We Interrupt This Date

Smashwords Edition

We Interrupt This Date by L.C. Evans

© 2009 by L.C. Evans

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to
any actual person living or dead is strictly coincidental

Other Works by L.C. Evans

Jobless Recovery, Second Edition ISBN-13:
978-1453792711

Talented Horsewoman ISBN-13:
978-1933157252

Night Camp ISBN-13: 978-1442124387

http://www.lcevans.com

[email protected]

Dedicated to all those wonderful southern
women

If I’d had the sense to say no to Mama, I’d
be safely at work right now contemplating the passage of time on
the clock over my desk. I’d be planning a quiet celebration of the
one-year anniversary of my divorce from T. Chandler Caraway,
cheater and emotional abuse expert. Instead I was clomping along
the sidewalk of a busy Charleston street wishing there were such a
thing as parental divorce.

“Walk more slowly, Susan. I do not have long
legs like yours to take such giant steps. And please brighten up
your expression. Do you know that if you smile when you walk it
will automatically improve your mood?”

“Yes, Mama. I believe you’ve mentioned that
before.”

A few thousand times. I wondered if fake smiles
counted. Going by my current mood, I doubted it.

My mother hadn’t stopped talking about my
shortcomings and my need to plunge back into the dating world since
the moment we’d stepped out the door of her condo. And now we were
on our way back to my car after a morning spent in her doctor’s
office. I sidestepped a herd of tourists and pasted on my blandest
isn’t-it-a-beautiful-day smile.

Mama leaned closer and traced one finger down
my forearm, lighting up a thousand nerves. I jumped as if she’d
poked me with a cattle prod.

“You’re already forty and not getting a
moment younger. Shall I tell Stanley you’re interested?” She wore
one of those mood-lifting smiles she was always recommending for
me.

Resisting a childish urge to throw a fit, I
increased my pace, nearly mowing down a touristy-looking couple
trying to access the door to a trendy King Street restaurant.

“
I declare, you are nothing but rude.”
Mama lunged, caught the back of my blouse in her fist, and hauled
me to a stop.

I yanked my blouse out of her grasp and
ground my teeth so hard it felt like I was about to snap off one of
my best molars. “Mama, I love you, but the answer is no. I do not
need to energize my social life by going out with guys you dredge
up for me. By the way, men named Stanley do not make good
dates.”

“Stanley is a wonderful man. I met him at
Sunday School.” Since her retirement a few months ago, Sunday
School was my mother’s main social outlet. She’d already introduced
me to two of her fellow Bible Studiers—a widower closer to her age
than mine and Clive, a short, intense fellow who’d asked me if I
thought pythons should be allowed as pets in apartment
buildings.

“And Stanley is so kind, so devoted to his
mama.”

“I’ll bet. Does he wear a polka dot bow tie
and part his hair in the middle?”

“You are unfair and biased and plain silly. Let’s
have lunch and we’ll talk about it.”

“Of course I am. Unfair, I mean. As well as
biased against all men you find for me. And you, Mama, are taking
your sweet time as if we have all day to spend discussing this
person you found at church when you know I have to get back to
work.”

I tried to nudge Mama forward. She displayed all the
mobility of a two-ton rock, no doubt still caught up in her fantasy
of me strolling hand in hand along the harbor with
Stanley-of-the-church.

“I’ve so looked forward to a nice chat over
lunch. Why do you think I insisted we park near East Bay, even
though it’s so far out of our way?”

“I don’t know, Mama. To annoy me?”

“Don’t be hateful. You know Magnolias does
those fabulous crab cake sandwiches and, I declare, their tomato
bisque is exquisite.” Her eyes darkened from sky blue to twilight
in the shade cast by the brim of the sun hat perched on top of her
over-sprayed, apricot-colored hair. “My treat?”

“I’ve already made a lunch date with
Veronica.” As it happened, my friend Veronica and I were meeting at
SNOB, also on East Bay.

I’d no sooner gotten the words out, then Mama
put a pincer grip on my arm. Her “my daughter is up to something”
radar had a hair trigger.

“Veronica Howell? You haven’t seen her in
months. What’s going on?”

“
Nothing.” I pulled my arm out of her
clutches and rubbed the circulation back. “So I haven’t seen her
for two months. That’s not exactly dropping the friendship.
Besides, we phone each other every couple of weeks. Don’t you like
Veronica?”

Her liking or disliking Veronica was not the
point. I was simply redirecting her thoughts so she wouldn’t keep
trying to talk me into meeting this unsuitable person—Stanley--or,
even worse, inviting herself to lunch with me and my best friend.
Veronica had told me she had great news. Having news meant just the
two of us, heads together sharing secrets and friendship.
Definitely not the two of us plus my mother, the gossip queen of
the Low Country.

“
I do like Veronica, and God knows you
need more friends. But it’s been a whole year--time for you to
forget about T. Chandler and his flagrant immorality with that
creature he dumped you for.” Mama shuddered like a lady who’d just
spotted a bug in her soup.

“Yes, Mama, I’m a real slacker about diving
back into the dating pool. I can’t imagine what’s wrong with me.”
Biting my lip, I stared down at my feet. Wasn’t my marital split
hard enough without my mother reminding me I was the dumpee instead
of the dumper?

They said divorce meant freedom. They
promised that from the moment my ex pulled out of the driveway for
the last time, I was free to heave my cleaning supplies into the
nearest trash can, toss my wedding ring out the window, and lounge
around the house in pajamas stuffing myself with chocolates. The
“they” who imparted these words of wisdom were my sister, my
friends, and a divorce support group I attended for two weeks.

But certainly not Mama. Mama has made it her
life’s work to keep me from getting too comfortable with
myself.

As I recall, her words to me the day I
announced my impending divorce were, “Why, Susan Caraway, I am
shocked.” She’d swayed on her feet and then plumped down in the
nearest armchair to lean back with a handkerchief plastered over
her face like a mini shroud. “You are going to regret this hasty
decision,” she’d added, her breath puffing up the handkerchief, so
I’d broken into uncontrollable nervous laughter, which she had
immediately let me know she did not appreciate.

But despite Mama’s take on things, there was
nothing hasty about my decision. T. Chandler Caraway and I had
never been meant for each other. We’d stuck things out for too many
years before he decided he was moving on with someone else. I was
only sorry I’d hung around so long he’d ended up being the one to
make the decision, leaving me feeling rejected, unwanted, and just
plain low.

No, freedom was not the issue. The way I saw
it, if life were about nothing but freedom, there’d be no reason to
get married to begin with. For me divorce meant just one
thing—failure. And it was my own fault. No one had forced me to
marry T. Chandler Caraway. Or bribed me. Or threatened to throw me
off a bridge if I didn’t don a white dress and look starry-eyed
while I chirped, “I do.” So who could blame me for deciding I’d
take my time choosing someone else to share my life—or never
choosing, for that matter. I was managing fine on my own for the
first time in my life, if only Mama would stop trying to shove me
back into couplehood.

“Stop squinting or you’ll ruin your eyes,
dear.” Mama patted my shoulder and I blinked about half a dozen
times to bring circulation back to my eyes, so she wouldn’t add, as
she usually did, that I was courting retinal detachment. “Now about
Stanley.” She shot me the same smile she used to use when I was a
child and she wanted to convince me my medicine tasted like cherry
candy.

Before she could tell me Stanley’s hobbies
included turning water into gold and doing yard work, I cut her
off. “I promise I’ll make time for you Thursday.” If I didn’t stop
her now, she’d bring me a new man every week until my brain turned
into a mass of quivering jelly and I gave in out of sheer
exhaustion.

I glanced over my shoulder half expecting
Stanley to materialize and announce in a nasal voice that his
mother had said we could go out and there was a new sci fi feature
at the movies. Déjà vu had gripped me in its own special vice from
the moment Mama mentioned a fix-up.

The first time she meddled in my social life,
I was sixteen. Mama and her best friend Cora Haymans got together
and paired me with Cora’s son Hartley, a pudgy fifteen-year-old my
mother referred to as “promising.” Enough said. As far as I know,
the promise was a false alarm and Hartley now spends his days
strumming a banjo on a street corner near the Marketplace.

Undaunted by my threats to lock myself in my room for
the next forty years, Mama then set me up with Myron Lenley III.
Myron was one of those boys who specialized in drawing skulls and
motorcycles in their notebooks instead of working on algebra
problems. After him, there were a series of other silent,
mouth-breathing youths. Mama didn’t give up meddling in my social
life until I left home for college and found my husband all on my
own. Unfortunately, she made no attempt to fix me up with the one
boy I really cared about—Jack Maxwell. Jack had moved away years
ago, gotten married, and as far as I knew lived in New Jersey. So
much for her matchmaking skills.

I put my hand on her elbow and steered her to
the left. “Mama, your babies are going to worry if you’re late
getting home.” The babies were her two spoiled Chihuahuas. I knew
it was good strategy to remind her they were fretting at home.

“I told them I was seeing Dr. Frey this
morning.”

The light on the corner changed and we
stepped into the crosswalk. Mama hung onto my arm, weighing me down
as if she had anchors fashioned to her shoes.

“Will you look at that?” She dragged me to a
halt and nudged me discreetly in the ribs. “Joyce-Ann Frampton in
the flesh, sashaying down the sidewalk in public, like
three-fourths of the people in this town don’t know she cheated on
poor Wade with that loud, overdone man. You know the one I mean. He
used to be the governor of one of those big square western states.
Or so he said. Personally, I never--”

“Mama.” I locked both hands around her
shoulders and yanked her out of the way of an oncoming SUV. “I
don’t care how many Joyce-Ann Framptons you see parading around
Charleston. You can’t stand in the street and expect traffic to
come to a standstill for you.” My heart was thumping wildly at the
thought of how close Mama had come to getting flattened, and I had
to suck in a couple of extra deep breaths.

“Why are you in such a hurry today? Pardon
me. I must say, I am shocked. When a woman can’t ask her own
daughter to carry her to the doctor, then it’s time to simply give
up and accept the fact that the entire world has deteriorated into
a hotbed of ill manners and selfishness.”

“Or melodrama.”

“What was that? You’ll have to speak up if
you expect me to hear you over the traffic.” She cupped her hand
over her ear.

“As you well know, I had to take time off
work this morning to drive you to the doctor. I don’t dare come in
late this afternoon.” Even if I had to miss lunch with Veronica, I
couldn’t be late. Odell, my boss, had made that clear when I said I
needed a few hours off, telling me he wasn’t running a camp for
lazy employees. He seemed to be in a worse mood than usual, and I
wondered if his wife had kicked him out again.

“Surely you can take time off for family
emergencies. It’s simply a job we’re talking about, not a matter of
life or death.”