We Interrupt This Date (14 page)

He rubbed his stomach and then sniffed the air as if
he could smell the contents of my refrigerator all the way to the
front yard. There is no animal on earth that eats like a teenaged
boy. I mentally inventoried my current food stocks and realized I’d
have to make a trip to Piggly Wiggly.

Despite Christian’s assurance that the trip home was
nothing more than a whim, I still wondered what had brought my son
to my doorstep. I thought college weekends were usually filled with
fun activities, so why wasn’t Christian participating? But I should
stop trying to read something into the fact that my son had dropped
in. I should be glad he was here instead of back at college
attending a wild party involving liquor and maybe even drugs or
other forms of risky behavior.

I shuddered. Sometimes I remind myself of Mama, who
seems to know every unfortunate person in the country. I could
almost hear her voice in my head.

One of my friends left a pot on a burner and burnt
up her whole kitchen so it was nothing but charcoal. Your Aunt
Edna-Merle’s neighbor used too much fertilizer on her lawn and
poisoned herself so she wobbled like an off balance fan for the
rest of her life. Lettie Stengler’s grandson went off to school
somewhere in the north and got hazed into a coma by rude frat
boys.

I reined in my thoughts and said. “There’s food, but
you’ll have to fix it yourself unless your grandmother’s willing to
cook. I suspect not. I imagine she’s too busy cooing over your baby
cousin and lecturing DeLorean.”

His eyes popped. “DeLorean’s visiting? With
Cole?”

Christian took off running toward the house before I
could explain that DeLorean’s presence was a permanent move. He
seemed to have forgotten Trinity. She looked at me and
shrugged.

“Christian told me about his aunt and her
baby. It was cute the way his face lit up when he talked about
them. I think that’s a nice quality in a man, don’t you? I mean,
when they love family and babies.”

“Definitely.” I hoped she wasn’t thinking my
son would be just the man she should marry so he could father a
bunch of purple-haired, nose-ringed babies for her. “Trinity, let’s
go inside. And if you don’t mind, it would really be better if you
didn’t call my mother by her first name.”

“Gotcha. I know how touchy old ladies can
be.” She made a throat cutting motion. “Both my grandmothers live
in permanent states of hysteria.”

Gee, could the poor old dears possibly be
upset over their granddaughter’s fondness for body piercings and
crew cut purple hair? I motioned for her to follow and led Trinity
to the back door.

The scene in my kitchen could have been
described as a template for a dysfunctional family reunion.
Christian was trying to pry Cole out of Mama’s arms, while Mama and
DeLorean argued over what DeLorean should have done instead of
letting Baldwin off the child support hook. Tiny raced in circles
yapping and growling.

“I declare, you have no idea how shocked I…”
Mama trailed off. Her gazed traveled from Trinity’s hair down to
her combat boots and back up again, detouring momentarily to the
motorcycle tattoo on the back of Trinity’s right wrist. Her serene
mask slipped. She forgot she was fighting for possession of Cole
and let Christian slip him out of her arms.

“Mama, DeLorean, this is Christian’s friend,
Trinity Vaughan. Trinity, my mother, Regina Marsh, and my sister,
DeLorean Marsh.”

Trinity strode across the room to the nearest
Marsh and thrust out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, DeLorean. Neat
name.”

“My mother certainly thought so when she let
my father convince her DeLorean was the name of a former queen of
France. Queen DeLorean the First. Funny, no one else ever heard of
her.” She shot Mama a petulant look. “Imagine how she must have
felt when someone told her she’d named her daughter after a
car.”

Mama lifted her chin. “The DeLorean is a
beautiful and expensive vehicle. Very rare.”

DeLorean snorted. I felt like putting on a
referee’s shirt and blowing a whistle. DeLorean was making a petty
complaint. I knew good and well she was proud of her name. She’d
actually been obnoxious about it while she was growing up, telling
anyone who’d listen that her name was DeLorean Angelique and then
pasting on a look of superiority while she waited for the
inevitable compliments. I was the one who had a legitimate beef.
Susan Nicole sounded like a permanently middle-aged woman who sat
around watching soap operas and knitting scarves.

Trinity turned to my mother and said,
“Pleased to meet you too, Mrs. Marsh.”

Mama’s ingrained manners dictated that she
behave as a lady. I was counting on this and I was not
disappointed.

“Hello, Trinity. It is
always
a pleasure to meet one of
Christian’s friends.”

Good thing Mama wasn’t hooked up to a lie detector.
Her tight-lipped expression told everyone in the room what she was
really thinking.

Trinity was a good sport. She knelt on the floor and
snapped her fingers. “Chihuahua. Cool. I love dogs. Back home I
have a cocker spaniel and two toy poodles. I miss them like crazy,
but hey, they don’t let you keep pets in the dorm.”

Cocker spaniel and toy poodles? I would have figured
her for the Rottweiler and Doberman type.

“My babies don’t like strangers,” Mama said in
clipped tones.

Strangers? They didn’t like me either, and I’d seen
them a couple of times a week since the day Mama brought them home
from Lydia’s rescue kennel, but apparently Trinity had something I
didn’t. Tiny climbed into her lap and kissed her nose stud, leaving
a lot of “sugar” behind.

DeLorean, who’d been sitting frozen since shaking
Trinity’s hand, suddenly sniffed and stood up. “Anyone like a cup
of tea? I was just putting the kettle on when Christian came
in.”

DeLorean had learned her diversionary tactics from
me. And, of course, Mama would not air dirty laundry in front of a
guest, even if that guest looked like an advertisement for dirty
laundry.

“That would be lovely,” Mama said. “There is nothing
in this world more soothing than a nice cup of tea.”

“Anyone else like something?” I asked.

“Coffee, strong, if it’s no trouble,” Trinity
said.

“Ditto.” Christian put Cole back in Mama’s arms. “And
eggs and bacon with whole wheat toast and grits.”

“Christian, I am not a short order cook.” DeLorean
looked put out, even more put out than she’d looked when I
suggested she get a job.

“I’ll cook.” Fixing breakfast would occupy my mind.
The air in the house seemed electric. God, had I really complained
a few short weeks ago that I was lonely and that maybe I should
adopt a cat?

Fixing Christian’s breakfast took only a matter of
minutes and then I joined my guests at the table. Conversation was
restricted to the weather—unusually hot--and the traffic--heavy.
The only person in the room who didn’t seem to pick up on the
strained atmosphere was Cole, and even that was debatable. He
fussed, refused his bottle, and seemed determined to brain Mama
with his rattle.

Christian finally pushed his plate away and said,
“Mom, I need to bring our bags in from the car. Is DeLorean staying
in the guest room or in my room?”

“Uh, guest room. And either you or Trinity can use
the fold out couch in my office.”

I’d turned the fourth bedroom into a home office,
decorating the walls with etchings of skyscrapers and business
buildings, though the extent of my home office work consisted of me
paying bills and balancing my checkbook.

Christian wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He
went outside, trailed by Trinity, and returned with a gym bag in
each hand. Mama watched over the rim of her cup.

I had my back to the stairs, but that didn’t matter
because Mama was prepared, as always, to keep me up to date.

“I must say, I am
shocked
. Susan Nicole, you’d
better put your foot down now and put it down hard. Your son headed
straight for his room with
her
like a bee back to the main
hive. It’s obvious he’s planning to keep that brazen little thing
in his own room right here under your roof. Why, she has hair
shorter than Christian’s. And she wears mens’ clothing.
Army
clothing.”

I bit my lip. It wasn’t as if I’d had planning
sessions where I contemplated how to react if my son brought home a
girlfriend and installed her in his bed. Did I care? Okay, I had to
admit to feeling uncomfortable for no reason that I could
articulate. But was that reason enough to put up a fight? And after
I’d daydreamed about having a fling with a boyfriend if the
opportunity arose, was I fair to point fingers at my
eighteen-year-old son?

DeLorean rolled her eyes. “Mama, puh-lease. This is
the twenty-first century. You are such a dinosaur.”

“If being a dinosaur keeps me from having a child out
of wedlock, then I’m quite happy with myself, thank you.”

“So you’re going to throw it in my face that Baldwin
and I didn’t get married. What’s next, are you going to call my
baby a horrible name because he was born out of wedlock?”

“DeLorean, the accusations. I declare. I would
never.” Mama fanned herself with an envelope I’d left on the
table.

Christian and Trinity had just walked back into the
room.

“Whoa.” Christian put his hands in front of him,
palms facing out. “I’m taking Trinity into Charleston. She has a
friend who goes to the Citadel and we’re going to get with him for
the afternoon and do the tourist thing. Hope you people have your
problems sorted out by the time we get back.”

“Come on, Trinity.” He flung himself across the room
and out the door. Trinity was right behind him, hanging unto the
back of his shirt. “Nice meeting you all,” she called politely over
her shoulder.

“Well,” Mama said, after the door banged shut, “that
was ugly.”

“Ugly doesn’t begin to cover it.” DeLorean’s jaw was
thrust out.

“Please, let’s not fight,” I said, before Mama could
say she’d told DeLorean a million times that a man doesn’t buy the
cow if the milk is free. “I’ll think about whether I want to tell
Christian he can’t sleep with Trinity while he’s in my house.” Like
I didn’t have anything more important to obsess over.

“You’d better think fast. I’d hate to imagine what
would happen to his college career if he sired a child before he
was halfway through his first semester. How would you cope then,
having to look after a grandchild?”

The same way I’d cope looking after a mother and a
sister and a nephew and a giant dog with too much hair and a
live-in flea colony. The same way I coped every day at work up
until the day Odell fired me. Cope should have been my middle
name.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mama. I’m sure
Christian doesn’t want a child any more than you want him to have
one.”

“You’d better have a talk with that boy about birth
control then.” She picked up her empty teacup, peered inside, and
set it back down with a thump.

“I believe that’s a required subject in
junior high these days. I distinctly remember signing a sex
education permission slip some years back.”

“How do you know Christian was paying
attention in class? A mother can’t be too careful, Susan. God
knows, I’m aware of that better than anyone.” She paused to glance
pointedly at DeLorean. “Since you refuse to listen to reason, I’ve
a good mind to call his father before it’s too late.”

I had a quick mental flash of T. Chandler
showing up on the doorstep with a giant bag of condoms slung over
his shoulder. I got up and handed Cole to DeLorean before I started
putting dishes in the machine.

Mama scurried over and rearranged the dishes
as fast as I could get them into the rack. “You can’t convince me
you’re happy your son is in lust with a girl who would look more at
home running an obstacle course at the nearest boot camp than
attending a tea party.”

“A tea party?” DeLorean blinked. “Do such
things even exist these days?”

“You would be surprised. You would be very
surprised if you ever tried to live up to your upbringing and act
like a lady. But whether tea parties exist isn’t the point, miss.
This Trinity person is entirely unsuited for my grandson. And there
is no reason to allow her into his bed and chance disaster.”

“But if she’s wrong for him,” I said, “then
maybe it’s a good idea not to fight him on this sleepover thing. No
need to give him even more reason to rebel.”

“That sounds like utter nonsense to me. Mark
my words, Susan, you will wish Christian had never laid eyes on
that—that androgynous little tart.”

DeLorean and I exchanged glances.
“Androgynous little tart,” she mouthed. I turned away to keep from
laughing.

The phone rang. The receptionist at the Pet
Wellness Center informed me that Brad Marsh would be ready at four.
Mama grabbed Tiny and took the opportunity to make her exit. When
she got to the door, she turned and said, “And another thing. Get
your fence fixed. There are housedogs, Susan, and there are yard
dogs, and I brought you up to know the difference. You girls would
do well to pay attention to me once in a while. Heaven knows I did
my best to instill my values in you.” She stiff armed the back door
and marched away to her waiting Cadillac.

“Yes, heaven knows,” DeLorean whispered.
“Mama must be on first name terms with God by now. And yet you and
I are still without values.”

She hugged Cole close to her chest. I was
startled to see tears slowly coursing down her cheeks and I leaned
over to squeeze her shoulder. She was under a lot of strain, and I
wished I could make things all better for her the way I did when
she was a baby.

After Mama’s Cadillac had disappeared down
the street, I remembered I hadn’t asked her about moving in. But
then, it didn’t take a genius to see that the whole idea seemed
worse than stupid. I’d have to find another solution, but what that
was, I couldn’t imagine.