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Usually, Nancy avoids meeting her boyfriend’s parents. They like her when they first meet her, sure. But its always only a matter of time before they find out Nancy’s favorite past time: solving mysteries (shockingly there was a small number of people in town that did not know about her exploits), and no matter how beautiful and charming she was, they did not approve.
After that, the parents would begin encouraging their sons to “distance themselves” from her because no one wanted their children solving mysteries for fun. It put stress on their relationship until Nancy eventually decided to cut her losses and be single again. Her dad would always take her out for ice cream afterwards, telling her that things would get better soon as Nancy was a special girl who required an even more special guy that good keep up with her-an equal.
It was a pattern that Nancy recognized and tried her best to avoid repeating. Of course, that was until Ace came along.
She had already met his father before they got together. Nancy was unsure of how he felt about the cavalier way Nancy put herself in danger every other day, sometimes twice (which led his son into danger), but he seemed to like her.
Once they began dating, Nancy tried her best to avoid his father. He already knew about Nancy’s adventures, which threw off the pattern that Nancy was so familiar with. She really liked Ace, and wanted things to work out between them-more so than anyone else before-and she was just unwilling to tempt fate by interacting with his father outside of the police station. Of course, Ace was an adult and capable of making his own decisions, especially about relationships. But Nancy could see how much Ace’s parents mattered to him, even his mother whom she had never met, and she was unwilling to come between them.
And like everything Nancy thought she knew, Ace came in and proved to her that there were parents who would like Nancy, regardless of her hobby.
Nancy knew that Ace’s mom worked at the library. She had a photographic memory and it was difficult to forget even off-handed comments like that. Yet, it still caught her off guard when they actually ran into the woman while doing some investigating for a case.
They were investigating yet another supernatural occurrence in Horseshoe Bay that led them to living people, just as it had for Lucy Sable and Tiffany Hudson. Nancy’s computer was in the shop after an encounter with a spirit that left her with a shattered screen and a sprained wrist. Since Ace usually used her computer to hack-not that Nancy was complaining-they had had to resort to other computers for research purposes until it was fixed.
Getting the information occurred without incident. it was getting out of the library that they ran into a little hitch. As in they ran into Ace’s mother, who Nancy was trying to avoid.
“Hey, Mom,” Ace said, turning away from the exit to face a woman who had just brushed behind them.
“Ace, are you blowing off work? You’re lucky that that George girl has not fired you yet,” his mother replied, placing the large stack of books in her arms on the counter of the receptionist desk.
“Actually, I’m on a break.”
Actually, Ace had only started taking long breaks like Nancy only recently. It was Nancy who was lucky to still have a job at the Claw.
“And who is your friend, Ace?”
Nancy felt her body freeze. Every instinct in her was telling her to run because parents like Nancy as a person, but they hated what she did with her free time, and she really wanted Ace’s parents to like her because she really liked Ace and wanted to make things work between them-
As if sensing her existential crisis, Ace answered for her. “This is Nancy Drew.”
“So, you’re the famous Nancy Drew! All my son does is talk about you. I’m his mom.”
With a tiny nudge from Ace, Nancy remembered her manners. She extended her hand and shook it, hoping that his mother did not realize how sweaty her hand was. “You talk to your mom about me?” is what came out of her mouth instead of telling his mom that it was nice to meet her.
“Well, yeah,” Ace shrugged.
“Sorry!” Nancy said, remembering her manners. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“He told me you were straightforward. I can see that that is now true,” his mom said with a smile.
Choosing to ignore how her face was probably just as red as her hair, Nancy leaned in close to his mom and asked, “What else has Ace said about me?”
“Oh, I like her,” she replied.
So maybe meeting Ace’s mom had not been such a bad thing after all.