The Marriage Portrait

“You think so?”

“Yes. I would be happy to have dinner with you and the Mums—provided you make sure they understand that it’s not a birthday party.”

Her brows drew close together. “The Mums?”

“Yes. You said seven ladies. They are the ones you’ve arranged for me to take to dinner, right?”

She gasped. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t give you the Mums for your birthday.” Then she began to laugh and, by the time her laughter was over, she had to remove her glasses and dab at her eyes with her handkerchief.

“What’s so funny about the Mums wanting to have dinner with me?” he demanded.

“That’s not what’s so funny,” she told him. As if it was too much for her, she reached for her water glass. “It’s just that…well, they know about your birthday present and when they hear that you read the invitation and thought it was them…” Again she giggled.

“Just what is my birthday present?” he asked.

“Maybe you should finish reading your invitation.” She reached over and tapped the embossed paper with her fingernail. “You didn’t open it. You just read the front.”

Michael picked it up and flipped it open. Inside was a note that read, “Happy Birthday, Michael. I hope you appreciate the gift your mother has given you and will join us for dinner at eight.” It was signed by a woman named Claudia Dixon, Director.

Puzzled, he asked, “Director of what?”

“Dinner Date. She’s a wonderful woman. So warm and sincere. Doing business with her was a real joy.”

Uneasiness rumbled inside him. “Business? What kind of business?”

“Arranging dinners for people.”

“Then this…” He glanced at the invitation again and saw the small logo at the bottom. “This Dinner Date is a service to arrange dinners?”

“Yes. Isn’t it a lovely idea?”

“If you need help with that, then it’s probably a valuable service.” He reached over to take her hand in his. “But I wish you would have saved your money. You don’t need to arrange a dinner party for me. Your dinners are special enough for me.”

“But this isn’t about having a dinner party, Michael. It’s about meeting people.”

Suspicion began to unfurl inside him. “Who will be at this dinner exactly? If you didn’t invite the Mums, who are we going to be meeting?”

“Not we, Michael, you. You shouldn’t be spending an evening with an old lady like me. You need to be with young people,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

He closed his eyes briefly. Oh no. She’d gone and done what she’d threatened to do for the past ten years. Set him up with the eligible women in town—or at least the ones she knew about. He knew Louella had a granddaughter who was single and so did Edith Larson. And then there was the woman who’d been giving her piano lessons.

He needed to get out of this dinner, but how could he do it without hurting her feelings? “Mom, I’m going to feel a bit self-conscious if I’m the only man with seven women…” he began.

She chuckled. “Oh, you won’t be the only man. There’ll be four women and four men. Claudia knows her business.”

“What men and what women?”

“Oh, I don’t know that,” she said cheerfully.

“Wait a minute.” He straightened in his chair, uneasiness creeping along his nerves like a fog rolling in from the ocean. “How can you not know who you invited to dinner?”

“Because I didn’t invite them. Claudia did. That’s her job.”

Michael picked up the dinner invitation and looked again at the logo. It said, “Dinner Date—bringing people together.” Tessie had said there’d be four men and four women. This Claudia was bringing men and women together.

“Mother, please tell me this isn’t a dating service,” he said, a sick feeling in his stomach.

“It’s not,” she denied emphatically. “Dinner Date is an alternative to dating services. Instead of having to pay a lot of money, fill out all sorts of questionnaires, and then have someone ‘choose’ you as a prospective date, you simply go to dinner with a group of people who have similar interests as you. There’s no matchmaking at all,” she assured him quickly.

“Isn’t the whole thing a matchmaking setup?”

“No, it isn’t,” she told him. “Claudia told me she started her business so that young professionals could enjoy an evening of dinner and good conversation without any of the pressures of dating. It’s simply a way to meet other professionals your age.”

“I have plenty of friends who make great dinner companions.” It was true. He’d never lacked for female companionship. Tessie, however, didn’t know that. Just because he never brought any of his lady friends to meet her, however, didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

“I’m sure you do.” She patronized him by patting his hand. “I didn’t purchase this opportunity for you because I thought you were short of friends. I just wanted to give you a chance to meet some nice young ladies….”

“I have women friends. I know it doesn’t look like it, but I do date,” he tried to convince her, but he could see by the lift of her eyebrows and the tilt of her chin that she didn’t believe him.

“You haven’t brought a single one here to meet me,” she reminded him.

“If I bring one over does that mean you’ll get a refund from this Claudia person?”

“That’s not funny, Michael.”

He hadn’t meant it to be but didn’t have the heart to tell her that. He struggled to find the right words. “I’m not much for dinners with strangers, Mom.”

“It’s simply an opportunity to meet people with similar interests as you.”

“I don’t think I’ll meet them through some dating service.”

“You don’t know that, Michael. Louella says that her cousin Margaret’s son Dennis—you know, the one who’s the optometrist? Well, he was skeptical, just like you. But he went to Dinner Date and guess what?” She paused, waiting for him to ask what.

He didn’t.

“He met a nice young accountant and they’re planning to get married next year.”

He could feel his collar tightening. “That’s fine for Louella’s cousin’s whatever…” He trailed off impatiently. “But I like to choose my own dates.”

“This isn’t a date,” she corrected him. “It’s simply an opportunity to have dinner and meet new people.” She got to her feet to go over to the bureau. She pulled a pamphlet from the drawer and gave it to him. “Here. You can read about it for yourself.”

Michael took one look at the Dinner Date brochure and set it aside with a grimace. “I really don’t want to read about it.”

“You don’t want my gift to you?” From the look of horror on her face, Michael would have thought he’d asked her to put dear old Cleo to sleep.

He wanted to say no, that he wasn’t going to go to any arranged dinner of single people, but there was something about the look in her eyes that stopped him. He raked a hand across the back of his neck. “I hate the thought of you spending money on something like this.”

“But this is the way I want to spend my money,” she assured him. “You work far too many nights and weekends, helping this one or helping that one,” she said with a flourish of her hand in midair. “Please let me give you a nice evening out with young people your own age. Just one dinner where you can talk to others who share your interests.”