“Remember when you two got fake married in the backyard?” Mom asks us.
Fox and I are sitting at the breakfast bar eating the amazing brunch she and Ruben made. We look at each other, scoping one another for recognition of the story. I’m also looking for his reaction to it. I immediately stop myself.
“No.” We answer in unison, which is a little creepy. Mom rolls right past it because it isn’t that unusual. Or at least it wasn’t when we were kids. Now, it’s a little disconcerting.
“You don’t?” She’s genuinely surprised, so she rattles off details as she cleans up the pans and countertop. “Fox proposed with a blue leash string from his dad’s old surfboard and tied it around your finger.”
“What?” I say, wondering if she’s made this whole thing up to torture me. “I don’t remember this.”
“That’s what mothers are for, Puddin’,” she says, continuing. “He told me, ‘Margit’—do you remember you used to call me ‘Margit,’ Fox?”
He shakes his head but offers, “Now I just call you ‘Hot Mama.’ ”
Mom laughs, but I look at him and make something akin to a “did you fart” expression.
“So full of shit,” she says, continuing with the details of a fake wedding that I’m not totally convinced actually happened, yet she’s treating the facts of the case like it was a real, legit ceremony. “Sophie stole my best lacy slip, cinched it with a red patent leather belt. Fox stole some ridiculous black heels from Roz’s closet, and then Soph made a crown and veil out of a broken, yellow plastic bowl and some old Christmas napkins.”
Fox’s lower lip juts out as he nods a mock approval and gives me a thumbs-up. “Classy choice.”
I flip him off. “You wore your mother’s shoes.”
“No,” Mom says, delighted. “The shoes were for you. He wore her fluffy red robe as a suit.”
I guffaw. “Even better. Please say it had flowers on it.”
“You guys honestly don’t remember? I have to have a picture somewhere,” she continues, musing to herself where said photo evidence may be. She looks around the kitchen as though it might give her a clue. I follow her intently with my eyes as I’ll need to burn the pictures later, should they truly exist. “I was hired as the official photographer. ‘Polaroids only, Mommy,’ you’d said. Directing my style choices even then.”
“No, I don’t remember,” I say honestly. “Did we ever get fake divorced? Can I ask for fake alimony? I get fake half of everything you fake have, dude.”
Mom takes the question as a hilariously serious inquiry, answering, “No.”
Fox sighs theatrically. “I guess we’re not committing any mortal sins, then.”
My entire face dilates and my mouth opens like a dying fish. My eyes damn near pop out as my brows hide behind my ears. My pupils? The size of the moon. I smack his thigh. He jumps and looks at me finally, his expression clear. He has no idea what he said.
“Your filter is for shit,” I hiss under my breath.
“Wait, what does that mean?” I’m so glad Mom did not let that one slip by. And by “that one,” I very clearly mean the mortal sins slip by Prince Idiot von Dumbass.
“Nothing, Mom,” I say through my teeth. “Way to go, bumblefuck,” I growl at him. He’s still in the lap of gorge-himself-on-other’s-food luxury, while I know Mom’s going to piece this crap together all too easily.
“Hold on,” she declares with a tilt to her lips. Here we go. “Is Fox the sperm donor? Why didn’t you tell me?!” She has a look of hurt on her face.
I sigh and feel a weight settle on me. Fox, however, wastes no time in making it as bad as he possibly can.
“Well, in the biblical sense, yes. I’m not sure why she didn’t tell you.”
Mom gasps, but I see her eyes twinkling. She’s going to give me such shit. I can tell she’s pissed I didn’t disclose, but now that she knows there’s actual real live sex involved, she’s got other ideas. Wedding bell ideas.
“Asshat,” I snap. Fox makes a doltish face, far too at ease with all this. I may have to kill him. After I get pregnant, of course. Then he dies.
“So is this more than—”
“Mom,” I snap, my voice a warning. “This is business.”
Fox adds, “Frisky business.”
I don’t even bother to turn and look at him. “He’s basically doing me a favor. Sort of. It’s—”
“I’m doing you as a favor,” he says because the motherfucker can’t keep his mouth shut for the life of him. I briefly entertain the idea of becoming a monk in Nepal. Maybe a permanent house sitter in Antarctica.
“Fox Adam Monkhouse,” Mom hisses, hitting him with her rolled up Entertainment Weekly magazine. “I will call your mother.”
Bizarrely, that gets his attention. “Sorry, Margaret,” he says, giving her the puppy dog eyes. “I got a little carried away.”
“You two,” Mom murmurs.
“Seriously? You lump me in with this freak?” I say before shoving a hunk of warm, buttered pan cubana in my mouth.
She smiles crookedly, lifting her mug to her lips. As she sips, I realize it says “#1 Grandma” and I choke on the bite I just tried to inhale.
A minor flurry of activity swirls around me including a too-hard thump on the back and Mom screaming in my ear that I need to breathe. Ruben is chattering in Spanish somewhere in the background, but maybe he’s talking to Mona, their dog. My arms flail out and around until I hit someone and the fuss subsides. I cough and manage to clear my own airway. “It’s like you guys were trying to kill me instead of help.”
“Your airway was blocked,” Fox says. “We were trying to help.”
“You know if—” Mom starts, but I cut her off.
“Just stop, you guys. Thanks, I’m alive. So, Mom,” I retort, barely or not at all hiding my irritation. “Number one grandma, huh? Seriously?”
She turns to look at the mug she left on the counter. “What? It’s positive thinking.”
I point the mug out to Fox.
He chortles and sips his coffee. “Classic.”
I smack him on the back of the head and he flips me the bird.
“Am I the only one who sees this as a sort of jinx? Pregnancy harassment, even?” My pitch has gone squeaky in the face of my ire. I sound like a fucking squirrel. Fox laughs like the evil bastard he is.
“Oh, get over yourself,” Mom says with a groan. She goes back to drink her coffee. “It’s your grandmother’s mug. She left it when she visited last weekend.”
The “bullshit” glare I level at her is countered with the mother of all mothers’ laser-beam death-match eye daggers. I know I’m going to lose that battle, so I grab the mug from her hands and lift it so I can see the bottom. The name “Jean” is written in a flowery script in blue marker. It’s a little smudged and worn on the edges.
“Okay, fine,” I say, sheepish as I hand it back. “I never pictured Gram as someone who travels with her own mugs other than to boozy bingo, but the woman has her quirks.”
“Don’t she, though?” Mom agrees, smug.
Were she not my mother, I would want to slap the smirk off her face. Since she is my mom, I just try to look contrite.
She leans over and smacks me on the back of the head. And again with the “you two.”
My bread and eggs soon disappear and I unleash a flood of maple syrup on my bacon. Fox groans when he sees this. It’s a groan of pleasure and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t spark a series of dirty thoughts and ideas, which come to a screeching halt the moment I remember my mother is standing right in front of us. Sophie’s beachfront property dries up like a magic trick.
Fox clears his throat and I snap my eyes to his. He’s holding up a strip of his own bacon that he just doused in syrup. I roll my eyes, but his smile is contagious. “Cheers,” we say in unison, “clinking” our bacon together.
This time Mom just smiles knowingly, sips her coffee, and side-eyes the both of us.