The line is quiet as I consider it all.
Her.
“Funny, isn’t it?” Grace asks finally.
“How so?”
“That you end up with the woman you need, not the woman you asked for.”
I realize it’s true; Imogen is the woman I need. “It’s too late,” I tell Grace. “I fucked it up. Walked away.”
“Never too late, Neil. She said you were emotionally unavailable, right?”
“Right.”
I can practically hear Grace smile through the phone. “So you need to prove to her that isn’t true.”
“But—”
Grace cuts me off. “Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. Make a grand gesture. If you’ve met the woman you want, you need to let her know.”
I end the call, and immediately know what I need to do.
“Linsey,” I say, calling her into my office. “I know I’ve been an ass for the better part of two years—”
She tries to cut me off. “But you lost Marg—”
I lift a hand. “No. Losing my wife doesn’t give me an excuse to treat the people in my life like crap. You deserve more. You’re getting a raise.”
“I am?” Her face lights up.
“Yes, but under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You help me win back the woman of my dreams.”
7
IMOGEN
“No, Mom, I’m not exaggerating.” We are eating our biweekly cobb-hold-the-bacon and she is trying to understand why the date was such a disaster.
“But you said he was handsome, right?”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it. He was judgy and too quiet and I know what he thinks of me.”
“What’s that?” she asks, her fork poised midair.
“Mom, he thought he was on a date with the woman you described in the application. Just exactly what did you say? Because clearly, I wasn’t it.”
Mom waves her fork in the air. “What does it matter now? The date was terrible, by the sounds of it. I mean, I wanted it to work for the trip, but clearly you aren’t in place to date a man—”
She stops mid sentence when she realizes I am crying. Why am I crying?
“Why the theatrics, Imogen?”
I dab my eyes with the cloth napkin. “It’s not theatrics, Mother, it’s…” I sniffle, trying to collect myself. “It’s … love.”
“Love?” Mom looks at me, deadpan. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Neil,” I moan. “I know it’s crazy. And insane and improbable, but...” I toss the napkin in the air, the truth of it so freaking clear. “I’m not being dramatic. I’m being honest.”
“About a man you’ve only met once?” Mom purses her lips tightly.
“Isn’t this what you wanted? Me to fall madly in love with someone so you could talk about it on Facebook?”
Mom sighs, as theatrically as me. “Darling, I just want you to be happy.”
“I’m not,” I tell her. “I’m not happy at all. I love Neil. A man who thinks I’m a joke.”
“Well, why did the date go so poorly, exactly?” She straightens her shoulders. “I mean, if it’s love — as you so bluntly put it — why did it end in such a disaster?”
“Because I’m a mess and he wants a cookie cutter girl. Because I don’t fit in his life — and it’s for the best, really, he’s too closed off. But …” I twist my lips. “But I wish…”
“What, Imogen?”
“That I could get one more chance.”
“You really think you love a man you hardly know?”
I smile. “You told me that with Dad you knew after one lecture.” Dad was Mom’s professor. If that isn’t scandalous I don’t know what is.
“It was a different time.”
“Love doesn’t change.”
“When did you start dispensing pearls of wisdom?” Mom eyes me, not looking at her wine or salad. Just me. And for the first time in, like, forever… I think she might see me. Like, the real Imogen.
I shrug flippantly. “I’m an artist, Mother. I have loads of sage advice, just looking for the right canvas.”
Mom bites back a smile.
I laugh. “Okay, and I follow a lot of inspirational accounts on Instagram.”
Mom nods. “That makes more sense.”
“But I mean it, Mom. I’m in love with a man I just met.”
“Why do you love him?”
My cheeks go bright red and Mom sees through it.
“You slept with him?”
Shameless as ever, I nod. We’ve never tiptoed around sex — she got me on birth control when I was sixteen. At her core, she is a realist. “Yeah,” I say. “And it wasn’t just sex. It was … it was everything. But more than that … when I was with him, I felt like … like …”
“He knew you?”
I nod, exhaling. “But the problem was after that. We started talking and everything fell apart. He wanted whatever kind of woman you described on the application.”
“Type A, basically.”
I roll my eyes. “Mom, how did you think this would end?”
“I didn’t expect you to fall in love. I just wanted you to attract the kind of man I think would suit you best.”