my lips with one of the dozens of lipsticks she kept in her handbag, organized by time of day and occasion. My brother and I were younger reflections of our mother. Age hadn’t dulled the china doll blue eyes, but careful maintenance had kept the thunder out of her thighs and the gray out of her wavy blond bob. She said she’d give up and go “scary and natural” after her sixtieth birthday. Until then, she was coiffed, calorie-conscious, and carried an emergency makeup kit in her purse. “I thought you were playing dumb.”
“Obviously it wasn’t an act!” I hissed, blotting dutifully when she held a tissue to my mouth.
“Well, it explains your outfit,” she said, peering down her nose at my peridot-colored cotton sundress and high-heeled sandals. While bright and breezy, the ensemble was not exactly country-club caliber. My hair was in a ponytail, for God’s sake.
“He said a ‘nice dinner.’ For Mike, that means D’Angelo’s, for which this outfit is perfectly appropriate. And of course he didn’t think to warn me that I might want to dress up a little.”
“Still,” she said, tsking gently. “This green is not your color -”
“Mama! Focus!”
“Right, I’m sorry, baby. I thought you would like a surprise party,” Mama said, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me tight, but somehow managing not to wrinkle her beaded peach suit. “A little bit of fuss over a girl’s birthday never hurts.”
“It’s not what I asked for,” I said, grinding my teeth as I leaned against the wall. “As usual, Mike didn’t listen to me. He didn’t really care about what I wanted. He’s using my birthday as an excuse to schmooze clients. He’s going to write my birthday party off as a business expense.”
Mama gasped. “Is that who all those people are?”
“And why isn’t Emmett here?”
“I don’t know,” Mama said, her own coral-coated lips thinning. “I thought it was strange that he didn’t mention anything about it, but I thought that was because Mike was throwing the party and he couldn’t find anything nice to say about it.”
My parents were as politically conservative as the next Southern Baptists, but woe to the person who teased the gay cub in front of my Mama Bear. Carla Gibson still avoids Mama at the Piggly Wiggly after trying to ban Emmett’s “Salute to Cher” from the senior talent show when we were in high school. Mama never complained about Mike or his family or how they treated Emmett. Well, she never complained directly… she did, however, wonder aloud why Mike couldn’t try a little harder with Emmett, why his parents always clammed up whenever Emmett was around. This was, of course, a hint for me to do something about their behavior. But I’d never figured out what that was supposed to be.
“He’ll be sorry to have missed the chance to make fun of the outfits in there.” Mama smirked, dusting powder across her nose. “Did you see that blue thing Penny Frensley is wearing? What was she thinking?”
“This is just so typical of Mike,” I groused. “And he didn’t even plan the damn thing. He let his secretary do it.”
“Well, she did a good job; it’s a perfectly nice party,” Mama conceded. When she saw the glare I was giving her, she added, “Which is entirely beside the point. You’re absolutely right. Mike was wrong, wrong, wrong.”
“Thank you.”
Mama gently brushed powder across the bridge of my nose. “You might want to do something about your jaw, honey. It’s clenched awfully tight.”
“Because I’m planning on chewing on Mike’s ass when I go back out there.”
“Lacey, I know that I taught you better than to have a tantrum in public,” she said, patting her hair purely for dramatic affect. “It reflects badly on me as a mama. Of course, I also taught you when somebody screws you over, even when that someone is your husband, you don’t just lie back and think of England.”
“I haven’t done anything irrevocable yet, have I?” I asked.
“No,” she assured me. “It was a very quiet hissy fit, barely noticeable. I only swooped in because you were doing that frozen beauty queen smile and that means you’re about five seconds from Chernobyl territory.” I laughed. She squeezed my shoulders. “I know my baby.”
She turned me toward the mirror to show me she’d painted my mouth a bloody-murder red. “The question is, what do you do from here?”
With what Mama called my “scary-pleasant hostess face” on, I floated across the room and very loudly, very sweetly thanked Beebee for putting together such a wonderful party for Mike.
“Oh, don’t think anything of it,” Beebee said, blushing to the roots of her hair. She kept looking over my shoulder for some sort of escape route. At the time I thought she was just uncomfortable being caught between her boss and his pissed-off wife. Now I think she was nervous that I’d figured them out and was about to smack her. “Mike - Mr. Terwilliger - just wanted to make sure you had a nice birthday.”
“Well, aren’t I the lucky girl?” I asked, my smile stretched tightly across my face.
Beebee didn’t answer, instead waving at the caterer to begin the circulation of canapes.
After Mike spent most of my birthday toast talking about the new online debt-tracking packages available through Terwilliger and Associates, I went around and introduced myself to nearly everyone in the room and asked them how they knew Mike. Including Mike’s parents.
My mother-in-law was not impressed with my display.
The problem was that, once again, my performance was so convincing that by the end of the night, Mike thought I’d really enjoyed myself. He really had no idea that he’d screwed up. He seemed so pleased with himself for weeks afterward, talking about how he knew it was right to trust the whole thing to Beebee. That she’d known to pick the best caterers and the best florists (Cherry Click, ironically enough) and then trusted their good taste. The implication was that I was a control freak who would have wanted to see to every detail myself, and look how much easier it was when you trusted the “experts.”
Sadly, even then, it didn’t occur to me that Mike would sleep with someone else, much less his secretary. I could believe him to be clueless, obtuse, even shamefully oblivious to the feelings of others, but never a cheater. I wanted to believe he was better than that. Or that he was too lazy to pull off an affair.
Looking back, the party probably served as an opportunity for Mike to introduce Beebee to his client list. To show them what a find she was, how beautiful and “well put together.” And by contrast, what an ungrateful social misfit I was. Really, who could blame him for replacing me with a more gracious model?
“I’m sorry,” Beebee said, smiling up at me and snapping me back into reality. “The phone just rings off the hook this time of year.”
As I stared into the dark depths of her eyes, I saw the smallest flicker of fear. Shame or embarrassment would have disappointed me. But fear I could work with.
A clarifying sense of purpose seemed to still everything in my head. I focused my gaze on Beebee’s face, her beautiful, troubled, guilt-clenched face. A sharp, sweet smile curved my lips. “So Beebee, tell me every little thing about yourself.”
It’s that time of the month again…
As we head into those dog days of July, Mike would like to thank those who helped him get the toys he needs to enjoy his summer.
Thanks to you, he bought a new bass boat, which we don’t need; a condo in Florida, where we don’t spend any time, and a $2,000 set of golf clubs … which he has been using as an alibi to cover the fact that he has been remorselessly banging his secretary, Beebee, for the last six months.
Tragically, I didn’t suspect a thing. Right up until the moment Cherry Glick inadvertently delivered a lovely floral arrangement to our house, apparently intended to celebrate the anniversary of the first time Beebee provided Mike with her special brand of administrative support. Sadly, even after this damning evidence and seeing Mike ram his tongue down Beebee’s throat - I didn’t quite grasp the depth of his deception. It took reading the contents of his secret e-mail account before I was convinced. I learned that cheap motel rooms have been christened. Office equipment has been sullied. And you should think twice before calling Mike’s work number during his lunch hour, because there’s a good chance that Beebee will be under his desk “assisting” him.
I must confess that I was disappointed by Mike’s overwrought prose, but I now understand why he insisted
