Loose Screws

He is also apparently a leg man, given the way his gaze is slithering over the area south of my hemline.

When Greg and I were together, Bill simply never came up in the conversation. In fact, I nearly gagged on my white wine when, at our engagement party, Greg grudgingly produced this handsome, charming, six-foot-something sibling of whom I had no previous knowledge. He seemed like a nice enough guy to me, but Greg’s family acted as if the man ran drugs in his spare time.

If only.

From what I was able to glean from pumping Greg’s friends, seems Little Bill backed Big Bob’s opponent’s campaign in the last election.

Ouch.

However, now that I owe Greg basically no loyalty whatsoever, I decide to like his brother, just for spite. After all, I don’t even live in that congressional district—what the hell do I care who represents it? Besides, don’t look now, but my po’ little ol’ trounced Ego is just batting her eyes and sighing over the way the man’s grinning at me.

Not that I’m ever going to have anything to do with another man, ever again, you understand. A fact that Prudence and Sanity, in their prim little lace-collared dresses and white gloves, remind that hussy as they snatch her back from the brink of disaster, shrieking something about frying pans and fire and let’s not go there, dear.

Of course, even if they hadn’t stepped in, my mother did. I may have legs, but she has that whole Earth Mother/Goddess thing going on, and once Bill catches sight of her, I might as well go ahead and leap onto the tracks, nobody would miss me.

I watch her—or more important, I watch his reaction to her—and I think, Jeez-o-man…a body could get knocked down by the waves of sexual awareness pulsing from this man. Except then he turns back to me, and his smile widens, and the tide heads for my beach, and I think, whoa. Okay, so maybe Billy Boy is just one of those men who gets turned on by every stray X chromosome that crosses his path. Either that, or just when I finally give up trying to figure out what It is that provokes the kind of male response Nedra has effortlessly provoked her entire life, It lands in my lap.

Talk about your lousy timing.

“I happened to stop by the house today,” Bill was saying with a whiter-than-white smile aimed at first my mother and then me, “and Mother said Ginger was coming up to pack up some things from Greg’s?”

So Billy Boy talks to Mama, huh? Interesting.

“Yep. That’s the plan,” I say, firmly telling my hormones to stop whining. “So I need to stop by someplace to get some boxes….”

“Don’t worry about it.” He takes the bags from me. Winks. Starts walking away, which I presume is our cue to follow. Although the wink was kinda irritating, I can’t help but notice he has a cute tush. When I glance at my mother, I have a sneaking suspicion she’s thinking the same thing. Between my clacking mules and my mother’s clomping Dr. Scholl’s, we are making a helluva racket heading for the stairs, so much so I almost miss Bill’s saying over his shoulder, “We can load up everything in the Suburban, if you like, and I can drive you back to the city.”

There is a God.

Thanking my almost-brother-in-law profusely, we tromp down the stairs and over to the car, which is only marginally smaller than the QE II. Excited barking emanates from what I can just make out to be a hyperactive golden retriever in the back seat.

“Damn.” Bill frowns at my outfit. “I hope my bringing Mike isn’t a problem?”

I give a wan smile, shake my head, trying to dodge the effusive beast as he rockets out of the car when the door’s opened, frantic in his indecision who to kiss first. We settle in for the ride to the Munson home—Mother has luncheon prepared for us, Bill says—my mother and I briefly skirmishing over who would sit in front. She wins.

No matter. I’d much rather have the dog than the man, anyway. Mike plops his entire front half on my lap once we’ve scrambled in, happy as, well, a dog with a human to use as a cushion. I sigh.

We start off. As always, it takes my head a while to adjust to the disproportionate ratio of cement to trees out here. But then, wiping dog pant condensation off my arm, something occurs to me.

“Oh, God. Greg’s not there, is he?”

I see Bill shake his head, his nearly black waves long enough to actually graze his linebacker shoulders. I believe the appropriate adjective to describe him is studly. His cologne is a little too strong for my taste, his attitude a bit too self-assured. And overtly supporting the enemy camp is a little ballsy, even for me. But, hey, the man has a car and is willing to cart me and all my crap back to town. He could sprout fangs and fur at the full moon for all I care.

“All I know is he’s in seclusion for a couple weeks. Nobody knows where.” Gray eyes glance at me in the rearview mirror. “Tough break about the wedding,” he says, sounding sincere enough.

Bill had been invited—I insisted—but he hadn’t shown. For far more obvious reasons than his brother’s MIA number, I suppose. I shrug. “It happens.”

I see his grin in the mirror, one a lesser mortal might well fear. Did I mention that Billy here has been divorced? Twice?

“All for the best?” he says.

“You can say that again,” I think I hear my mother mutter as I, who have been around the block more times than I care to admit, say, “Ah.”

In the mirror, I see brows lift. “Ah?”

“You’re flirting.”

Bill laughs, uncontrite. It’s a pretty nice laugh, I have to admit. “And here I was doing my damnedest to sound sympathetic.”

Okay, so the guy may be cocky as all get-out, but his honesty is refreshing. Well, it is. And it’s not as if I don’t understand the compulsion to get one’s parents’ goats, even if his methods are a bit extreme. So little Miss Ego, who’s been sulking in a corner of my brain since being banished there by her well-meaning, but self-serving, step-sisters, looks up hopefully. Not that it will do her any good. I’ve got other fish to fry.

“So…you and your mother do communicate?”

Bill shrugs. “From time to time. One of those maternal things, I suppose. She can’t find it in her heart to write me off entirely. And my father simply pretends I don’t exist.”

“Can you blame him?” I say.

That gets a laugh. “No, I don’t suppose I can.”

Which somehow prompts a conversation between Bill and my mother I have no wish to participate in. So instead I find myself mulling over Bill’s news about Greg’s “hiding out.” What does this mean, exactly, especially in regard to all those invoices I’ve sent to his office? And don’t I sound crass and insensitive, thinking about money barely a week after having my heart ripped to shreds?

Thank God I’ve got a nice chunk of change coming in from last month’s billings. It won’t be enough to get me caught up, but at least I’ll be able to stay afloat.

I lapse into semi-morose silence while my mother and Bill keep chatting away about who looks good for the Dems in the next national election. Which leads to my pondering one of life’s great mysteries: Why, oh why, if God is so all-fired omnipotent, does He regularly bite the big one when it comes to sticking the right kids with the right parents?

The Munson manse is stately as hell. You know—gray stone, pristine-white trim, lots of windows, a few columns thrown in for good measure. Very traditional, very classy, probably built somewhere in the fifties. Bill pulls the Suburban just past the front entrance, parking it underneath a dignified maple hovering over the far end of the circular drive. Before either my mother or I can get it together, he’s out of the car and around to our sides, opening first my mother’s, then my door.

“I’ve got some errands to run,” he says as Mike bounds off my lap, leaving a shallow gouge in my right thigh in the process. Bill lunges for the excited dog, grabbing him by the collar and shoving him back in the car. “So I’ll pick you up to go to the other house say in—” he checks his watch “—an hour?”

My mother and I exchange a glance. “You’re not having lunch with us?”

He laughs. “Uh, no. Dad’s in the neighborhood today, doing his relating-to-the-constituency thing. I don’t dare hang around.”

He walks back around to the driver’s side, says “See ya,” and is gone.

“I told you this was a weird family,” my mother mutters as we tromp up to the front door.

I bite my tongue.

Concetta, the Munsons’ Salvadoran housekeeper, opens the door before we ring the bell, although Phyllis is right behind her, that smile as carefully applied as her twenty-dollar lipstick.

“Oooh, you’re just in time,” Phyllis says as the maid rustles out of sight. Her eyes dart to my mother, right behind me; if Nedra’s unexpected presence has thrown her, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she clasps my mother’s hand in both of hers, welcoming her, after which she flings out her arms and engulfs me in a perfumed hug, which I hesitantly return. She is nearly as tall as I am, but she feels frail somehow, more illusion than reality. Sensing my discomfort, Phyllis pulls back, her hands gently clamped on my arms, sympathy mixed with something else I can’t quite define swimming in her pale blue eyes. I tense, panicked she’s going to say something for which I’ll have no intelligent reply. I’m a little in awe of this woman, to tell you the truth, even though she’s never done a single thing to engender that reaction. Well, except be perfect. To my immense relief, all she does is smile more broadly, taking in my outfit.

“Don’t you look absolutely adorable!” she says, glancing at my mother as if expecting her to agree. Quickly surmising she’ll get little support from that quarter, she returns her gaze to me, shaking her head so that her perfectly cut, wheat-colored pageboy softly skims the shoulders of her light rose silk shell. “What I wouldn’t give to be young enough to get away with those colors! And those legs!” She laughs. “I had legs like that, about a million years ago!”

Underneath those white linen slacks, I imagine she still does. Faces may fall and bosoms may sag, but good legs go with you to the grave, Grandma Bernice, Nedra’s mother, used to say.

“But come on back,” Phyllis says with a light laugh. “Concetta has set lunch out on the patio, but it’s no trouble at all to add another place.”