All or Nothing

by Deborah Cooke

  Jen held her ground. Running away probably wouldn’t work. Her mother would follow until she’d had her say.

  “What then?” Jen asked, hearing surly sixteen in her voice again. “What’s it about?” She fully expected a lecture on being purposeful or finding herself or getting in balance again, so her mother surprised her.

  “It’s about being alone. I don’t care who you’re with, or for how long, I just hate to see you alone. Maybe lonely.” Her mother smiled softly. “You’re too wonderful a person, Jen, for me to keep you all to myself.”

  Jen said nothing. She stood there and kept her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She felt her tears rise and wondered how the hell her mother could always see right through her.

  Maybe that was her job, too.

  Natalie got up and came to stand beside her. She raised one hand to Jen’s face and caressed her skin, her words as soft as her fingertips. “Look at your hair. It’s come in all curly.”

  “I know. Might not last.” Jen’s voice was thicker than she’d expected.

  “I thought for a long time that I’d never see you like this again.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” Jen met her mother’s gaze and the compassion she found there eliminated her frustration.

  Just like that. It was a trick of her mother’s. Natalie knew how to give Jen’s sucker heart a squeeze and she did it now.

  Natalie sighed. “And I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t know what to advise you to do, or even if I should butt my nose into your business, but it seems to me that you’re just counting off the days, Jen. You seem to have insulated yourself from the world in a way I don’t understand.” Jen dropped her gaze. “It seems to me that—I don’t know—maybe you don’t believe that you’ve got this second chance. Or that maybe you’re afraid everything will be snatched away again.”

  Jen swallowed, painfully aware of what cancer had stolen from her. It hadn’t been just her breast. It had been her optimism and her sense of the future and her confidence; all of those had been sacrificed to the knife.

  Every night, she looked in the mirror and saw the scar that would never stop reminding her of everything that was gone.

  Every day, she walked among people who had no idea what it was like to have the foundation of your world ripped away.

  Much less to fear that it could happen again.

  Her mother touched her chin, compelling Jen to meet her gaze again. “But you’ve got this chance, Jen!” she said urgently. “It’s all yours. I don’t want you to miss out because you’re afraid to live.”

  Jen took a shaking breath and tried to make a joke. “So, I should find a man and get married and have babies? You sound like Gran.”

  “No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. I think you should get a date and have sex, lots of sex, because that will remind you that you’re alive and well.” Her mother grinned, looking young and mischievous. “I doubt your grandmother ever recommended that to you.”

  “No, I think I’d remember if she had.”

  “Sex is good therapy, Jen. I can recommend it on the basis of experience. An orgasm always makes me feel better about life, the universe, and everything. And the ones you give yourself don’t have that same element of surprise.” Her mom smiled and returned to her mug, filling it from the teapot.

  Jen had always suspected that other people didn’t talk so frankly to their mothers, and even after all these years of open discussion, her mother could still astound her. “So, Natalie’s tip of the day is that sex is better than masturbation?”

  “Provided you orgasm, yes.” Her mother winked. “Get a date; you’ll see. Just let me know if you plan to bring someone home and I’ll make myself scarce.”

  Bring someone home. Jen’s mind stalled on that concept. The thing was that she and her mother didn’t work with the same set of assumptions. “Mom, I’m not going to have casual sex in your house.”

  “Then have formal sex. I don’t really need to know the details.”

  “I mean, I’m not going to have sex with someone unless I’m in a serious relationship.”

  Her mother sighed and frowned, then shook her head. “I should never have let your grandmother read you all those fairy tales,” she muttered, then looked up, her face pale and delicate within that halo of reddish curls. There had been a time when Jen had thought her mother must be an angel.

  A thrice-married and thrice-divorced angel, with a child from each marriage and one son from before any of those marriages; an angel who was honest, creative, clever, and worked to her own unique moral code.

  Maybe a naughty angel.

  “Jen, this whole soul mate Mr. Right thing is a notion created by and encouraged by men to ensure that women remain virginal until they’re married, then chaste except when their husbands want something from them. It’s a notion that serves men, not women, and one that is—or should be—deader than a doornail. You can have sex with someone without an ironclad guarantee that you’ll be spending the rest of your life with him. Trust me. I know. Try it at least before you decide it doesn’t work for you.”

  “Just because I can doesn’t mean I want to. I mean, what about sexually transmitted diseases?”

  “You can spell condom: I know because I taught you.”

  “When I was twelve.”

  “It’s always better to be prepared.” Her mother rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Jen, I just want you to have some fun.”

  “I am having fun.”

  Her mother gave her a cutting look. “Do not lie to me.”

  “Okay, maybe I’m not having that much fun. I just like to believe that I’m having fun. And I’m knitting up a storm. The avocado is my biggest project yet.”

  Her mother heaved a sigh. “Lying to yourself isn’t any better than lying to me.”

  “But it’s not that simple, Mom,” Jen said, feeling dragged into a conversation she wasn’t sure she wanted to have. “It’s hard to meet people, to meet men.”

  “No, it’s easy to meet men. Your problem is that you’re trying to meet your so-called one and only, and you want to recognize him on sight.” Her mother came to her side again, and put a hand on her shoulder. “You can’t always tell a book by its cover, Jen, that’s all I’m saying. Just to mix our metaphors here, you need to get into the pool, if you’re going to prove that you can swim.”

  “What if I don’t feel like doing any laps right now?”

  “Then when will you?”

  “Someday.”

  “Prove it,” her mother said, challenge bright in her eyes. “Bring a date to Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “Mom! I can’t just order up a date, like you order a salad.”

  “You don’t have to marry him, Jen. Just bring a date, a man who is reasonably presentable, to Thanksgiving dinner at your grandmother’s. That’s all.”

  “No, that’s not all. I know you better than that.”

  Her mother contrived to look innocent and failed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Bring a date or else what?”

  Natalie grinned. “Or else I’ll start fixing you up myself.” Jen knew her horror at that prospect showed because her mother tapped the side of her mug with a fingertip. “There’s a very nice, if somewhat hirsute, young man working at the Birkenstock store, for example. I understand he writes poetry…”

  “Nooooooooooo!” Jen shouted and flung herself out of the kitchen, only half-joking. She heard her mother laughing, but knew that this was a threat her mother would act upon. Jen made an escape to work as soon as was humanly possible, though her mother still got in one last shot.

  “Remember that boy at the natural food store? He’s always asking after you…”

  Oh no. Not the bass-player-whole-grain-aficionado who never cleaned his fingernails and wanted to walk to around the world to protest the living conditions…somewhere. No, no, no. Anyone had to be better than that. Anyone had to think more clearly than that.

  Jen had to be able to find a date somewhe
re. She’d ask her older sister for help, just like she always did.

  Cin would know what to do.

  * * *

  Jen had one smidgen of time to call Cin before things got crazy. She’d taken a bit too long at the yarn store, seduced by a nubby dark green wool and silk blend that would make perfect avocado skin but which was shockingly expensive. After much deliberation, she bought it—she only needed one ball, after all.

  So she scrambled at work to get her tables set. Mulligan’s was still empty and her section was ready by five to twelve. Jen knew that the place would be packed by quarter past.

  She asked the older waitress Lucy to cover for her and called, praying that Cin would answer quickly.

  “Nature Sprouts. How can I help you?”

  “Cin, I need your help big time. Mom wants me to bring a guy for Thanksgiving dinner at Gran’s or she’ll start fixing me up.”

  “Oh no!” Cin laughed and it wasn’t a sympathetic sound. “Not the guy with the greasy little soul patch at the natural food store? Hasn’t he left to walk to Chile yet?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Cin, you’ve got to help me.” Jen tapped her toe and watched the door swing open. Two guys came in and headed for the bar.

  Not her section. She was free for another minute or two.

  “Cin? I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “No, you don’t. It’s next Thursday.” Her sister was gleeful, instead of taking this seriously as Jen thought she should.

  “Cin, this isn’t a joke.”

  “You sure sound worried about it.”

  “I don’t want to be fixed up. With anybody.”

  “You’d rather knit.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Okay, okay, no spinster-watching-the-world-go-by jokes from me. Hey, I have an idea. Remember how Mom hated Steve?”

  “I am not calling Steve,” Jen said firmly. Why did she have to hear that jerk’s name so many times in one day? “I am not going to grovel for anything from that…”

  “No, no, no. What I’m thinking is that you need to find a guy like Steve.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t have to marry him, Jen. You just need to bring him to dinner once. Three hours, tops.”

  “Just enough time for Mom to hate him. What’s your point?”

  “That would be the point. Then you can lie—oh wait, I’m talking to Miss Truth. You’ll have to learn to lie, but it’s for a good cause.”

  “You can’t lie to Mom…” Not for the first time, Jen was acutely aware of the differences between herself and her sister.

  “Trust me, it can be done, but it’s a learned skill. And it’s worth it: if Mom hates who you’re dating, she won’t want to see him again. You can just pretend you’re happily dating the invisible man and threaten to bring him to family functions every once in a while.”

  It made a dangerous kind of sense. “That sounds like something you would do.”

  “Well, you did ask me for an idea. For what it’s worth, I think it’s brilliant.”

  “But Cin, how can I be sure that Mom will hate a guy I bring home? You know how unpredictable she is.”

  “As unpredictable as a trout rising to a fly,” Cin said wryly. “All you need to find is an uptight, handsome, conservative guy. Someone who comes from money and is hot to make a bunch of it for himself, no matter what he has to do to earn it. Mr. Success At Any Cost. Boston is full of them. It should be easy.”

  Jen leaned against the wall of the waitress station, considering this. “You mean the kind of guy any other mother would adore.”

  “The very same. You know those ambitious types make her crazy, and corporate America is one of her hot buttons. Maybe you could find a lawyer—that would really send her to the moon.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “You did it once, little sister. You can do it again.”

  Jen winced. “But wouldn’t I be using him?”

  Cin laughed. “And this kind of a guy wouldn’t be using you? It’s pretty easily resolved, Jen: just don’t put out and in three dates—max—he’ll be forgetting to call you.”

  “But I don’t know any guys like that.”

  And Jen didn’t want to.

  On the other hand, there was the prospect of a date with the guy at the natural food store.

  Maybe she just needed the right motivation.

  “Come on, Jen, you must have guys ask you out all the time: I mean, you work in a bar and you’re cute. Look at it this way: there’s no chance of you getting hurt, is there? I mean, you’re not going to make an emotional investment with a guy like that, are you?”

  “No. Still, it seems kind of mean.”

  “You got a better idea?” Cin lowered her voice. “You should know that there’s a new guy working at the Greenpeace office. I’ll bet Mom knows him and, you know, he’s got to be just about your age.”

  “And?” Jen clutched the phone.

  “Be afraid, Jen. Be very afraid.” Another phone rang and Cin cursed under her breath. “Gotta go, sis. Just think about it.”

  Jen hung up the phone, seeing the potential of Cin’s idea but filled with doubts all the same. After all, she’d missed out on the devil-may-care gene that both her mother and sister seemed to possess.

  What was she going to do? Proposition some guy in this place? She’d probably lose her job.

  Behind her, Lucy sighed. “No rest for the wicked, that’s for sure. Look, of course, they’re going to sit in my section.”

  Jen glanced up and saw the four guys heading for a front table. They were carousing together, laughing and joking, and three of them were in suits. They were all tall and buff, handsome and privileged, roughly Jen’s contemporaries.

  “This town is full of them,” Lucy muttered as she grabbed cutlery out of the bin. “God’s own gifts certain the rest of us were born to serve them. As if I didn’t have eight tables of them last night, demanding this and that pronto.” She sighed again and gave Jen a look. “Just another day in paradise. You gotta be glad that you always get the back section: these flashy boys prefer it up by the window so they can check out the women.”

  Which was really all Jen needed to know. “I’ll trade sections with you, if you like,” she suggested, as if she didn’t really care where she worked. “I’d kind of like a change of scene.”

  Actually, she felt like she was channeling her sister. Cin’s scheme wasn’t the kind of thing that Jen typically did but here she was, doing it.

  “They’re cheap bastards, all of them,” Lucy confided. The four guys were already looking over and one was snapping his fingers. “No tips to speak of. You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’ll give it a try.” Jen took the menus from Lucy as the pushy one hooted for attention.

  “Hey, how about we pool tips today and split them?” Lucy asked kindly. “I don’t want you to get ripped off for giving me a break.”

  “Thanks. That’d be great.” Jen turned and marched for the table, hoping that just putting things in motion would be enough.

  One of the suits winked at her. Maybe Cin’s plan would work out, after all.

  The big problem, Jen realized en route to her new section, was that Jen didn’t possess her sister’s easy charm. Cin’s plan seemed to suddenly have serious flaws.

  Well, one flaw, really.

  It had to be executed by Jen.

  * * *

  One thing Zach Coxwell could count on was his buddies. They showed up for lunch, dead on time.

  There had been a time when the four of them had cut class to sit here, drink beer and watch women. It hadn’t been that long ago, at least not to Zach’s thinking, but his buddies had been transformed. Instead of students in jeans with haircuts made to last a few weeks too long, they wore Italian suits and shoes with leather soles. Their ties were silk and perfectly knotted: Trevor even wore a white shirt with French cuffs.

  Zach, in his old uniform of polo shirt and jeans, fel
t underdressed. He slung his battered leather jacket over the back of a chair and knew he looked like an unemployed bum in comparison to his pals.

  Which in a way, he supposed he was. And his pals were lawyers, because they hadn’t dropped out of law school, and they dressed for success.

  But what did clothes matter? The fact that they had shown up at their old haunt reassured him.

  He needed evidence that some things didn’t change. Zach had been killing himself for much of the last year, doing drudge work for no thanks and little benefit. Lunch with his old buddies had seemed like the perfect tonic. It might even motivate him to go back to law school, when he saw how much they enjoyed practicing.

  Lunch had taken longer to set up than he’d expected, but hey, they all had day jobs now. As Scott had noted on the phone, needing to be somewhere sixty or eighty hours a week cuts into a guy’s leisure time.

  The four shook hands after they scored a table by the windows. Zach noted with satisfaction that it was their regular one, the one with the great view of the intersection on Mass. with the stiff cross wind. Skirts got flipped skyward there all the time. Zach settled in with anticipation.

  “Scoring the best view?” Scott teased.

  “Might as well.” Zach grinned. “It’s up to Jason and me now that you and Trevor are married.”

  “A guy can still look,” Scott protested.

  Jason nudged him aside. “Gimme the view, man. I know Anna’s work number if you get out of line.”

  “Hey!” Trevor shouted in the general direction of the waitresses before he’d even sat down. He snapped his fingers imperiously. “Let’s get some service here.”

  Scott tapped his watch, a fancy steel piece of work that must have set him back a paycheck or two. “Good point. One hour for lunch and I’ve blown fifteen just finding a parking spot.”

  “You could have walked,” Zach suggested, then was surprised when the other three laughed in unison. He was used to people laughing at his jokes, but that hadn’t been one. “It’s not that far,” he began but got no further before they laughed again.

  “As if.” Trevor rolled his eyes and spoke as if explaining something simple to a slow child. “The whole point of driving a flash car, Zach, is to be seen in it.”