The Book Club. Mary Monroe Alice

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      “Well, aren’t you going to give me a kiss?” Edith’s flippancy was a buffer.

      “Of course!” Midge bent low to wrap her arms around her mother, feeling as always like a giant beside her. Yet, close up, she relished the feel of her mother’s arms around her, the scent of her familiar perfume.

      “Come in, Edith,” she said, swinging wide her arm.

      “One moment, dear. I have to collect my luggage from the limo.” Her mother had insisted she come by limousine ever since her friends in Florida regaled her with stories about how it was the only way to get to and from the airport. “No fuss, no muss!” she’d told Midge after Midge had argued how she would be happy to pick up her own mother, for heaven’s sake.

      “Let me help,” Midge said.

      “No, no,” Edith replied too quickly, her gaze darting back and forth with anxiety. “The driver brings up the luggage. It’s part of the service, you see.” The way she said it implied, What did I tell you? “You just stay put.”

      Midge waited by the door, craving a cigarette for the first time since giving them up over a year ago. A few minutes later she heard the measured footfall of a man carrying a heavy weight. Sure enough, the tall, muscular driver in a cheap, black suit labored up the stairs loaded down with two immense suitcases. Midge’s mouth slipped open as she gasped with the sinking realization that this was enough luggage to last a whole heck of a lot longer than a week.

      “I’ll be right back with the others,” the driver said, turning the corner of the stairwell.

      “Others?”

      Edith just waved her hand and disappeared back down the stairs. Midge didn’t move a muscle as she waited, then watched the gentleman carry up a dainty hat box tilting precariously atop a taped, brown mailing box big enough to carry an entire wardrobe. A few minutes after he’d disappeared again, Midge heard the gentle tapping of high heels on the stairs. She opened her mouth to ask why on earth Edith needed so much luggage when her throat seized, her eyes bugged and her breath stilled.

      Edith turned the corner and advanced the final two steps in a mincing motion, with a coy expression on her face. But all Midge could see was the small, smudgy ball of white fur and buggy black eyes in her arms.

      “You brought your dog?” she croaked, incredulous that even her mother could be so callous of her feelings that she’d bring her dog along for a visit without asking.

      “I just couldn’t leave Prince,” Edith replied, her voice too high. She was stroking the wiry white curls of her toy poodle’s head so hard she pulled the eyelids back, causing Prince’s eyes to bug out all the more. “He got a terrible case of diarrhea the last time I left him at that horrid Dog’s Day Inn. I swear I thought my baby would perish if I submitted him to that torture again. Honey, I’d perish of loneliness without him. Oh, please don’t be angry at me. He’s such a good boy and I promise I’ll keep him out of your way. Why, Prince is such a little thing, you won’t even know he’s here. Just like me!”

      Midge was choking back her fury, swallowing so hard she couldn’t speak. It’s only for a few days, she told herself over and over again, breathing deep. In and out…She stepped aside, swinging her arm open, allowing her mother to pass.

      She followed the sparrow’s flight path throughout the open, airy loft, seeing her home as her mother might. The upholstered sofa and chairs clustered before a brick fireplace were mismatched and tossed casually with oversize kilim pillows. The long, curved bar that surrounded the kitchen was littered with corked wine bottles, piles of books and assorted sculptures. In the far corner, before a spread of tall windows, two heavy wooden easels stood empty beside paint-splattered tables topped with neatly organized brushes. Against the wall were stacks of completed canvasses.

      Midge liked to think her place was a statement of her dedication to talent, not fashion. But she could tell by the expression on her mother’s face that she saw it as a decorator’s worst nightmare. Her breath held, however, when her mother’s gaze alighted on the wall-size paintings that filled the west wall of the loft. Midge felt about her work as any mother would when someone inspected her children. Or for some people, their dog. She waited in a tense silence.

      “Could you get Prince a bowl of water, dear?” Edith asked, turning to face her with a starched smile on her face.

      Midge’s breath hitched. Edith had nothing to say about her paintings. They were dismissed without notice or a word.

      “Sure,” she forced out, turning away so her mother wouldn’t see her disappointment. “How about some wine for you? I’ve uncorked a nice bottle of Margaux.”

      “Oh no, dear, I never drink red wine anymore. Those sulfites give me a headache. Please say you have a martini? Vodka? With a lemon peel?”

      Midge closed her eyes against the headache that was already forming in her temples. “No lemons, but I’ve got olives.”

      Edith sighed with disappointment. “That’ll do, I suppose.”

      Midge gritted her teeth and plopped an olive in Prince’s water, too. She hoped the little bugger would choke on it.

      After the martini was served and she was fortified with a glass of the Margaux, Midge felt her equilibrium slowly return. They briefly discussed Edith’s flight to Chicago, the books she’d been reading, her bridge game, the nasty change in weather—safe topics that broke the ice. The conversation moved up a notch when her mother complained about how her grandchildren’s manners were shocking. “It’s like eating a meal with animals!” she said, slipping Prince a dog treat. The dog chewed the biscuit with noisy relish, dropping crumbs all over Midge’s sofa with fearless abandon.

      As the sky darkened and a second drink was poured, Edith relaxed by slipping off her jacket, easing back into the sofa’s cushions and announcing that she found her condo in southern Florida utterly confining and the life-style boring.

      “There’s no culture,” Edith said, plucking out the olive with a wrinkled nose. “There’s no there there. Florida’s great if you like to walk on the beach every morning and pick thousands of shells. But after you’ve done that…” She rolled her eyes. “C’est tout! Besides, I miss my old friends.”

      “You’ve made new ones.” Midge wasn’t feeling sympathetic. Her mother had been hell-bent to move to Florida years back, dragging her back and forth to help find the condo, all the while professing that she couldn’t endure another Chicago winter.

      “Everyone’s too old down there,” Edith continued. “One foot in the grave. And there’s not a decent man to be found. They’re all either hobbling around or married. I’m lonely for some male companionship. And I’ll tell you,” she added, perking up, “the man I saw in the airport bar…” She rolled her eyes suggestively, then sipped daintily from her martini, closing her eyes and almost purring. “Oh làlà.”

      Midge shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the notion of her mother scouting out babes in the bar. There was something smarmy about listening to one’s own mother’s love stories—especially when she herself didn’t have any.

      “Please tell me you didn’t try to pick him up….”

      “No,” she replied with an incredulous expression, “another woman met him there, probably his wife.” She tsked, then leaned farther back into the sofa’s cushions СКАЧАТЬ