I considered trying to defend my fashion sense, but she was too on the mark to waste the effort.
“Can I help it if you kept the glam genes to yourself when I was conceived? But thanks for the eyelashes and the dimples. Admit it. You love me just the way I am.”
At which point she broke out in song, as she is wont to do, and treated me to a stanza of “Just the Way You Are.” She has a great voice, something else which I did not inherit.
She was just finishing up when the doorbell rang and the birthday boy came in to the opening bars of “Shake It Off.” My mother has a wide-ranging taste in music, and a programmable digital doorbell to support it.
“Happy Birthday, Paul!” I said. His round, open face, topped by a receding hairline of sandy-colored curls, will never set a woman’s pulse racing. But the kindness that shines in his brown eyes and the open affection he has for my mother are two things I find very attractive about him. He gives off a reassuring Paddington Bear aura. It was underscored at the moment by the dark brown crew-neck sweater he wore, which pulled just a bit over the little paunch he was developing, and his tan corduroys.
“Thank you, Leah—I think. It seems like I just turned fifty a couple of years ago. Now I’m sixty-three already!”
“Well, consider the alternative and it won’t seem so bad,” my mother said, reaching up to give him a quick kiss.
“Easy for you to say, Carol. You’re ageless. And I love you. Will you marry me?”
My mother replied the same way she does to all of Paul’s periodic proposals.
“Paul, I have a daughter I love, a job I enjoy, a man I cherish, and a house to myself. I don’t want to jinx things. So, I’m honored to be asked, but the answer is no.”
Paul smiled, like he always does, and said, “I’ll keep swinging, Carol. One of these days, maybe I’ll knock it out of the park. Now, what can I do to help?”
“Not a thing, it’s your birthday. Give me your coat and have a seat. Would you like a drink?”
While she fussed over him and got him settled in the living room rocking chair with a bourbon on the rocks, I went back to the kitchen to finish the washing up my mother had started.
When she returned I asked, “Who all is coming?”
“Paul didn’t want a big fuss. So it’s you, me, Paul, Father Lindstrom, Gabe—he’s still planning to come, right?”
“Yeah, his plane got in late. But he said he should still make it by six-thirty. I’m glad Father Lindstrom will be here. I haven’t seen him for a while.”
Father Lindstrom is the parish priest at St. Stephen’s where my mother is a member, and I am not. I left organized religion a long time ago, but if every priest or minister was like him, I might be lured back. I pulled five plates out of the cupboard and set them on the counter. As I turned to the silverware drawer, I saw my mother reaching for another plate to put on the stack. I had a sinking feeling that I knew who it was for.
“Seriously?” I whispered into my mother’s ear. “You invited Spencer?”
“Shhh. Keep your voice down, Paul will hear. Do not ruin his birthday,” she whispered back in the same tone that used to precede Leah Marie, go to your room! when I was a kid.
I took a deep breath, nodded, and motioned her over to the far corner of the kitchen, out of sight of the living room.
“Mom, I’m sorry, I don’t want to ruin Paul’s birthday. But how could you invite Spencer? He’s used every dirty trick in the book to thwart every positive move we’ve made at the Times. You know what an arrogant, nasty, unethical jerk he is. If he comes it will only be to make everyone—including Paul—miserable. He’ll say or do something awful. He always does. If I’d known he was invited, I wouldn’t have come.”
I had kept my voice low and tried to inflect it with the normal rhythms of a casual conversation, not the righteous tones of a prosecutor’s closing argument, so if Paul overheard the sounds, he wouldn’t realize we were arguing.
My mother responded in kind, forcing a smile into her voice as she said, “That’s why I didn’t tell you. Spencer is Paul’s son. I don’t like him any more than you do, but it’s Paul’s birthday, we’re having a party, and his son should be here. Just don’t let him get under your skin, and we’ll make it through the evening. Please. For Paul’s sake.”
Pleading is not my mother’s style, but I could see in her eyes how much she wanted Paul to have a happy evening with no blow-ups between me and Spencer.
I sighed. It’s always been hard for me to fathom how someone like Spencer could spring from a good man like Paul. Of course, there was his mother Marilyn in the mix. People really should be more careful about the gene pool they dip into when procreating.
Paul’s ex-wife is a bitter, angry woman who spoiled her son, denigrated and derided her husband for years, and then blamed my mother for her failed marriage. The only thing Marilyn was generous with was her spite. She had blanketed me, too, with her petty meanness and vicious scorn. It was Marilyn who had bankrolled Spencer’s start-up of GO News just as we were trying to get the Himmel Times back on its feet. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
“All right. I promise to try. That’s as far as I can go.”
After all was in readiness for dinner, I poured myself a healthy shot of Jameson in preparation for the bumpy night ahead. When the doorbell rang, I answered it, glass in hand and an attempt at a cordial expression pasted on my face as I opened the door.
It soon changed to a genuine grin when I saw who was there.
“Gabe!” I gave him a quick hug and whispered, “Spencer is coming!” in his ear.
“Not exactly sweet nothings, but now I see why you’re carrying such a big glass,” he said with a quirk of his eyebrow.
I nodded grimly, then turned to the little man with a fluff of white hair and a sweet smile who stood next to him. “Father Lindstrom, I’m so glad to see you!”
“I’m very happy to see you, too,” he said. The ankle boots I wore added a couple of inches and made me feel like I was towering over his small frame. I bent down and gave him a light kiss on the cheek.
I slipped my arm through his and led both of them to the living room, where my mother and Paul were standing in welcome.
While they exchanged greetings I set my glass down and said, “Let me take your coat, Father.”
Gabe wasn’t wearing one, but he helped Father Lindstrom off with his and came with me to deposit it on the bed in my old room.
“You look beautiful,” Gabe said. “Did you do something different with your hair?”
“I’m far from beautiful,” I said. “Maybe I look better than usual because you haven’t seen me in a while. Hair is still the same, long, straight brown. Eyes, hazel but more brown than green. Features, average. However, I am styled to the max, thanks to Miguel.”
“I think you look beautiful. Full stop. Take the compliment.”
“All right, I will.”
“So, where is he? Himmel’s own William Randolph Hearst, I mean.”
I immediately wrapped my arms around him and gave him my best full-focus kiss, which is pretty amazing, if I do say so myself.