Since Olivia had stayed the night with her, Mom had insisted on taking her to mass to “show her off”. She was as close to a grandchild as Mom would ever get, so Neil and I had both been fine with it. It also gave us the opportunity to sleep in and wake up together, which we rarely had the chance to do, anymore.
I woke to Neil nuzzling his stubbly face into my neck, and an erection pressing pointedly against my backside.
“Good morning,” I said with a sleepy laugh. “You know, I could have slept longer.”
“I couldn’t. I’m programmed to wake at sunrise,” he muttered against my skin.
“You don’t have to do that.” This was an argument we’d had many a time since Olivia had learned that the baby monitor was a direct line to our bedroom. “She has a nanny.”
His response was the same as always. “But it’s my responsibility.”
I moved to turn over, and he used the opportunity to roll on top of me, settling between my legs to lean down and kiss me. I couldn’t believe I used to freak out about morning breath. When we’d first started doing the sleepover thing, he’d kept disposable toothbrushes on the nightstand for me, just so I wouldn’t bolt out of bed the moment my eyes opened. Now, I couldn’t have cared less about it. I guessed when all was said and done, when I’d faced the possibility of never having another wakeup kiss from him ever again, bad breath wasn’t so big a deal.
“What time is it?” I asked with a yawn as his mouth moved up my jaw, toward my ear.
“Early enough for a quickie.” His teeth found my earlobe, and I gave him a firm push.
“What time is it?” I repeated, sterner this time.
With a sigh, Neil rolled off me and reached for his phone. He disconnected the charger and blinked at the screen. “Ten.”
“Then, it’s not early enough for a quickie.” I sat up and tried to run a hand through my hair, but thought better of it when my fingers tangled in the hairspray-bound strands. The last thing I needed on top of everything else was split ends. “Church gets over at noon, and they’ll be expecting to see us at the house when they get back.”
He groaned and reached for me as I pushed back the covers, but I evaded him.
“We could be having wake-up sex,” he protested. “We never have wake-up sex, anymore.”
“I promise there will be other opportunities.” I reached for my bathrobe; even in June, the mornings could be chilly. “You’re going to have to be happy with wake-up masturbation.”
While I would usually stay and watch, I headed to the shower, instead. It wasn’t just that I needed time to get ready. My head was still spinning from the night before. We were about to go to my grandmother’s house for Sunday dinner. Extended family would be there for our visit. And everyone would ask me how the reunion was. Sure, I had the “I got sick” excuse I could use, but it wasn’t the answer I was dreading. It was the question.
Sleep had done nothing to solve my problem. Rather than using my unconscious time to sort through my complex feelings, my stupid brain had opted instead to make me dream about having a birthday sleepover with Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. I had no more insight now than when I’d cried myself to sleep last night.
The water was nice and hot, though the pressure wasn’t what I was used to. Once I’d become accustomed to a multi-head shower blasting me with water from every conceivable direction, I’d been ruined for all other shower experiences. But I could get clean and lose myself in the sound of the water hitting the plastic tub surround. I probably wouldn’t get a chance to be this mindless for the rest of the day.
Maybe I should have had quickie morning sex, after all. It would have given me a few minutes without anything on my mind.
I was shampooing my hair when the bathroom door opened and Neil stepped inside. Over the sound of the shower, I heard him say, “I needed that.”
I smiled to myself as I rinsed my hair. “Well, I’m glad one of us is relaxed.”
“I didn’t say I was relaxed. How many people are going to be there this afternoon?”
“No telling. But not as many as Christmas. I’m assuming it’ll be Aunt Marie and her kids, at least. Maybe Uncle Doug, if he’s back from Arizona.” My great-uncle and great-aunt did the snowbird thing, way out in the desert. They said it was good for their arthritis, but Mom said they were actually staying winters in a nudist colony. I couldn’t even look them in the eye after that revelation.
“I don’t remember anyone’s names,” Neil complained. “Usually, I’m so good with names.”
“No one will care. We know we’re overwhelming,” I promised him. “I’m just not looking forward to telling Mom about the whole—”
“Right,” Neil cut me off, so I wouldn’t have to say it. “Have you made any decisions on that?”
“Yeah, actually. I have.” I took a deep breath. “I’m not going to mention it to Mom until we’re back in New York. We’re not here for much longer, and I don’t want to spoil the rest of her visit. And I don’t want to have to explain things over and over to the whole family and get everyone’s input. I need extra time to think about all of this.”
“That is completely fair,” Neil agreed. “And have you spoken with your mother about the trip to Las Vegas?”
Oh, shoot. “I can’t believe I forgot.”
“So, the plan is to wake her up, throw a black bag over her head, wrestle her into a van, and drive her to the airport?” he teased. “It’s a gift, Sophie, not a prison sentence. But she’s going to need to know about it, soon.”
In a few weeks, our lover, El-Mudad, would be coming for an extended visit. We’d timed everything out perfectly; Olivia would be with Valerie as per the shared custody arrangement we’d set up together. The only wildcard was my mother and her boyfriend living in our guesthouse.
Tony already knew that Neil and I were unconventional people. He’d been our driver in New York before he’d started dating Mom, and I cringed whenever I remembered the number of times Neil and I had gotten dirty in the backseat. But to my knowledge, Tony had never told my mom any of that stuff, thank god.
I wasn’t ashamed of the fact that Neil and I weren’t monogamous, and I definitely wasn’t ashamed of El-Mudad. We’d landed a hottie, and he was a great person on top of his dazzling good looks. But I would never be able to explain our relationship to my mother. So, the plan was to send her on a trip to Las Vegas to get her out of our hair. We were going to send Tony, too.
The trick would be getting them to accept the gift.
“I’ll figure something out, I swear,” I promised Neil.
“Are you finished in there?” he asked, pulling the shower curtain back. “I have quite a mess to clean up here.”
I squealed and backed away from him as he stepped into the shower with me. “I swear to god, if you get cum on me—”
“I was teasing. But there is a very limited supply of hot water, and it appears I have to crowd you out to get any of it.” He slowly encroached on my personal space until I gave in.
“Fine! Just let me condition my hair, and then, it’s all yours.”
One of the nice things about being around family was not feeling like I had to wear a face full of makeup. I loved makeup—don’t get me wrong. But sometimes, it was nice to just run a comb through my hair, put on some comfy clothes, and go. I slipped on a long-sleeved tee with horizontal navy and cream stripes, my favorite skinny jeans, and my pineapple-print Toms. Neil, on the other hand, agonized about his appearance. He’d done the same thing when we’d packed for the trip. He hadn’t wanted to wear anything “too fancy”, but he’d worried he wouldn’t be able to “blend in”. When I’d pointed out that he usually wore sleep pants and T-shirts all day since he retired, my help had not been appreciated.
The sweatpants thing was a sore point, as my mom brought it up so often.
After a few changes, he decided on a heather gray Henley and blue jeans. The shirt made his eyes even greener than usual, and I caught myself sighing dreamily over him on the drive to my grandmother’s house.
“Is there something on your mind?” he asked, glancing briefly from the road to me in concern.
“Well, yeah, a lot of things. But right now, I was just admiring how cute you are.” I gestured ahead of us. “Don’t miss the turn.”
We pulled into the driveway just behind Mom and Tony.
“How was she?” Neil asked when we got out.
“Good morning to you, too, Neil.” Mom quipped. But I knew she understood his anxiousness. “She was fine. Slept through the night.”
“She got up at four in the morning, though.” Tony groaned, extracting Olivia from the backseat.
The moment her feet touched the ground, she shouted, “Afi!” and ran at Neil, who stooped down to catch her.
“There’s my girl.” He picked her up and rose, planting a kiss on her cheek that she promptly wiped away. To my mother, he said, “I’m sorry, Rebecca. If I had anticipated that she would be going to church, I would have sent more appropriate clothing.”
She didn’t look as inappropriately dressed as Neil thought. I knew he and his family had always gotten spiffed up to impress at the C of E services they’d attended, but his mother had viewed church as more of a social occasion than a spiritual one. In Calumet, bringing a toddler to mass in overalls and hoodie wasn’t something that would turn people’s heads.
“Oh, she looked fine,” Mom reassured him.
“No church,” Olivia interjected.
“She wasn’t impressed,” Mom said with a fond smile. “Sophie was always that way, too. How are you feeling this morning, Soph?”
“Better,” I lied. “It was just a bad headache.”
“I done,” Olivia announced. She pushed against Neil’s chest and wriggled until he had no choice but to set her down, again. She toddled to me and reached for my hand. “You come see.”
I silently thanked her for the change of subject.
“She wants to take you to the wind chimes,” Mom explained, nodding to the porch. Olivia already dragged me in that direction, and I knew where the wind chimes were—various sets had lived on the same corner of the porch since I was an infant—but Mom still followed us and said, “They’re over here.”
“Up!” Olivia demanded when we reached the porch, and I acquiesced, holding her so she could reach the weathered copper chimes. Tony and Neil went into the house, but Mom hung back.
“Sophie, I have the most exciting news!” She checked over her shoulder as though she didn’t want anyone else to hear. Then, she stuck out her left hand.
“Is that an engagement ring?” My brain stuttered to a halt. “Seriously?”
“We’re going to tell everyone today. He just proposed last night.” Mom was giddy. Overjoyed. And oddest of all, suddenly young in my eyes.
That was super uncomfortable, and I didn’t know why.
My mother was getting married? My mother, whose every date I’d run off in the past? Who’d seemed resigned to the life of a spinster, but totally okay with that? She was going to get married?
“That’s great,” I said, the words oddly hollow. How was I supposed to process this? Was I supposed to process it? I’d been fine with her dating Tony. Why was getting engaged suddenly a huge issue for me?
I wrote it off as parent-related weirdness. After all, I’d just had the shock of my life the night before. And this newer, smaller shock? It was okay that I was shaken, right?
Mom frowned. “It doesn’t sound great.”
“Well, you weren’t thrilled when I told you I was engaged to Neil, either,” I shot back without thinking. I quickly apologized. “Sorry. It’s not that I’m not happy for you. I am. I’m just surprised.”
“It’s going to take some getting used to,” she agreed, as Olivia whipped the wind chimes into a deafening frenzy. “You knew Tony before I did, and he works for you. That has to be a little…”
A little like my soon-to-be stepdad once drove me to my abortion appointment?
“It’s not that. Really. I might call you Lady Sybil, but that’s just a joke. I promise I’m not going all class trash on you.” There was no reason I couldn’t tell her at least a partial truth. “It’s not your engagement. I just got some…weird news. Last night. And now, my whole deal is messed up.”
“Your deal?” she asked, with the long-suffering arched brow of a woman who’d had to speak my language for nearly thirty years.
Yikes. Better to not think in terms of numbers. Not on the same weekend as my class reunion. There were only so many little breakdowns I could handle.
“My deal. You know. My whole—” I waved a hand up and down to indicate the total of my existence. “We can talk about it when we get back to New York. I don’t want to mess up your awesome day.”
We went inside. Family arrived. Food—too much of it—made it to the table. Aunt Marie came with two of my cousins, Leanne and Beth. Uncle Doug made it, but Aunt Debbie was on a floating trip with her girlfriends down in the Lower Peninsula. Neil seemed relieved that it wasn’t as big a gathering as Christmas, and that, this time, Tony was the new, exciting addition to the family, which let him off the hook.
“We have an announcement,” Mom said, once we’d all gathered in the living room with our plates of food in our laps. Olivia ate off a metal Power Rangers tray on the floor.
“You’re getting married!” my grandma said.
Mom frowned in annoyance. “Yeah. We’re getting married. Thanks for letting me announce it.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Grandma shook her head. “I never thought it would happen.” She slid her plate carefully onto the arm of her recliner and got up to hug both Mom and Tony, who was caught awkwardly holding his food to the side so it wouldn’t spill everywhere.
“So, this happened recently, then?” Marie asked. It sounded more like a condemnation than a question. In other words, Why the hell didn’t you call me? I’m your sister!
“Last night!” Mom waggled her fingers excitedly. “I took him out to the shore, to show him the lake at sunset. That’s where he proposed!”
Neil cleared his throat, and I shot him a sly look. That was exactly how he’d planned to propose to me, until I’d ruined the moment.
Misunderstanding his intent, Mom quickly added, “Olivia was already asleep, and we weren’t gone for long.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t concerned about that,” Neil assured her, standing to shake Tony’s hand. “Congratulations to you both.”
“Thank you, sir,” Tony said, then quickly amended, “Neil.”
“You’ll have to drive them to their honeymoon,” Grandma piped up. “It’s only fair, Neil.”
Yikes, that was another thing Tony knew about us that Mom presumably didn’t. Our little sex house on the property, where Tony had dropped us off on our wedding night.
There were going to be a lot of skeletons I’d need to stuff back into closets and what not.
“Yes, well.” Neil cleared his throat, likely thinking of exactly the same thing I was.
“So, when is the wedding?” Marie asked. “Are you going to have it here?”
“We haven’t really talked about it,” Mom said, looking to Tony. “Probably in New York?”
“My ma can’t really travel, on account of her health,” he explained.
“Well, what about me?” Grandma tried to sound offended. “I’m eighty years old! I can’t travel!”
“You just got back from Reno. You can’t use that excuse.” Mom turned to me. “Would you guys mind if we got married at your house?”
“Not at all,” Neil said automatically, but I knew he’d regret it later, when he realized it would mean putting up my entire family at our house. “A seaside wedding would be lovely.”
“And we’d all get a chance to finally see this freakin’ palace you’re apparently living in,” Leanne said, looking up from her phone for the first time since they arrived.
“Oh, yeah, she looked it up on Google Earth,” Marie said with a laugh. “I thought it was an airport.”
The idea of having a party at our house brightened me up considerably. Sure, we’d had Olivia’s birthday party last month, but it had been so long since we’d had a proper grown-up, freak-out-and-let-your-hair-down kind of celebration.
I couldn’t think of a time that I’d danced since our wedding.
“We can get one of those cool tent things for the reception and put it right on the front lawn!” I almost shouted in my enthusiasm. “And floating candles in the pool!”
“Calm down, Sophie. Let your mother plan her own wedding,” Grandma admonished. “She’s certainly waited long enough to have one.
“Nice, Ma.” Mom rolled her eyes. “And what about Miss Olivia? Do you want to be a flower girl?”
Olivia looked up and stuffed a handful of scalloped potatoes into her mouth. A garbled, “No, no, no. I eating,” managed to get out around it.
Neil bent to wipe the mess off her face and hands, and I shrugged. “I think we’ll call that a maybe.”
****
Returning to New York was surprisingly disappointing. I’d kind of liked living as the old me. No housekeeper, doing my own dishes, cleaning up after myself. It had been nice.
But I was still pretty hyped to get back to having a nanny.
We’d only just pulled under the porte cochere when Neil got a text from Rudy. “Oh, bol—”
I arched a brow and pretended to cover Olivia’s ears.
“—ognese,” he self-corrected. “He has reservations at Kurumazushi tonight, and his date canceled.”
“Are you kidding?” I made a sour face. “You’re going to get to eat there before I do?”
“No, I can’t ask Tony to drive me all the way into the city. He must be as tired as I am.” But Neil still sounded slightly disappointed.
“Hey…” An idea slowly formed in my mind. Tony was about to be a part of our family. He couldn’t be our driver forever. Neil would have to stop thinking of him as an employee. “Why don’t you see if Rudy can add someone to the reservation? Then, you can take Tony out and get to know him better.”
“I know Tony!” Neil protested. “He’s worked for me for years.”
“Yeah. He’s worked for you. But he’s going to be your father-in-law soon.” Jesus, that was weird. “Why not get comfortable with him?”
“Rudy certainly wants to get comfortable with him,” Neil muttered under his breath. It was true. Rudy called looking at Tony “window shopping”, because “I can look, but I can’t buy”. Neil typed in a response with his thumbs. “All right. He’ll be thrilled. But I don’t know if Tony will be.”
“It’ll be cool. I can hang out with Mom. Maybe call Holli.” Truth be told, as much as I loved my husband and as grateful as I was to still have him, getting away from him sometimes was a nice break.
When we pulled to a stop, Neil rolled down the partition. “I hate to pull you away from your fiancé, Rebecca, but I think a celebration is in order. Just…the guys.”
I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. Neil wasn’t good with colloquial American-English. It’s like his tongue rejected anything remotely normal sounding.
“What guys?” Mom asked suspiciously.
“Rudy has a reservation at an incredible restaurant,” Neil explained. “He’d like us to come along.”
Rudy might not yet know that he’d invited Tony, but apparently, it was happening, anyway.
“I’m driving,” Neil added. “Unless, of course, you’d like to try your hand with the Huayra.”
Tony looked at Mom. “Sorry, babe, I’m going out.”
I’d never thought about it before, but Tony had really never gotten a crack at any of Neil’s cars, other than the chauffeured ones. I always just assumed Tony wasn’t into cars on his off hours. I mean, I didn’t come home and work on magazines to relax. The only hobby of his I really knew about was knitting. That didn’t seem compatible with lusting over the…Panini Hoorah or whatever it was called.
“Hey, maybe you and I could hot tub,” I suggested to Mom, hoping she’d be up for it. For Christmas, we’d had a beautiful pool and hot tub put in behind the guesthouse, and I liked it more than the one at the main house.
She shrugged and sighed. “Yeah, since I’m apparently getting dumped for your husband.”
“No, you’re being dumped for a supercar.” Neil chuckled to himself and checked his phone. “We’re meeting him at nine-thirty. What time is it?”
“Five twenty-seven,” Tony replied. “So, we need to get out of here at…with traffic, I’d say six.”
“Why not just take the helicopter, then?” I asked, and they both looked at me like I’d grown antlers.
I tossed up my hands. “Fine. Drive two-hundred miles round trip just to play with your shiny toy.”
“I think we shall,” Neil said with an infuriating grin.
We unloaded our luggage ourselves and dragged it inside, and Neil promised Tony he’d be ready in fifteen minutes.
I didn’t laugh when Neil said that, but I could have. The man took at least twenty minutes to pick out his shoes in the morning. Going to a fancy restaurant—
Crap.
While Neil was changing, I quickly texted Mom, tell tony fancy place jacket required.
Then, I called up Holli.
“This is so weird,” she said in lieu of “hello”. “This is my best friend’s number, but my best friend hasn’t called or texted in like a week, so I know she’s dead…”
“Very funny.”
“Oh my god, are you her murderer?” Holli faked a gasp then laughed. “What’s up, you bitch? Why the radio silence?”
“I was back home. You knew that.” I was sure Deja had done plenty of complaining about my absence. Not that she wasn’t entitled to; I really didn’t show up to work as often as I should.
“Oh, I forgot there’s absolutely no cell reception in Michigan.”
“Listen, do you want to bitch at me, or do you want to bring your wife out here and hang with me and my mom in her amazing hot tub?” I hoped it was the latter. I missed my BFF like macaroni missed cheese.
“Deja’s having dinner with some clients. Why aren’t you?” Holli asked.
Yeah, why aren’t I? “They must have set that meeting up while I was gone. But you’re still invited!”
“Ugh. You’re all the way out there,” she complained. “And I’m not a very good driver…”
I rolled my eyes, even though she wouldn’t see it. “Can you be at the helipad in an hour?”
“I’m getting my suit and my keys, and I’m already at the door,” she promised.
I hung up with her and texted Mom, Holli’s coming. She replied with a row of heart-eyed smiley faces. Her enthusiasm was likely influenced by the prospect of showing off her ring. Then, I called our helicopter service. Being as far from the city as we were, it made sense to constantly have a crew on standby. At least, that was what Neil said. I’d gotten used to our wealth, but “necessary standby helicopter” was still something of a foreign concept to me. And our neighbors certainly did not appreciate the noise.
But it came in handy when I wanted to see my bestie on short notice.
Neil came into the kitchen, holding two pairs of nearly identical black loafers. “Which ones? The Mantellassi or the Santoni?”
“The left,” I decided after a quick perusal. They were a cool black that complemented his navy blue windowpane-print sports coat. “You’re looking very previously-on-Hannibal this evening. When did you buy that?”
“Rudy picked it out for me. Do you think I pull it off?” He frowned and tugged at the cuff. “I can’t tell if he’s taking the piss or if he really thinks it suits me.”
I went to his side and rose on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “You look very handsome. And hip.”
“I think I’m too old to be hip, but thank you for flattering me.”
“You’re fifty-four. Sting is sixty-five, and he’s still cool,” I pointed out.
Neil made a noncommittal noise. “I’m going to just pop in and give Olivia a kiss goodnight. Don’t wait up for me if you’re too tired.”
“Okay, Mr. I’m-too-old-to-exist,” I teased. “But you’re not the only one who’s going to be out partying.”
He smiled to himself as he checked his cufflinks. “Does your mother’s hot tub really count as ‘out partying’? It seems a bit more like staying in and getting drunk off your ass.”
“If it’s not my house, it’s going out,” I insisted. Besides, I never drank in our house. Not a drop of alcohol passed our threshold, anymore. Neil had been sober for over a year, but that sobriety was still tenuous. When I came back to the house tonight, I would brush my teeth and use mouthwash to get the scent off my breath.
“Be safe,” he warned, leaning down to kiss my forehead
“I’ll have parental supervision,” I reminded him, and reached up to boop his nose. “All you’ll have is Rudy.”
Neil’s face resisted his smart-ass smile. “That’s not true. My father-in-law will be there.”
****
My mom dresses for the hot tub like she’s Mariah Carey conducting a poolside interview. Hair curled, makeup touched up, giant sunglasses on top of her head, despite the fact the pool area was shaded, she came out of the house with a sixer of Mike’s in each hand, her long, sheer caftan billowing behind her as she walked.
“Are those jelly heels?” Holli gasped, reaching up for the hard lemonade Mom offered her.
I took one and pressed it to my forehead. We’d gone into the water ahead of Mom, and I’d just hit the sweating stage. Of course, I looked wilted while Holli sat there gorgeous and waif-thin in her Day-Glo pink bikini.
Meanwhile, I’d gained ten pounds since February. It was probably water weight, considering how much of it I’d been chugging lately.
Mom toed off her shoes and said, “Yes, they are. Aren’t they beautiful?”
“And you’re rocking the peacock feather thing,” Holli went on, indicating Mom’s bathing suit cover-up. Holli wasn’t kissing ass. She genuinely liked my Mom’s sense of style. Sometimes, I felt like I was in a parallel universe with Mom and Holli working at the same Chico’s together.
“So,” Holli went on as Mom pulled off her cover up and stuck her toes in the water. “You’re getting married.”
“Oh!” Mom hurried to take off her ring and placed it carefully on one of the lounge chairs. “Thank you. Yes, I am.”
“That’s amazing. Sophie, is that not amazing?” Holli beamed at me. “You’re gonna have a dad!”
I forced a weak smile. While she knew about my daddy issues, she couldn’t have had any idea how deeply her words impacted me. But while I tried to keep a brave face, it was impossible to pull off. My voice trembled as I tried to squeak out, “Yeah. Amazing.”
“Soph?” Holli asked, sitting up. “Are you okay?”
I turned to my mom, because tears were already leaking from the corners of my eyes. “This is not about you and Tony. At all. I’m happy for you. I just…had a really confusing and bad experience at the class reunion.”
“What happened?” Mom sank into the water beside me, pulling her hair back in a sequined scrunchie so the bleached strands wouldn’t hit the chlorinated water.
“I…” If I broke the news to her, would she feel bad? Sad? It wasn’t like she’d harbored some kind of secret love for my father. They’d hooked up at a party in high school, and she’d gotten pregnant with me. It wasn’t exactly the world’s most epic love story. I didn’t want to see her reaction, so I looked down at my feet far below the churning water. “Joey Tangen is dead.”
“Holy shit,” Holli breathed. “Sophie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay.” I waved a hand. I still didn’t want to look my mom in the eye. I’d spent so much time in my youth blaming her or threatening to run away to find him. I didn’t want her to think I was trying to take the joy out of her engagement, too. “It’s not like I knew him. It’s just…the death of possibility. I think that’s what’s bothering me more than him actually being dead.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom moved to put her arm around me, but I held up my hands.
“No, really, I’m okay. I had my big freak out. Let’s not bring on another, okay?” I pleaded.
Mom looked like she didn’t know how to do anything but hug me, and now, I’d left her at loose ends. Then, she frowned. “Wait, how did this come up at the class reunion?”
“He has other kids—one married my high school crush. If you can believe that luck,” I joked grimly.
Holli raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, lucky her, as you relax in the hot tub on your Hamptons compound that’s owned by your sex machine husband with his huge—”
“Whoa! Whoa!” Mom held up her hands. “I do not want to hear about any of that.”
“Oh, please, like you’re not going to play Never Have I Ever with us at your bachelorette party.” Holli punctuated her statement with a long swig from her bottle.
Mom turned back to me. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this while we were still in Calumet?”
“There really wasn’t a good time. I was really freaked out the night it happened, and the next day, you were all engaged. I didn’t want to shit on your happiness.”
She looked heartbroken. “Soph, honey. It’s not shitting on my happiness to be upset about your father dying, whether you were close to him or not.”
“I wouldn’t call it being ‘not close’. I would call it being a total nonentity to him.” How could that hurt and not hurt at the same time? “But I also needed some time to think. I wasn’t withholding to spite you.”
“I would never think that,” Mom promised.
“I just don’t want to make any rash decisions about all of this. I have to decide what to do from here. Do I contact my…his kids? They haven’t contacted me.” That had been the constant loop in my head since the night of my big panic attack freak out. If they knew I existed and they didn’t contact me, did they really want to know me? Or were they thinking the same thing about me? Could I handle the rejection if they didn’t want to know me? It wasn’t like I wasn’t used to being rejected by my father’s family. I’d been practicing my whole life.
“You don’t have to decide that, now,” Holli said.
“That’s right,” Mom agreed. “You need to think of yourself first. Protect yourself.”
“Protect myself?” I had a sudden, vivid mental image of my daddy issues running at me like that army from Braveheart.
“You’ve had a couple of rough years,” Holli reminded me. “If you’re not ready to launch yourself into another vat of complicated, boiling emotions, nobody is going to think less of you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I closed my eyes and tipped my head back as I sank farther into the water. “At least you guys are up to speed, now. So…let’s talk about something else.”
“Yes!” Holli agreed, slapping the water. “Let’s talk about your trip to Las Vegas!”
I flinched as she sang the last word.
Mom looked to me. “What is she talking about? Are you going to Vegas?”
“No, actually. You are.” I gave Holli a glance so pointed I could have performed laparoscopic surgery with it. “I just didn’t get a chance to tell you.”
“What?” Mom sounded confused and delighted, but that was no guarantee she’d agree to actually go.
“Neil and I wanted to do something nice for the two of you.” At a specifically determined time which happens to coincide with our lover coming for a visit. “We have a friend coming to visit for a week in August, and he has his own driver. We thought we could spare Tony and send you guys to Vegas. There are some really, really nice suites at the Bellagio.”
“Oh, Sophie…I don’t know.” Mom’s reaction was not what I had expected. The mom I knew would jump at the chance for a free vacation. “I’m not sure Tony will go for it.”
“Does he not like Vegas?” I asked, my mind racing. “You guys can go somewhere else. We have an apartment in Venice—”
“Do you not want me around when your friend comes?” Mom frowned. “If you think Tony and I will cramp your style, we can stay out of your hair.”
“It’s not that at all. And you’ve already met him. It’s not like I’m ashamed of you or something. It’s El-Mudad. You met him last year.” From the corner of my eye, I caught Holli looking between the two of us like she was following the ball in a tennis match.
“The guy who came and stayed with you while Neil was in the hospital?” There was a slight tone of judgment there.
I ignored it. I knew what my mom had thought; that El-Mudad and I had screwed around while Neil had been in the hospital. Though that wasn’t the case, it was better than her knowing the alternative. I could live a thousand lifetimes without my mother being aware of the threesomes I had with my husband and another guy, and she could live two thousand lifetimes in the same state of ignorant bliss. We had a silent agreement, even if she didn’t know about it.
Holli knew, though, and she jumped in. “You’ve got to go to Vegas, Becky. It’s the complete tits. Big ones.”
“I just don’t know that Tony is going to be okay with taking money from his employer to run off on a vacation.” She shook her head. “I mean, I’ll talk to him—”
“Tell him it’s an engagement present,” Holli suggested. “What’s he going to do? Say thanks for the all-expenses-paid trip, but no thanks, I don’t like having a good time?”
“Oh, he likes having a good time,” Mom said with a knowing swig from her bottle.
“Ew.” It was bad enough that I’d found out about their relationship by walking in on them. Of course, it had kind of been payback from the universe for how Emma had found out about me. I still had a hard time laughing at that memory.
“I’m not dead from the waist down,” Mom horrifyingly went on. “If I have to hear about your husband being a sex machine—”
“Husbands are off the table!” I declared.
“I don’t have a husband,” Holli pointed out cheerfully. “I have a wife. So, I can talk about our sex life in detail, right?”
“I have to work with your wife. And you already tell me too much,” I reminded her. It’s very difficult to look someone in the eye after hearing all about the thorough work over she’d given my best friend the night before. It was even worse when the texts, were still rolling in during that eye contact.
Holli scowled. “No sex talk allowed, no weed allowed. I’ve been in funner hot tubs in convents.”
Mom and I both gave Holli the look.
“What? I have,” Holli insisted, adding, “You don’t know my life.”
“Like I said, I’ll talk to Tony. But I can’t promise anything.” She paused. “And Holli?”
Holli tilted her head.
“I never said no weed allowed.”
“I just have to get something out of my purse real quick.” Holli shot to her feet, water streaming from her body as she hurried across the patio.
“Mom!” I gasped in shock.
She shrugged. “What can I say? It’s a whole new me. You’ll just have to get used to it.”