“Because I thought it would be fun for us. I mean, she hasn’t exactly had a grueling day. She did fly private, after all. I thought she’d be happy to make Mitchell’s favorite meal for us, if only so his mother could go to her grave knowing that she’s doing it properly, because there’s a very good chance she isn’t. Naturally, I’ll help. I can be her sous chef—you know, to chop, chop, chop. And to direct and supervise her along the way. Then, all of us can enjoy a wonderful meal!”
She turned to me when she said that and leveled me with a glare. “You do know what Tank’s favorite meal is, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure he’s ever told me,” I said. And I meant it—Tank never had.
“Seriously?” Ethel said. “Are you really telling me that you don’t know?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“But he literally craves that meal whenever he comes home! He expects me to cook it for him. It’s his grandmother’s chicken pot pie. It’s the one I served to you when you were here last. And you’ve never made it for him?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “More than a year since my son has had his favorite chicken pot pie. Do you cook at all?”
Let’s see, Ethel—when Jennifer and I first moved to Manhattan, I mastered ramen noodles because that’s all we could afford. But I’m here to tell you that they were delicious! Beyond that, I can do a mean Lean Cuisine, I’m a pro when it comes to ordering takeout, I’m terrific at dining out, and I can make one hell of a martini. Other than that, I’m beyond good when it comes to feeding my zombies. In fact, I think one of them might like to take a bite out of you right now.
“Tank generally does the cooking,” I said.
“He what?”
“He does the cooking. He says that it relaxes him.”
“Oh, my word,” she said. “I had no idea this was going on.”
“It’s not like it’s the end of the world, Ethel,” Harold said. “Tank has always enjoyed cooking—you know that.”
“A woman should cook for the man in her life, just as I’ve always cooked for you.” She looked at me. “Do you even know how to cook?”
When your son and I are in bed, Ethel, let’s just say I certainly know how to heat up the sheets.
“Not really, no.”
“Your mother didn’t teach you?”
“There was never much time. I mean, she cooked for us, but she never really taught me how.”
“Because everyone was so busy at the motel, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll teach you,” she said with resolve in her voice. “But perhaps Harold is right. Since you are looking weirdly fatigued right now, I’ll cook tonight, and you and I will cook tomorrow night. You must learn how to make that dish.”
“I’d be happy to learn how.”
And even as I said those words, I knew at once I’d soon come to regret them.
“Ethel? Harold?” called a voice from behind us.
“That’s Stan,” Ethel said. “He probably has Lisa’s bags.”
“Bring them into the kitchen, Stan!” Harold called out. And then he looked at his wife. “How about this? You have Stan take the bags up to the bedroom you’ve prepared for Lisa while I take her down to the gazebo. She came here to get married, Ethel, and I have a feeling the last thing on her mind right now is learning how to cook. But I bet she’d like to see where she and Mitch are going to get married.” He looked over at me. “Would you like to see where?”
“Oh, I’d love to see the gazebo,” I said. “I’ve been dying to see it.”
“Then let me take you,” he said. “Just the two of us.”
“But what about me?” Ethel asked.
“You’re officially on bag duty.”
“Well!” she said. “Then by all means, do mind the ticks while you’re in that meadow, because it’s filled with them.”
CHAPTER NINE
“It’s so beautiful here,” I said to Harold as we stepped out of the house and into the late-afternoon sun. As we walked around the front of the house, I admired the banks of flowers that surrounded it, all set deeply and thriving in dark mulch. I looked up at the bright-blue sky and knew that unlike in Manhattan, if I came out here at night, I’d actually see a blanket of stars mapping out the universe for me. And then there was the air itself, which was so clean and fresh I was once again reminded of Maine.
“I’m glad you like it here, Lisa,” Harold said.
“I do. I’m glad Tank thought of getting married here. You know, if it weren’t so flat, the landscape would remind me of where I grew up.”
“Not many hills here,” he said.
“It’s just so green. Living in the city, you pretty much have to go to Central Park to see anything remotely like this. Otherwise, with the exception of a few other parks in the city, it’s mostly nothing but skyscrapers or row upon row of buildings—residential and commercial.”
“Do you like the city?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” I said. “It’s where I met your son.”
I looked over at the seven massive barns far off to my left and thought they looked pristine. There had to be several hundred cattle grazing in the fields alongside them, which evoked in me a memory of my grandparents’ farm in Harmony, Maine. Their farm wasn’t nearly as large as this, but I nevertheless loved spending time there, if only to be with my grandparents—and also with my favorite cow, Annabelle. With the exception of Jennifer, for a good part of my youth, I’d considered Annabelle one of my closest friends and the most patient of listeners. It seemed silly to me now, but when I was a kid, the secrets I used to share with her had been profound.
After about a ten-minute walk on closely cut grass, we came upon the meadow itself, which had a wide, perfectly manicured path that stretched down the center of it before hooking off to the right.
“Tank wasn’t joking,” I said. “He’d said the gazebo and the pond were far from the barns. I can’t even see them.”
“We’ve got a ways to go yet.”
“How many acres are there here?”
“About nine hundred.”
“Nine hundred?”
“Something like that.”
“You must love it here.”
“I do,” he said. “The work is hard, but as my father always used to say to me, hard work is good for the soul. God knows that’s been said its share of times, but he was right, even if he was a soulless son of a bitch.”
Startled by what he’d said, I just turned to him.
“Sorry,” he said. “Ethel hates it when I swear, so I try not to do much of it around her, if only so she won’t pray over my own soul. But I have to warn you, Lisa, sometimes I do have a mouth on me. I hope I didn’t offend you.”
“Harold, I write about zombies who eat people,” I said. “You didn’t offend me, because I have a mouth of my own, which I also need to keep in check.”
“Not around me, you don’t. But as for Ethel, that would probably be a smart move.”
“That’s been made very clear to me.”
“I’m sure it has,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
We kept moving forward along the mowed path as bees, flying insects, butterflies, and birds swept around the meadows on either side of us.
“You know,” he said, “I wanted to take you alone to the gazebo for a reason, and that reason is Ethel. She hasn’t been easy on you, Lisa. I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “As tiny as I am, Harold, I’m surprisingly tough. And sometimes a little scrappy.”
“You should be treated with respect.”
“Ethel and I have had our moments, and I expect as we get closer to the wedding, we’ll have a few more as the pressure rises. But I understand why she’s sometimes the way she is. I’m marrying her only child, and she wants the best for him.”
“She wants someone who can cook him that goddamned chicken pot pie, that’s for
sure.”
I giggled when he said that, and for the first time that day, I felt the stress lifting off me just by being with him.
“I’ll do my best to master it,” I said.
“Even if you do, it still won’t be enough for her.”
“I get it,” I said. “And I’ll also get through it.”
“You know, as much as I love her—and I do love her, Lisa, because believe it or not, Ethel is a good person, especially when she comes to trust you and love you, as she does Mitch and me—I know firsthand how difficult she can be. She thinks she’s about to lose Mitch to you, and that’s hard on her—and I know she’s taking it out on you in all kinds of underhanded ways. I’m sorry about that, too. I’ll try to right the course when I can, although I might not always be around to do so. If she goes too far, just come to me, and I’ll do my best to make things right, OK?”
“But if I did that, I’d just be ratting her out,” I said. “And that alone would instill in her a sense of distrust, which is the last thing I want when it comes to our relationship. I’m trying to make her see that I really am the one for Tank, Harold. I love your son more than I think she understands.”
“She knows it,” he said. “She just doesn’t want to admit it. She was terrible to you the first time you came here. I saw how she was behaving, and I should have said something to her right then and there. But it was Christmas, and I didn’t want to fight with her, so please accept my apologies now for what happened then.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “Just know that I’m going to try my best to turn things around between us.”
“How was she when she picked you up at the airport?”
“Everything went fine until she made me listen to a certain audiobook.”
“What audiobook?”
“If I remember correctly, I think it was called Former Satanist Becomes Catholic.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” he said to me. “That woman can’t stop herself.”
“It’s fine. Actually, if I’m being honest, it was kind of entertaining.”
“I think she has issues with the books you write.”
“She does. But when she actually reads my books, she’ll see that they probably aren’t what she’s expecting them to be. My books aren’t just about the undead eating people—although there’s plenty of that in them. At their core, they’re about the undead struggling with the idea that God somehow left them behind to become something they can’t understand themselves. They feel abandoned by God. The struggle over the loss of him. What Ethel doesn’t know is that religion plays a major role in my books. I think she’ll respond to that.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” he said. Then he pointed ahead of him. “Now, how about if you look at that?”
I’d been so focused on him and our conversation that I hadn’t realized the gazebo and the pond had come into sight. And what a sight it was. The gazebo was large and oval, painted bright white, and had a two-tiered gray roof, on the top of which was a metal cap adorned with a wooden finial. All around it in dark-brown beds of mulch were freshly planted annuals for color, several low flowering bushes, many different varieties of hostas, and a host of other plants.
Just behind the gazebo was the pond, which glistened in the sunlight as several dozen swans glided regally through the water, their graceful necks held just high enough to give the impression that they felt the addition of this new gazebo had nothing on their beauty. As I took it all in, I wished Tank could be with me now so that we could have experienced this moment together. Already I missed the hell out of him.
“It’s amazing,” I said when we finally came upon it. “And the landscaping! That wasn’t in any of the photographs you sent.”
“That’s because Ethel just finished it a couple of days ago. She wanted to surprise you with it.”
I turned to him when he said that. “Ethel did this?”
“With some help, yes. But she planned out all of it. She’s been working on it for the past two weeks. She chose every flower, plant, and bush. She wanted to make it beautiful, and since Ethel rarely fails when she sets her mind to something, she did.”
“I’ll have to thank her,” I said. “It’s remarkable what she’s done. Is it OK for me to go up the steps and look around?”
“Sure it is,” he said. “Now, how about if I leave you to your thoughts for a bit? I think you could probably use some time alone. What do you say?”
“Thank you, Harold.”
“My pleasure, Lisa. Come back to the house when you’re ready.” He started to turn around to leave when I caught a gleam in his eye. “And don’t forget…” he began.
“What’s that?”
“Mind the ticks.”
***
When Harold faded from sight, I reached into my pants pocket, removed my SlimPhone, and called Tank, who answered on the second ring.
“What are you wearing?” I asked.
“A pair of shorts. I just finished working out.”
“You’re not wearing a shirt?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m not.”
“I bet you’re sheathed with sweat,” I said.
“You should see me.”
“I wish I could,” I said as I turned around and looked out at the pond. “I know I only left this morning, but I already miss you, Tank.”
“I miss you, too. I wish I could be there with you.”
“Especially now,” I said, “because I’m standing in the center of the gazebo, and it’s beautiful, Tank. Way better in person than in the photographs your parents sent. Thank you for thinking of this. It’s magical here.”
“I thought you’d like it.”
“I love it.”
“How has Mom been?” he asked. “I’ve been worried.”
“You mother is your mother, and she is who she is.”
“What does that mean?”
I filled him in on my day with her.
“I can’t believe she made you listen to that audiobook,” he said.
“As I told your father, I actually didn’t mind, because that shit was hilarious. And by the way, I adore your father.”
“Dad’s great,” Tank said. “He’s a straight shooter. As for my mother? She shoots from the side.”
“And so she does.”
“How do you feel about her reading your books?”
“All I hope is that she can look past the sensational aspects to see what the books are really about. Time will tell, I guess, because I’m sure she’s going to be eager to share her opinions with me. I’ll handle them as they come.”
“Don’t take any of her shit, Lisa.”
“I promise to take only what I can swallow, nothing more. She tested my nerves once today—she knew she’d pissed me off, and when she sensed it, she backed down.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“We’re getting married in a week, and I’m going to try my best to change her perception of me. I want her rooting for us when we get married, not disappointed that it’s happening. I want her to feel that I really am the one for you. I’ll try to make that happen, but as you know, I’m also no doormat. I have my limits, and I’ll only accept so much from her.”
“If she ever goes too far, you’ve got my full support to put her in her place.”
“I appreciate that, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Agreed. So, what else is happening?” he asked.
“I think the only thing I haven’t told you is that Ethel is going to teach me how to make your favorite meal tomorrow, because she made it abundantly clear she was appalled that I haven’t been serving it to you since we moved in together.”
“What is she talking about?” he said. “What’s my favorite meal?”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “You could have told me. With Jennifer’s help, I could have figured out how to make it.”
“No—seriously,” he said. “I don’t have a favorite meal.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“What she’s talking about is your grandmother’s chicken pot pie.”
He laughed when I said that. “Actually, I think that’s her favorite meal. Not that it’s bad, because Mom does know how to cook. Somewhere along the line, she must have gotten the impression that it was my favorite meal, because that explains why every single time I go home, she makes it for me. And like the good son I am, I eat it. And now she wants you to make it so she can test your cooking skills,” he said. “She’s probably setting you up, Lisa. You need to be aware of that.”
“Believe me, I see what’s coming, and even though I can’t cook to save my life, I’ll still try my best in an effort to appease her, which is pretty much mission impossible. The good news is that we don’t have much time for this kind of petty shit because there’s a wedding to put on, and very soon I’ll be focusing on that despite her clear and present efforts to sideline me.”
“About the wedding,” he said. “Do me a favor and look around you for a minute. Have they cleared enough of the meadow to allow for the seats and the tents, or is Dad holding off for that later in the week?”
“No, it’s all been cleared,” I said, looking out at the immaculate lawn in front of the gazebo. “There’s a large space for everyone to sit, and beyond that must be where the two air-conditioned tents will go so you and your groomsmen can get ready in one while my girls and I get ready in the other. I wish you could see it, especially the flower beds your mother planted around the gazebo. They are epic. Your father told me she took charge of the project herself because she wanted it to be perfect—which it is. So, I’m more than happy to give her props for that. She went way out of her way for us, Tank.”
“Is there enough room in the gazebo for everyone?”
“More than enough. I’m standing in the middle of it now, which is where the priest will stand. Looking out at our guests, I can see you to his right and me to his left. And then beside me will be Jennifer as my matron of honor, and then Blackwell, Daniella, and Alexa as my bridesmaids. To your left will be Alex as your best man, and then your uncle Sam, Cutter, and your cousin Taylor. There’s plenty of room.”
Unleash Me: Wedding (The Unleash Me Series) Page 6