Dater's Handbook. Cara Lockwood

      Mom, Nadia and I sat together at the coffee shop in the suburbs the next day, all staring appreciatively at the trio of delectable desserts we’d ordered to share. This was what we did on Sundays. Some families brunched, but we had coffee and dessert. Every Sunday. Or, really, as often as we could. Outside, the wall of the Rocky Mountains stood as our backdrop as we sat by the wood-burning fireplace in the nook, sharing double chocolate cake and peanut butter and marshmallow brownies, and a strawberry cheesecake.

      I should’ve been having none of these, considering how much cake I ate at the wedding the night before, but when I was with Mom, there was no denying our mutual inner sweets monsters. Even Nadia, who was better at keeping the monster at bay than the two of us, indulged with unusual ferocity today. No doubt because she was having dessert for two.

      Mom stabbed the double chocolate with her fork and took a hearty bite. “Mmmm,” she said, eyes closing as she enjoyed every dark, delicious morsel. “Good choice, honey,” she told me. She smiled, blue eyes warm, her hair a new color this month, with hints of red in her short bob. Mom looked amazing for sixty-four, and I hoped I’d inherited her aging-gracefully gene as well as her sweet tooth.

      Part of it, I knew, had to do with the fact that Mom never slowed down. She and her girlfriends had a competition going about who could outdo the other on their Fitbits. Mom, the natural competitor, always won, even if that meant doing laps around her kitchen at night.

      Mom swallowed her bite of chocolate cake. “Oh, I forgot to ask. How was Dana’s wedding?”

      “Actually, it was more fun than I thought it would be,” I said. And that had everything to do with one Robert Zappia. Just the memory of his intelligent, teasing eyes made me feel a little bit warmer, like someone had just added a log to the fireplace nearby. “Nice ceremony, fun crowd.” Fun person, in particular. “And good cake.”

      Now was usually the time Mom asked me about the cake—how many layers and whether or not there was filling—because cake was always the thing Mom most wanted to know about. Most moms want to know about the wedding dress first, but not my mom. She had her priorities straight.

      “Did Peter have fun?” Mom threw me for a loop. Because I hadn’t been thinking about Peter at all. I was thinking about Robert—had been all morning, actually.

      Nadia cleared her throat, hoping to signal to Mom it was a touchy subject, but Mom failed to take the hint. She stared at me, waiting for my answer.

      “Peter didn’t go,” I admitted.

      “He doesn’t do weddings,” Nadia piped in, and I glared at her. Mom didn’t need to know that about Peter. Nadia glared right back at me.

      “What do you mean, ‘He doesn’t do weddings?’ What does that even mean?” Mom reached for another bite of cake. “Doesn’t he plan to attend his own wedding?”

      Oh, great. Here we go. The exact topic of conversation I wanted to avoid.

      Nadia raised her eyebrows, her eyes never leaving mine. “Good question, Mom. Tell us about that, Cass.”

      She beamed at me, triumphant, and I let out a long breath and inwardly counted to ten so I didn’t steal my sister’s cheesecake (her second piece!) out of revenge.

      “You know… Ah…” How to explain the phenomenon—or lack thereof—of no-labels-Peter to my mom? “I don’t think the marriage thing is really”—absolutely ever, in a million years—“in the cards for us.”

      I shrugged at Mom, hoping against hope this would be the end of it. After all, Nadia so nicely took the pressure off me to have grandkids, not that Mom hadn’t dropped a hint or two that she’d like me to consider a family sometime soon.

      Mom looked puzzled as she slowly put down her fork.

      “Huh,” she mused aloud. “You’ve been seeing each other for two years. You should know if he’s the one, or at least potentially…”

      Yes, but that was actually the beauty of Peter. He allowed me to avoid thinking about The One. I didn’t have to worry about whether he measured up to Dad, whether I’d ever have what my parents did. This way, I could cruise along with Peter and be comfortable in my avoidance zone.

      Mom read my face like a postcard. She grew alarmed and put her hand over her heart.

      “Do you even want to get married?” Mom’s fear sat plainly on her face. I knew why: her marriage to my dad was one of the greatest achievements of her life. I mean, yes, she had a tidy career as a realtor, and she was very proud of being a mom to us, but when she talked about Dad, even now, her face glowed with a certain kind of joy. I knew she wanted that for me.

      I couldn’t tell her I’d spent most of my adult life avoiding the whole idea of marriage and whether I could ever be as happy as my parents had been.

      “Of course I want to get married,” I reassured Mom, patting her hand. She let out a little sigh of relief, and the fear dissolved.

      Nadia dropped her fork on her now clean plate. “You know, I was watching something about this very thing on TV the other day and I realize what your problem is…”

      Uh…excuse me? “I didn’t know I had a problem.” Going out with Peter is my choice, I wanted to shout. He’s comfortable, and he doesn’t pressure me, and he does his thing, and I do mine. It’s kind of perfect.

      “Exactly.” Nadia’s face brightened. “The first step is admitting you have a problem.”

      I frowned at her. “But I’d have to know what my problem is before I can fix that problem.” Right now, my problem might be a big sister who was butting in where her opinion wasn’t wanted. I glared at her, and she glared back.

      “Okay!” Mom cried, breaking up the tension. “You guys are talking in circles. Nadia, please explain.”

      “Cass,” Nadia said, straightening a bit in her seat like she did before every big sister lecture. “You tend to go after the same kind of guy. You pick someone you think you can change or mold into what you want, but you can’t, because it’s not the man. It’s you.”

      This all sounded far too familiar. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I saw that. You’re quoting…Dr. Susie?”

      Nadia nodded, her enthusiasm not waning. “I am, and she’s right. You have a history of picking the noncommittal guys. The kind of guys who never have any intention of committing long-term.”

      What’s wrong with that? I wanted to ask. Besides, they weren’t all noncommittal, raging jerk-faces.

      “Don’t get me wrong,” Nadia continued. “They’re all nice guys—Peter, Jamie, Jack…”

      “What about Scott? Scott from college. He was…” Sweet, loyal. He always talked about a big house and white picket fence in the suburbs. About getting married and having kids… Then, I remembered he wasn’t so loyal after all. He’d cheated on me with one of my sorority sisters. Hmm. Okay, bad example. I looked up to see Mom and Nadia exchanging knowing glances, clearly remembering that awful spring break.

      “Oh…you’re right. I do pick the wrong guys,” I admitted now, realizing that as I flipped back through all my ex-boyfriends, they were all…actually… Well, more or less, jerk-faces. None of them had been truly serious about me or the future. “How did I not realize that until