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tired of chasing ghosts, hollow men who were outside my comfort zone, men who had nothing to give me except a rush. It was all I asked for, and all I ever got.
    The one thing I’ve always wanted to do is get married and wear a wedding dress. A white one. With pearls all over it. And enough crystals to make me sparkle. I’ll be fifty in a matter of minutes and I’ve never even tried one on. My three best girlfriends have had rings on their left fingers, one of them twice. At this stage of the game, I seriously doubt if I’ll ever meet the man of my dreams, even on the Internet. I don’t know what the man of my dreams adds up to. I just know what I don’t want: losers.
    Back in the good old days, I was a little loose, if I want to be honest with myself. The longest relationship I ever had was with Russell. All we did was pimp each other for pleasure. Back then I confused passion and orgasms with love. It took me years to realize the two weren’t synonymous.
    Raising Sparrow made me shift my focus. I felt a kind of love for her that was better than any romantic kind. Once you bring a life into the world, your priorities change. You change. What you do becomes more important than who you are. I always wanted to be a good mother. I wanted my child or children to be proud of me. I wanted them to know I could manage my life.
    Maybe I haven’t turned out to be the smartest mother. I’ve probably made things too easy for Sparrow. I’ve spoiled her, and it’s becoming obvious. Not saying no to your children can be a curse. She anticipates my saying yes to just about all of her requests: “Yes, you can go to the concert even though it’s a school night. Yes, you can stay out until midnight and when you stroll in at one, I won’t ground you. Yes, you can get a new cell phone even though there’s nothing wrong with the one you have. Yes, you can use my Visa to buy whatever it is you need at Hot Topic and Wet Seal. Yes, the housekeepers will clean the scum off the tile in your shower and get that spot off your carpet after you spilled your root beer float on it.” And the list goes on. Bernadine told me Sparrow needs a part-time job at someplace like Jack-in-the-Box. Savannah and Gloria think I’ve created a cross between a little Oprah and Annie Oakley. My daughter has chutzpah and a lot of insight for her age. She also thinks she knows everything. I’ve told her hundreds of times she can’t learn everything there is to know about life from Real World and Survivor .
    I can’t hide behind Sparrow anymore. Time has run past me and now here I am forty-nine years old, with no love life and no prospects of bumping into a man that might increase my joy over the next however-many years. Add to it eighteen years of working at a job I feel no enthusiasm for, where does that leave me? How on earth do you start over? And where? I can’t ask Sparrow. My girlfriends can’t help me on this one. Savannah’s been waffling for years about whether her marriage is worth saving. Gloria is happy, content, because Marvin loves her right and has kept her smiling for more than fifteen years. Bernadine is just the opposite. She’s like a block of ice when it comes to men and love.
    I could use a hobby. Besides shopping. I don’t know what I’m interested in or what I’m good at. I can’t make anything. I can’t cook. I can’t sew. In fact, I don’t think there’s a creative bone in my body. Which is why some of us do other things. I crunch numbers.
    How long could this stupid test take? I’ve been waiting out here now for forty-five minutes with the engine running, since there’s a serious chill in this January air. I decide to go check on her, but as soon as I open the door, my cell phone rings. It’s Norman Nielson, from my office. We’re both senior underwriters, VPs. He’s a real senior. Norman is over sixty and should be retiring soon. I don’t think he has plans for the rest of his life outside the office. We’ve worked