Elena sighed, adjusting the curls escaping from her overworked claw clip. “I need to put a lock on this damn room. Anyway, you don’t need to be losing weight for them.”

“I know that, thank you.”

“If anything, you should be putting on muscle.”

“Can we just not talk about this?”

If some women of a certain age were starting to embrace the concept of body neutrality, her mother was not one of them.

“Paul sent me the nicest email, by the way,” Elena continued, taking a bite of a Babybel cheese. “Let me find it.” She tapped around on her computer, chewing.

“He told me, Mom.” Alex muttered.

“Ah! Here it is.” Elena popped on her reading glasses, a glittery purple that matched her nails. “He said: ‘Hi Elena, I just wanted to say that Guy and I will miss you at our wedding. We would have loved to have you there, but anything bigger would necessitate me inviting my father’s entire company, and I just can’t bear the thought. (I can only talk about golf for so long!) We’ll take excellent care of Alex, and I’ll stop by Rochester for lunch as soon as I can. Love, your almost-son-in-law.’ Isn’t that so sweet?”

“It’s extremely sweet. I think he’s better at being your kid than I am, honestly.”

“Oh, stop it. I just thought it was adorable. ‘Love, your almost-son-in-law.’ He’s such a nice boy.”

Alex flinched at the mere mention of a son-in-law, an unintentional tripwire she couldn’t ignore.

“Well, I guess it’s good you have him, since he’s probably the closest to an actual son-in-law you’re going to get,” she finally said, rather petulantly.

“You know that’s not what either of us meant. I’m just glad you’re taking some real time off, for once. You spend too much time at that office.”

“I know.”

Normally, Alex would push back on her mother’s anti-work commentary, but with the wedding looming, she bit her tongue. There was only so much she could dismiss Elena’s advice when her own choice to constantly prioritize work clearly wasn’t working in her romantic favor.

After a pause filled only by the sound of Elena chewing a protein bar, she continued: “I got you something, by the way. The package arrived this morning.” She saw her daughter begin to protest and raised a hand. “And if you don’t like it, I have the receipt. But it’s a combination bon voyage-late birthday gift. Maybe even a little bit of Christmas. We’ll see how many shifts Dad picks up.”

“How’s his back?”

Elena shrugged in lieu of a real response. Nick had already maxed out the number of lumbar-supporting additions he could make to the driver’s seat of his taxi van, so now it was just a question of fate.