When We Meet Again

“I don’t know. I’ve hardly been home since yesterday. Momma will start wondering what’s going on with me. Let’s make it breakfast tomorrow. That diner opposite your work site should do it.”

“If you feel you can wait,” Bain said with a shrug in his voice.

“I can wait. Can you?” Meaghan teased.

“I’m sticking out my tongue at you. Goodnight,” Bain said and hung up.

Meaghan hailed a taxi and went home, stopping by the garage to say hello to Mr. Henley and then walking home. Her mother was home. Now that she had no-one to worry about except herself, she could afford to take the occasional day off to indulge in her favorite pass time; cooking. While Meaghan had been at Yale, she’d saved quite a bit on her food bill because her mother was forever sending her food packages. She was also pretty popular in her dorm because of it since her mother could really cook and Meaghan wasn’t stingy about sharing.

“Hey Momma,” she called as she stepped in the trailer.

“Hey baby. I hope you’re hungry,” her mother called. Meaghan smiled.

“Sure Momma. I could eat,” she said.
“So…your date; it went well I take it?” her mother asked.

“Hummph,” Meaghan said settling on the table by the kitchen.

“Oh that is not a good sound, tell Momma all about it,” her mother said.

So Meaghan did; not all – she certainly didn’t tell her mother about breaking her virginity although, stating simply that she’d spent the night with Dean. Then she told her all about his mother and her antipathy. Her mother listened with every appearance of concentration and not much surprise.

“You know the Wessons are Old Money right? They have expectations about their lives and their children’s lives. You went to school with these people surely this can’t be a surprise to you…”

Meaghan shook her head, “No it wasn’t a surprise. It was just so…ill mannered. I was surprised. I would have thought she’d be more subtle.”
“Subtle is for people she might need later. You? She doesn’t see how you could possibly ever be relevant to her.”

“Good to know,” Meaghan said dryly.

“So what are you going to do?” Momma Leonard asked.

“What do you mean?” Meaghan asked puzzled.

“Well just by how you talk about him, I can tell this guy means something to you. There is no future if his family will not accept you so what do you plan to do?”

“This is a little too Romeo and Juliet for me,” Meaghan murmured.                      

“Isn’t it though?” her mother agreed kneading dough for pie.

“So what are you suggesting? I should dump Dean even before we’ve seen where this can go?” she asked.

“That’s exactly the question. Can it go anywhere?” her mother asked.

Meaghan was silent. That was a question she had no answer for.

*****

“I think my mother wants me to dump Dean,” Meaghan told Bain as they stirred their coffee the next morning at the diner across the street from Bain’s workplace.

“Are you even together enough to warrant dumping?” Bain asked.

Meaghan shrugged, “I don’t know. How can you tell?”

“Well have you had ‘the conversation’?” Bain asked. Meaghan shook her head.

“No. I don’t think so. Is that the talk where you talk about the future or where this is going?” Meaghan asked.

“Either or,” Bain said.

Meaghan thought about their night together, “Well, he said he bought me, he’s keeping me. Does that count?”

“Kind of yeah,” Bain said.

“Really? Does it mean we’re a couple?” Meaghan asked.

“I think it means you’re headed in that direction,” Bain shrugged.

“So what do you think I should do then?” Meaghan asked.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to not have a complicated life right now, and finish my residency at Mount Sinai and get a great job helping as many people as possible.”

“And what about Dean?”

“Dean has his own dreams he needs to achieve and I don’t see how fighting with his mother will help him do that.”

“Are you wussing out?”

Meaghan was silent thinking about that. Was she just looking of an excuse to bail?

“This whole situation is just surreal. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.”

As if she’d summoned him, her phone chose that point to go off. She stared at the name on the screen.

“It’s him isn’t it?”Bain said.

“Yeah,” Meaghan said and clicked the answer key.

“Hey,” she said sounding a bit breathless.

“Hi Meg. I was wondering if I could have the pleasure of your company tonight.” Dean said.

“Tonight? Don’t you have to deal with blow back from your aborted apology tour?” she asked. Dean laughed.

“Apology tour,” he repeated. “You kill me you know that?”

“I do? Oh dear,” Meaghan said sounding genuinely sad.

Dean laughed again, “Please come to my house. I’ll make you some potato salad. It’s my specialty.”

“I guess we do kinda need to talk,” she conceded.

“Oh oh, that is never good. Can’t we just eat the food and maybe make out…a lot?” Dean said.

It was Meaghan’s turn to laugh. “We’ll call that plan B,” she said.