Stella took a deep breath and poured herself a generous glass of white wine. She had done her duty, talked to most of the people at the party, and now had a moment to herself.
Roland was off in the other room, probably still getting his ear talked off by that guy who owned a sailboat. She thought about going in there and throw him a lifeline but she didn't bother. Her husband was a big boy. He could take care of himself.
Stella was more concerned about Alan. Their son never did well at parties. In fact, he never did well with people at all. Especially girls. He was twenty-one and she was sure that he had never had a girlfriend. Never even had a date. Stella doubted that he had ever kissed a girl.
It's hard for a young man to get a kiss from a young lady when he's too shy to talk to her.
When Alan had been in high school, Stella had told herself that he was still young; he had plenty of time to sow his wild oats; he would come out of his shell when he matured a little more.
When he continued to avoid girls in college, Stella had a harder time convincing herself that it was only a matter of time before her son blossomed. He'd stayed in his room and studied hard, earned the highest grade point average in his graduating class, and had been selected as class valedictorian. She was proud of that accomplishment, but she would rather have seen him go out and party on Saturday nights. He could have asked a girl to a movie at least once in four years.
If a boy couldn't pick up a single girl from the estrogen-laden smorgasbord presented by a college campus, what hope did he have out in the real world?
For a time, Stella wondered if her son was gay. Then, when he was in his second year at university, she found the girlie magazines that he kept hidden under his mattress. Not an ounce of beefcake in the pile. After that, she began noting how avidly he looked at girls in short skirts and tank tops walking down hot summer streets. He stared at them with such desperate desire that it almost broke her heart.
He wanted a girl, no question. His problem was that he had no idea how to get one.
Stella had a mother's love but that didn't stop her from looking at her son objectively. He was average looking, not handsome but no uglier than most other boys, especially after the post-pubescent acne that had raged his teenage face had finally given up the fight and the residual damage faded to barely noticeable scars.
His faults were more subtle than simple homeliness.
He was too skinny to be athletic, but he was heavy on his feet for lack of muscle tone. His awkwardness made him gauche without the saving grace of disarming innocence. A decent exercise would fix that.
A more difficult problem was that he was too shy to look anyone in the face so he kept his eyes averted. That gave him the air of someone who always had something more interesting to do somewhere else.
His voice was soft and that made him easily ignored. No matter how clever his remarks, they were wasted if they were not heard. Worse, he spoke in a soporific monotone that scuttled any emotional impact that his words might have conveyed.
His strengths would have outweighed his deficits if any girl made the effort to notice them. He was smart, ambitious, and worked like the devil himself. And he could write like an angel. Google had hired him right out of college as a junior technical writer but he wouldn't have to stay in that cubicle for long. Once his managers had a chance to discover and appreciate his talents, they would find more profitable ways to exploit him.
He would never be fast-tracked, but, given time, he would go far in corporate America.
If he had the right woman in his corner – someone who could make him care about what people thought about him – he would go farther, faster.
As she drained her wineglass, she decided that the time had come for her to stop waiting for nature to take its course and grab the helm with both hands. She loved her son dearly and would do anything to steer him on the right course.
Anything.
She refilled her glass, took another heavy sip of her chardonnay, and drifted toward the family room where the younger people, including Alan, had congregated. Standing a few steps outside the open doorway, she could watch him covertly. He was sitting in the circle like the other young people but, somehow, even when surrounded by exuberant youth, he managed to be alone.
Nobody was consciously trying to exclude him. The banter simply slipped past him because he made no attempt to respond. The smiles and laughter rolled off him without leaving a trace.
When he did smile, he was never synchronized with the others. When someone made a subtle joke, his quick mind caught it before anyone else and his smile came too early; or when someone made a simple jibe, he failed to find humor and he smiled only when he heard the others' laughter, too late to be anything but an observer.
"They're having a good time," a masculine voice said near her ear.
Stella turned to see a man smiling at her. What was his name? Peter something. The host had introduced him when he'd first arrived. Him and his wife and their daughter Candace. She remembered Candace because she had been so pretty. Not beautiful like a model but cute as a button. A pixie in a short plaid skirt and soft red sweater. A lively contrast to Alan's wooden manner.
When they had been introduced, Stella had seen her capture her son's heart with a carefree laugh and casual wave. He'd barely been able to force a soft, "Hello," from his lips before she'd skipped off to find the heart of the party somewhere else.
"Your daughter seems to enjoy herself," Stella replied. "I envy someone who is so at ease in a crowd."
"She does like people," Peter said.
"Is she in school?"
"She was studying history at the university but she dropped out last spring. She was smart enough to do the work but didn't find the academic life as interesting as she'd expected. Now she's working for a year while she decides what to do next. Once she's had a chance to think about it, I think she's going to settle on nursing. It's a practical profession and she has a caring nature. I think she'd be a great pediatric nurse."
Stella looked back into the room where the young people were laughing and flirting. Candace was at the center of the action – the pretty maypole around which the others danced. "I can see that," Stella replied. "She relates well to people."
"You have a daughter in there, too?" Peter asked.
"A son. Alan. He's sitting two over from Candace. In the blue shirt."
"Oh, right. I remember."
She could tell that he was lying. It had been over two hours since he'd been introduced to Alan. Undoubtedly he had forgotten her son as soon as he'd heard the name. Alan never made a first impression on anyone. Not a good impression or a bad impression – no impression at all.
Alan was looking wistfully at Candace but, when she turned in his direction, her glance passed through him as though he were made of the purest crystal.
"I guess Candace has a lot of boyfriends," Stella said.
"She has a lot of dates. I don't think that she's ever had a real boyfriend," Peter replied. "She's not ready to settle down with a boy any more than she could settle down with her studies."
"Maybe she hasn't found the right boy yet."
Peter laughed. "There's no
maybe
about it. She found a lot of the wrong boys but not a single right one. The only saving grace is that she figures out that they're the wrong boys soon enough and dumps them before she gets hurt. She's smart that way."
Stella smiled. "We all had to kiss a few toads before we found our princes. Or princesses."
"Yeah," Peter replied but his tone sounded unconvinced. "We do find our princess, don't we?"
