Why I Love Singlehood: Read Online Free PDF Page A

shmuck.”
    “Yes he is. He’s a shmuck because when he was with you, he had everything he needed right in front of his face and was too blind to see it. He’s chasing something that doesn’t exist.”
    “She does. She’s a philosophy professor.”
    “I rest my case.”
    “Well, it’s what he wants, I guess. I’m fine. It was just the shock, like you and Sebastard. I’m still happy, still loving singlehood. All’s well.”
    Minerva gave me one of those motherly looks that says, You’re full of shit , that makes you feel like someone opened the door on you while you were sitting on the john.
    “You know what I wish?” I said. “I wish that just for one day my customers stayed on the other side of the counter and left me and my cookies free of psychoanalysis.”
    Minerva opened her mouth, about to utter a comeback, reconsidered, and closed it. Then she grinned.
    “We wouldn’t even make it till noon.” With that, she bit into her biscotti.
    I didn’t deign to respond.

Lemon Torte Day
     
    I MAKE A lemon torte on March twenty-sixth every year. It’s my mother’s recipe; she made it every Easter for as long as I can remember, saying that the lemons tasted like spring. I didn’t even used to like it until I (almost sacrilegiously) added a raspberry drizzle to sweeten it up, but I’ve made one every year without fail since the last Easter Mom celebrated, the year I’d sneaked it into her hospital room so that she, Olivia, and I could eat it together—right out of the pan—while sitting on her bed (it was a girl’s thing).
    My mother died on March twenty-sixth, from breast cancer. I was fourteen years old. Olivia was eighteen.
    Mom was my Girl Scout troop leader, and we always outsold all the other scouts in the troop when it came to the cookies. She was also a great cook, and Olivia and I often helped her prepare meals, hopping up to stir some pot or check the oven in between algebra problems and vocabulary quizzes. She baked almost every night, stopping only to shoo our fingers out of the bowls while we helped. Even as a child, I excelled at baking, and Mom encouraged me by giving me my own set of mixing bowls and a handheld electric mixer and measuring cups and spoons. Every Friday after dinner, the four of us would play Scrabble or Monopoly , and on nights when Mom was too tired to play, Dad taught Olivia and me to play poker and—better yet—how to count, stack, and bluff. Our father was a crack mathematician and a movie buff; he especially loved vaudeville and slapstick comedy. Whereas Mom and I bonded over bundt cakes and buttercream icing, Dad and I routinely watched and reenacted scenes by the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello.
    When we were children, Olivia and I were best friends. She taught me to read and write and helped me with my homework, and I taught her how to do French braids and play Chinese Jacks. I told Olivia all about my first kiss with Nicky Bates, and she told me all about the first time she went all the way with Bobby Ackerman. Together Olivia and I tried (and hated) smoking, and she always let me tag along with her friends. She taught me to drive, and I taught her how to get out of jury duty.
    After Mom died, Olivia dropped out of college to help my father take care of me and see me through high school, despite his begging her not to. I have always felt guilty but to this day can’t decide if the guilt comes from her decision or the fact that in secret I was grateful that she did it because I needed her; she was someone to talk to and hug and interact with, and I was afraid to be with just my father. Not that he was some monster—far from it—but our mother’s death had shaken him to the core. He’d retreated inside himself to the point that he was no more than a shadow that lurked about the house when he wasn’t working twelve-hour days to avoid a place that was short on laughter and long on sadness. Besides, I’d lost count of the number of