Apotheosis

by Joshua Edward Smith

  Cynthia smiled and turned her attention to Charlie, who was playing the role of Claude, and had personally come to tell them the specials. She wanted to burst out laughing, now that she knew the accent was completely fake. She couldn’t believe she had fallen for it. It was over-the-top and absurd. She grinned knowingly as she listened to him, and he made eye contact with everyone except her as he passionately described the night’s specials. Phillip chose the wine, and everyone conferred over the specials and the menu as Claude disappeared back into the kitchen.

  “What’s the story with you two?” Deena asked.

  Cynthia looked at her, puzzled. “With whom?”

  “You and the chef. I saw the way you were looking at him. And he put his hand on your back on the way in. There’s something going on between you. It’s like… it’s kind of electric.”

  Cynthia blushed. “Oh geez. Is it that obvious?”

  Deena nodded and raised her eyebrows, willing Cynthia to say more.

  “He and I… well, we’re dating. Taking things slow. I haven’t had the best of luck with men,” Cynthia explained.

  Her youngest, who needed help choosing something from the kid’s menu, pulled Deena away. Phillip took over the conversation, “You divorced?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah. It was a lifetime ago.”

  “No kids?” Phillip continued.

  “No. Never happened for us. I’m kind of glad, now. Given how things turned out.”

  “I can’t imagine life without kids,” Deena said.

  Cynthia was trying to think of how to best respond to that statement, when she saw a man walking toward their table. He was tall and lean. Not skinny, but rather athletic. A man with a lot of muscle and little body fat. He carried himself well and strode confidently toward them. Cynthia was transfixed by his image. He greeted Emma with a kiss before making the rounds of the table, kissing his sister and sisters-in-law, and shaking his brother’s hand. He fist bumped each of the children and then sat next to Cynthia. He turned to her and she offered her hand. He leaned down and kissed it gently. Cynthia’s stomach did a little flip.

  “You must be Cynthia,” he said. “I’m Patrick.” He smiled broadly and Cynthia was taken by how perfect his teeth were. He swept his hand across the table. “These are my people.” Everyone laughed.

  Patrick was immediately pulled into a conversation with his mother about his trip, why he was late, whom he was seeing, and so on. Cynthia felt her phone buzz in her pocket, pulled it out, and glanced down at it. There was a message from Deena. Cynthia looked across the table at Deena, who had an impish grin and motioned with her eyes to look at the message. Cynthia looked back down at her phone and tapped the notification, “Isn’t he gorgeous???” the text read.

  Cynthia quickly typed back, “You think?” Then she looked back to Deena and smiled in a way to convey the sarcasm that the text lacked. Her phone buzzed again.

  “Don’t you just want to lick him?” it read.

  Cynthia chuckled, then texted back, “He’s the color of coffee ice cream. I’d better not. I’m lactose intolerant.”

  Deena laughed when she read that. Phillip gave her a stern look. “Is there something you wish to share with the rest of the class?” he asked.

  She glanced at Cynthia and then tucked her phone away. “No, Sir,” she said.

  Cynthia didn’t know what to make of the exchange. Phillip was certainly a commanding presence. Her curiosity was piqued.

  “So tell me about yourself, Cynthia,” Patrick intoned, pulling her attention back in his direction.

  “Let’s see. I live at the inn, in what used to be a guest room. Your mother took me in like a stray cat. I do pretty much anything and everything there, but I call myself concierge. How about you? You’re the youngest?”

  “Yes, Phillip, then Paula, then me.”

  “All ‘P’ names,” Cynthia observed.

  “Yeah. I don’t know what my parents were thinking. My mother would get our names all mixed up when she wanted to call one of us. ‘Phil-Paul-Patrick!’”

  “Don’t forget Porter,” Phillip added.

  Patrick laughed. “Oh, right! Phil-Paul-Port-Patrick!”

  Everyone had tuned in to this conversation and laughed together. Cynthia looked to Emma, “Porter was the dog. It was my Phillip’s little joke. Said any fancy proper hotel would have a porter, to handle the people’s bags.”

  “Like Billy,” Cynthia said.

  “Right. ’Cept Phillip didn’t want to pay nobody to do it, so he just named the dog Porter. He’d check someone in and say, ‘The porter will get your things,’ and then ‘Here, Porter!’ and the dog would come running.” She waited as everyone laughed. “Same damn joke every damn day for fourteen years, until the poor dog passed.”

  “So you all were in the residence part of the inn?” Cynthia asked.

  “We sure were,” Paula replied. “Cra-amped.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Phillip weighed in. “We had the whole place to run around in. I think we had it pretty good.”

  There was general assent around the table at that notion, and then all attention turned to the waiter, who had come to take their orders.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “So what do you do?” Cynthia asked Patrick, when there was a break in the conversation.

  “He surfs,” Paula interjected before Patrick could finish the mouthful he was chewing.

  Patrick swallowed and smiled. “I’m a personal trainer. Nutrition consultant. That sort of thing. But yeah, I also surf.”

  “Down in LA?” she asked, touching his forearm lightly. She couldn’t help herself. It would be impossible not to flirt with this man.

  “Yeah. Well, Malibu. Since that’s where the good surfing is,” he replied.

  “Ugh. I have some unpleasant memories of Malibu,” Cynthia said, touching her hair.

  “Oh good lord, you two,” Paula said.

  Patrick turned to face her. “What?”

  “What is it with you and white women, Pat?”

  “Excuse me?” he said.

  “You heard me. I mean, seriously. Let’s think about the women you’ve been with.” She held up her hand and started counting on her fingers, “White, white, Chinese—”

  “Korean,” Patrick corrected.

  “Whatever.” Paula continued, “Cuban, oh and that one chick, remember her Phillip? She was so white, white people would look at her and go, ‘Damn—you white!’ what was she?”

  “Erika,” Patrick said with a look of longing in his eyes. “She was Swedish.”

  “Swedish,” Paula repeated, shaking her head. “See a trend here, little brother?”

  “What’s it matter to you?” Patrick asked.

  “Because you’ve obviously got something against black women.”

  “Enough!” Phillip’s voice was low and forceful. It startled everyone, and the whole table fell to silence. Most of the tables around them did as well. Cynthia glanced at Paula, whose eyes were wide. And then over at Deena, who looked like a wolf ready to devour its prey.

  “Hey! Nobody told me Poppa was gonna be here!” Patrick chimed in, breaking the silence.

  A beat passed, then Paula burst out laughing, followed closely by Phillip, and then the rest of the table. Cynthia looked at Patrick for an explanation. He leaned over to her, “Phillip just sounded exactly like Poppa used to.”

  “Ah,” Cynthia said. “I see.”

  Phillip stood up with his wine glass. “Speaking of Poppa. I’m sure he’s looking down on us right now and shaking his damn head.” He waited as everyone laughed. “But we love you Poppa. And I’m sorry we’re all such a bunch of knuckleheads.” He held out his glass, and everyone toasted, which took a while, as they were the kind of family that thought every glass had to touch every other glass after a toast.

  As he sat, Patrick stood up to do another toast. “Let’s not forget—happy birthday Momma!” Everyone repeated the happy birthday, and there was more toasting.

>   Claude walked over once everyone had settled back into their meal. He stood behind Cynthia and put his hands on her shoulders. “And how is everything? Is good, non?” Cynthia watched as everyone nodded and gave thumbs up. “Your fingers of the chicken, they are good?” he asked young Emma.

  “Oui, oui!” she replied, leading to laughter from both Claude and the rest of the family.

  “Magnifique! Enjoy!” he said. He let his hands linger on Cynthia as he started to walk back to the kitchen.

  “I think he likes you,” Patrick said quietly. “Seems he’s being a little territorial maybe?”

  Cynthia blushed. “Maybe,” she replied.

  ¤

  “I have to say, Momma, I’m really impressed by the new website and social media stuff you’ve been doing,” Phillip said. Everyone except Deena had finished eating, and the myriad simultaneous threads of conversation had died down somewhat. “Did you outsource all that to some firm in San Francisco?”

  “No. I outsourced it to that woman sitting next to you,” Emma replied.

  Phillip looked at Cynthia. “Wow! Hey, I’m really impressed. What don’t you do?”

  “Oh Good Lord,” Paula interjected. By Cynthia’s estimation, Paula had consumed about one bottle of wine. Her speech was slightly slurred, and the volume of her laughter had gotten higher as the night wore on. Fortunately, the restaurant had mostly cleared out at this hour, so she didn’t feel embarrassed by what people at neighboring tables might think.

  “You go on like she’s all that,” Paula continued. “What’s she even doing here? At a family gathering. She your daughter too, now, Momma?”

  “Well of course she is,” Emma replied, clearly annoyed at Paula’s behavior.

  “Hey Paula, it’s getting late and Maddie looks tired. Maybe we should get going back to the inn,” Matthew interjected. It was the first thing Cynthia had heard him say all night. Paula was having none of it. She gave him a withering look, and he slumped into his seat.

  “She’s the daughter you never had, right Momma? Your boys could do no wrong, but I was never good enough. And then I had the audacity to leave home and not stay with you to run the inn. Right, Momma? And now you finally have that daughter you always wanted.” Paula picked up a wine bottle to refresh her glass, but it was empty.

  Michael stood up. “Well this was great, but these kids all look pretty tired to me. How about you three kids all come back to the hotel with me, all right?”

  Emma fished a key out of her pocket and handed it to him. “That’ll get you in the front door,” she explained.

  The children quickly got out of their seats. Cynthia could tell their tolerance for this extended family meal had run out long before, and she had been impressed at how well they managed to behave. “Your kids are remarkably well-behaved, given how late it is, and how they’ve been traveling all day. I’m really impressed,” she said quietly to Phillip.

  He smiled, but didn’t reply to the comment. There was a flurry of activity as the group departed, and eventually Paula relented and got up to leave with the group.

  “I’m sorry, Momma,” Phillip said, once Paula was out of the building.

  “That child. I just don’t know,” Emma replied.

  “Can’t hold her wine, that’s for sure,” Patrick offered.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Cynthia said, standing, “I need to check in with Claude.”

  Patrick and Phillip both stood slightly as she got up, which she thought was kind of adorable. Then she headed over to the bar, where Claude was entertaining the beautiful young bartender. “I think we’re all set,” she said. “You have the check ready?”

  “What check?” he said in the silly fake accent, which no longer irritated Cynthia, but rather made her want to giggle. “I know of no such thing.”

  Cynthia raised one eyebrow. “What are you up to?”

  “Up to?” He looked over to the bartender. “Do you know what she is going on about? This check?”

  The bartender shrugged. Claude looked back at Cynthia and shrugged.

  Cynthia laughed. “Seriously, Chuck. That bill has got to be over six hundred dollars. I can’t let you comp that.”

  “Your money is no good here,” he said, turning away.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake.” Cynthia looked to the bartender. “Do you pool your tips here?”

  She nodded.

  Cynthia opened her purse, pulled out a stack of twenty dollar bills, and counted out six of them. She handed them to the bartender. Then she kicked Charlie and went back to her table.

  “What was that about?” Patrick asked.

  Cynthia rolled her eyes. “It’s nothing. Claude and I don’t always see eye to eye on business matters.”

  Patrick narrowed his eyes at her, apparently waiting for an explanation. Cynthia waited him out, offering none.

  ¤

  Cynthia heard the door open and turned to see Patrick coming out with two mugs. “I have green tea. Want some?” he said.

  “Sure,” she responded, patting the spot next to her on the swing.

  Patrick settled down close to her and extended his legs, crossing them at the ankle. Cynthia sipped the tea. The two sat in silence awhile on the swing. “Ever notice there aren’t any fireflies here?” Cynthia asked.

  “There are, but they are a weird kind that doesn’t light up,” he replied.

  “That makes no sense. We call them fireflies because they light up. If they don’t light up, then they are… I don’t know… just flies.”

  Patrick shrugged. “Beats me. Just something I read once. What made you notice that?”

  “Oh, I was having a little bit of déjà vu. Well, not déjà vu exactly, since that’s where you kind of feel like you’ve experienced something before but you can’t figure out where. In my case, I know exactly where. Except the other time, there were fireflies.”

  “Where were you then?” he asked.

  “Here,” she said.

  “But there were fireflies?”

  “Yeah.” Cynthia set the tea down on the porch and curled into Patrick’s chest. He put his arm around her. “I was cuddling like this with my tumor.”

  Patrick chuckled. “You said tumor.”

  “Yeah, he was named Evan. I liked him. He made me feel safe, except all the times he tried to kill me.”

  “I’ll try to live up,” Patrick said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, by the way.”

  “Have you ever been to Tibet?” she asked.

  “Can’t say as I have. I’d love to go there, though. That would be amazing. Why? Have you?”

  “No, but Evan had been.”

  “The tumor?”

  “Yeah. And he wouldn’t shut up about it. Had all these stories. But I liked it. I liked listening to him talk.”

  “You know you’re talking about a tumor like it’s a person, right?” Patrick asked.

  “Yeah. He lives down in Malibu. Maybe you’ve seen him at the Piggly-Wiggly or something.”

  “We don’t have one of those. In fact, I’ve never seen one of those. I think that’s a made-up grocery store.”

  “I think you’re right,” Cynthia agreed.

  “So your tumor goes grocery shopping?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he has a personal assistant do it for him.” Cynthia snuggled in a little closer, and Patrick moved his arm to take up the slack. “He’s a plastic surgeon. And a surfer. Maybe you’ve bumped into him surfing.”

  “That’s quite a tumor. Maybe you should have a doctor look at it?”

  “Oh, they took it out a couple months ago. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  Patrick looked down at her, and she looked up at him. She expected him to kiss her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted that, but it certainly felt like a moment. He let the moment pass, however. Instead, he brushed his hand gently across her cheek. “You’re very pretty. Even if you are maybe a little bit insane,” he said.

  “Thank you. You’re very pretty, too. And I
like the way your chest feels.” She waited a beat. “No, you can’t feel mine. You’ll have to use your imagination.”

  Patrick laughed and squeezed her again. “I’m sorry about my sister,” he said.

  Cynthia shrugged. “She was drunk. She seems like the kind of person who has all sorts of poisonous thoughts in her head, but keeps them to herself until she drinks.”

  “Sounds about right. I don’t know what her deal is. But mothers and daughters…”

  “Yeah. I get that. My relationship with my mother is weird, too. I wouldn’t let her come here when they took Evan out of my head. So she’s pissed at me about that. But she won’t say so. I can just tell from little passive aggressive things she says.”

  Patrick nodded, but said nothing.

  “Well, I should probably go to bed. Gotta get up early for yoga.” Cynthia paused. “Wait. No I don’t. There aren’t any paying guests. I can get up whenever I want.” She let that idea sit for a moment. “Who am I kidding? I couldn’t sleep in if I tried.”

  “What time? I do some yoga. Can I join you?” Patrick asked.

  “6:30. And sure. It’s kind of ridiculous. I follow the routine on a VHS tape from like 1922. Been doing the same yoga every day for most of my life.”

  “Interesting,” Patrick said. “Well now I have to come. I bet the girls on the tape from 1922 are super hot. Are they in flapper costumes? With the little bob haircuts?”

  “You know it,” Cynthia said.

  “Then I’m definitely there. I’ll probably go for a run after.”

  “Of course you will. Have fun with that. I don’t run. Unless, you know, I’m being chased by a tumor with a butterfly knife or something.”

  “You’re so weird,” he said. “I like it.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Cynthia unrolled the two yoga mats she kept behind the sofa in the game room and got her tape started. She was doing the initial stretches when Patrick and Deena came into the room. “I told Deena about morning yoga. Hope you don’t mind,” Patrick said.

  “Not at all,” Cynthia replied. “I only have the one extra mat though.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t need one,” he said.

  Deena and Patrick got settled and started following the stretches on the screen. “Ow,” Deena said.