CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My hands gripped the steering wheel as I kept an eye on the dashboard clock.
“Relax,” Jason warned when I nearly blew through a four-way stop sign. “I guess I should have driven.”
“My parents do not take kindly to tardiness at their dinner table.”
“We’ll be far tardier if you crash the damn car, Audrey.”
I threw him a look and he held up a hand in the name of peace.
“I’m a little on edge,” I explained.
“I noticed.”
“I want this to go well.”
He patted my leg. “Don’t worry. I know how to impress people when I want to.”
I was about to explain that Aaron and Cindy Gordon were a little tougher to please than the average pair of sixty-year-old parents, but I held my tongue. If anyone understood complex parental relationships, it was Jason.
Last weekend he’d introduced me to his father. The man was in his seventies now, but in his prime he must have been as good-looking as his son, because I could see the shadow of Jason in his smile. And he smiled a lot. He beamed at us all throughout lunch, although he wouldn’t eat until Jason reminded him. Jason was planning on bringing him back to the house, but his father grew agitated after an hour at the restaurant and kept asking to see Sally. Jason had to explain to me that Sally was a woman his father had been briefly engaged to nearly fifty years earlier.
The elder Roma’s mood improved when we returned to the nursing home. As we were departing a nurse prodded him, “Now say goodbye, Chris.” Jason’s father waved at us with childlike enthusiasm. “Goodbye, Chris!” he shouted.
I couldn’t imagine how Jason felt. He must have gotten used to it by now, the fact that his father had forgotten him. Perhaps it was even a relief. I still struggled to hide my tears.
“Nice house,” Jason remarked as I pulled into the circular driveway of my childhood home.
I sat there for a moment staring at the familiar sight of the imposing mini-mansion before I cut the engine. “Yeah.”
My mother had surprised me with the invitation last week. She hadn’t stopped dropping hints that Dole Closterman could still be talked into giving me a chance, so I decided to tell her the truth.
“I have a boyfriend,” I told her.
“A real one?” she asked with obvious skepticism, perhaps having a flashback to when fictional baby-daddy Diesel was invented.
So I sighed and brought her up to speed on Jason. I left out the part about our three-week sex marathon six years ago, of course, as well as our more recent one. She was just pleased to hear that he existed, that he was successful, and that I hadn’t managed to chase him away yet.
“You need to bring him to dinner,” she gushed.
I’d never brought a man to my parents’ dinner table before and I wasn’t too fond of starting now. Jason knew about me, knew about my struggles with addiction and how I’d been a source of despair for my parents for years until I cleaned up and stayed that way. But he’d only ever actually witnessed the capable version, the Audrey who had her head screwed on straight, who was a competent adult and paid all her bills on time. Somehow I was uneasy about bringing him into an environment where I had lived at my lowest. I didn’t want him to ever look at me the way my parents had.
I tried to delicately put her off. “Well, Mom, thing is we’re both crazy busy with the courthouse project, working long hours. Maybe in a few months things will calm down.”
“Next Saturday night,” she said, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “Your father will be thrilled.”
I couldn’t imagine my father being thrilled about anything unless it had to do with money or a rare bottle of vintage Scotch.
“Okay,” I said weakly, thinking I could come up with an excuse before the day rolled around. It shouldn’t be hard. Surely Jason wouldn’t want to spend an evening in my childhood home getting grilled about his pedigree.
But Jason turned out to be enthusiastic. He said he couldn’t wait to meet the people who had produced Audrey Gordon.
And that’s what brought us here, ringing the doorbell of my parents’ home on a beautiful Saturday evening five minutes late. I tried not to feel like I was bracing to face the Inquisition.
My mother opened the door with a smile. Her face looked smoother, likely the result of some timely Botox injections, and she accepted my kiss on her powdered cheek before holding out a manicured hand to Jason. “I’m Cindy Gordon. Welcome to our home.” I didn’t miss the way her eyes swept over him with distinct approval.
“Thank you for the invitation.” He flashed her the smile that always made my knees wobble. Apparently Jason Roma’s effect on women was powerful enough to transcend generations, because my mother actually blushed a little as she accepted the bakery box he handed over.
I took his arm as we followed my mother through the foyer and into the dining room with the hopeful thought that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
“Aaron,” called my mother in her airy soprano. “Audrey and Jason are here.”
My father materialized with an empty highball glass in his hand and an annoyed look on his face. “Cindy,” he boomed, “didn’t you instruct the landscapers to rip out all that damn bougainvillea?”
My mother frowned and set the box—containing a gourmet Bundt cake—down on an antique sideboard in the dining room. “I think I mentioned to Luanne that she needed to inform them on their next visit.”
“That was yesterday and nothing’s been done.” He shook his head and set down his glass, grumbling, “Someone explain to me why no one ever has any goddamn personal accountability.”
“Hi, Dad.” I spoke up before my father could launch into one of his usual tirades about the epidemic of incompetence.
He blinked at me and looked less annoyed. Slightly less annoyed. “Audrey. Didn’t even see you there.”
Story of my life.
My father patted my back absently when I hugged him. “Dad, this is my boyfriend, Jason Roma.”
The two men shook hands, and I saw the way my father’s shrewd eyes scanned Jason, trying to assess his character and abilities so he could be categorized rapidly and accordingly.
“How do you do, sir?” Jason said, guessing that my father was the type who appreciated deference.
“Fine, thanks,” my father replied somewhat coolly.
“I’ll just go check with Luanne and see if dinner’s ready,” my mother said, disappearing down the long hall that led to the kitchen.
“Can I get you a drink, Jason?” my father asked, bringing his own glass for another visit to the nearby liquor cabinet.
Jason glanced at me. “No, thank you.”
My father filled his glass again and swirled the liquor around, a move I’ve seen him do since I was a child and never really understood the meaning of. When I was eight, I tried it myself. Then I hid under the vast table and sipped from the glass, grimacing as the searing liquid burned my throat. William arrived home from lacrosse practice and caught me under there. He warned me to never do it again, but he didn’t tattle on me then. Maybe he should have.
“Ah, so you’re like Audrey,” my father said offhandedly, “also not a drinker.”
“Jason’s not an alcoholic, Dad,” I snapped. “That’s only me.”
My father looked somewhat embarrassed for a few seconds, but he recovered. “You originally from the Phoenix area, Jason?”
“Yes, I was born here.”
“And your folks?”
Jason looked a little uncomfortable, as he usually did when prompted to talk about his family. “My father is still local. Used to own a construction company years ago.”
My father snapped his fingers. “Christian Roma. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, isn’t that something,” he boomed. “Lost track of Chris years ago, but he used to have a seat on the Chamber of Commerce. We often golfed together. How’s he doing these days?”
Still looking uncomfortable, Jason replied, “Actually he’s living in a nursing home. After his stroke, his dementia worsened.”
“Sorry to hear it,” my father said with a grimace.
I wondered if we’d be sitting down soon. With my father standing on one side of the dining room table and Jason and me on the other, we were almost positioned to face off in battle.
“I appreciate that,” Jason said, and I took his arm as a gesture of comfort.
“Now that I’m thinking about it, Chris often mentioned you, Jason,” my father said slowly. “You were a teenager at the time. Seems you got into some trouble now and then.”
“Nothing major,” Jason said. I could hear the wariness creeping into his voice. “Though I could be a bit of a hell-raiser at times.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” my father scoffed, never taking his eyes off Jason, seeming to revel in his discomfort.
I cleared my throat. “I guess we’ve all done things in our formative years we’re not proud of.”
My father tipped his glass to me. “And I guess the laws of attraction are correct. Like really does attract like.”
There was no opportunity to dwell on the ramifications of that statement because my mother returned with Luanne in tow. Luanne Barrie had been working for my parents since I was thirteen. Her Scottish brogue still gave her words a burr even though she’d left her homeland some forty years ago. She was really getting too old to tend to a house this size, but I knew my mother would keep her on as long as she wanted to remain.
“Hello, my beauty,” Luanne said, hugging me. “And this gorgeous lad must be Jason.”
Luanne’s sturdy body had locked Jason into a full embrace before he even knew it was happening. He didn’t seem bothered.
The stubborn old Scottish woman refused our offers to help serve dinner and brought out all the food herself before she left for the evening to return to the small house she shared with her grown daughter.
The more I thought about my father’s last sarcastic comment, the angrier I got. I tried to set it aside. He’d obviously had one too many drinks tonight, and in all probability one of his business dealings had gone awry, which always triggered a foul mood.
We ate a simple but delicious combination of roast beef, vegetables, and sourdough biscuits that were Luanne’s specialty. My father didn’t say much, but my mother was chatty and upbeat enough for both of them.
“How’s the hospital?” I asked her.
She fluffed her hair and sighed. “Busy. Political. As always. I’ve decided to retire next year.”
“You’re kidding.” I was stunned. My mother thrived on constant productivity.
“I’ll still have my committees with the museum and the historical society,” she said a little defensively.
“And it’ll leave you plenty of time to help William kick off his campaign,” my father added.
I spread a generous amount of butter on a hot biscuit. “Did you check with William about whether he was agreeing to run?”
“I’ll never retire,” my father announced from the head of the table as if my question had not been posed. “There’s no daily purpose without work. The mind starts to atrophy.” He pointed a steak knife across the table. “Don’t you think so, Jason?”
“I don’t think my father’s stroke resulted from the absence of fourteen-hour workdays,” Jason responded. “Work is a living. It’s not your life.”
My father didn’t like that sentiment. “It’s both,” he said with gravity. “Or you’re not doing it right.”
“Audrey,” my mother spoke up, “will you please run to the kitchen and get the Bundt cake from the refrigerator?”
I glanced at Jason, uncertain whether I ought to leave him out here with my father. Jason was busy devouring the last of his roast beef and didn’t seem at all out of sorts, so I figured he could hold his own.
The key lime pie was easy to find in the neatly stocked fridge. I grabbed a silver pie server from a drawer and returned to the dining room to find my mother asking Jason questions about the office.
“I’m lucky to be working so closely with Audrey,” Jason told her. “She’s a natural leader.”
I smiled as I set the pie down and began slicing it up. “I think we make a good team.”
“I didn’t realize you were managing the courthouse project together,” my father said, staring at me with an expression I didn’t really like. “I assumed you were handling it on your own, Audrey.”
“Audrey oversees the lion’s share of the management,” Jason spoke up, and I felt bad as I recognized what he was doing, diminishing his own role in order to satisfy my father. If he knew my father better, he’d understand that it was probably an impossible goal.
“We both manage the courthouse project equally,” I announced, and started handing out pie.
“That’s good,” my mother said. “Like a partnership.”
“Exactly,” I agreed.
An hour later my parents walked us to the door. My father had thawed toward the end of the meal as he and Jason found common ground discussing sports.
“Thank you for dinner,” I told my mother as I hugged her goodbye.
“Thank you for coming,” she said with a surprising amount of warmth. “We’ll have to do this again soon. And we’ll invite William next time. Audrey, I’ve been meaning to ask. Do you have any friends you could introduce him to? It hurts to think about how lonely he must be living in that condo. You know he only has the boys every other weekend.”
“Mom,” I said gently, “I don’t believe William is interested in meeting anyone right now. His divorce only just became final.”
“Some people move on from divorce quite well,” she countered. “Just look at Jennifer.”
I didn’t want to start bashing Jennifer right now, so I just sighed and let the conversation drop.
“Good night, Dad,” I said.
“Good night, Audrey,” he said. “Appreciate the visit.”
Somehow the words made me cringe. Maybe it was the formality, as if I were an outsider.
But then he and Jason were shaking hands in a manner that seemed friendly enough, so I figured I should probably put my paranoia to bed for the evening.
The door closed and Jason and I returned to my car. “That went okay,” he said with enthusiasm.
“It could have been worse,” I agreed. Then I started rifling through my purse. “Shit. I took my phone out earlier to check my email. I must have left it on the front table. I’m just going to run in and grab it, okay?”
“I believe I can entertain myself out here for a moment,” Jason said and smiled.
I hesitated to ring the doorbell. I hated seeming inept in any way, even if it was just leaving my phone behind for two minutes. I tried the handle. It was unlocked. Chances were my folks had moved on to some other part of the house and I could dart in and grab my phone without an encore farewell.
As the door creaked open I peered inside slowly, feeling as if I were sixteen years old and attempting to sneak in at two a.m. There was no one in sight. My phone in its purple sparkly case was sitting on the table where I’d left it, winking beneath the overhead crystal chandelier. I felt ridiculous as I crept in, but in another five seconds I would have what I came for and I could run back to the car and to Jason.
Then I stopped.
Their voices carried from the dining room. I paused to listen even as I suspected I would soon wish I hadn’t.
“He seems nice,” my mother said a little defensively.
My father grunted. “He seems like someone she’d pick.”
“Aaron,” my mother warned. “Give him a chance.”
“I know the type, Cindy. Charming, superficial, and worthless when it comes to practical matters. And the two of them are assigned to this courthouse project together? It’s a disaster in the making. Audrey won’t be able to handle the pressure, and we’ll be picking up the pieces again when she backslides.”
My mother murmured something that sounded argumentative, but I didn’t stick around to hear it. I snatched the phone and left, closing the door quietly behind me.
“You okay?” Jason said when I got back behind the wheel.
I tossed the phone on the dashboard. “Absolutely.”
When I was a mile away I suddenly wished I hadn’t closed their front door with such care.
I should have slammed the fucking thing with all my might.