I wondered if, since Bette was probably never going to really return my feelings, I was doomed to be some sort of asexual pariah for the rest of my life. I hoped not. That would suck.

The silence sort of got to me, so I sighed and figured I’d concede. I didn’t like it when she wasn’t talking to me. “I guess it’s a challenge,” I said quietly. “And I wouldn’t expect you to ever step down from a challenge.”

Bette put her magazine down. “Yeah.”

“So.” I gave her a lame thumbs up sign. “Good luck.”

***

“Hello?”

“Guess who.”

*****. I wish I’d been screening my calls. “Hi, Mom.” I flopped down onto the couch and yawned.

“Why are you yawning?” Mom asked. “You shouldn’t be tired; it’s not even eleven.”

“I’m just tired. What’s up?”

My mother let out this ridiculous, dramatic groan. “Sweetie, if you’re getting ready for bed or something equally absurd, I’ll just scream. What’s happened to your social life?”

I glanced down at my pajamas. “I’m not getting ready for bed. It’s like-okay, I’ve had a long week of working.”

Mom tsked. “Anyway, I’m just calling to make sure you haven’t died or anything because you never call, so sometimes I wonder whether or not I need to make funeral arrangements.”

I smiled. “I’m not dead.”

“Well, good. How are you holding up?”

Seriously, my mom asks me this every time I talk to her. I think she’s just begging for me to have a nervous breakdown or something. If I did, she could probably make an Oscar-worthy performance over it. She’s all method and ***** like that.

“Mom, I’m fine,” I said, exasperated.

“If you were fine, you’d be out tonight, living it up-”

“You sound so ridiculous when you say stuff like ‘living it up’.”

“-but instead you’re at home,” she plowed on, “probably moping. Who wants to date a moper? Alice?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” I deadpanned.

“No one!”

“Oh. I knew that one.”

“Of course, it’s probably all for the best.”

“Sure,” I drawled. The old man that lives upstairs was listening to the Bing Crosby version of ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ and I was thinking that it was really great that I lived in the sort of building where the old people blasted their music and people like me stayed in every night. “What do you mean it’s probably all for the best?”