I tried to see this ballroom of a living room through her eyes, wondering what she was thinking about the artwork, the sculptures, the photos of my mother with the actresses who have played her roles in TV movies.
And I watched Delilah, getting more drunk by the minute, running her hand over the collar and bicep of every man she spoke to, even the waiters. Tucking a fallen curl behind her ear and laughing like a teenager. I hadn’t seen her eat anything all night.
“Korean duck?” Anthony appeared out of nowhere, with a plate full of Asian eats and aromatic noodles.
“No thanks,” I sighed. “I’m skipping the main courses and going right for the dessert.”
“Ahh…it’s a chocolate ganache moment,” he teased and kissed me on the ear. I melted slightly, leaned against him, untensed for a moment to smile at yet another guest I didn’t know wishing us well. At least this one got our names right. I’ve been Amy, Allison, Emmeline, and Emsy all night. Twice I’ve had my cheek pinched, twice the other kind of cheek pinched, three times hugged until breathing was difficult, and about six times told what Viagra can do for our sex life and a happy marriage in the future. All I knew was that there were entirely too many smiling elderly gentlemen in the room. Made me want to hide the tray of oysters…and my mother.
“They’re not clicking,” Anthony said, and for a moment I associated the comment with these old men’s false teeth. Ah, pomegranate champagne, deliver me from reason.
“Huh?” I stepped back onto my other heel.
“The mothers.”
“Ah, yes…the mothers.”
The mothers of all evil, the mother hens, the mother—
“So what is it, do you think?”
“What is what?” I blinked a few times and tried to focus on the love of my life, who with a reassuring hand on my shoulder told me he knew I was tipped.
“What is it that’s making them act this way? So hostile. Some kind of class warfare?”
I looked up at him, to see if that was a joke, or if he was serious. He was serious.
And before I could open my mouth, his mother approached us with a thin smile and her husband yawning behind her. “So…Emilie…”
I created a smile for her. “Yes?”
Cautiously, with an eyebrow raised, she said, “You don’t have fur coats too, do you?”
How blessedly perfect a moment, right then, for the chefs to light the bananas flambé, sending giant lines of orange flame in dramatic, balletic curls to the top of the room. Perfect. Just perfect.
Chapter 4
“We could elope,” I ventured, not blinking and mesmerized by the dashes of white lines coming one after the other on the highway’s surface. Anthony was driving, amazingly dedicated enough to stay sober that evening, and I was silently chanting driving directions inside my head: Stay on the right side. Stay on the right side. Stay on the right side.
“You know you don’t want that,” Anthony yawned and gave his upper back a stretch with a backward curve of his shoulders and a quick flick of his head to the side to crackle his neck bones.
“It would be easier.”
“Ah, but it wouldn’t be right.”
“I know.”
Anthony put his hand gently over mine, and only then did I realize I had been death-gripping the sides of the leather seats.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said. “They’ll warm up eventually.” And I had this fleeting moment of fantasy: me standing next to an enormous glacier in Alaska, with its ruts and turns and chipped-away floes, with a green Bic lighter and a dumb level of optimism.
“And if they don’t?” I whisper.
“We encase them in ice blocks like that David Blaine guy and make them a fabulous art déco performance art centerpiece in the reception hall.” My love gave my hand a squeeze. It was probably the first time I genuinely smiled all night. I couldn’t remember. “Mothers on Ice…sounds like an ice skating special on TV, doesn’t it?”
Only Anthony could make reference to a figure skating show and still impress me with his virility. I needed him bad right now. “Hey, A,” I said with a dash of suggestion in my voice. “Can you find someplace to pull over?”
His look turned to concern. “You going to be sick?”
I took a moment to let a mischievous smile grow across my lips. “Nope.”
Tires screeching, we pulled into the back end of a crowded parkway rest stop parking lot. And got a pair of Starbucks white chocolate mochas and a Mrs. Field’s brownie to split when we were finished.
Chapter 5
“She’s burning that incense crap again,” Anthony waved his hand in front of his face once we’d pushed open my apartment door, forcing it with all four of our hands to fight the weather strip the landlord had put across the bottom edge. Rather than get us a door that doesn’t have a two-inch gap on the bottom, she stapled on some insulation stripping. Now every time we try to enter my home, it’s an upper-body workout.
My roommate, Leah, had lit not one, not two, not three, but four sticks of patchouli incense. Thick swirls of smoke rose up from the coffee table, and over the entire top half of the room hovered a cloud so dense it resembled one of those old French bordello and dance halls. Leah was nowhere to be found.
I looked up and saw the familiar plastic shower cap covering the smoke detector in the living room, and shook my head. “A, could you open the screen door?”
Shaking his head but with a half smile, Anthony assumed his usual task. Air circulation.
“Leah?” I called out through the place, but received no answer.
“Sorry, I can’t take your call right now. I’m reading my aura and consulting with my past selves. But if you’d like to leave a message at the beep…” Anthony teased, helping himself to a Corona out of my refrigerator. He has his own shelf in there…Coronas, string cheese, and V-8 Splash. If I’d been a stranger behind him in a supermarket checkout line, the inevitable analysis of his food choices would leave me no answer as to his sexuality.
“Stop teasing,” I nudged him, helping myself to an iced tea from my own shelf. All woman, it is. Yogurt, hummus, Dasani water, carrot sticks, and a roll of Pillsbury cookie dough. And my undereye concealer in the egg compartment.
Anthony just shrugged as if to say but she makes it so easy! And she does. I’ll be the first one to admit it.
Leah’s heart broke open last summer, after her fiancé left her almost at the altar. Actually it was the rehearsal dinner. And he left her for what we think might have been a man. Tall woman, large hands, hairy knuckles, and either a thyroid problem or a definite Adam’s apple. Bright red hair, matching red lipstick and too pale skin, went by the name of Kiki and listed her occupation (says Leah’s P.I.) as exotic waitress. We’re
