Happy Hour (32 page)

When she pulled up in front of their two-story Marin County mansion, she
almost turned around. A valet came up to her to park her car. Ah, a party at
the Evans’s home! How nice. Guests were getting out of their cars dressed to
the nines and Jamie had on blue jeans and a J. Crew t-shirt. “Ma’am, would you
like me to park your car?” the valet asked again.

She hesitated. “Yes. But close by. I won’t be long.” Screw it. She’d
driven this far, and if these people could throw afternoon fetes that afforded
caterers and valets, they could most certainly afford to help Dorothy.

A burly man dressed in a tux and gripping a communications radio stopped
her at the door. “Invitation?” He eyed her up and down.

“I’m related to the Evanses.”

“Do you have an invitation?” he asked again.

“No, I don’t have an invitation. I’m here to see David and Susan Evans.”

“This is an invitation only party. You’ll have to come back.”

“I’m not coming back. I want to see David and Susan Evans right now.”

Walkie-talkie tough guy radioed something and before long another hulk
came on the scene. Jamie tried to stay rational. “I am David’s sister-in-law
and I am here to see him about his mother. It is vitally important. Life or
death.” She nodded for emphasis.

Hulk One and Two looked at each other, whispered something, and then Two
left.

“Where’s he going?” Jamie asked.

Number One crossed his arms and stared at her, or at least she assumed he
was staring at her from behind his dark sunglasses. Invited guests heading into
the house shot her curious glances, and Jamie did her best to flash them polite
smiles.

A minute later, Susan appeared dressed in a light, flowy, off-the-shoulder,
floor length chiffon number, her blonde, highlighted hair done in a perfectly
coiffed up-do, her beady green eyes trained on Jamie. “Jamie, we weren’t
expecting you. We’re having a private gathering this afternoon for Senator
Mast.”

“Right. I won’t take up a lot of your time, Susan, but we need to talk
about Dorothy.”

“Oh.” She waved a hand at her. “I’ve found her a lovely place here in the
city. They have on-staff doctors and nice rooms. It’s perfect and well within
the budget. I planned to call you about it, but we’ve been busy. I’ll get to
you this week.”

“Interesting. You have a budget? You’re not getting back to me this week.
Here’s the deal. I found Dorothy a place in Napa Valley that is superior, close
by me—since I’ll actually take the time to visit her—where she can still enjoy
freedom and be respected for the fine woman she is. I have told this to David
and I’m now telling you. I do live on a budget and these days it’s getting
tighter. You, on the other hand, can apparently spring for parties for corrupt
politicians.” A few guests stopped, curious as to who the crazy lady in the
jeans was. “You and David owe her. I have friends who are journalists for some
very prestigious papers, including
The Wall Street Journal
,
The New
York Times, The Los Angeles Times,
and
The Chronicle.
” This was all
complete bullshit, but by the horrified expression on Susan’s face, Jamie knew
she was buying it. “I’ve been thinking about doing an article with my friend
from
The Wall Street Journal
on aging parents, and about the children
who do and do not take care of them. I’d hate to name such high profile figures
like you and David and I’m sure Senator Mast would be mortified to know that
people like you who neglect their aging parents are some of his major contributors.”

Susan took a step back, her face paling. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she
whispered.

Ten minutes passed and Jamie started wondering if she was calling her
bluff. But then David appeared and handed her a check and some documents.

“What’s this?” Jamie asked.

“That’s a hundred grand, and my mother’s life insurance policy. I am
signing it over to you, along with power of attorney. It’s worth a million
dollars. That should take care of her. Now go away, Jamie. We’ll be calling you
to visit Maddie. We do expect to be seeing her more often in light of our
generosity.”

She walked away with a smile and muttered, “Over my dead body.” There was
no way in hell Jamie was going to expose Maddie to those people ever again.

“Forgive me, Nate,” she said as she got into her car.

She looked toward the bay as a summer shower started to come down, and
she laughed. David and Susan’s little soiree in the garden was getting
drenched. Pity. She pulled out of the circular drive and spotted a full, bright
rainbow. A sudden sense of peace came over her, and she wondered if it was
Nate’s way of letting her know he approved.

Kat smiled at the sight of her dad’s red VW Beetle in front of his house.
When he’d made the decision to move out to Napa to be closer to Kat and his
grandkids, she’d been overjoyed. Her dad badly needed a change. She’d begged
him for years to sell the house she’d grown up in, the one where her mom had
left him behind to sulk and fret.

Dad’s home was small, over fifty years old, but quaint and set against a
small wooded area. She went around to the side door off of his kitchen, knowing
when she walked in that the familiar smells of coffee and must would hit her—a
smell Kat liked because it meant new memories for her dad, and it actually felt
more like coming home to her than had he still lived in the old house in
Oakland.

Kat shut the back door and Dad’s cat, Roy, slunk over and rubbed his
orange body between her legs, looking up at her and mewing. “Hi, Roy.” She
picked him up and scratched behind his ears. “Where’s Dad?” Usually when she
entered her dad’s place, CNN blared from the television.

Roy mewed again. “Haven’t you been fed?” She set him down, took his food
from the cupboard, and poured some in his bowl. He wolfed it down. It was only
eleven o’ clock and Kat knew that Dad typically got up around eight, and after
getting his breakfast fixed, gave Roy his. The cat shouldn’t be starving.

Something didn’t feel right. “Dad?” she called out. There was no answer.
Maybe he was out back in his garden, but he would have heard her drive up and
walked around front. Maybe one of his golfing buddies picked him up and they
had an early tee time, and he’d just forgotten to feed Roy. Of course it had to
be something like that, but had he also forgotten to lock his back door?

Kat wandered though the house. “Dad?” she called out again. As she
entered the family room, she heard music coming from the hallway. He must be in
his bedroom reading and couldn’t hear her with the music on. She headed down
the hall then she stopped in her tracks, her jaw dropping.
Unbelievable
.
Clothes were all the way down the hall and laughter was coming from her
father’s bedroom. Not just
anyone’s
clothes or
anyone’s
laughter,
but her
mother’s
. Her mother was at her father’s house and, from the
sounds coming from the room, they weren’t catching up on old times—at least not
by talking, anyway. Horrified, Kat turned around and got the hell out of there
as fast as possible.

***

An hour later Kat pulled into the bookstore’s parking lot. Her mother sat
on a bench in front of the store looking happy as a freaking clam. “Hi, honey.
Thanks so much,” she said, sliding into the front seat.

“Get the book you wanted?” Kat asked. Jeez it must have been a wham, bam,
thank you ma’am session. Eww! How could she even think like that? They were her
parents. Gross! And talk about manipulation. That morning her mother had asked
her to drop her at the bookstore, knowing that Kat needed to run some errands,
and then to come back and pick her up. Dad must have been waiting in the
parking lot when Kat had dropped her off, because they hadn’t wasted a minute.

“They didn’t have it.” She frowned.

“Really? That’s too bad. You’ve been waiting here this whole time for me
then?”

“No, no. I browsed around, but didn’t find anything.”

“Huh. You, the avid reader, didn’t find a book to read? There must be a
million books in there. A million alone about New Age stuff.”

Her mom shrugged.

“Why are you lying to me?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, and cracked the window.

“I know. I know you were with Dad. I went there to visit him and I heard
you and I saw your blouse on the floor, which, by the way,” she glanced at her
mom, “isn’t even buttoned right.”

Her mom looked down and fumbled with the buttons, obviously flustered.
“Oh.”

“Mom, what the hell is going on?”

She sighed. “When I saw your father at the Fourth of July party it was
like seeing him for the first time. I don’t know. I can’t explain it, but
regret and sadness washed over me and I was so sure he’d be angry with me, but
then we started chatting. He’s so different now, so relaxed and at ease with
himself. He seems happy, and I’m at such a good place in my life, well, things
happened from there. He called me and then we texted each other all weekend.”

“You’re texting each other?” Kat hadn’t even gotten that whole texting
thing down.

“Yes.”

Kat didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or scream at her. “I don’t believe
this.”

“Why does this bother you so?”

“Why do you think? Why, oh why, would this—you and my dad together—bother
me in the least, Mother?”

Her mom sighed. “I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I know I hurt
you, and your dad and your sister when I left, but you have no idea what it was
like for me, for so many years.”

“Like? Like! I have pretty good idea. Let me see, you lived in a nice
house, ate good food, had friends, kids who adored you, and a husband who would
do anything for you. Yeah, that sounds shitty to me, Mom.”

“I know how you feel and what you think.”

“No you don’t.”

“I needed more. I needed to feel like a woman again and not a mother or a
wife, but a woman.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Kat asked.

“I needed to be on my own, to grow spiritually, emotionally, mentally.”

“And you couldn’t do that with my father?”

“No, but now I am at a different place and I think I could.”

Kat pulled the car over, staring straight ahead.

Her mom was looking down. “What is it with you? Why do you feel so, so,
like you have to control everything? Not everything can be controlled. But you
keep trying and it makes you miserable. You are totally miserable. You could
not control me then, not now either, and you can’t control anyone else.”

Kat closed her eyes and tried to absorb this. Oh fuck it. Would she ever
be happy holding it all in? Nope. She started out calmly. “I’m guessing, Mom,
that you’re basically calling me a control freak?”

“Yes, Kitty, I guess that I am. You try and control your husband though
sex, or in your case, through no sex. And you control Brian through badmouthing
his father, but Brian sees right through both of you. He’s not entirely the
naïve boy you’ve made him out to be. That child suffers more than you’ll ever
begin to realize. He’s so torn between the two of you. You don’t get to the
core of him at all. Where’s your core? Is it love or control?

“And now you have this adorable little girl in your home, and I watch
you. I see you’ve fallen totally in love with her. She is the substitute child
for what you couldn’t accomplish the first time around, or the second, and now
you’re trying to make her the perfect kid. Good luck with that. The thing is,
you have no control where Amber is concerned. She’s not your daughter. And
sometimes, you must let it all go. You have to breathe, take stock, drink
water, cry, and start at zero.”

Kat could do nothing but stare at this woman, her mother, who called
herself Venus. Was this a joke? After about a minute of the stare off, each
waiting for the other to make a move, Kat did. “Fuck you, Mom.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Fuck you. You have no idea. No clue of the pain I’ve
suffered, or where I’ve been, or who I am. Sure it’s easy for you to say breathe,
drink water, yoga the hell out of your body. Let’s talk control, Venus. I never
knew you weren’t anything but happy and neither did Dad. Always smiling. That
was my mom. You’re still always smiling. It’s hard to tell what’s real with
you. But then you drop the bomb on us, thinking because we were all grownups
that we could all handle it and you go all transcendental on us.

“You leave a young woman—your daughter—who almost died in a car accident.
You leave her addicted to pain pills and hand her over to me while I’m dealing
with two toddlers and an asshole husband. But that isn’t the worst of it. No.
You left a husband who did nothing but work his ass off all his life and
worship you, and now you decide that a life of reconciliation is the new and right
life for you. Your new life.

“You know what your new life left for me? A sister who to this day still
can’t cope with the real world and a father who just got his life back. So
again, Venus, fuck you!”  Kat wiped hot, angry tears form her face.

Her mother’s eyes watered.

“And one more thing, if you hurt my dad again, ever, I will never, never
forgive you. You better think twice about what you’re doing with my father.”

Her mom didn’t reply. Kat turned out onto the main road and they drove
the rest of the way home in silence. At home, neither one had anything more to
say to the other and they headed off into their separate corners.

“We found a match,” Alyssa said. The four friends had taken their happy
hour to Christian’s Restaurant where they wined and dined, catching up with
each other.  The colors of blue, black and butter in the restaurant mixed with
the candlelight, casting shadows and a soft, comforting glow about. Smells of
gourmet food and grape from their wine added to the coziness of the evening.
Danielle, Kat and Jamie looked at Alyssa. “The father. Ian’s father has six
kids and one of them is a match. His six-year-old. A little girl.”