After Hours Bundle (25 page)

“Ow!”

“Take that for womankind everywhere.”

He rubbed his ankle and glared at them. “Fine—next time I will not give you any insight into the male soul. You can just wonder and be mystified.”

Peggy snorted. “There's no mystery to the male soul. It all boils down to four simple drives for you guys—sex, power, money and food.”

“Not true!” Alejandro protested. “What about the Dalai Lama?”

“What about him?” Peg replied. “I'll bet he still enjoys food and power, at least. Besides, Jack Hammersmith is no Dalai Lama. So, Marly, I agree with Alejandro even though he is a lowly man and therefore a second-class citizen. Go forth and sleep with Governor Jack. Enjoy it. Take notes for the tell-all book you'll write later to embarrass his children. Just have fun.”

Marly shoved another piece of pizza into her mouth and tried to absorb all of this practical advice. But the pie now tasted like cardboard to her. “You people are very warped,” she said. “I would never write a tell-all, and I cannot sleep with a Republican!”

Peggy laughed. “Honey, if I can sleep with a football player, then you can sleep with a Republican. What is it that bothers you so much about his politics?”

“Well, for starters I come from a long line of dedicated Democrats. My dad would have a stroke if I dated someone from the Dark Side. And then there's the fact that the Republican party has always been the party of entitlement—do you know what I mean?”

“Kind of, but not really,” said Peg.

“I mean that Republicans are the fat cats, the millionaires and the big-business types, and the bottom line is king to them, no matter how the little guy gets screwed. Our family has seen it in action—I told you about what happened. Because of that alone, I'll never vote Republican as long as I live.”

“Fine,” said Alejandro. “But you don't have to vote in this case.” He grinned. “You just have to have fun.”

“Yeah, I guess. Except that he has these security guys following him everywhere. What if they stand sentry at the bedposts?”

“Eeeuuuww.”
Peg grimaced. “That does have a creep factor of nine point seven. You'll just have to get rid of them somehow.”

“Well,” Marly admitted, “I doubt they're right in the room, but they're definitely just outside. I don't know how Jack can live like that, knowing that his every move is watched, his every word overheard. That's another thing—if I go out to dinner with this guy, am I going to be on the front page of the
Miami Herald
the next morning?”

“I like that idea,” Alejandro said. “Make sure to wear a sandwich board for your date, with our hours of operation and marketing tagline in big letters.”

Marly stared at them hopelessly. “You two are
not
helping. You're not helping at all.”

M
ARLY'S VISIT HOME
was somewhat depressing, as usual. Her parents lived in a small three-bedroom stucco house in Fort Meyers. Little had changed since her last visit except that Dad had installed a plastic dolphin mailbox out front.

Marly got out of her second-hand Mitsubishi and braced herself to see her mother. Instead of thinking about their difficult relationship, she focused on the rip in the yellow-striped awning over her parents' bedroom window. They needed to repair that before next year's hurricane season tore the entire fixture off and blew it up into Georgia.

They needed hurricane shutters, too, since the weather had gotten so crazy lately, but those cost thousands of dollars.

Marly got her small overnight bag out of the car and hoped that her mother's vicious cat, Fuzzy, had taken up sleeping somewhere other than in the guest room. The last time she'd stayed here, Fuzzy had refused to cede the guest bed to her, and when she'd accidentally rolled over on him in the middle of the night, he'd bitten her.

She had a theory that Ma had trained the cat to attack her, using electrical shocks and the scent on her old baby blanket. There was nothing like feeling cherished in your childhood home.

She went up the cracked walkway, shuddered at the tacky wreath on the door, studded with little plastic flamingos and alligators, and rang the bell. A few moments went by before she heard heavy footsteps inside the foyer and her father opened the door, a huge smile on his face. “Hi, honey! It's so good to see you.” He wrapped her in a bear hug.

He smelled the same as he always had: of Listerine and Coppertone and Dial soap. “Hi, Dad.” She hugged him back, pulling away only when she saw her mother behind him in the hallway, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

“Hi, Ma.” She kissed her mother's tanned, leathery cheek. “I like the new rinse you're using. That silver-blond shade is pretty.”

Her mother didn't acknowledge the compliment. “Hello, Marlena. Did you have a nice trip over?” God. Only two sentences in her stiff tones and Marly felt immediately unwelcome. How did Ma do it?

Her answer was flip. “Bug count, ninety-three. Roadkill count, four. Gators seen, two.”

Dad guffawed.

Ma said, “That's disgusting, Marlena. Why don't you go and wash your hands. I've been keeping the roast warm, but I expected you an hour ago.”

“Ma, I told you I'd get here between five and six, not at five…” But her mother had already disappeared into the kitchen.

Marly looked at her father, who shrugged. “Here, let me take your bag.”

“That's okay, I've got it.” She headed toward the guest room and stopped dead as Fuzzy raised his head and glared at her from the center of the bed.

“Yeah, well, it's fab to see you, too, you overgrown rodent.” She deliberately dropped her bag next to him on the mattress, making him bounce. He hissed, obviously excited to see her. If it weren't for Dad, she'd never visit.

Marly made claws with her fingers and hissed right back at Fuzzy. He got into a crouch and growl-yowled from deep in his throat.

“In case you haven't figured this out, I'm a lot bigger,” she told him. “I also travel with shears and an electric shaver, so I'd watch out if I were you. I could make you look really stupid, and none of the other cats would respect you anymore. They'd laugh at you and call you names.”

Fuzzy lashed his tail and glowered at her.

“I could shave you butt-bald, leaving little poodle tufts at your feet and a Mohawk on your fat little head. How would you like that, tough guy?”

He hissed again.

She put her hands on her hips. “Let's just get one thing straight. While I am here, that is
my
bed. Not yours. Mine.”

She turned and left the room to go wash her hands. Unbelievable that her mother still directed her to do that, as if she'd remained five years old and had just come in off the jungle gym. Marly sighed.

There were new towels in the bathroom, coordinated to match the ancient avocado-hued tub. They had small palm trees machine-stitched on them and white fringe.

In the ceramic dish by the sink Marly found little soaps in the shapes of oranges and pineapples. And a green alligator candle with a party hat.
Gee, if I didn't already know I was in Florida, do you think I could guess?

“Marlena?” Her mother popped her head in. “Use the liquid soap under the sink, and one of the old towels in the cabinet. The ones out on the bar are only for show.”

Of course they are.

They sat down for dinner approximately thirty seconds after she left the bathroom. Hexagonal vinyl place mats protected the heavy oak table, and her mother had sewn plastic zippered covers for the seat cushions on the chairs.

The same Precious Moments salt and pepper shakers sat in the center of the table, along with a white angel candle whose gold wings were dissipated with cracks. The angel's halo was partially smoky and melted from the time Marly had lighted her one Christmas. She'd never heard the end of it. The angel was a
show
candle, not to be used.

Dad stood over the roast, attempting to carve it with a buzzing electric knife from circa 1972. His hands weren't too steady anymore, and the meat looked as if it had been in the oven for about a week longer than necessary. In fact, Marly was pretty sure it had petrified.

“Dad, would you like me to do that?” she asked.

“He's fine,” snapped her mother. “He's been carving the roast for thirty years now, Marlena. Why don't you pass the peas?”

Gladly.
Her mother's peas came straight out of a can, after which she boiled them again and then shook dried onion and bacon bits over them, compounding the sin by adding half a shakerful of salt.

Marly had never met anyone who could punish food like Ma. No wonder she'd been such a skinny kid—she'd hated the taste of most things she encountered at the dinner table. She hadn't discovered decent cooking until she'd moved to Miami, and then a whole new world had opened up.

“Damn,” said Dad, wheezing a little. “I think I'm hitting a bone, here.”

“There
is
no bone in that cut of meat, Herman.”

Wanna bet? The whole thing is a fossil now.
Marly reached for the noodle surprise, which was Ma's moniker for bow tie pasta drowned in cream of mushroom soup, baked under a layer of plain corn flakes.

“I'm telling you, Betty Jo, I'm hitting a bone. It's either that or this thing was carved off the back end of a Cadillac, not a cow.”

“I don't appreciate that statement, Herman. I don't appreciate that at all.”

Dad scowled and pressed down so hard on the end of the “meat” that his knuckles went white. He kicked up the speed a level, too.

“I worked all day on that roast, and if this is the kind of thanks that I get—”

“Shi—nola!” Dad exclaimed as the electric knife suddenly gnawed through the slab of beast. The end of it went flying off the table, while the knife nicked the edge of Ma's china platter and then made a long scar in the finish.

Marly winced at her mother's enraged expression.

“What is wrong with you, old man?”

“Ain't nothin' wrong with me, Betty Jo! It's the roast. Where'd you buy it, from the lumber section at the hardware store?”

Oh, boy. Dinner was degenerating into a brawl. Marly jumped up from her seat and picked up the projectile beef from the green shag carpet. She carried it into the kitchen while her parents traded a few more insults.

She flipped on the kitchen tap and tried to rinse the carpet fibers off the meat, but they seemed to have grafted to the burned ridges. Marly knew Ma would have a goat if she threw “perfectly good food” away, but she was stymied. Finally she took the vegetable brush from the side of the sink and scrubbed vigorously, until every green hair was gone. What the hell did she do now, blow-dry the thing?

Holding it in one hand, she pulled a couple of paper towels off the roll, doubled them and set the meat on top. She didn't want to pat it dry, since the paper towel fibers would probably stick to the rough edges, too.

Her father stalked into the kitchen and glared at it. “We need something to drink with this meal. Something to wash it down.”

“I heard that!” yelled Ma.

“Well, if you didn't hear it loud enough, I'll say it again.” He pulled a bottle of wine out of the pantry and peered at the label. “This'll work. Peach wine, imported from Dahlonega, Georgia.”

Marly probably would have drunk gasoline at this point, if she thought it would take the edge off. “Great. You open it and I'll get some wineglasses from the dining room hutch, okay?”

“Yeah.” He stumped over to the utensil drawer and pulled out a corkscrew, then followed her into the other room.

Ma was slopping peas and noodle surprise onto each plate, wearing a scowl that would have frightened a crocodile.

“I like your dress, Ma,” said Marly, trying to lighten the atmosphere. She got three glasses and set them on her father's end of the table.

“Don't try to butter me up.”

O-kaaay. Well, then, your dress looks like you tore it off a Goodwill sofa, Ma.
But Marly didn't say it out loud. It was bad enough to be rude and disrespectful in her mind.

Dad made three hefty pours out of the bottle of peach wine and set them down at each place setting with a snap.

Without speaking, Ma went around the whole table and moved them onto the vinyl place mats. Dad tightened his mouth and went back to the roast after inhaling half his glass of wine. He finally managed to carve off three pieces, and they smothered it in jarred gravy.

Marly took a sip of the peach wine and almost gagged at the sweetness of it. She was used to dry whites like Chardonnay and light, crisp ones like Pinot Grigio. Still, it was better than nothing in this poisonous atmosphere.

They got through the meal with Ma completely silent; she and Dad made all the conversation. Marly told him about funny clients they'd had, and her limo ride and how she'd cut the governor's hair. She told them she thought Peggy and Troy were on the verge of getting engaged.

Dad told her about how something was eating his tomatoes before he could get them off the vine, and that he'd caught a nice-size peacock bass last time he'd gone fishing. He worried about what was going to happen with social security.

Ma cleared the plates, waving away Marly's offer of help, and brought in individual orange Jell-O desserts embedded with raisins and chunks of canned pineapple. She'd piped Cool Whip around the edges.

“Those look beautiful, Ma.”

“Not fancy enough for you, I'm sure.”

“Ma! I said they look nice. I know they'll taste great, too.” Marly picked up her spoon, eager to get the meal over with. They ate dessert in total silence.

When everyone was done, she insisted that her mother go and relax while she did the dishes. She scooped up all the little glass parfait dishes and spoons and fled to the kitchen.

She put all the food away, rinsed the plates and other things, then loaded the dishwasher and started it. Only then did she realize that something was missing from the kitchen counter: the projectile piece of roast.

Dad and Ma didn't have a dog. There was only one possible culprit. With a beetled brow and her hands on her hips, Marly searched the house. Fuzzy wasn't in the formal living room, the study, the back hallway or her parents' bedroom. She stalked to the half-open door of the guest bedroom and kicked it open. She saw the discarded paper towels on the carpet first, as a low growl greeted her.

Fuzzy and the piece of roast were in the middle of her bed.

 

M
ARLY DROVE
back home doubting that her relationship with her mother—or Fuzzy—would ever improve. Not that she gave a rat's ass about Fuzzy. She put them both out of her mind, cranked on some loud rock and thought about a different kind of hot beef in her bed.

Tuesday night seemed to take a long time arriving, and when it did she had a hard time choosing her clothes, since she was uncertain of where Jack Hammersmith would take her.

Finally she settled on a deep ruby-red sarong and a black silk tank top that tapered to a V on one side.

She didn't own a single pair of closed-toe shoes that weren't for the gym, and she hated high heels, so she put on another pair of flat thong sandals, these in leather instead of rubber. She added dangly silver earrings and a silver cuff to the outfit and piled her hair on top of her head.

She refused to smear foundation on her face, no matter what the occasion, but she did put on mascara and tinted her lips deep red.

Marly surveyed the result in her bathroom mirror and decided she didn't look half bad. Of course, the governor was probably used to women who put on a full face of makeup and teetered around in skyscraper heels—but she wasn't going to pretend to be someone she was not.