Page 7 of In a Word, Yes

The calendar draws my eye. The box marked October twenty-one appears to pulsate, issuing a challenge. There goes the corner of my left eye twitching. Now is when a better woman would spout,What I mean to say is,I’ll do it. Her editor’s reply:Great! Knew I could count on you.

Sam’s chair groans as he settles into a posture of resignation. “Well. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You’ve got the chops.”

I rise to leave and offer a tight-lipped smile. It’s all I can muster. I’m not immune to Sam’s praise. Just tempted to flick it away, like apple-cake crumbs from my top.

“G’night, Montgomery.”

I like it when he calls me that. Hearing my maiden name in a professional environment allows me to pretend I’m still the woman I was before the nightmare. Before I turned over the wrong rocks and experienced things a person can’t un-experience. It isn’t possible, of course, to ever again be Lucy Montgomery, the before girl, in anything more than name. Which isn’t all bad.

True, today I’m less carefree. But I’m also less naive.

Three

moony(adj.): dreamy, moonstruck

When the doorbell sounds that evening, I jerk. Water splashes from my sunflower-yellow watering can and trickles from the kitchen windowsill to the floor.What time is it?Beyond the second-story window of our apartment, late-day sun pinks the sky, casting warm light on distant Mount Jefferson.Oh, for the love of all that is...I’ve done it again: taken the last train to la-la-land. Woolgathering, Nana used to call it.

Earth to Lucy.

Ah yes, it’s all coming back. Before my mind went renegade and took that aimless off-ramp, I’d been tending my houseplants. All seventeen of my glorious green darlings. Seventeen, that is, if you don’t count the revolving mélange of stem cuttings taking root in assorted vessels on my bedroom windowsill. Not that anyone’s counting. It’s a scientific fact that caring for houseplants reduces stress and improves mental health.

But daydreaming about a fictional character? What am I, fifteen years old? Besides,ew. Gage Remington is no longer mytype. He’s precisely my antitype. Mysterious. Scruffy. Brooding. Broody? Wait. Isbroodya word?Taciturnworks better.

I digress.

Not that I’ll ever need it, but the wisest romantic advice I ever received came from Dot, who once posited that a woman stuck in a pattern of choosing men with the same toxic issues—issues they manage to conceal until you’re too far gone—should flip the script. Instead, she ought to look for someone who’s the antithesis of her type. I’ve no plans to put her theory to the testever, of course, but this might be wildly brilliant advice for someone who is not me.

The doorbell’s insistence reminds me that I have still not responded.

“Coming!”

Anyway, clearly I was mentally checked out for some unknown length of time. Anything to distance myself from reality after this afternoon’s conversation with my editor.

And just like that, my stomach takes flight again as I remember my response to the meteorite Sam dropped on my carefully curated existence. When asked to step up, to venture into anything that even mildly threatened my comfort level, I’d effectively responded with “Talk to the hand.”

Squeezing one eye shut, I lean toward the door’s fisheye peephole. There I spy the last face I’d expected. Large, expressive eyes framed in Maybelline’s Full ’N Soft mascara in “Very Black.” Ribbons of long, messy amber bangs. The mile-wide smile that evokes comparisons to Julia Roberts’s.

“Mom!” I say, swinging wide the door.

Unbelievable.How is it that my mother, who lives in Nashville, dropped out of the sky? When did I last mop the apartment? I can’t think.

“Good surprise—I hope?” In spite of her pasted-on smile, something in Mom’s expression strikes me as off.

“Of course. Don’t be silly, Mom. Great surprise. I’m just...”What exactly am I? Could this day get any stranger? Will she need a place to stay? Could I just have one linear thought today?

Mom darts herky-jerky glances past me to one side then the other, like a chicken. “Ahh, now where’s my big boy? Isn’t this so fun? I just happened to have a thing in Salem and figured I’d—” Her eyes trail downward. “Honey. You’re dripping.”

Sure enough, water dribbles onto the threshold, splashing Mom’s slouchy suede boots.

“Oh, gosh. Sorry! Come in, come in, I was just—” In three strides, I cover the distance to the kitchen and exchange the watering can for a towel.

Mom laughs good-naturedly. “Just what, watering your floors?”

I snort. It can’t be helped. Warmth spreads as I laugh, and I relax into it. I throw the towel down and use my foot to mop up what is, in fact, a shallow river with its headwaters in our puny dining room. Truly, it’s good to see my mom—I think. Maybe I need this.

“Actually, here, you can water this,” she says, raising aloft an enormous hanging basket exploding with orange and yellow calibrachoa, rightfully nicknamed “million bells,” and some kind of trailing purple flower.

“So gorgeous! Let me take that, Mom. It looks heavy.”