“I’m not sure I can stand to look at them. Why would you turn your back on everything? It doesn’t make sense. How can you do what you are doing when you could have a decent lifestyle? You know how we always loved that little café on the Rue de la Bastille and all those other nice places.”
Larissa remembered talking with Hank about that very café. They would have been good together in their other lives. She as the rich heiress to her grandfather’s fortune and Hank as his mother’s son. But those lives had been left behind when they’d become Hank and Larissa.
She shrugged. “It makes perfect sense to me. I’m starving. I worked last night and had a piece of cold pizza for breakfast at noon. Let’s have lunch at that little café downstairs and then go shop until dark,” Larissa said.
“Now that sounds like a plan. I’ve asked Rupert to meet us for a late dinner at the Five Sixty in Reunion Tower. You’re going to like him—I promise,” Doreen said.
Larissa finished off the water, made sure she had a room card, and held the door for her mother. “I didn’t bring a thing for the fundraiser. Is it very formal?”
“Black tie. Tux. I’d say long, slinky, and black. My friend has a son I’m dying for you to meet. He’s handsome, educated, and would be a fine catch. We’ll shop for something for you to wear to dinner tonight too,” Doreen said.
Larissa pushed the down elevator button. “I’m not interested in anyone. I’ve just come out of a bad relationship.”
Doreen shivered. “What better way to get over it than to meet someone new. You look more like your father every day, Larissa.”
“And where is my father?” Larissa asked as they stepped into the glass elevator that moved slowly to the ground floor.
Doreen brushed imaginary lint from her silk pant outfit. It was the same shade of emerald green as her eyes and sported a diamond brooch with a center stone that glittered in the light flowing through the spotless elevator glass. “We’ll talk about your father over lunch.”
Larissa jerked her head around to look at her mother. The door opened and several people waited to get on the elevator but she couldn’t move.
“Seriously?” she asked.
“I expect it’s time. I’d rather have this conversation over a table as in an elevator with people watching and listening,” Doreen said softly.
“Yes, ma’am,” Larissa said.
She and her mother moved out and to the right to the café where they were seated immediately at a corner table. Larissa looked over the menu the waitress brought and waited for her mother to begin.
“I’m having the southwest salad without croutons and a glass of white wine.” Doreen handed the waitress the menu.
“Chicken fried steak with all the trimmings. Same wine as Mother ordered,” Larissa said.
“This is your mother?” the waitress asked.
“Yes, ma’am, it is. She had me when she was barely two years old. It was a miracle,” Larissa said.
“Y’all are teasing me,” the waitress laughed. “You aren’t even kin. Just good friends out for a weekend of fun. No way you two are related.”
“You are right,” Larissa said. Biologically they were mother and daughter. Doreen had birthed her at the age of twenty and then left her in the care of her grandparents and a nanny for the rest of her life. They really were more like friends than close kin folks.
“Okay, you’ve bugged me for years about your father. I guess it’s time I came clean. I lied. Now let’s have dinner and forget all about it.”
Larissa shot her a look. “That’s not nearly enough. Talk, Mother.”
“That looked just like him,” Doreen laughed.
“And?”
Doreen sighed. “Okay, I never married your father. It was a college fling and I really didn’t want to have you but my mother caught me upchucking in the bathroom too many mornings. I told her not to worry; I wasn’t going to ruin the family name, that I was going to take care of it as soon as I found a doctor.”
Larissa’s face turned ashen.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked. I didn’t do it but I might have if Mother and Father hadn’t ganged up on me. According to them that would have been covering one big mistake with another. There might be a time when I wanted children and an abortion could have long-term effects as in problems having another child. So I went to Italy to study for a year and when I came home it was with you in tow. The story was that Daddy paid the father off and we’d gotten a divorce. It was an easy one to stick to when you started asking questions. I figured either he or Mother would tell you when you got older.”
Larissa shook her head. “Go on.”
“You look like him. You didn’t get a blessed thing from me. Not my hair or eyes or build. He had jet-black hair, brown eyes, and was lean and trim. Never had to watch how many beers he drank or how much he ate. Worked out in the gym all the time and played ball. Listened to that horrid country music.”
“His name?” Larissa asked.
“Can’t we just leave it alone at that?”
“No, Mother, I want to know his name.”
The waitress set their food before them. “Enjoy your meal. Shall I get you another glass of wine?”
“No, I’m fine,” Doreen said.
“Maybe a glass of water with lemon,” Larissa said.
Doreen forked a small bite of tomato into her mouth. She hadn’t spoken that man’s name in almost thirty years. The only time she ever thought about him was when she made a trip to Perry to see her family.
“His name was Lawrence Morleo. Nickname Larry. We called him Morley most of the time. I named you Larissa so there would be a little of him in you. Your middle name was for my grandmother but you know that.”
“Morleo isn’t Indian. It sounds Hispanic.” Hells bells, no wonder she could never locate the man. She’d been looking for Morley instead of Morleo.
“It is. His father was about a quarter Mexican or maybe even less but the Morleo name had come on down through that line. His mother was the Indian. He came to OSU on an athletic scholarship. We had a fling. I went to Italy. I suppose he went home. I never saw him again.”
“Lawrence Morleo. Spell it?”
Doreen did very slowly. “So now what? Are you going to hate me? I didn’t put his name on the birth certificate because I didn’t want you to know. What are you going to do?”
“Find him, eventually. But today we are going to eat this good food, go shopping, meet Rupert, shop some more tomorrow, and go to a fundraiser tomorrow evening. Life goes on and you don’t have to know what or if I find out anything.” Larissa was suddenly even hungrier and dipped heavily into the mashed potatoes.
“Thank you. I don’t want to know. I don’t want Rupert to know either so keep whatever you find to yourself. Thank you for not hating me and for understanding,” Doreen said.
“I didn’t say that. I don’t understand any of it but I don’t hate you. Eat your salad, Mother. We’ve got to find me something all fancy for tomorrow night,” Larissa said.
Doreen smiled brightly. “You’ll look fabulous and my friend’s son is going to drool when he sees you.”
Larissa put up a hand. “Not interested. Especially if he’s a moron who drools. God, Mother, I live in a small town but there’s lots of men folks who’d be happy to take me out and not a one of them drools.”
Doreen’s giggle was high pitched. “I didn’t mean that he was mentally challenged.”
“If he’s so damned fine and good looking, then why isn’t he a notch on your bedpost?” Larissa asked.
“Because he’s been too young for me until now. Because his mother is one of my best friends and that would make a mess. And besides, I’m in love with Rupert,” Doreen said.
“For real?” Larissa could hardly believe her ears.
“I think so.”
“And what does Rupert do? Is he a trainer at a gym or a lifeguard at a five-star hotel pool?” Larissa asked sarcastically.
Doreen giggled. “I w
on’t even fight with you over that barb. I might have deserved it. But I’m not telling you a thing about Rupert. I’ll let it be a surprise.”
***
“How about this?” Doreen held up a black slinky dress with spaghetti straps and a drooping neckline.
Larissa held up a bright red satin with rhinestone straps and a sparkly spray at the hemline.
Doreen snarled and wiggled the black one.
Larissa shook her head and picked up a coffee colored silk with side slits up to her panty line.
Doreen rolled her eyes and held up a leopard print silk with black satin straps.
Larissa carried it to the dressing room. It fit her like it had been custom-made instead of an off-the-rack and she liked the side slit lined in the same black satin as the straps. Add a pair of strappy high heeled sandals and a little black satin evening bag and she’d be ready. She stepped out of the dressing room and Doreen clapped her hands.
“Please let me buy that for you. It’s perfect with your skin color and eyes. It doesn’t look ready-made and it doesn’t need a single alteration. Black high heeled sandals, a black purse, my big diamond necklace…”
“No! Not that necklace. No jewelry. The dress can carry itself,” Larissa protested.
“Just a slim bracelet. You’ve got to have jewelry or everyone will think you are poor,” Doreen said.
“No jewelry. We’ll compromise. I won’t wear cowboy boots and a denim miniskirt if you’ll concede to no jewels,” Larissa said. She really did like the dress even if the zeroes behind the five staggered her.
Doreen shivered all the way from her red hair to her toes. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I might even paint freckles on my nose with an eyebrow pencil.”
“You win. No jewels. But I intend to go in an emerald green silk that I had made in Paris and, darlin’, I’m going to sparkle more than the crystal chandelier.”
“I’m sure you will and that will be you.”
“Take it off and we’ll go find shoes and a cute little purse. Can it have a bit of flash on the strap?”
Larissa shot her another look.
“Okay, okay. Plain Jane, it is. Do you realize that you are thirty years old? You always said you were going to have this big family. Your biological clock is ticking, girl. You should be elegant at affairs like this so you’ll be noticed,” Doreen said.
“Are you telling me you are ready to be a grandmother?” Larissa teased.
Doreen smiled. “Now wouldn’t that be funny. I didn’t even want to be a mother and now you’re talking about a possibility I’d be a grandmother. No one would ever believe that, would they? But I think I might be ready to be a grandmother. My biological clock is messed up. I’m ready for children when it’s too late to think about them. I’d like grandchildren. I think I inherited my mother’s genes after all.”
“What?” Larissa turned away from the mirror.
“Looking back I’m not so sure that Mother was ready for parenting when she had me. I had a nanny and Mother plunged into social work. In those days it would have been a big black sin to say you didn’t want children after marriage and God help the wayward woman who had a child without a husband. When you were born she was ready to be a parent.”
Larissa cocked her head to one side. “Then why did she hire a nanny for me?”
“Because that’s the way things were done. I’m not sure that I wouldn’t hire a temporary nanny when and if my grandchildren ever came to visit me. It would be fun to play with them. I damn sure wouldn’t want to be responsible for every mundane little thing.”
Larissa was glad she and her mother hadn’t had the talk when she was sixteen or even twenty-one. It would have devastated her to learn that she’d been an unwanted child at that age. She spun around one more time to check the back of the dress in the three-way mirror. “Is Rupert old enough to be a grandfather? That might even be funnier. Meet my children’s grandfather, Rupert, who is younger than I am. We might even wind up with one of those I’m-my-own-grandpa things before it was over.”
Doreen cocked her head to one side. “So is there a man in your life that might father a granddaughter for me? It might be fun to shop for a little girl’s Christmas gifts in Paris or London.”
“Like you did mine?”
“Your presents made me happy.”
“Did I ever make you happy?” Larissa asked.
“Yes, you did. I loved coming home and seeing you but it was more like watching a much younger sister grow up. At least you made me happy up until you got this harebrained idea about living in a pigsty and running a common beer joint. I didn’t want to be around and do all the mother things with you. Nanny could make cupcakes for the school parties and hold your head up when you upchucked. But I liked buying pretty things for you.”
Why am I not furious with her? Is it because we never did form that kind of bond and that I had a loving support group at home without her? Would I be like her if I ever did have a child? Larissa thought as she returned to the dressing room, took the dress off, and put on her jeans and boots. She looked at the woman’s reflection in the mirror as she brushed her hair. When she found Lawrence Morleo would he recognize her as his daughter? Would he tell her to get lost? “What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve,” her grandfather had told her when she was a teenager and plagued him about her father.
She applied a touch of lip gloss, carefully put the dress on the hanger, and started to the front with it when she saw the red satin dress on a mannequin.
“That’s the one!” she pointed.
“Red?” Doreen frowned.
“I love it. Do you have this in my size?” she asked the clerk.
“That’s the only one left and let me see.” She checked the tag and smiled. “It is your size. Would you like to try it on?”
“No, just please put this one back and I’ll take it,” Larissa said.
The sales clerk took it to the desk, along with Doreen’s credit card, and returned in a few minutes with it zipped away in a plastic bag.
“Now it’s on to Neiman’s to find something for you to wear to dinner tonight,” Doreen said.
“I’d rather go to American Eagle and buy a new pair of jeans,” Larissa said.
“Tonight is even more important to me than tomorrow’s fancy dress,” Doreen said. “And you will look pretty, not dowdy.”
“Up beside you I will always be dowdy,” Larissa said.
Doreen looked at her diamond encrusted watch. “Sixty seconds, starting now.”
“Okay, okay! I’ll stop whining.” Larissa giggled. The rule had been when her mother came home that she couldn’t whine or pout, not while she was there or when she left. If she had to put on a long face then Doreen only allowed it for sixty seconds.
***
Larissa showered, powdered, perfumed, and dried her hair. Then she put on new silk underpants and a bra from Victoria’s Secret, a short slip dress in red silk, applied a bit of makeup, and had just picked up her evening purse when her mother knocked on the door.
“You look stunning,” Doreen said.
Larissa smiled. “And so do you.”
Her mother wore a mint green silk dress with a see-through jacket, a square cut emerald necklace, and matching ring and shoes that had been dyed to match the dress.
Larissa asked, “Does the restaurant have a sign on the door that says, ‘No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service’? If it doesn’t I might go barefoot. Those shoes aren’t the most comfortable things in the world.”
Doreen laughed nervously. “I don’t think so but you’d better wear shoes just in case. Besides, a little beauty is worth a little pain.”
“You mean this isn’t a beer, bait, minnows, and hamburger joint all in one?” Larissa asked.
“You’ve been away from civilization too long. Why don’t you sell that beer joint or burn it down and move to Italy with me?” Doreen asked.
Larissa put on a pair of red sandals with a spike heel. She to
wered above her mother when they walked out of the hotel room. “Is that where you intend to settle down?”
“Yes, it is. Do you want the Perry property? I’ll sign the whole place over to you. You can sell it or give it to a charity as an orphanage. I don’t really care. I don’t want it,” she said.
“I’d never sell that place. It was my home,” Larissa said.
“I thought you liked the warm mud where you live now. That it was your home,” Doreen argued.
Larissa threw an arm around her shoulder. “You really are nervous.”
“It shows that much?”
“Your voice changes when you are nervous. It’s deeper, got more gravel in it. I’ve only heard it a few times in my life.”
“That’s because I’ve lived exactly the way I wanted. Mother and Father took care of you. That was the agreement. If I didn’t get an abortion, they’d see to it the baby was raised and given everything he or she needed or wanted and I could live however or wherever my whims took me. Did you ever need anything that your grandfather didn’t provide?”
Larissa thought about that on the ride down to the ground floor. “No, they took care of me and Nanny was a good mother role model.”
“I have no regrets,” Doreen said.
“Good. I wouldn’t want you to ride a guilt trip. They’re too expensive and cause too much pain,” Larissa told her.
“Father thought you were the best toy in the whole world. After Mother died, he doted on you even more. I gave birth to you but they were your parents,” she said.
“Are you trying to convince me or you?” Larissa said.
“Nostalgia. I thought about Larry today and that brought on Mother and Father and even Nanny. As long as you don’t hate me, then I have no regrets,” she said again.
Larissa put her arm around her mother’s shoulder. “Mother, I could never hate you.”
Doreen smiled.
They rode the elevator up to the Reunion Tower and were met by a hostess who led them to their reserved table. A gray-haired gentleman stood when they approached. His sparkling blue eyes were set in a round face and he sported a silver goatee and mustache. He was taller than Doreen but not much more than Larissa. He wore his suit with ease and the diamond in the gold ring on his right hand said he wasn’t a hotel lifeguard.
My Give a Damn's Busted Page 16
