re single at ‘an’ age.”
“That’s different. Single moms have a harder time.”
Inside, I wince with guilt. Like, she could’ve just named me Baggage Joan Epstein and then at least we’re all being honest.
“Well, I don’t know! Maybe you’re catching a break! I mean, finally, you know? You gotta climb up a mountain before you . . . I don’t know. Something!”
As she watches me, clinging to every positive word I say like a life raft, I desperately try to come up with a home run. She is a big fan of inspirational quotes, saying “morning affirmations” in the mirror and all that stuff. To my dismay, as I’m grasping for something, her face begins to squinch up again. There’s gotta be some beautiful, enlightening parable that’ll make her feel better.
I blurt, “Did you see on the news the other day, that lady in Cincinnati who found a chicken fetus in her McNugget?”
“What?” Dawn recoils. “Sweetie, ew.”
“Yeah, so, um, she ordered a six-piece McNugget, and she bit into one, and it made a weird noise, so she spit it out and saw that it was, like . . . a little unhatched chicken fetus. With, you know, breading or whatever.”
Dawn is incredibly grossed out. I’d better cut to the chase.
“So, like—maybe that lady got a defective McNugget that one time. Or maybe even, like, a few other times. Probably not, because, I mean, it’s unlikely, statistically speaking! But still so!”
I’m actually starting to work myself up with the disgusting pep talk at this point, but she still doesn’t look like she’s buying it. I soldier on.
“If that person really, really loved McNuggets, should a couple of chicken fetuses stop her from staying positive and getting right back into a McDonald’s and taking a chance on more McNuggets?” I ask passionately.
“It probably . . . um, should . . .” she says faintly.
“No! It should NOT!” I’m totally into this now.
Dawn looks perplexed. “I mean, do they keep going to the same McDonald’s? Because it seems like there are some major health violati—”
“Okay, I know, it’s not a perfect metaphor. My point is, a couple of chicken fetuses shouldn’t stop you from living your life! You see what I’m saying here?”
We both sit there sort of nodding encouragingly at each other for a couple of minutes like dashboard bobbleheads.
“I guess so.” She gains traction, her face brightening. “Yeah. I guess. I mean, right?”
“Totally!”
“Yeah. You’re right.”
“I mean, McYolo, you know?”
“Absolutely. No, you’re right. I just need to be positive.”
Satisfied that I’ve diffused the worst of this crisis, I snatch a Twizzler.
“What’s the guy’s name?” I ask, gnawing on it.
She smiles tentatively. “Brian.”