We Interrupt This Date

by L. C. Evans

  I took Brad for a walk, which meant that he dragged me like a pull toy all over the neighborhood. After we returned, he hauled me up the driveway toward the house, and I managed to divert him through the side door of the garage and from there to the utility room. There I left the hairy beast—devouring a plastic clothes hamper—while I fetched his crate and wrestled it into the van. Mission half accomplished. All I had to do now was persuade Brad that it would be a really good thing for him to jump in and go for a nice ride.

  I finally opted for bribery, choosing to give him a hunk of leftover baked ham. In his enthusiasm he nearly made dinner out of my hand. I slammed the crate shut and latched it. Then I took the quickest route to the Pet Wellness Center, bypassing my usual leisurely path through quiet suburban streets, and sped down Highway 17. When I got back, I’d call Mama and diplomatically announce DeLorean’s arrival. Next I’d get through the drama of her meeting Cole and finding out about DeLorean’s current crisis. Finally I’d suggest that Mama move into my house.

  I saw my turn, whipped the van down a side street, and bounced into the parking lot. My fingers ached, wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly they were in danger of leaving permanent imprints. I forced them loose, one at a time, and shook some circulation back.

  When I opened his cage, Brad shot out in my direction. I lunged sideways and grabbed his leash. How DeLorean had managed him and the baby, too, I’d never know. The same way I’d never know what had led her to get such a high-maintenance pet to begin with. The workings of my sister’s mind have always been a mystery to me.

  We galloped inside without me getting slammed into the front of the brick building or falling over the planter filled with yellow pansies. I looked around the white tiled room that gleamed like an operating suite. The smell of antiseptic and dogs blasted me in the face. A rack on one wall held an assortment of dog toys. The opposite wall was papered with photos of dogs freshly washed and brushed and looking reasonably pleased with their makeovers.

  An uproar of barks and howls coming from the back of the building hammered my ears, and I hunched my shoulders. Brad responded with a few healthy barks of his own. I told him to hush, not that I expected him to listen.

  The receptionist glanced up, ran her finger down the appointment book, and chirped, “Brad Marsh. Golden doodle. Right on time.” She waltzed out from behind the counter and gave Brad an appraising look. “My, aren’t we a mess. Goodness.”

  “Goodness is not what I said when I met him, but I get your drift,” I said.

  “What will Brad be needing today, Mrs. Marsh?”

  I gritted my teeth, more from an objection to her sing-songy voice than to her calling me Mrs. Marsh. “This is my sister’s dog. She’s Miss DeLorean Marsh. My mother is Mrs. Regina Marsh. I’m Susan Caraway and I’m just doing my sister a favor bringing him over. Brad needs a haircut, and he has to have something done about his fleas.”

  My lower legs suddenly developed a fierce itch, and I raised my right foot to discreetly rub it against my left calf. I did not feel a need to explain our family history and tell her that my mother and my sister used to be Miss and Mrs. Beauchamp, after Mama’s second husband, DeLorean’s father. But after Philip Beauchamp bolted, Mama and DeLorean officially went back to Marsh, her first husband’s name, so we would all have the same last name “like a real family”, as Mama put it.

  “He’s badly matted, you know,” the woman said in accusing tones.

  Yeah, his fur is positively ropy in places. I know that in an ideal world this kind of tragedy wouldn’t happen, but my sister has been too busy coping with a new baby and a breakup with the boyfriend from hell to be able to take care of him. I’m sorry, but I’m not responsible for the dog’s condition, so you can stop looking at me like I ought to be arrested for failure to brush and deflea.

  That’s what I wanted to say. What I actually did was to assume my dealing-with-customers voice from work and respond, “Do what it takes to restore him to mint condition, please.”

  “The flea bath is a standard price for large dogs, but it’s going to cost quite a bit to do his coat. If you want a comb-out, which I don’t recommend since that will take hours, you’re looking at quite an expense. I’d have to ask my supervisor if we even have time. We can clip him down, though. That would be your cheapest way to go.” She quoted me a couple of prices.

  I winced and chose the cheaper clip down. I signed a paper and watched Brad drag away a girl wearing a pink smock over black slacks fuzzed with enough dog hair to make yarn for a bedspread.

  The bell at the front door sounded a cheery little tinkle. I glanced around and locked gazes with the customer who’d just walked in, a familiar bag slung over her shoulder. I clapped my hand over my heart and staggered backward until I hit the reception counter.

  “Mama?” I’d have been slightly less taken aback if a white knight had breezed into the shop clutching a dozen red roses and begging me to ride off to Spartanburg with him.

  Mama’s expression remained serene. “I brought Sweetpea in for a bath and a massage. He seems a little depressed, so Lydia suggested a spa visit. She says rescue babies are often insecure and she should know, because she certainly has helped so many poor homeless babies. From other kennels, you understand. I declare, it is beyond me to fathom why some people breed and don’t rescue.” She reached into her purse and drew out a shivering black and tan body. The smocked girl returned to whisk Sweetpea Marsh away.

  Mama turned back to me and said, “Well?”

  “I guess you’re wondering why I’m here.” I smiled brightly.

  “What mother wouldn’t? Susan, I glanced in the shop window and caught a glimpse of that over-haired creature you brought in. Or that brought you in. I realize you’re lonely, dear, but it takes time to recover from a breakup. No matter how bleak your evenings, how lonely and tortured your soul, there’s no need to burden yourself. I declare, you’ll be the death of me. A few days ago it was ghost hunting and today it’s a giant, tangle-haired dog that could squish both my babies at once just by sitting down. Have you considered getting a hobby?” She moved in closer and leaned toward me. Tiny popped his head out of the purse and growled. “There’s a lovely woman from my church, Maude Kramer, who teaches art. I’m sure you’d enjoy sketching and watercolors down at the harbor. Even if it turned out you didn’t have talent, which I suspect is the case, art would be a lot easier than dealing with that animal. Very therapeutic and, who knows, tourists who don’t know any better might even buy your pictures.”

  “It’s not my dog, Mama.”

  “Thank God.” She let out her breath in a dramatic sigh. “For a few moments, I had serious maternal concerns.”

  Too bad. She was about to go for a long ride on the serious maternal concerns wagon.

  “It’s DeLorean’s dog,” I said.

  Mama let out an unladylike squeal. “Your sister, DeLorean?”

  “How many DeLoreans do we know? She flew in from LA yesterday afternoon.” I cringed waiting for the inevitable response.

  “And you didn’t tell me? I can’t think of a single reason why you would want to keep news like that a secret. I am cut to the core.” She placed her left hand over her heart.

  “DeLorean had a rough trip. She wanted to regroup so she’d look her best when she showed you her baby for the first time.” Not exactly the truth, but close enough. While I talked, I’d moved through the doorway, and Mama followed.

  “As if I care how rough she looks after flying for hours in some cramped jet with an infant on her lap. My word, what you girls come up with sometimes would drive a lesser lady into therapy.” She opened the door of her Cadillac and tossed her purse onto the passenger seat. I heard a stifled yelp coming from inside the purse. “My heart is thumping away with joy at the thought of seeing my new grandson and holding him in my arms for the first time.”

  She was still talking when she roared out of the parking lot, made a u-turn in front of a fast approaching station wagon
, and accelerated toward the highway.

  I stared after her for a full minute. I considered calling DeLorean. But warning or no warning, Mama was going to show up and DeLorean was going to have to cope. I let the impulse pass.

  Chapter Nine

  Unlike Mama, I took my time getting back on the road. I waited patiently through a couple of red lights, stayed five miles under the speed limit, and finally pulled into my driveway to park behind the Cadillac. I was contemplating the wisdom of taking the crate out of the van in case it was full of fleas, when a flash of sunlight bouncing off a car zapped my eyes. I blinked, turned away, and then took a second look as a familiar red Ford Mustang rolled to a stop at the curb.

  Christian? He hadn’t let me know he was coming home. My breath caught and I put my hand to my mouth. Emergency? Expulsion? But when he jumped out of the car smiling and waving, I relaxed and appraised my son to see if he might have changed drastically in the past few weeks.

  Christian gets his height from me—he’s about six feet tall. T. Chandler is shorter than I am, but he’d bequeathed his bulky muscles to our son. And Christian has my hair color, the grocery bag brown--that Mama insists on calling honey mixed with caramel--and my brown eyes. My appraisal showed that he looked the same, with the possible exception that he might have gained a few pounds.

  “Hey, Mom, what’s up?”

  Too much, I thought. But my joy at seeing my son was instantly converted to an emotion I couldn’t name when I caught sight of the combat boot and camouflage-fatigue wearing girl who’d emerged from the passenger side of his car.

  Short. Boyish figure. Hair about a half-inch long—and colored royal-robe purple. Purple eyes--contact lenses, I hoped. Ears festooned with earrings of various shapes and sizes, none of which appeared to match. Nose stud. And probably, though I was too polite to ask, at least one nipple ring.

  I sent up a silent prayer asking that this person be simply a friend and not a romantic interest. Okay, I knew it was none of my business, but what mother wouldn’t cringe if her son went off to college and returned with a poster girl for grunge?

  “Mom, this is Trinity Vaughan.” Christian walked around the car and grabbed the female by the arm. He led her to me, her boot-clad feet clomping on the pavement like Clydesdale hooves. “Trinity, my mom--Susan Caraway.”

  “Hey, Susan.” Trinity stuck out a tiny hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Trinity.” I shook the dry, bony claw. I try not to be old-fashioned, so I didn’t object to her using my first name and I told myself to get a grip about the piercings and the hair. But I determined to pull Christian aside before he went in the house and have him at least ask her to refrain from calling his grandmother by her first name. But then, why bother? Trinity was not going to be a hit with Regina Marsh, not even if she groveled at her feet like a concubine trying to please the King’s number one wife.

  I turned to my son, who was still wearing a loopy grin that reminded me of a time he’d won a trophy at soccer camp, and the trophy turned out to be too heavy for him to lift.

  “What brings you home?”

  “Laundry, of course. Just kidding, Mom. Had nothing better to do and decided to visit.” He wrapped me in a bear hug. “Got anything to eat? We stopped for breakfast a couple of hours ago, but now I’m starved.”

  He rubbed his stomach and then sniffed the air as if he could smell the contents of my refrigerator all the way to the front yard. There is no animal on earth that eats like a teenaged boy. I mentally inventoried my current food stocks and realized I’d have to make a trip to Piggly Wiggly.

  Despite Christian’s assurance that the trip home was nothing more than a whim, I still wondered what had brought my son to my doorstep. I thought college weekends were usually filled with fun activities, so why wasn’t Christian participating? But I should stop trying to read something into the fact that my son had dropped in. I should be glad he was here instead of back at college attending a wild party involving liquor and maybe even drugs or other forms of risky behavior.

  I shuddered. Sometimes I remind myself of Mama, who seems to know every unfortunate person in the country. I could almost hear her voice in my head.

  One of my friends left a pot on a burner and burnt up her whole kitchen so it was nothing but charcoal. Your Aunt Edna-Merle’s neighbor used too much fertilizer on her lawn and poisoned herself so she wobbled like an off balance fan for the rest of her life. Lettie Stengler’s grandson went off to school somewhere in the north and got hazed into a coma by rude frat boys.

  I reined in my thoughts and said. “There’s food, but you’ll have to fix it yourself unless your grandmother’s willing to cook. I suspect not. I imagine she’s too busy cooing over your baby cousin and lecturing DeLorean.”

  His eyes popped. “DeLorean’s visiting? With Cole?”

  Christian took off running toward the house before I could explain that DeLorean’s presence was a permanent move. He seemed to have forgotten Trinity. She looked at me and shrugged.

  “Christian told me about his aunt and her baby. It was cute the way his face lit up when he talked about them. I think that’s a nice quality in a man, don’t you? I mean, when they love family and babies.”

  “Definitely.” I hoped she wasn’t thinking my son would be just the man she should marry so he could father a bunch of purple-haired, nose-ringed babies for her. “Trinity, let’s go inside. And if you don’t mind, it would really be better if you didn’t call my mother by her first name.”

  “Gotcha. I know how touchy old ladies can be.” She made a throat cutting motion. “Both my grandmothers live in permanent states of hysteria.”

  Gee, could the poor old dears possibly be upset over their granddaughter’s fondness for body piercings and crew cut purple hair? I motioned for her to follow and led Trinity to the back door.

  The scene in my kitchen could have been described as a template for a dysfunctional family reunion. Christian was trying to pry Cole out of Mama’s arms, while Mama and DeLorean argued over what DeLorean should have done instead of letting Baldwin off the child support hook. Tiny raced in circles yapping and growling.

  “I declare, you have no idea how shocked I…” Mama trailed off. Her gazed traveled from Trinity’s hair down to her combat boots and back up again, detouring momentarily to the motorcycle tattoo on the back of Trinity’s right wrist. Her serene mask slipped. She forgot she was fighting for possession of Cole and let Christian slip him out of her arms.

  “Mama, DeLorean, this is Christian’s friend, Trinity Vaughan. Trinity, my mother, Regina Marsh, and my sister, DeLorean Marsh.”

  Trinity strode across the room to the nearest Marsh and thrust out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, DeLorean. Neat name.”

  “My mother certainly thought so when she let my father convince her DeLorean was the name of a former queen of France. Queen DeLorean the First. Funny, no one else ever heard of her.” She shot Mama a petulant look. “Imagine how she must have felt when someone told her she’d named her daughter after a car.”

  Mama lifted her chin. “The DeLorean is a beautiful and expensive vehicle. Very rare.”

  DeLorean snorted. I felt like putting on a referee’s shirt and blowing a whistle. DeLorean was making a petty complaint. I knew good and well she was proud of her name. She’d actually been obnoxious about it while she was growing up, telling anyone who’d listen that her name was DeLorean Angelique and then pasting on a look of superiority while she waited for the inevitable compliments. I was the one who had a legitimate beef. Susan Nicole sounded like a permanently middle-aged woman who sat around watching soap operas and knitting scarves.

  Trinity turned to my mother and said, “Pleased to meet you too, Mrs. Marsh.”

  Mama’s ingrained manners dictated that she behave as a lady. I was counting on this and I was not disappointed.

  “Hello, Trinity. It is always a pleasure to meet one of Christian’s friends.”

  Good thing Mama wasn’t hooked up to a lie detect
or. Her tight-lipped expression told everyone in the room what she was really thinking.

  Trinity was a good sport. She knelt on the floor and snapped her fingers. “Chihuahua. Cool. I love dogs. Back home I have a cocker spaniel and two toy poodles. I miss them like crazy, but hey, they don’t let you keep pets in the dorm.”

  Cocker spaniel and toy poodles? I would have figured her for the Rottweiler and Doberman type.

  “My babies don’t like strangers,” Mama said in clipped tones.

  Strangers? They didn’t like me either, and I’d seen them a couple of times a week since the day Mama brought them home from Lydia’s rescue kennel, but apparently Trinity had something I didn’t. Tiny climbed into her lap and kissed her nose stud, leaving a lot of “sugar” behind.

  DeLorean, who’d been sitting frozen since shaking Trinity’s hand, suddenly sniffed and stood up. “Anyone like a cup of tea? I was just putting the kettle on when Christian came in.”

  DeLorean had learned her diversionary tactics from me. And, of course, Mama would not air dirty laundry in front of a guest, even if that guest looked like an advertisement for dirty laundry.

  “That would be lovely,” Mama said. “There is nothing in this world more soothing than a nice cup of tea.”

  “Anyone else like something?” I asked.

  “Coffee, strong, if it’s no trouble,” Trinity said.

  “Ditto.” Christian put Cole back in Mama’s arms. “And eggs and bacon with whole wheat toast and grits.”

  “Christian, I am not a short order cook.” DeLorean looked put out, even more put out than she’d looked when I suggested she get a job.

  “I’ll cook.” Fixing breakfast would occupy my mind. The air in the house seemed electric. God, had I really complained a few short weeks ago that I was lonely and that maybe I should adopt a cat?