by Robin Roseau
“Seriously?”
“Something about her Scandinavian background. She feels like a horrible host if people don’t pop buttons.”
“Stark doesn’t sound Scandinavian.”
“It’s not. Grandma married outside the clan.” Mary giggled. “But it’s how Mom was raised.”
“Elsa’s a Scandinavian name?”
“Yeah. Mom is named after her great-grandmother.”
“And Selena?”
“Mom liked the sound of it.”
“And your sister’s name?”
“Holly.”
“Navy?”
“She did ROTC. She’s an O-3.”
“That’s a rank?”
“Lieutenant,” I said. “But it’s confusing.”
“Why is it confusing?”
“Because ranks in the military are E-1 through 9 or O-1 through, I think, 7. Something like that. So an O-3 in the army is the same rank and pay as an O-3 in the navy.”
“Okay.”
“Well, an O-3 in the navy is a lieutenant.”
“So you said.”
“In the army, a second lieutenant is O-1, and first lieutenant is O-2.”
“I begin to see the confusion.”
“And O-3 in the army is a captain. But in the navy, that title is doubly confusing, because it’s an O-6, but to make it worse, if you are the commanding officer of a ship, no matter your rank, your title is captain.”
“Oh, god,” she said with a little laugh.
“I told you it’s confusing.”
“So, she’s the equivalent of an army captain.”
“Right.”
“But if I meet her, I call her Lieutenant Stark.”
“No. You call her Holly.”
Mary laughed. “What does she do.”
“Nuclear-something-or-other.”
“She manages the nukes?”
“No, no. Some of the ships are run off nuclear reactors.”
“What?”
“All our aircraft carriers and subs run off nukes. Some of our cruisers did, too, but they’re decommissioned now, according to Holly.”
“Oh, shit,” she said. “I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t really ask too many questions. A lot of what she does is secret, and she prefers if we don’t ask. She knows we care. It was hard at first.”
“I imagine. So she’s on a ship or a sub?”
“Aircraft carrier,” I said.
“She sounds way more exciting than you.”
I laughed. “Probably. She said it’s a dead-end career path, though.”
“Why?”
“The military is weird. You have to receive regular promotions, or you are forced to retire. It’s how they make room for more people. There are only so many promotions. Every officer gets promoted to O-2, and I think to O-3. I’m not sure. But after that, it starts to dwindle. At some point, if you haven’t had command time, no more promotions. Holly says she probably won’t get in her 20, because she’d have to take a post she doesn’t want.”
“I bet there’s not much demand for nuclear-something-somethings in the private sector.”
“I don’t know, but she’s a decorated officer in our United States Navy. She’s commanded men and women, and she’s brilliant as all hell. It won’t take her ten minutes to find something. She could go to work for any power company in the world, for any ship builder, and any business can find room for someone like her.”
“Good.”
“So, what else do you want to know?”
“Did you bring any rope?”
“No, I did not.”
“I did.”
“Did you really?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I brought scarves.”
She laughed.
* * * *
It was late. We changed planes at Minneapolis/St. Paul for the short hop up to Duluth. Rolling our suitcases with us, we made our way out of the secure area, and then I saw Mom. She was smiling by the time we reached her.
“Hey, Honey,” she said to me, then shifted her gaze. “You must be Mary.”
Mary offered her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Ms. Stark.”
“Elsa,” Mom corrected. “Do you have bags checked?”
“Nope. Just these,” I said.
“The car is this way.”
Mom turned and led the way from the terminal. Mary glanced at me. I leaned to her and whispered, “I told you.”
Outside, I tried to spot Mom’s car. Instead, she led us to a red SUV. The lights flashed, and then the tailgate opened. I stopped. “Mom, is your car in the shop?”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“I sold that one.”
“Mom. That’s a Honda.”
“What’s wrong with Honda?”
“Nothing is wrong with Honda,” I said. “But I thought you’d be caught dead before you’d drive a Japanese car.”
“Your aunt talked me into it. I like it. It has all-wheel drive and all the safety features. I was riding in hers one day, and the car prevented an accident. You know how your Aunt Barb drives.”
“Yeah.” A lot like you, but I didn’t say that part.
“I made her pull over. We were both shaking. And then I asked her about the car, and what had just happened. We drove to the dealer.”
“Wow. No, you didn’t tell me.”
By then, Mary had tossed our bags into the back. Mom pressed a button, and the lift gate closed. She sort of bounced up and down. “I love it when it does that.” Then she held the keys to me. “Do you want to drive it?”
“I’d love to.”
“Sit up front, Mary,” Mom directed.
“It’s okay.”
“You’ll get to see better, although there’s more to see tomorrow. Duluth can be a pretty town.”
“Can be?”
“It all depends on which way you’re facing,” I said. “You’ll see.”
We climbed in. I adjusted everything, and then we were on our way. Mom gave Mary a running tour of what we were seeing, but it wasn’t until we came over the hill, with all the lights below us, that Mary’s eyes bugged out. “Oh, shit.”
“I think now you understand what she meant when she said Duluth can be pretty.”
“Wow,” Mary said. “Is that the lake?” She pointed.
“That’s the harbor. The lake is more to the left. We’re at the tip of it, so it doesn’t look as big as it does when you go further northeast. But remember, big ore ships have been sunk in the storms. It can be pretty nasty.”
“There’s that song.”
“Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” Mom said. “By Gordon Lightfoot. 29 lost souls. She sank in November, 1975. Exact cause unknown, but it was during a terrible storm.”
“Mom’s kind of an expert,” I added. “I think she can list every wreck.”
“Not every wreck,” Mom said. “The biggest ones is all. Small boat owners do stupid things all the time, but the Edmund Fitzgerald was the last major shipwreck on Lake Superior. The heyday for wrecks was really the last half of the 19th century. Ships are built so much better, and modern electronics have eliminated most instances of running aground or getting rammed, so storms and idiots are the only real dangers. The laws also changed, which probably made the biggest difference.”
“Wow,” Mary said.
“I can talk your ear off,” Mom admitted. “But I won’t. Tell me about yourself, Mary.”
“Selena and I work together.”
And then she said nothing else. Mom waited until finally she said, “That has to be the briefest answer I’ve ever heard.”
I smiled, but I was going to let the two of them work it out.
“I’m a user experience designer.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Well, Selena’s a programmer.”
“I barely understand that.”
“Right. Well, I’m the person who thinks about how
the user will use the system. I figure out how to make it as easy and intuitive as possible.”
“Oh,” Mom said.
“When you use software that’s hard to figure out,” I added, “It’s because they didn’t use someone like Mary, or they did, but either didn’t listen to her, or she’s just that bad. Mary is really good.”
“I bet she is,” Mom agreed. “I’ve never thought about that.”
“It’s still a changing industry,” Mary said. “Companies are growing to realize that programmers suck at figuring users out.”
“We don’t suck!”
“Yes, Selena, you do. You want to put everything on the front page where it’s easy to find. But if you do that, you overwhelm the user, and they freeze. So you hide it all, and then they can’t find anything.”
“Okay, that’s all true.”
“Programmers also talk in Geek Speak,” Mary added. “Which doesn’t help the problem.”
“Selena definitely talks a foreign language.”
“Ha!” I said. “You should hear Mary when she gets going.”
“I understand Mary just fine.”
I glanced at the woman in the passenger seat. She gave me a grin and then began speaking Dutch, just a few sentences. She finished, and Mom asked, “Okay, that really was a foreign language.”
“Dutch,” I said. “She’s the little Dutch girl.”
“Half-Dutch,” Mary clarified.
“She’s bi-lingual.”
“Actually.”
“What?” I asked.
“Quad-lingual.”
“What?” I exclaimed.
Mary began speaking again, this time in something that sounded like the Dutch, but I recognized more. “That’s German!” She nodded, and then she switched to French. “Show-off,” I muttered. “Fluent in all of them?”
“Yes.”
“I speak a little Swedish,” Mom said. “But just a few phrases I picked up from my grandparents, or stuff anyone from Minnesota knows. Selena learned German.”
“Barely enough to get through college,” I clarified. “Don’t try speaking German at me. I won’t understand one word in ten.”
“You just need to practice,” Mary said. “Repeat after me. Mary ist die klügste Person, die ich kenne.”
“Cute,” I said. “What is klügste?”
“Say it, and I’ll tell you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Say it,” she said. “Elsa, make her say it.”
Mom laughed. “Come on, Selena. Make your girlfriend’s night.”
“Fine, fine. Say it again,” I said. She did, and then I repeated it.
“Your accent is terrible.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. What did I say?”
“How much do you understand?”
“Something about you’re the something-person I know.”
“Your German isn’t that bad. You said: Mary is the smartest person I know.”
Mom and I both laughed, then I said, “You’re in competition with my sister. She speaks Nuclear Reactor. Do you?”
“Okay, I admit it: Your sister might be smarter.”
“I’m proud of both my girls,” Mom said.
That was the point we pulled into the driveway. I hit the remote for the garage and pulled into the tuck-under. We climbed out, and Mom said, “You’ll be able to see more tomorrow, Mary.”
“It’s a nice house.”
“It’s a small house,” Mom said a little defensively.
“Is this where you grew up, Selena?”
“Yes. We lived with Grandma and Grandpa.”
“Three generations,” Mary said.
“It was cozy,” Mom agreed. “But I couldn’t have done it alone.”
That made us all quiet until we made it into the house. “Why don’t you show Mary the guest room.”
I froze. “Mom.”
“Your bed isn’t big enough for two of you. The guest bed isn’t that big, either, but it’s bigger.”
“Oh. Right. Come on, Mary.”
I gave her the tour. At my room, she said, “You still have a room here?”
“I keep telling Mom she could convert it, but she doesn’t. She keeps two guest rooms, really. The official guest room was Holly’s room.” We dropped our stuff off, then Mary sat down on the double bed. She smiled. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?”
“You’re thinking that bed frame has lots of places to tie you.”
“Are you sure that’s what I’m thinking?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you’re right.” She stood up. “I like your mom, even if she didn’t hug you.”
“Yeah, she doesn’t really hug.” We headed back downstairs and found Mom in the kitchen. “I told you,” I muttered again. “Mom, it’s midnight.”
“You need to eat. I know what they serve on those flights.”
“Mom, it’s midnight. Please don’t make me be a bitch in front of Mary.”
She froze. “Selena.”
“Mom, I know you’re trying to be a good host. You can stuff her full of food tomorrow.”
She turned to face me. “Breakfast?”
“I haven’t had a proper Swedish pancake since I was here at Christmas,” I said. “I’m hoping you’ll make some.”
“I’ve tried teaching you. It’s not hard.”
“Yours are better, and I don’t know the last time I made breakfast.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true, as Pandora and I had made breakfast last weekend, but I didn’t think that counted.
“Elsa,” Mary said. “Do you have baby pictures?”
Mom brightened.
“No!” I said. “No. Just no.”
“I might,” Mom said. “Of course, if I were cooking something, I’d probably forget where they are.”
“That’s blackmail!” I complained. In response, they both grinned at me. I waved a finger at both of them. “Lutefisk, Mary. I’ll make you eat lutefisk.”
“You have never had lutefisk in your life,” Mom declared. “You shouldn’t bluff.”
“And you shouldn’t blackmail your daughter.”
“I’m only being a good host. Mary asked to see baby pictures.” Mom turned and began stuffing things back into the refrigerator.
“No baby pictures!” I said. “But you can show her later ones. Tomorrow.” Mom froze, then finished putting everything away. She turned to me. “Nothing earlier than age five,” I added.
“And not one complaint from you,” Mom added. She turned to Mary. “She was colicky.”
“I wasn’t colicky!”
“I bet you were,” Mary said. She stepped over and grabbed Mom’s arm. “Tell me all about her.”
“Why did I invite you?”
Mary looked over her shoulder at me. “Because you know you’re going to fall in love with me, and you wanted to get this part out of the way. Come on, Elsa. What were her first words?”
“’No’,” Mom said. “I think it was in response to a bath. She hated baths.”
“Mom!”
“After that it was ‘don’t wanna’.”
“It was not!” But I followed them out to the living room. We took seats, Mary and Mom on the sofa. Mary got Mom to tell Let’s Embarrass Selena stories for forty minutes.
But then Mom said, “Gosh, it’s late.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve kept you up.”
“We have most of a week. Why don’t you go on up, and I’ll send my daughter to you in a few minutes.”
“Okay.”
Mary leaned forward and kissed Mom’s cheek, which undoubtedly surprised her, but then she stood and headed for the stairs. We waited until we heard the bedroom door before Mom said, “I like her.”
“That’s because she loves hearing your stories,” I muttered.
“You’re not this upset.”
I thought about it. “I might be, if any of those stories come back to haunt me.”
“I like her, Sele
na.”
I thought about it. “You’ve never said that before.”
“How many girls have you brought home to meet me?”
“Remember what I said. We’ve had two dates.”
“You’re smitten.”
“I like her.”
“She’s also smitten.”
“She just likes the sex.”
“Don’t try to shock me,” Mom said, waving a finger at me. “I have more stories where those came from.” She waved her finger once more. “You heard her. She has her hooks into you, and she’s not letting go. How do you feel about that?”
“I feel pretty good about it, actually, but I’m not quite ready to declare undying love.”
“Neither is she,” Mom said. “But if you have more oats to sow, you better get it out of your system.”
“Mom.”
“Honey, do you remember what we talked about before you declared you would come visit?”
“I remember.”
“Well, I have talked to your Aunt Barb and to your sister.”
“What?”
“And this week, you and I are going to talk.”
I nodded. “I’d like that.”
“All right. Good. But now I have to wonder if it’s you and I who should talk or the three of us.”
“You and I,” I said. “But let’s not wait too long.”
“Good plan. Tomorrow?”
“Saturday.”
“All right. Saturday. But I took work off tomorrow.”
“Good. I didn’t bring her to show her Duluth. I brought her to meet you.”
“I think Canal Park is worth a visit.”
“Okay, yes. But I’m not going to show her the high school or anything like that.”
“I think she may have other plans, Honey. And I’m fairly sure if she bats her eyes at you, you’ll do whatever she wants.”
“That’s probably true.”
“Is this the real Mary?”
“Yeah, it is. She’s as complicated a person as anyone, but she’s very sweet.”
“Good. Go on now. I’ll close up.”
“I can do it.”
“I survive just fine without you here to lock a few doors, but your girlfriend is upstairs wondering where the bathroom is.”
“Right. Sure. I think she remembers.”
“Do what you’re told, Selena. Now.”
I stood. “Seriously?” She pointed up the stairs. I snorted and turned away, then I stopped. “Mom.”
