I couldn’t help it. My gaze was drawn to Camden, still engrossed in his own conversation.
Unfortunately, my mother correctly interpreted my momentary silence. “There is! What is his name?”
I sighed. It truly wasn’t worth the fight. “His name is Camden. He works in tech.”
“So he’s smart. That’s good. Then my grandchildren will be smart.”
I’d been a late-in-life baby. My parents had suffered from infertility and then my mother miraculously got pregnant with me when she was thirty-nine years old. I was apparently their reason for existing, and there had never been such helicopter parenting as I had growing up. They thought every fever meant I had meningitis and every bruise must mean internal organ failure. I was pretty sure they were the reason my pediatrician had been able to buy a second home in Aspen.
“Mom, I just met Camden. No one is giving you grandchildren.”
“I know! That’s the problem!” she said in an exasperated tone.
Because she’d been older when she had me, that meant all of her peers not only had grandchildren, but some of them even had teenage grandkids. For some reason this made my mom desperate and she’d been pushing me since my twenty-first birthday four years ago to fall in love and have babies as soon as possible.
I pointed out to her once that even if I did find a guy, I might have the same fertility issues she’d had. That conversation had not gone over well.
When I didn’t respond she added on, “I’m not getting any younger and neither are you.”
I was only twenty-five but she acted like I was close to retirement age. “So, Mom, other than me depriving you of babies, how are things going?”
“Oh no, you don’t get to change the subject on me. I want a picture of this Camden. I need to see what we’re working with here.”
Closing my eyes, I counted silently to ten. No wonder I was so good with demanding brides—my mom could be the worst. “I’m not taking a picture of him.”
“Please send your poor, deprived mother just one picture. I spent thirty-seven hours in labor with you.”
I could feel the guilt trip coming on, and I wasn’t interested in booking passage. I didn’t need the laundry list of all the ways I’d made her suffer before I was even born.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Hold on.” Better to give in to this small bit of madness than for her to escalate things. I looked up to see where Camden had gone, but he wasn’t on his phone.
I had one heart-stopping moment where I was terrified he’d returned to the table and was standing behind my chair listening to every word, but when I turned around he was talking to Dan’s mom, Irene, at the next table over. I let out a sigh of relief and then got up to walk past him, turning my phone at the last second to catch him laughing. I checked the photo, seeing that his face was mostly visible if a bit blurry, and sent it off to my mom.
“Done,” I told her as I headed to the outskirts of the party, not wanting anyone to overhear. I’d lost track of Camden once; I didn’t need it to happen again. One of the camera crew had pointed his camera at me, and I put my hand up in front of my face so they’d stop filming me.
“How do I find it again?” she asked. I had to walk her through how to put me on speaker and then scroll to her messages to find the photo.
“Well, he’s handsome!” she declared. “I approve.”
Just what I’m living for. Your approval of a relationship that’s not happening. I smiled, even though she couldn’t see me. I’d read once that your tone changed when you smiled. “It was so great catching up with you but I need to go and get something for the bride to eat.”
“It feels like you’re trying to get off the phone with me.”
I am, I wanted to say, trying to ignore the hurt in her voice. It was a lot of pressure being a long-waited-for child. I headed to the dessert table, piled a plate with chocolate-covered strawberries, and then brought it to Sadie. There. Not a lie.
She smiled up at me, saw I was on my phone, and said softly, “Come find me later. There’s something I need to tell you.”
I nodded to show that I’d heard, and was about to ask her what was going on when the director came over, wanting to set up some shots of Dan and Sadie playing the games.
So instead I told my mother, “I really do need to get back to this party.”
“Are you taking fish oil? You need those omega-3s for fertility. And you should probably be taking folic acid, too. Just in case.”