Besides, if last night didn’t make either of us run away, nothing will. I made cassoulet, chock-full of beans and sausages and duck confit and veggies, and by nine o’clock, we were both so insanely gassy that we gave up on our polite habit of disappearing to the bathroom and just let it fly. The noise and horrific smells coming from both of us made us cry with laughter and made Simca, with her delicate sensibilities, leave the room, which made us laugh harder.
I guess the moral of the story is you don’t know what love is until you are stewing in your mutual funk, and laughing about it instead of being disgusted.
I take Simca for a quick walk and then jump in the shower. I’m working on my makeup when my phone rings.
“What time is dinner?” Marcy asks.
“Shawn is picking me up at seven. Dinner is at seven thirty.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I think. He’s given me all the relevant prep info, and said that he’s been talking about me for a long time and they’re really excited to meet me.”
“That is great! You sound pretty calm.”
“Yeah, it’s good.”
“Do they know about the Lynne connection?”
“He told them just the basics, that she is my old high school friend and we didn’t know about the connection until we ran into each other. They thought it was a crazy coincidence, but he said they weren’t fazed and he certainly didn’t add any other details.”
“How are things on that front?”
“Teresa invited me over for brunch on Saturday and said she has a good plan and that all will be well, so I’m just lying low till I hear what she is suggesting.”
“You know how I feel.”
“You’ve made it abundantly clear.”
“But if you decide you do want to repair that relationship, go forth with my blessing and I’ll be a good girl.”
“And?”
“And if she hurts you again I’m gonna turn her into mince pies.”
“That’s my Marcy.” Ever since Claire suggested that Marcy might be feeling a little abandoned or replaced, I’ve been making a concerted effort to reach out more, to spend some quality one-on-one time with her, to show her that she is still super important to me. She seems a bit softer, so the charm offensive might be working.
“Go meet the parents, and have a great time. I’ll be up late, let me know how it goes!”
“Will do.”
I finish getting ready, keeping it simple: black pants, gray sweater, minimal makeup. Nice, but not like I’m trying too hard. I hear the door open downstairs and Shawn and Simca greeting each other. “Lucy, I’m hoooome!” he yells up the stairs in his best Desi Arnaz imitation.
I head down the stairs to where my handsome boyfriend is waiting for me.
“You look gorgeous, as usual,” he says, after the kiss.
“Thank you. You clean up pretty good yourself, Doc.”
“You ready for this?”
“Ready as I’m going to be.”
“They’re gonna love you.”
“I’ll settle for like and approve of.”
“Nah, I aim high. Go big or go home.”
I think about this for a moment. “Yeah, fuck it, they’re gonna love me.”
? ? ?
Oh, Lord, this is the best chocolate cream pie I have ever tasted,” Cheryl says. “There is not going to be enough yoga in the world to bounce back from this meal.”
“You think that is good, wait till you taste Eloise’s chocolate cream pie. Makes this look like Sara Lee,” Shawn says.
“That is a pretty major claim, my boy. What do you say, Eloise, do you stand behind your chocolate cream pie?” Darren says with a wink.
“I’ll bring one to Easter and you can judge for yourselves,” I say, surprised at my own sassiness. The night has been amazing. Shawn suddenly makes perfect sense to me; he is the absolute blend of his folks. His dad is clearly an old-school gentleman, who treats his wife with equal parts respect, admiration, and deference, and looks at her like he cannot believe his great good fortune. His mom is intuitive, kind, genuine, and super quick-witted and funny. They are easy and loving together, and remind me of my mom and dad in all the best ways. They both ask me a lot of questions about myself without ever making me feel like I’m being interrogated or judged, and they pepper the evening with family stories and fun anecdotes about Shawn growing up, just the way Claire and my mom did when they met him.
“You’d better hide it from Uncle Foster if you want to get a taste,” Shawn says.
“Oh, that is a good point,” Cheryl says. “I think maybe you two should come to the apartment first and drop off the pie. We can go to Jeannie’s house together and then come back for pie and coffee. Or bourbon, depending on how horribly annoying the day is.”
“Now, that is not fair, Cheryl. Jeannie does a lovely job,” Darren says with a grin. Jeannie is his older sister and has inherited the role of matriarch since their mom passed.
“Oh, Jeannie makes a helluva ham, and I don’t know what she does to those deviled eggs, but they are sublime.”
“Sounds amazing,” I say.
“Yeah, right up until Foster gets hammered and starts pinching everyone’s butts, and her wannabe fake gangsta sons with their pants practically around their ankles start playing all that bitch ho bitch ho music, and then Liza will start making those faces . . .”
Apparently Liza is cousin Stevie’s wife, a former debutante from Atlanta who tends to be something of a snob.
“Liza isn’t so bad,” Shawn says, barely containing a grin.
“Pfft.” Cheryl turns to me. “That woman walks around like she has a potato chip between her butt cheeks that she’s trying not to break.”
I snort-laugh, and then clap my hand over my mouth in mortification. They all crack up, and Shawn puts his arm around me and kisses my temple.
“The ladies are going to powder their noses,” Cheryl says, standing up. It seems more like a summoning than an offer, so I stand too and follow her to the bathroom.
“This might take a moment, Eloise, these Spanx are the devil’s invention, but I just cannot bring myself to buy the ones with the split in them,” she says, heading into the first stall.
“I know what you mean,” I say, heading into the stall next to her. “The only thing I hate more than Spanx . . .”
“Is how I look without them!” She finishes my sentence, and we both laugh.
I’m reapplying my lip gloss when she comes out of the stall. Washing her hands, she looks at me in the mirror. “I like you very much, Eloise.”
“Oh, Cheryl, thank you. I like you too.”
“I mean, I like you for my son, but I knew that the moment I saw how happy you make him. I know Linda . . . um, Lynne is your friend, and that is going to take some getting used to, not gonna lie. But she never made him glow like he does these days, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“I don’t.”
“What I’m saying is that I like you. You are good people, Eloise, I’m good at spotting that. If I met you at some other function, for some other reason, I would want for us to know each other. Is that too much to say?”
I can feel my heart swell. “No, that isn’t too much at all. I feel the same.” And I do. If tonight had been some charity event or one of my new social activities, I would totally want to be this woman’s friend.