looked like his face had melted or something. Like some horror movie.'
Morelli and I exchanged glances, and we were both thinking Spiro.
An hour later, I helped Morelli hobble down the porch stairs and cross the lawn. I'd parked the Buick in the driveway, and I'd bribed one of the neighborhood kids into baby-sitting the car. I loaded Morelli into the car, gave the kid five dollars, and ran back to the house for my share of the leftovers.
My mother had bagged some meatballs for me, and now she was standing in front of the cake. She had a cardboard box on the chair and a knife in her hand.
'How much do you want?' she asked.
Grandma was standing beside my mother. 'Maybe you should let me cut the cake,' Grandma said. 'You're tipsy.'
'I'm not tipsy,' my mother said, very carefully forming her words. It was true. My mother wasn't tipsy. My mother was shitfaced.
'I tell you, we're lucky if we don't find ourselves talking to Dr. Phil one of these days,' Grandma said.
'I like Dr. Phil,' my mother said. 'He's cute. I wouldn't mind spending some time with him, if you know what I mean.'
'I know what you mean,' Grandma said. 'And it gives me the creeps.'
'So how much of the cake do you want?' my mother asked me again. 'You want the whole thing?'
'You don't want the whole thing,' Grandma said to me. 'You'll give yourself the diabetes. You and your mother got no control.'
'Excuse me?' my mother said. 'No control? Did you say I had no control? I am the queen of control. Look at this family. I have a daughter in Disney World with oogly woogly smoochikins. I have a granddaughter who thinks she's a horse. I have a mother who thinks she's a teenager.' My mother turned to me.
'And you! I don't know where to begin.'
'I'm not so bad,' I said. 'I'm taking charge of my life. I'm making changes.'
'You're a walking disaster,' my mother said. 'And you just ate seven pieces of cake.'
'I didn't!'
'You did. You're a cakeaholic.'
'I don't mind thinking I'm a teenager,' Grandma said. 'Better than thinking I'm an old lady. Maybe I should get a boob job, and then I could wear them sex-kitten clothes.'
'Good God,' my mother said. And she drained her glass.
'I'm not a cakeaholic,' I said. 'I only eat cake on special occasions.' Like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. . .
'You're one of them comfort eaters,' Grandma said. 'I saw a show about it on television. When your mother gets stressed, she irons and tipples. When you get stressed, you eat cake. You're a cake abuser. You need to join one of them help groups, like Cake Eaters Anonymous.'
My mother sliced into the cake and carved off a chunk for herself. 'Cake Eaters Anonymous,' she said. 'That's a good one.' She took a big bite of the cake and got a smudge of icing on her nose.
'You got icing on your nose,' Grandma said.
'Do not,' my mother said.
'Do, too,' Grandma Mazur said. 'You're three sheets to the wind.'
'Take that back,' my mother said, swiping her finger through the frosting on the top tier and flicking a glob at Grandma Mazur. The glob hit Grandma in the forehead and slid halfway down her nose. 'Now you've got icing on your nose, too,' my mother said.
Grandma sucked in some air.
My mother flicked another glob at Grandma.
'That's it,' Grandma said, narrowing her eyes. 'Eat dirt and die!' And Grandma scooped up a wad of cake and icing and smushed it into my mothers face.
'I can't see!' my mother shrieked. 'I'm blind.' She was wobbling around, flailing her arms. She lost her balance and fell against the table and into the cake.
'I tell you it's pathetic,' Grandma said. 'I don't know how I raised a daughter that don't even know how to have a food fight. And look at this, she fell into a three-tiered wedding cake. This is gonna put a real crimp in the leftovers.' She reached out to help my mother, and my mother latched on to Grandma and wrestled her onto the table.
'You're going down, old woman,' my mother said to Grandma.
Grandma yelped and struggled to scramble away, but she couldn't get a grip.
She was as slick as a greased pig, in lard icing up to her elbows.
'Maybe you should stop before someone falls and gets hurt,' I told them.
'Maybe you should mind your own beeswax,' Grandma said, mashing cake into my mother's hair.
'Hey, wait a minute,' my mother said. 'Stephanie didn't get her cake.'
They both paused and looked over at me.
