I walked Sylvia to the front door. She turned and gave me a quick hug. “Just think about it, okay? I’ll call you later.”
“Talk to you later.” I shut the door and watched her cross our scraggly patch of lawn to her own pristine one before driving off in her sporty white Mustang convertible. A sigh escaped my lips. Sylvia was the type of friend I couldn’t help but envy. Completely happy with her life, herself, and the people around her. Sylvia embodied what all women wanted to be. I made a habit of counting my blessings, but there were times where I felt less than content.
The phone trilled, and I scooped the portable from the charger.
“Hello?”
“Maggie dear, it’s Laura.”
I swallowed. Laura, a.k.a. Neil’s mother, must be the most intimidating woman on the planet. She’s not the baking, housekeeping type like my mother had been. She had made grown men wet their pants in terror whenever they came up against her in court. Back in the early 70s, she’d been an icon of women’s lib, taking life and coworkers alike by the balls. She’d been some sort of child prodigy, graduating from law school at the tender age of twenty-two. She’d gotten pregnant, and the gravy train had come to an abrupt halt—and she never let Neil or Ralph forget it. Years of cutthroat practice had killed any sense of humor or tenderness the woman ever possessed. To Laura Phillips, my idea of home and hearth was “positively primitive”.
“How are you, Laura?” I kept my voice low and steady because Neil had advised me time and again to show no fear. His mother could smell weakness, even over AT&T.
“Terrible dear, simply dreadful. I have this baboon’s ass of a CEO trying to tell me how to do my job. It’s bad enough that he thinks he knows how to manage a business and runs the company into the red on a quarterly basis, and then he argues with me over a leveraged buyout, which is, in fact, his only hope of staving off bankruptcy. I wish I could let loose and tell him exactly what an imbecile he is, but he’s been dumping truckloads of money into the firm and he’s the son of one of our other long-standing clients. He’s incompetent. I know it, his father knows it, and the stockholders know it. But you can’t say anything, because he’d take offense. I think I’ll clip out a help wanted ad for the convenience store down the street and mail it to him. Maybe he’ll take the hint.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut. Laura didn’t need a response.
“Anyhow, I’m calling because that idiot contractor is taking his sweet time, and the house looks like a third world country, plaster and sawdust everywhere. He promised the renovations would be finished early next week, but we’ve run into problems with the electrician, and I had to fire him. So we’ll be having Thanksgiving dinner at your house.”
“What?” I staggered out the front door and sat down hard on the porch with my back against the railing.
“I know it is last minute, but I’m sure you’re up for the challenge.”
Thanksgiving was ten days away. I looked over at the doormat, deciding I knew how it felt.
“Now, Ralph and I will be there of course, along with two of our regulars and a potential client who is going through a nasty divorce. Ralph thinks we can garner some good will by inviting him. I’m not so sure, he’s quite the hard ass.”
Talk about the pot and the kettle.
“I’ll be faxing Neil the menu and instructions for place settings and a time table. It’s imperative that you stick to the schedule; hungry businessmen are notoriously hard to deal with.”
Neil parked our blue Ford Escort in the driveway. He climbed from behind the wheel and retrieved his gym bag from the back seat. A frown marred his perfect features as he sat next to me. My eyes rolled up in my head, and I leaned against him. He was so much sturdier than the railing. Laura still prattled away about the importance of homemade pie in business dealings, which I found laughable since her idea of homemade was to have her housekeeper, Leopold, prepare said pie.
Neil’s iridescent hazel gaze searched my face. “My mother?” he mouthed.
I nodded. Without another word, he took the phone from my hand.
“Mom? Hi. Sorry to cut you off, but Maggie and I have an important appointment and we have to get going.” He nodded and said a few cursory salutations before hanging up.
“An important appointment?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s the one thing she’s sure to understand. So what’s she done now?”
“I’ve been assigned the task of preparing and hosting Thanksgiving dinner.”
“You always make Thanksgiving dinner.” Point to the sexy man. For the past nine years, I’ve had to prepare Thanksgiving for Neil, Josh, Kenny, and whatever ragtag bunch of wayward SEALs were hanging around. Cooking for a crowd was nothing new for me, but in this case, more was certainly not merrier.
“I have to follow her menu, her timetable, and her seating chart.”
“You could have refused,” Neil pointed out.
I looked at him. “I can’t say no to your mother.” Bigger and better people have tried to say no to Laura Phillips.
“You can’t say no to anyone.” Neil smirked, and I stifled the urge to smack his handsome face. “Face it, Uncle Scrooge, you’re a pushover.”
He was right, but I’d rather stick the car keys in my eye than admit it. “We can’t all be fearless Navy SEALs.”
“Former SEAL, current fearless Intel electronics technician.” No regret in his gaze, much to my relief. It had taken over a year for Neil to accept that his torn rotator cuff injury had ended his career with the SEAL teams. He could have taught—instructing the men who would then go out into the real world and slink through the night, setting bombs and rescuing hostages while he sat behind a desk—but Neil viewed that life as a bitter pill to swallow. Neil had decided to make a clean break. He wanted to spend more time with his family and return to his New England roots. Honestly, I think I was having more trouble transitioning to life post-navy than he was.
“You’ll always be a SEAL, just one whose wife isn’t developing ulcers from worry.”
“Oh, come on, I could be electrocuted, or hit by a bus, or suffer a heart attack from your fabulous cooking.”
“Or you could be poisoned by your tormented and mentally unhinged wife.”
He laughed and reached out to smooth my hair. “That’s my little sadist. Why can’t you show some of that spunk to my mother? You know she’d appreciate it.”
“Since she is so full of spunk herself?” I let the sarcasm drip.
Neil stood and helped me to my feet. “My mother ferrets out and exploits weakness. The less you show, the happier you’ll be around her.” He squeezed my hand. “I know it’s hard for you, being so near to them now, and I know you don’t understand them. I hope you never do. Just let me know what I can do to make things easier on you.”
“Teach me how to make that SEAL warrior face so I can scare the crap out of Sylvia.”
“She’s still on your case, I take it.”
I sighed. “You know I’m glad I met her because I really don’t know many other people around here, but why she’d do this….” I trailed off, since I was getting sick of my own belly-aching. Neil had listened to me rant for half the night, and I’m sure he’d had enough too.
“Tell me something, Uncle Scrooge, why are you so against the idea? Is it the ambush or is it something else?”
Neil is way too perceptive for my peace of mind.
I led the way into the kitchen, stalling in a most obvious way by sticking my head in the refrigerator. Neil pulled me backwards against his chest. “What is it Maggie? I know something’s bothering you.”
“I just…I feel inferior.”
“Inferior how?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I don’t fit in. All of the people are sophisticated and worldly, and I’m the only stay-at-home mom around here.”
Neil frowned. “No you aren’t. Josh’s friend Randy and a few kids in Kenny’s class all have stay-at-home mothers.”
Neil hugged me, and I breathed in the confident and comforting smell of him. “You’re a terrific mother to those boys, and I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have you by my side. And don’t tell me you aren’t worldly in your own way. I happen to know of a late night trek along a major highway which resulted in a diamond ring being hurled into the Atlantic. How many women can claim that?” He released his grip and turned me so I looked into his eyes. “I see you, Maggie.”
“I see you too.” I smiled at our special phrase.
“Mom!”
I glanced up at the sound of Kenny’s voice as he slammed the front door. Josh and Kenny stampeded into the house in the way only young boys could. Kenny had dropped his backpack in the entryway, but Josh clutched his to his chest like a life preserver.
“Hey, guys, how was school?”
Kenny squeezed past me, his nine-year-old body craving whatever the fridge had to offer. “Borrrr-ing.”
“Josh?” I felt a prickling at the back of my neck. Josh usually shoved his brother out of the way and joined in with the chorus of boring. Today, however, he seemed shell-shocked and clutched that backpack with all his might.
Kenny surfaced from the fridge with an apple and one of those disgusting squeeze yogurts in the tube. “My teacher told us about the Native Americans coming to the first Thanksgiving, how they shared their food with the Pilgrims, ‘cause they were too stupid to grow their own food.”
Neil cleared his throat. “They weren’t stupid, Kenny, they didn’t know how. The Indians showed them how.”
“Mom always says ignorance is no excuse. Where there’s a will there’s a way.”
“It’s Native Americans now, Neil,” I said. “It has been for a few decades. And Kenny, you’re right, I do say that, but if you don’t know how to do something, you need to ask for help. That was the point of the first Thanksgiving, that the Native Americans befriended the settlers.”
“Didn’t the colonists steal their land?”
“Later,” I mumbled and turned my attention to Neil. “Maybe you should explain the finer points of American history to him, while I talk with Josh.”
“You always get the easy one,” Neil groused as he followed Kenny’s prattling voice down the hall to the boys’ bedroom.
I took out a bag of baby carrots and some dip I’d made earlier and set them on the counter. Our kitchen is decorated circa 1963, with a hideous yellow wall border to match the awful lime green walls. The counter is a U shape with a range top and the original sink set into a work counter that separates the kitchen and dining room. I had purchased a few barstools on one of my more successful garage sale excursions and reupholstered them in a practical brown that Neil and the kids say looks like…well, you know.
The fridge—which we’d replaced out of necessity—and the wall oven, made up the fourth side of the room. I also owned a portable dishwasher that napped in the garage until after dinner.
“What’s up, Doc?” I munched on a carrot and did my best Bugs Bunny, but Josh shot me a you’re so lame look. “Spill it, tough guy.”
“You have to promise not to make a big deal out of this,” Josh implored me.
Uh oh. I sat on one of the stools in case the news was going to disrupt my digestive tract. “What am I not making a big deal about?”
Josh miserably opened his backpack and dug out a crumpled piece of paper. I took it from him without further comment. After scanning the contents, I looked to Josh, who’d put his head on the counter.
“Why didn’t you write your book report?” I asked in my most even voice. Josh was an excellent student who loved to read as much as he loved to backtalk. I couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t completed an assignment.
“It was this stupid book about this guy who goes fishing but doesn’t catch anything.”
I frowned. “The Old Man and the Sea? Why would your teacher assign that to a sixth grader?”
“I had to pick it out of the library. It looked short enough that I thought I could get it over with quick, like a Band-Aid.”
I cringed because there was no quick way to get past the painful works of Ernest Hemingway. “This is a book more appropriate for older kids. Why did your teacher let you choose that?”
“Mrs. Martin said I was intelligent enough to understand the symbolism and nuances. She said she was looking forward to my report. But after I finished, I couldn’t write about it because I didn’t know what to say.”
I took another carrot and dipped it, smelling the sour cream and onion soup mix before I ate it. “You know how to do a book report, Josh. You summarize the plot—”
“But there was no plot! The guy went fishing! That’s one sentence! That’s less words than in the title! That’s not a report. How could I hand that in?” Josh looked so upset, and I pulled him into my arms. It’s always a coin toss whether he’ll let me do that anymore. It was a rough day in the Phillips’ house.
I felt his frustration. I remembered my own struggles in school reading the “classics” touted as the be-all end-all of literature. Poor Josh had years of this aggravation and struggle ahead of him.
“I tell you what, Scamp. I’ll call your teacher and see if maybe she’ll let you read another book, one which is more appropriate for your age. It’ll be okay, I promise.”
Josh nodded, but I could tell he didn’t believe me.
“Why don’t you go do your other assignments? I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”
Josh picked up his backpack and headed down the hall. Neil ruffled his hair as they passed in the hallway. I started chopping onions with a vengeance, and Neil retrieved a beer from the fridge. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he waited for me to fill him in.
“Fricking Hemingway,” I said.
Neil laughed.
* * * *
Dinner was a serious affair with mass quantities of shepherd’s pie and mixed veggies disappearing at the speed of light. I’m constantly amazed that there isn’t food flying everywhere as my guys create vortexes that suck all things edible from the table. My Hoover vacuum isn’t that efficient.
After dinner, Neil helped the boys finish their homework as I cleaned the kitchen. Afterwards, I curled up with my latest romance novel.
The phone rang.
“It’s me,” Sylvia said without preamble. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing, reading.”
“Good, I’m coming over.”
“Sylvie, wait!”
But she’d severed the connection.
I smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand. Stupid! I couldn’t fathom a way out of Maggie’s a pathetic loser, round two, but I should have made an excuse.
“Neil!” I shouted.
He jogged down the hall from the bedrooms. “What’s up?”
“You wanna make out?”
He gave me his boyish, lopsided grin. “Is that a trick question?”
“Take off your shirt.”
“What’s the rush?”
“I want to have a good reason not to answer the door.”
The doorbell rang.
“Shit!”
“Now, honey, I know I’m irresistible, but there’s a time and a place—”
“December 31, 2009, will be the next time. Mark it on your calendar, smart ass.”
Still laughing, Neil opened the door. Sylvia brushed past him with barely a hello, and I waved at Eric over the top of her head. An unzipped sweatshirt covered Sylvia’s yoga top, and she’d braided her hair on each side of her head so she looked like Heidi. I had the urge to get some gel and a red marker and see if I could turn her into Pippi.
“Francesca Carmichael was in my 6:30 class. She told me to give this to you.”
It took me a second to erase
the vision of Francesca, who made a much better imaginary Pippi, from my muddled brain. I looked at the white envelope Sylvia held but didn’t reach for it.
“If you don’t open it, I will.” Sylvia made as if she was going to unseal the envelope.
I snatched it from her hand and opened it, feeling both reluctance and anticipation. My hand shook as I removed the plain, cream-colored stationary.
“What does it say?” Sylvia practically shrieked at me.
I read aloud. “Dear Mrs. Phillips. First, allow me to apologize for that horrid display last night. My sister and I have our differences, but we never meant to involve you in our family tiff. That being said, please consider the job offer I made you last night as genuine. I have enclosed a check for five hundred dollars….”
I stopped reading.
“No way! You’re making that up!” Sylvia yelped and grabbed the letter back.
I looked in the envelope, and low and behold, there was a check inside. A five hundred dollar check sighed by Alessandra Kline.
“Why would she have Frannie give this to me? Why not mail it?” Sylvia stood over my shoulder and stared at the check.
“Probably because it’s made out to cash,” Neil said from his position behind me.
Even Eric had crowded in to look at the check. The four of us stood there staring at it. We were all adults, living in the twenty-first century, so the sight of five hundred dollars shouldn’t have floored us. But the whole situation was so bizarre.
Neil took the letter and continued where I had stopped. “I have enclosed a check for five hundred dollars to cover your initial expenses and as a gesture of good faith. I hope to see you Thursday at nine. Sincerely yours, Alessandra Kline.”
We stood for a moment in contemplative silence.
“That should go a long way to soothing your ruffled feathers, Uncle Scrooge,” Neil said.
“You’re going to take the job now, right, Maggie?” She waved the check in front of my face. “This proves that they aren’t horrible people out to insult you. She even apologized! You have to do it!”
“It would only be temporary,” Neil reminded me.
The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag - #1 Skeletons in the Closet Page 3
