Read Slim Chance for Free Online Page B

know which was more absurd to her—the fact that I might be a good cook (which I’m not) or the fact that her witless insult might accidentally have been misconstrued as a compliment.
    “I’m pretty sure that’s not what she meant,” I said. Bruce snickered, and I shot him my meanest “you’re gonna get it later” glance.
    “I just can’t believe it— my Evelyn, a married woman,” she said sweetly, and sighed. “After all these years…I just…I just…”
    “You just what? ” Enough already.
    She somehow managed to compose herself, and continued. “I just never thought I’d be around to witness it.” I could just see her there, sitting at the kitchen table in her tiny apartment, her bottom lip trembling for effect with each tearful breath even though there was nobody around to witness it. She was trying to win Bruce back to her side.
    “You’re really something,” I exploded. “Bruce is NOT impressed with this and neither am I. This silliness has got to stop. I mean, do you actually expect me to believe you thought you’d be DEAD before anyone wanted to marry me? Thanks a lot, but I don’t believe you!”
    Bruce shook his head. “Now you’ve done it,” he said under his breath.
    “Oh, Evelyn,” she sobbed, “being alone in this world is an awful, awful thing, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. To go through life alone is a curse…a punishment. I’m just thankful that at least you won’t have to.” There was that pesky high road, with a healthy dollop of guilt thrown in for good measure.
    I wasn’t going to let her see that I felt bad. “Well you don’t have to worry about me anymore, Mom. I finally tricked some poor unsuspecting slob into marrying me.”
    “I’d resent that if it weren’t true,” Bruce said. I laughed silently.
    “Evelyn, dear, please don’t joke,” she sniffed. “Marriage is a holy institution.” So now she was pious.
    It just wasn’t worth the aggravation. “Jeez, Mom, I never saidyou should be in an institution, I just thought maybe you should go and see someone. I think I’ve heard more than enough about this whole therapy thing. God, I wish I’d never brought it up.” It was either tease her or lose it completely.
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” she sighed, exasperated. “Bruce loves you so much, Evelyn. And you love him so much.” Was that a direct order?
    “So?”
    “Marriage is a blessed union,” she continued. “Your whole lives are opening up before you. And it all starts with a wedding. A wedding! Oh, your grandmother will be so delighted. She’ll just flip out. Bruce, you’ll be making an old woman very, very happy.”
    “C’mon, Mom, you’re not that old,” I said.
    “Acch, you know what I mean, Evelyn. She really will be so happy to hear the news. Bruce, call her right away. Right now.”
    Claire, my father’s mother, is pretty much the only family I have, aside from Auntie Lucy, Mom’s twin sister, who lives in England with her lame husband Roderick. After my dad died, Claire took Mom in for a few years, to help out with me and to get her back on her feet. If she hadn’t been around, I don’t know how Mom would have survived, especially since her own parents wouldn’t have anything to do with her. It’s not that I don’t understand the impulse to reject my mother; I do, but what a bunch of assholes they must have been to leave a grieving widow out in the cold just because my dad wasn’t Catholic. I know she tried to make peace with them a few times; after her mother died, when I was eight, she even brought me over to meet her dad, but he wouldn’t open the door. So Claire just kind of became her surrogate parent, united in grief and all that, I guess.
    She’s the quintessential cool old lady, painting and taking classes and teaching self-defense to other rich old bags on the Upper East Side. My grandmother has also always been the arbiter between Mom and me. If it wasn’t for Claire, I