“It's fine,” Josie said flatly, as Alex caught my eye and raised an eyebrow as if to ask if Josie was okay.
“No, it's not.”
“Look, Darla, I appreciate the concern. I do. But nothing's going to change with my mom, so let's just get through this without making a scene. I'm here for two nights with Alex, and we've come this far to meet little Cal and to celebrate. I can compartmentalize my mom. I've accepted her limitations.” Josie took a long sip of her margarita, then a gulp, and finally finished the entire damn thing with an impressive series of swallows.
“You need some food in you after that.”
Josie grabbed a fried zucchini ribbon, sprinkled salt on it, and dipped it in a ranch dressing. “Yup.”
For the next few minutes, we stuffed ourselves, the baskets o' crap being rotated between the two tables. I tried to get her to eat the chicken strips and fried meatballs so she'd have some protein in her. Unlike me, Josie was a bitty little thing, all angles and bones.
I was all meatballs and thick thighs.
Something happened in the game Arlo was watching, a few guys at the counter beating it with frustrated fists. Marlene stood, teetered on high heels to the bar, and a minute later came back with another drink for herself and a beer for Arlo.
“How's Cathy?” she called across the table to me. She looked at Josie, “You seen the baby?”
Josie gave a genuine smile. “We did. Went straight there. Held him. He's beautiful.”
Marlene's eyes cut to Arlo, who wasn't paying a whit of attention to the conversation.
“Too bad you two ain't had one yet,” she said, tapping the back of Alex's hand like she was reprimanding him.
“Marlene,” I growled, but Alex cut me off with a look.
“Marlene,” he said directly, looking her in the eye, voice firm like he was talking to an errant eight year old. “Remember? Josie and I have infertility issues. We're trying, and it's a painful topic, so I would appreciate it if you would stop bringing it up.”
Redness crept up from her neckline to her cheeks.
“It ain't my fault you two can't have a baby.”
“I never said it was,” he replied evenly. “I'm just asking that as a mother who loves her daughter and who wants her not to be in pain, that you stop talking about it.”
Alex's mother was a licensed psychologist. Looked like Meribeth had been giving him lessons in how to deal with difficult people.
Josie gave Alex a hard look, but he gave it right back, as if saying, Don't try to stop me.
New respect for Alex bloomed in me. He was an adult, mature and wise, enacting all of that in the moment.
Silent Arlo chose that moment to speak.
“Marlene? Eat yourself something. Now. You get ornery and stupid when your only food comes outta bottle.” He looked at Alex and said, “Sorry for what you and the missus are going through. Marlene don't need to dig it in, but this time of day, she's at her low.”
Marlene dutifully grabbed a chicken finger and started chewing on it, all the bite drained out of her.
Arlo nudged her with his knee. “You say you're sorry, Marlene. That wasn't nice.”
“Sorry,” she muttered into her highball glass.
Josie looked at me like she had a tarantula crawling across her face and couldn't move a muscle.
“Apology accepted, Marlene,” Alex said graciously, smiling like the storm had passed. He gave Arlo a look that said he saw him more fully. “And thank you. Arlo. It's been a tough road to walk, but we're on it.”
Arlo snorted. “Ain't that true about life in general?”
Josie grabbed another ribbon of fried veggies and dropped it in her mouth from up high, chewing with more vigor.
“This makes me really glad I don't have a mother-in-law,” Joe said under his breath.
“Isn't Cathy your mother-in-law?” Alex whispered back. “Not legally, but in reality?”
“Why don't you just hit me in the gut with a hockey puck and rough up my balls with a stick? Ouch, dude.”
“I – I guess so,” Trevor said, as perplexed as Joe seemed.
They both sucked down the rest of their beers. Why Joe would compare having Mama as a mother-in-law to being felt up by a hockey stick was beyond me.
Josie looked at me and said, “Forty-three minutes.”
And for the next forty-three minutes, we all pretended to be there. Pretended this was all normal. Pretended I was just a girl in a bar in Ohio, with my guys who were supporting their girlfriend, holding a baby earlier and falling in love with the idea, the potential, the hope that new life brings.
Protective streaks weren't new to me.
But this kind was different.
By the time Josie's magic hour of tolerance had ended, Marlene and Arlo were gone, their goodbyes perfunctory, Arlo complaining about his back and how he wanted his chair again. Alex settled up the tab, and as the door closed on her mother, Josie's shoulders dropped half a foot.
“Alex,” she said as he came back, a cup of coffee in his hand, “take me home.”
“I thought we were staying for two nights?”
“Not to Boston. Take me back to the house. I need to sleep without an alarm. Without your phone buzzing with a birth. Without a care in the world or an expectation of any kind.”
“That I can give you,” he said with a sweet kiss on the cheek. He looked at his phone. “But it's only seven o'clock.”
“I don't care. I'm full of grease, alcohol, and mother-inspired disgust. I am road weary, and I need to crash.” Josie looked at us. “What about you guys?”
I sighed. “I been up since four a.m. I'm half drunk, ate way too many cheese sticks, and my underwire is trying to escape its cloth cage under my left boob.”
“TMI, Darla. TMI.”
I grabbed Trevor's ass, licked the side of his face, and said to Josie, “And while you two are sleeping, I plan to get screwed nice and good.”
Alex buried his reaction in his coffee.
And we left first.
Chapter 17
Joe
“Hey guys? Mama's going stir crazy stuck at home. Plus, Jenna's a weirdo and Mama's got some post-partum stuff that's making her itch like she had sex in a poison ivy patch. I invited her for brunch today. She's coming at eleven, with Calvin and the baby. Just woke up Josie and Alex and texted Marlene and Mike. You okay with that?”
“Huh?” Trevor and I said in unison. We were still in bed, but Darla was up and wide awake, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, the edges of her face shining with sweat like she'd been working out. A big, long yellow glove was on one hand, a spray bottle in the other.
“I invited my whole goddamned family to come over here in four hours for brunch. Get up,” she said this time, setting down the spray bottle and chucking a throw pillow at us.
Four hours. That would be eleven a.m.
I groaned.
Damn Trevor and his faster reflexes. I took it straight in the face. The pillow bounced off the bed and rolled to the screen door, the glass slider open.
“BAWK!”
“WHAT THE FREAKING FEATHER?” I squealed, jumping off the bed in the opposite direction of the...