Читать книгу Dating Without Novocaine - Lisa Cach - Страница 12

M y mobile phone rang as I slowly cruised the residential street of tract mansions looking for Kristina DeFrang’s house. She was a new client, referred by Joanne of the muffins and too much clothing.

I pulled to the curb and stopped before answering, having promised myself when purchasing the thing that I would not annoy the rest of humanity by driving and talking at the same time. I’d come near to breaking the promise a hundred times, and who would know? But I didn’t want to be one of those cell phone users. I wanted to be one of the good ones, who when in public huddled in a corner and whispered a brief conversation, then hung up quickly.

Perhaps that was another criteria to put in the personal ad, besides no history of dating prostitutes: does not use mobile phone while browsing at Barnes & Noble or standing in line at Starbucks. Cassie would qualify that with: prefers independent businesses to chains, and does not know the difference between a Grande and a Tall.

I, on the other hand, thought Starbucks and Barnes & Noble were both good places to look for guys. Some guys apparently thought the same thing about bookstores: I’d once been followed aisle to aisle by a lummox carrying a copy of Chicken Soup for the Single’s Soul.

“Hello, this is Hannah.”

“Hannah! Are you on the phone?”

It took a daughter to translate Mother-speak correctly. “Hi, Mom. I’m on the cell phone, in my car.”

“You aren’t driving, are you? Should I call back?”

“It’s okay, I’m parked. What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

“Nearly to Camas, looking for a client’s house.” Camas was across the river, in Washington state, about half an hour from Portland. “She’s supposed to have a big job for me, something about redecorating her second house.”

“Dad can’t get the VCR to work.”

The abrupt change of topic was nothing new, and I tried to not take offense at her apparent lack of interest in my work. And it was only an apparent lack: I knew that she cared how I was and that I was able to make ends meet, but the specifics of that struggle and of my work were beyond her present life.

Mom and Dad were nearly seventy, having had me late and as a bit of a surprise. Mom was a retired grade school teacher, and Dad had been a carpenter and was now a housing inspector. He talked about retiring, but I doubted he would unless forced to. They lived in the house I had grown up in, in Roseburg, three hours south of Portland. It wasn’t the boonies, but it was pretty close.

“Put him on,” I said.

There were scuffling sounds, muted voices, then Dad. “I followed your instruction sheet, but it didn’t work, and now I can’t get the regular TV stations, either. I think the remote’s batteries need to be changed.”

I stifled a sigh. How could a man who could spot the first faint signs of dry rot and tell the exact remaining life span of a roof be stymied by a couple of black buttons?

“Get the biggest remote…” I said, and within half a minute I heard the static disappear from the background, and the voice of a newscaster caught mid-drone.

“Thanks! I think I can remember how to do that,” Dad said, and then Mom was on the phone again.

“He’s rented some awful gangster movie. He knows I don’t like those.”

“What is it?”

“Analyze This.”

“You might like it. It’s a comedy.”

“I don’t know how gangsters can be funny.”

“I gotta go, Mom, or I’ll be late.”

“Okay. When are you coming down for dinner?”

“I’ll call from home. I really have to go.”

“They’ve seen bears in the park, coming out to go through the garbage. The salmon berries are late in coming out this year.”

“I gotta go, Mom!”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I hung up, feeling the mix of guilt and love and worry that I usually did after talking to my parents. In the back of my mind sat the realization that death or accident or illness was not just a possibility, but an inevitability. What would happen to one, when the other died?

What would happen to me?

I picked up the instructions to Ms. DeFrang’s house, looked again at the address, and coasted down the street, trying not to think of the future.