His fingers moving lightly on the strings of the guitar, Billy began to sing, “I know what I want… I know what I need.”
That must be his hit record, Sterling thought. Even to my out-of-date ears, it’s great.
Thanks to the music, the atmosphere at the party loosened up. The guests began interacting, allowing their glasses to be refilled with the excellent wines, and piling their plates with the truly spectacular food.
By 7:15 the Badgett brothers were beaming. Their party was a success. They were a success.
At that point, Junior picked up the microphone and cleared his throat. “I wanna welcome all of you, and my brother and me hope you’re enjoying yourselves very much. It is our pleasure to have you as our guests, and we are very, very happy to have given you the money, I mean donated the money, for the wing of the senior citizens center to be known as the Mama Heddy-Anna wing in honor of our saintly mother’s eighty-fifth birthday. And now, by the miracle of satellite, from the historic village of Kizkek where my brother and me were raised, our mama will appear. Mama stayed up way past her bedtime to be with us ’cause she’s so honored. Now I ask all of you to join in singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her. Our wonderful Billy Campbell and his mother, that doll Nor Kelly, will lead us in song.”
There was a faint smattering of applause. The birthday cake was rolled out, ablaze with eighty-six candles, one to grow on. The ten-foot screen dropped down from the ceiling, and Mama Heddy-Anna’s dour face emerged to fill it.
She was seated in her rocking chair, sipping grappa.
Eddie’s eyes streamed with tears, and Junior blew kisses at the screen as the guests dutifully sang “Happy Birthday, Heddy-Anna” in Wallonian, working from phonetically marked song sheets.
Her cheeks puffed like twin red balloons, Mama blew out the candles on the cake her sons had sent by chartered plane to Wallonia. That was when it became all too clear that she’d filled the hours past her usual bedtime by drinking more than her share of grappa. In broken English she started cursing and complaining loudly that her sons never came to see her and she wasn’t feeling so hot.
Junior quickly turned down the volume but not before she had screamed, “How much bad things you two do, you can’t come see your mama before she die? Not once you come in all these years.”
Billy and Nor immediately started another vigorous round of “Happy Birthday, Heddy-Anna.” This time no one joined in, however, and the telecast closed on the unforgettable sight of Mama thumbing her nose at her offspring and their guests, as she came down with a case of the hiccups.
Jewel’s laugh was a high-pitched trill. “Doesn’t Mama have a wonderful sense of humor? I just love her.”
Junior brushed Jewel aside and stalked out of the room. Eddie followed close behind.
Nor quickly whispered to Billy, “This is a disaster. What should we do? He told us to sing ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ while people ate the cake.
“And then the medley of songs about mothers, starting with ‘I always loved my mama, she’s my favorite girl…’ ”
How about “Little old lady, time for tea,” Sterling thought. That was a hit in my day.
“We’d better check on what they want us to do now. I’m not taking any chances on second- guessing them,” Nor said, glancing around the room at the stunned expressions on the faces of the guests.
As Sterling trotted after Nor and Billy, he sensed imminent disaster. Junior and Eddie were disappearing into a room at the end of the hall.
Billy and Nor raced to catch up with them, and Billy tapped on the now-closed door. When there was no response, he and Nor looked at each other. “Let’s take a chance,” Nor whispered.
Just go home, Sterling urged, but knew it was a year too late to even think that.
Billy turned the handle and cautiously opened the door. He and Nor stepped into what appeared to be a small reception room. It was empty.
“They’re in there,” Nor whispered, pointing to an inner room that could be seen through a partially open door. “Maybe we’d better…”
“Wait a minute. They’re checking the answering machine.”
An electronic voice was announcing, “You have one new message.”
Nor and Billy hesitated, not sure whether to wait or to leave, but then the message they were overhearing froze them to the spot.
It was a plea from a man who sounded desperate, begging for “wery little extra time” to pay back a loan.
The answering machine clicked off, and they heard Junior shout, “Your time just ran out, buddy. Eddie, get on it. Tell the guys to burn his stinking warehouse down and do it now. I don’t wanna hear that it’s still standing tomorrow.”
“There won’t be nuthin’ left,” Eddie assured him, sounding much cheerier, his mind off Mama for the moment.
Billy put his finger to his lips. Silently he and Nor tiptoed from the room and hurried back to the salon. “Let’s get our stuff,” Billy whispered. “We’re out of here.”
What they did not notice, but Sterling did, was that Charlie Santoli, at the other end of the hall, had seen them come out of the office.
The celestial waiting room was filled with newcomers gazing around and trying to adjust to their surroundings. The angel in charge had been ordered to hang a large DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door of the conference room. There had been several instances of former top executives, not used to being kept waiting, who had rushed in demanding a meeting when the angel’s back was turned.
Inside the conference room, the Heavenly Council was following Sterling ’s activities with keen interest.
“Did you notice how chagrined he was when Marissa didn’t even sense that he was present in the restaurant?” the nun asked. “He was truly taken aback.”
“That was one of the first lessons we wanted him to learn,” the monk stated. “During his lifetime, too many people were invisible to him. He’d look right past them.”
“Do you think Mama Heddy-Anna will turn up in our waiting room soon?” the shepherd asked. “She told her sons she’s dying.”
The nurse smiled. “She used the oldest trick in the book to get her sons to visit her. She’s as strong as a bull.”
“I wouldn’t want her in the ring with me,” the matador commented wryly.
“That lawyer is in real trouble,” said the saint who had reminded Sterling of Pocahontas. “Unless he does something drastic very soon, when his time comes, he won’t be dealing with us.”
“Poor Hans Kramer is desperate,” the nun observed. “The Badgett brothers have absolutely no mercy.”
“They belong in the brig,” the admiral proclaimed sternly.
“Did you hear that?” the queen’s tone was shocked. “They’re going to set that poor man’s warehouse on fire.”
Shaking their heads, the saints fell silent, reflecting sadly on man’s inhumanity to man.
Valets frantically rushed to deliver the cars of the guests pouring out of the house. Sterling leaned against a column on the porch, bent on hearing the reactions of the departing merrymakers.
“Bizarre!”
“Give them their money back.
“Reminded me of the movie ‘Throw Momma From the Train.’ I bet that’s what those two characters feel like doing now,” a board member’s husband snickered.
“At least the food was good,” someone said charitably.
“I hope you caught that they haven’t set foot in Wallonia since they left. Figure out why.”
“You got a load of Mama, didn’t you?”
Sterling noticed that the two U.S. Senators were screaming at their top aides as they were
