And the ring is safely snoozing in its little Tiffany box, tucked underneath my undies.
And, as you may have guessed, the I’m-gonna-right-this-boat feeling passed. I might have ridden the crest for a moment or two, but then the wave took me under again. I hadn’t fully realized how much I’d loathed dating until I no longer had to. The gruesome prospect of having to start over is more than I can bear thinking about.
Credits roll on the screen in front of me, which means it’s later than I thought, which means I have to face the music, or in this case the shower, and fix myself up at least enough so I don’t frighten little children when I step outside. Last time I caught my reflection, I looked like an electrocuted poodle. And I really should take the cake plate back to Ted and Randall. Maybe I’ll look sad enough that they will take pity on me and fill it up again. I’m thinking maybe chocolate-chip-macadamia-oatmeal cookies. Or brownies would be good, too…
My phone rings again. I hesitate, then answer.
“Cara?”
My heart stops. It’s my grandmother.
Who never, ever, ever makes phone calls.
“Nonna, what’s—?”
“Your mother, she is onna her way to your place. Inna taxi. But you never heard it from me.”
For about ten seconds after Nonna hangs up, I contemplate the fortuity of Greg’s not being dead and my consequent removal from the N.Y.P.D.’s suspect list because now it will take them longer to connect me to my mother’s murder. Of course, if and when they finally did, maybe Nick would have to come back and question me again—which held a definite appeal, over and above being rid of my mother—only I don’t think I could stand the look of disappointment in his eyes when he found out I dunnit. So I guess I’ll let my mother live.
And please don’t take my ramblings seriously. I can’t even set a mouse trap.
In any case, while I’ve been standing here plotting my mother’s demise, the clock has been quietly ticking away. Now I quickly calculate how long it will take a taxi to get here from Riverside Drive and 116th Street and realize I can either clean me or clean the apartment, but not both, which provokes a spate of agitated swearing. Not that my mother’s a neat freak, believe me—until Nonna came to live with us after my grandfather died when I was ten, I didn’t even know you could make a bed—but one look at this place, and she’s going to know I’m not exactly in control.
Not an option.
Naturally, every single muscle immediately seizes, a condition in which I might have remained indefinitely had not the doorbell rung. I let out a single, one-size-fits-all expletive and force myself to the door. Tell me Nedra got the one cabbie in all of Manhattan who actually knew where he was going.
I peer through the keyhole, practically letting out a whoop of joy. When I yank open the door, Verdi engulfs me from the open door across the hall as Alyssa, my neighbor Ted’s twelve-year-old daughter, grins up at me, all legs and braces and silky honey-colored hair and big green eyes. I am so grateful it’s not my mother that I don’t even care about my fried poodle head or that the melted chocolate splotch on my jammies right between my booblets calls attention to the fact that I’m not wearing a bra. Not that Ted would care, although I’m not sure I’m setting a good example for Alyssa.
In spite of my panic, I grin back, although I can feel it tremble around the edges. Alyssa’s my buddy; I’ve sat for her more times than I can count since Ted won custody of her four years ago, no mean feat for a gay man, even today. In the last year, she’s begun to notice boys, which I gather is about the same time her father did. But you know how it is, always easier to talk to someone outside the family about these things….
I notice her hands are clamped around a plate of cookies. Oh, yeah—things are definitely looking up.
“We got concerned when we didn’t hear you leave the apartment,” her father now says, looming behind his daughter. I get a glimpse of a faded navy T stretched across a solid torso, and bare, hairy legs protruding from the bottoms of worn drawstring shorts—the freelance writer’s summer chained-to-the-computer ensemble. Underneath silver-splintered, dark brown hair as curly as mine, worry lurks in hazel eyes as he takes in my less-than-reputable appearance. “I hope you didn’t spend longer than ten minutes to get that look, honey, because, trust me, it isn’t you.”
My attention really, really wants to drift back to the cookies, but I suddenly remember the peril I’m in. “Oh, God. My mother’s on her way. In a taxi.”
Ted looks at me, glances over my shoulder into my apartment. I swear he blanches. He, too, has met my mother. “Got it. We’ll be right there.”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to—”
Ted throws me a glance that brooks no argument, then says, “Al, go back inside and get the box of trash bags. And grab Randall while you’re at it.”
Knowing the cavalry is coming shakes me from my stupor enough to send me back into my apartment, where I once again freak out. Where did all this crap come from? Do I really subscribe to this many magazines? Why do I have so many dishes? And where am I going to stash it all?
I grab the wedding dress, then stand there doing this bizarre, twitching dance with the thing—there’s no way this puppy is gonna fit in any of my closets and the only door behind which I could conceivably hide it leads to the bathroom. Where I need to be right now—
Randall, Ted’s lover, slips his bold, buff, black, bald self in through the open door, lets out a deep bark of laughter. He’s in High-Wasp casual mode—Dockers, blue Oxford, striped tie, penny loafers. And a diamond earring. “Lord, woman—you have a consolation orgy in here or what?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ted and Alyssa return. To my immense relief, she still has the cookies, which she sets on the counter. A synapse or two misfires.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I mean, no. I mean, I don’t know how it got this way. Are those for me?” I finish with a bright smile for Alyssa.
“Uh-huh,” the kid says. “Dad taught me how to make them this morning.” She peels back the Saran and carries the plate over to me. Randall pries the crushed dress from my hands before I salivate all over it. I take a cookie, watching him stride out the door. It is a bittersweet moment.
“The place got this way, honey,” Ted says, deftly picking up the thread of the conversation, “because you’re a pack rat living in a shoebox. Okay, Al,” he says to his daughter, attacking the corner where the desk used to be, “the object is not to clean, but to make it look clean.”
“You mean, like when Mom comes over?”
“You got it.”
I stand there munching as the child calmly opens a closet, begins shoving things inside like a pro, while her father straightens and stacks and fluffs. “You know,” he says, “a cousin of mine just got a three bedroom in Hoboken for probably half what you’re paying for this dump.”
That’s enough to make me stop chewing. “But it’s in Jersey.”
Ted considers this for a moment. “Good point.”
Randall returns, sans dress.
“What did you do with it?” I ask.
“Do you really care?”
“I—no, actually.”
It might be my imagination, but I think I see something akin to relief in his dark eyes. I don’t think either Ted or Randall cared much for Greg, although they never said anything. Then a grin stretches across Randall’s molasses-colored face, popping out a set of truly adorable dimples, before he says something about hiding a wedding dress being a damn sight easier than hiding Ted when Randall’s mother pops in for a visit. So