“But what if I don’t want to go back?”
“What are you talking about? You’re going to work in offices for the rest of your life?”
“It’s a job, Mom. And there’s nothing wrong with working in offices. It’s the sort of low-stress work environment that will let me focus on my writing when I’m not there. I don’t want a job that comes home with me every night; I don’t want to work at some high-stress company.”
“How is your writing going, anyway?”
I bit my lip, not wanting to lie to her, but not wanting to admit that I hadn’t worked on anything in at least a month. Maybe more. This whole thing with Noah was just completely taking my focus away from pretty much everything else. What made things worse was the fact that she was working on a book of her own, though a nonfiction one, something about the effects of women’s empowerment on economic growth. In other words, something that I’d never write about, but there was now a rather unpleasant competitive underpinning whenever she asked me about writing.
“I’ve had a lot going on lately,” I said, purposefully not asking her about her own book, which I was sure was going swimmingly. “I’m . . . I’m thinking about moving to a new place.”
She had been about to take a sip of her coffee, but after I spoke, she put her cup down before it had the chance to reach her lips. “You’re what?” she said.
“Thinking of moving.”
“Daisy—you live in a rent controlled apartment. Do you have any idea what people are paying these days for a one-bedroom? It’s insane. It’s simply unaffordable. There’s no way your salary as a secretary is going to be able to cover it.”
“Admin,” I said.
My mother looked at me irritably. “What?”
“I’m not a secretary.”
“Whatever you want to call it. You’re working in an office, and not as the CEO. I would strongly suggest that you not give your apartment up, unless you’re planning to move to Saugus or something. Why do you want to move? I thought you loved your apartment. What brought all of this on? Are you having some sort of quarter-life crisis? I heard a segment on the radio the other day about that. One of my colleagues is actually writing a book about it as we speak. Carl Weiland. Remember him?”
“Not really.” Though I did have a vague recollection of a scruffy, bearded, glasses-wearing guy who I didn’t think was much older than myself.
“Well. He is, and perhaps it would behoove you to speak to him. He’s including case studies, so if you’re going through one of these things right now, then it very well could be in your best interest to speak to him about this.”
I sighed. My mother always had some colleague or associate who was writing this or working on that, and perhaps it would be a good idea for me to get involved. I never did, if I could; I tried to stay as far away from that sort of thing as I could. My whole life my mother had been analyzing me, critiquing me, not just from the standpoint of a mother, but also as a psychologist. Some people might have found such a thing helpful, but it just made me feel like I was some sort of insect that was trapped under a microscope all the time.
“I’m not going through a quarter-life crisis,” I said. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“It essentially amounts to not knowing what direction you want your life to take, and sometimes making radical changes in order to help you discover what your purpose is. According to Carl, anyway. I think the problem these days is that people your age think they’re owed something when they’re not. And that discomfort is something to run away from. Which is why I’m curious about your sudden decision to move, to start a new job, to make all these changes.”
She didn’t know about Noah. I hadn’t been planning on telling her, either, but I suddenly found myself relaying the whole story to her. Maybe she’d be able to help. My mother wasn’t the sort of person who would ever have a stalker—she simply wouldn’t allow it. Perhaps she’d have some helpful advice for me.
But when I finished my story, she was just shaking her head. “Daisy,” she said. “You’ve really got to have a better head on your shoulders when
it comes to deciding who you let into your life.”
“All I did was get a smoothie with him!”
The girl a few tables over glanced our way. I hadn’t meant to shout like that.
“And then you gave him your number, after the fact? If you knew that you didn’t want to continue any sort of relationship with him, why would you give him your number like that? Why not just be upfront and honest and tell him that you weren’t interested?”
“I . . . I don’t know. He caught me off guard. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“Well, perhaps that would have been better than leading him on like this and allowing this fantasy that he’s obviously created to perpetuate. Have you called the police?”
“No.”
“That might be the next step.”
“I didn’t think they’d be able to do anything. Because he hasn’t really done anything yet. Aside from thinking that I’m the one. Like, his soulmate or something.”
My mother didn’t respond right away; instead, she finally took that sip of her coffee and then took her time putting her cup back down. I had talked my way into some sort of trap, I knew it—I just didn’t know what yet. She had a way of doing this. She was a pro, really, when it came to this sort of thing, and though we’d never talked about it, I knew this was one of the main reasons why she and my father had gotten divorced.