Mom turned the page and another picture of Aaron, this time a close-up with the Colosseum as a blurry backdrop, appeared. The caption read: “Europe tour 2018.” And further down it said, “By Colleen Hastings, travel coordinator, GetTheProAndJustGo Travels.”
“I had some help. I shipped everything, every single memorable piece I had from that trip, to her and told her I wanted to re-visit all the same places, give or take thirty years, all packed into one big trip over a few weeks’ time, and she sent this back only a few days after. She’s very efficient.”
“Who’s Colleen?” Mom turned the page and another grainy photo of what I believed was the Vatican appeared right above an extensive table of contents.
“She’s my travel agent and has been for years.” She looked up from the binder. “I didn’t say I never travelled all those years. I just didn’t go to Europe,” she explained, like we had asked her why on earth she needed a travel agent when she had stopped travelling. Though, for a moment, I did think exactly that.
Mom shot me a look and turned another page.
“‘Amsterdam,’” she began reading out loud, “‘Surrounded by the city’s iconic canals, Andaz Amsterdam Prinsengracht sits in the historic center of Amsterdam.’” She looked up. “Five stars. It looks so nice.” She held up the binder for us to see. “It’s right on the canal.”
I looked at the tiny photo on the top, one of a very modern hotel, its impressive glass façade facing the canal. “It’s on the canal.”
“‘Pick-up time at airport 9.55 by AA Tours.’” Mom continued, “‘Two booster seats will be available upon arrival. Don’t worry about tips. It’s been taken care of…’ Wow, this Colleen doesn’t fool around.”
“No, she comes highly recommended. She planned our last trip to the Bahamas and we ended up staying right next to Barbara Streisand.” She lifted one of her painted eyebrows as Mom continued.
“‘The following tours have been booked…’” Mom looked up. “It’s all planned? We don’t have to do anything?”
Mrs. Rock shook her head.
“No, you just have to pack, show up, and get on the plane.”
“And we fly Business Class, right?” I asked, thinking about what Dad had promised.
Mrs. Rock looked at me like I was speaking Russian.
“Is there any other way to fly?” It was not a question, but a statement, of course. And it was not even accompanied by a smile. Man, this woman was rich as fuck.
Mom flipped back to the page with the itinerary and ran her finger over the headings, marked with bold print. She read aloud, “Amsterdam, Rome, Venice, Barcelona, and, um, Paris.” She looked at me and shrugged. “Well, um, we seem to be missing a few destinations.”
“Well, life is a not a destination, but a journey, isn’t that so? Ralph Waldo Emerson,” Mrs. Rock added, pride lacing her voice.
“Yes, but we’re clearly missing two destinations.”
Mrs. Rock waved her off. “I know, but I told Colleen we didn’t need to go to Nice or Madrid. We’ll get enough French in Paris, and plenty of Spanish in Barcelona, so to speak.”
“No, I mean, we’re missing a destination. We need to go to Denmark and Berlin.”
“Oh, I see. Why Denmark?” She looked between me and Mom.
“We’re like one-eighth Danish. It’s where our ancestors came from.”
She nodded. “What’s in Berlin?”
CHAPTER 6
The not so big surprise party
Mrs. Rock’s words kept running like tape in my mind all the way home. What was in Berlin indeed? We hadn’t told her quite yet, since we figured we’d had quite enough emotional turbulence and family drama for one day. To add a potential “Finding Daddy” scenario to the mix would probably be a bit too much.
But, surely, I had to tell her eventually, before we left. And I had promised Mom that I would tell her when we invited her over for dinner the following week.
“So, Business Class, huh?” Mom looked over her shoulder and turned down 15th Avenue.
“It’s probably more than the whole trip we had loosely planned.”
“Yes, and you can say loosely planned again. Next to Colleen’s meticulously-planned itinerary, ours could hardly qualify as a plan. An idea maybe, a loosely planned idea.” She looked at me briefly, and we both started laughing.
“Not, even that. Just Post-it notes, not to ditch the importance and functionality of the Post-it notes—you know I love them—but that’s pretty much all we had.” It was. Our loosely- planned ideas had been written down on six Post-it notes, all in different colors, hanging next to the smudged finger prints of Ava and Alfred’s little fat hands on the fridge. They each had the name of the destination and, of course, a food item we, according to Mom, had to try, once there:
1) Amsterdam & herring! (After seventeen freaking hours on an airplane). Find cheap hotel close to city center and Dad’s temp office.
Mom
2) Paris & Croissants. Find cheap-ass hotel and search if they have city-passes (louvre, Eiffel tour, canal tours).
Ella
3). Barcelona & pa-Ella (ha ha ha). Book rooms at Vinnci Bit or the Barcelona Princess—depending on the availability of two Pack ‘n Plays (what the h… is that called in Spanish?)
Mom, this one is yours!
4) Rome & gelati. We’re staying at the Hosianum Palace Hotel (Susan loved it). Once again, we have to check if they have Pack ‘n Plays. Book tour to Pompei.
Ella
5) Berlin & bratwursts. Book cheap hotel close to the airport for a quick escape. We might not even book hotel, Mom? Everything else TBD.
The last one had chocolate smeared on half of it, but you could still read Mom’s neat handwriting underneath:
6) Denmark & Danish. Finally. Would love to stay at the Hotel D’Angleterre but that’s not happening. Look up hotels close to Nyhavn. Get train passes in advance (Ella). Rent a car? A must is Tivoli Gardens, The Little Mermaid and the Queen’s castle. We need Martha in on this.
“It does feel kinda nice that it’s in the hands of a pro planner right now,” Mom said, pulling me from my thoughts.
“It sure is. And you just got yourself a room at the Danteterre, or what’s its name.”
“D’angleterre,” Mom corrected me with her perfect French pronunciation. “It’s French and means, ‘from England.’ When I read the review, this lady sai—”
“—Okay okay okay, Dad. I got it. It’s amazing. I was just…” My phone buzzed in my lap and I grabbed it. It was a text from Thomas.
“So, how was the rich asshole?” it said, which made me smile.
We hadn’t really talked that much since Martha’s birthday. We used to text each other almost every day, about random stuff; like if I wanted to help pick out new shoes for Eleanor (and he would send me screenshots of ten different sneakers), a new gluten-free recipe he had stumbled over, or comments on the latest episode of whatever Netflix show we were currently watching. After I accidently told him that Tara gets killed in Sons of Anarchy, we had decided to synchronize all our Netflix shows, or even better—watch them all together—to avoid any future spoilers. This month, we were both watching The Night Of, but we had not discussed one single episode. Somehow it didn’t seem right to text him late at night if he was with her—Jennifer, the dog whisperer. I guess he felt the same.
“Is it Dad?” Mom looked down at the phone in my hand.
“It’s Thomas,” I informed her and looked out at the traffic ahead.
“Oh. What does he say?”
“He said, ‘How was the rich asshole?’”
She smiled. “He got that one from Dad. Cute.”
I ran my finger over the text.
“Cute is not the word I would use in connection with the word ‘asshole,’ but it’s definitely funny.”
“No, I meant, Thomas is cute. And funny, and you know I wasn’t going to say…” She stopped mid-sentence and glanced over at me. “Anyway, text Dad and say we’ll be back in
about twenty minutes. And text Thomas and say that the rich asshole is not too bad.” She smiled.
I grabbed my phone and started typing. “She’s rich as fuck!”
He wrote back a second later. “So, she’s coming with you? And you’re getting the royal treatment?”
“We are, flying Business Class and staying at rich assholes’ hotels while you fly coach and stay in poor people’s bed,” I wrote, already smiling when I imagined the look on his face when he read it and the funny text he would write back, but all he wrote was “will miss you” shortly followed by another text. “But hey, we’ll be on the same continent.”
I looked down at his words and felt my cheeks flush with heat. Yes, we would be on the same continent—he on a romantic bed and breakfast holiday with his girlfriend, me on a paternity hunt in Berlin with Mom, two toddlers, not to mention, Mrs. Phyllis Rock.
“What does he say?” Mom a.k.a. Miss Nosey-face wanted to know.
“He says he’ll miss us.”
Her mouth turned into a silent O and she nodded her head.
“What does that mean?” I imitated her weird-looking face and she smiled.
“It’s just … as I said, I like him. I like Thomas. He’s cute.” We stopped at a red light and she motioned at my phone. “Tell him we’ll miss him too.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Mom says we’ll miss you too,” I wrote followed by a silly smiley.
“I didn’t say I would miss her…,” he wrote back.
“He says he didn’t say he would miss you,” I teased.
“Ha ha ha. Did I just say he was cute? Well, scratch that. I meant to say fool. Speaking of fool…” Mom craned her neck and pointed out the front window. “See that smoke on the top of the hill? Looks like Dad’s been cooking again.” She sighed and sped up the driveway.
She was right. The trees on top of the hill were covered by a small cloud of smoke. And it was unmistakably coming from our lot. I looked down at Thomas’s text again … will miss you… What did that mean exactly? I looked up at the smoke coming closer now. It meant nothing more than smoke at the end of a fire. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. It was just something you said, like when you talk with someone you haven’t seen in a while, or when you text a friend: “I miss you.” Hadn’t I written that to Maddie and Grandma at least a million times?
“Well, there goes dinner,” Mom announced, pulling me from my thoughts. She parked the car next to Dad’s baby-blue leaf. “I swear someday he’ll burn this house to the ground.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and looked at me. “Ready to go inspect the damages?”
Dad, Alfred, and Ava seemed pretty unphased by the fact that the entire house was enveloped in smoke. The three of them were sitting by the miniature IKEA table, cutting up strawberries and cucumbers, “Timber” spilling loudly from the speakers.
When they heard us fumble our way to the kitchen, they all got up.
“Hey, Mom. We had a fire.” Alfred ran over to me and buried his little head between my thighs.
“I smell it.” I sat down and gave him a kiss on his lips. He smelled like the rest of the house—a sweet scent of burned marshmallows mixed in with the stench of burnt rubber.
“Dad burned his mittens.” Ava looked at Mom and added, “He got a booboo.”
“I did.” Dad held up his thumb. It was wrapped in half a roll of toilet paper, at least. “We were making s’mores. I put it on ‘grill’ and, well, we dropped one of the sticks in, then and I tried to save it, and poof.” He nodded toward the sink—at the oven mitten. It had been burned down to its final fibers.
“Nice job, Dad.” I picked Alfred up from the floor and placed him on my hip. Mom did the same with Ava.
“I say we get the hell out of here and get something to eat,” Mom announced.
“Uh oh,” Ava and Alfred said at the exact same time, both pointing their little sticky strawberry slash s’mores fingers at the piggy jar.
“One penny.” Ava looked up at Mom and attempted to give her a stink eye. “You said the h-word.”
“I’m sorry. One penny it is.” Mom held out her hand to Dad. “Cough it up, big man.”
“What?” Dad ran a hand over his beard and I noticed a few patches of burned hair. Had he had his entire head in there when trying to save the stray s’more stick?
“Pocket,” Mom explained, pointing at the apron.
“Oh.” Dad retrieved a coin and handed it to Ava.
“Why does she get to do it?” Alfred whined in my left ear.
“Don’t worry, baby. There’ll be plenty of opportunities.”
“Amen to that.” Mom crossed the kitchen and closed the oven, sighing loudly when she saw the mess Dad had left behind.
Alfred yanked at my shirt. “What does that mean—oppo-po?”
“Opportunities,” I spelled out. “It means it’s your turn next time. There’ll be plenty of times.” I looked at Mom. She was inspecting the sad-looking glove.
“Frank, I swear, next time you try to cook…” She didn’t finish her sentence (and didn’t swear) but just sighed again.
“So, how was coffee with Mrs. Rock?” Dad pulled the apron over his head and looked between Mom and me.
“It’s all good. We’ll tell you all about it at dinner. Let’s just get out of here. My eyes are starting to burn.” She stood right in front of Dad and handed him the car keys. “You drive.” She narrowed her eyes on his face—at the little patches of burned beard—then looked at me and smiled. “Ah, I swear it smells like burnt pig in here, too.”
***
By the time we got seated in a booth, in the far back of Hop Jacks, Dad was all up to speed on the visit with Mrs. Rock—from the overwhelming house, the gigantic strawberry shortcake (which I couldn’t eat but Mom had almost inhaled two of), her office with a view, the fallout with her son Aaron, and the impressive itinerary, planned by her very own private travel agent. And even though it was only Tuesday (Mom and Dad usually only have alcohol on weekends), Dad convinced himself and Mom that this was a cause for celebrating. It was one of those days. In short, it was a Chianti night.
“You two…” Dad looked at Alfred and Ava and held up his glass and smiled, his teeth stained with red wine. “If you had any idea how fantastic your moms are. I mean. I tell them, “Hey, you have to take this rich old cranky lady on your trip to Europe and by the way, I’ll be working half the time,” .... and you know what? They just do it. They go to her house and two strawberry shortcakes later, they come home and give her a thumbs up. These two.” He pointed the glass at Mom, then me. “They have the hearts of saints. Cheers to mommies.”
Ava and Alfred raised their little sippy cups and added their own jubilant cheers.
“You should add crazy. We are crazy. Just a tad.” Mom raised her glass and clinked it with Dad’s. “By the way, we invited her to come next Saturday.”
“Okay, great idea. You should probably … wait, this Saturday?”
“Uh-huh.” Mom emptied the last of the wine in her glass and looked at Dad with her Chianti-lit eyes. “And?” Her voice was playful.
“But but but…” Dad leaned all the way back in the booth and made a clumsy attempt to discreetly tell her something with his eyes.
“You got something in your eyes, Frank?” Mom asked, clearly oblivious to the message he was trying to get across the booth.
“Mom, Dad’s trying to tell you something—something we—the kids slash grandkids are not supposed to hear.” I winked at Dad.
“Oh.” Mom stared at Dad. “Grandkids. Doesn’t that just make you feel old?”
“Yes, oh.” Dad squinted his eyes at me. “Let me rephrase for the kids. We can’t. We have plans.” He looked at Mom and nodded into his plate.
“Plans? You two? So, I’m in charge of the kids?”
“What?” Dad looked back and forth between me, Alfred, and Ava. “Oh yeah, um, you are.”
“So, you two have a date?”
“Yes, um, yes.” Red spot
s were creeping up his neck as he spoke. Man, he was so bad at lying.
“But, Frank,” Mom said, giggling, “I just realized what you’re thinking of, but that’s not until next weekend, that we, um, have our date.” Now it was Mom’s turn to make weird eyes at Dad. “But, anyway, we got a text from Thomas today.”
“I got a text,” I corrected her. “‘We got a text’ sounds like I’m, like, fourteen. I’m not. I got a text. And what’s with all the weird secrets and eye brow dancing?”
Mom waved me off with her free hand. “Semantics,” she offered, ignoring my last comment. “There was a text, a sweet text and I just want to say that Thomas is—” She looked over at Dad and cleared her throat. “We should get together before we leave. Maybe we can invite them all over next Saturday, next Saturday,” she repeated. “And I’ll cook.” She took a sip of her wine and winked at me. We still all smelled like a girl scout group after a long night at the open fire.
“But but but. Next as in the one coming right up? Ah, I give up.” Dad slumped back into his seat and reached for his wine glass just as the group by the table right next to us broke into a loud “Happy birthday,” which prompted Alfred to stand up in his seat.
“Surprise!” he yelled into the room. He raised his sippy cup at me and looked all proud. “Happy birthday, Mom.”
“Shhhhhh.” Ava yanked at Alfred’s pants and looked up at him and placed a finger on her lips.
Alfred looked between me and Mom with his big blue eyes as if he wasn’t sure what to say. “Oopsie daisy,” he finally said as he sat down again with pouted lips.
“Yes, oopsie daisy,” Dad echoed, his eyebrows slightly raised.
“Oopsie what?” Had they all gone mad, including Alfred?
“Well, I’m sorry, it was supposed to be a surprise.” Dad scratched his beard, then looked at Mom.
“What was, Dad?”
“Your birthday surprise party on Saturday,” he informed me.
Lost in Love (The Miss Apple Pants series Book 2) Page 7
