“You have a lovely laugh, dear!” Elaina said to her and ran the front tire over the curb. The car fell with a bang that left the men in the back in a tumbled heap as she drove off it again. “We’re here!”
Jan Fielding was considerably older than Luke’s mother. Whereas Elaina was a trim, adorable woman in her fifties, Jan was... old. She answered the door, wearing slacks that came so far up her stomach it looked like she was hatching. The hem on the bottom of the pantlegs was halfway up her calves, making her look like she threw on her pants and just missed. Her blouse, a beautiful satin material that screamed money, was bunched up under the third chin. What was more striking was that the woman wasn’t actually fat, she just carried extra chins.
“Jan!” Elaina said. “This is my baby boy, Lucas.” She put a hand on Luke’s back and propelled him to the doorway, hissing under her breath, “Well, say hello, don’t be shy.”
Luke sighed. “Hi, you have a small statue that...”
“So, you’re the son!” Jan looked up at Luke with an expression that could curdle milk. Even Dani flinched. “I’ve heard a lot about you!”
“I... thanks. Listen, Mom gave you a...”
“And this is Danielle, his soon-to-be wife!” This time Elaina’s hand was on Dani’s back. A very sharp thumb stabbed her under the ribcage and she jumped, barely catching herself before she swung on the woman.
“Dani.” She held out her hand to introduce herself, shooting Elaina a look, vowing to not turn her back on the woman a second time.
“How do you do?” Jan said, and took the proffered hand. Dani’s face froze, and she surreptitiously wiped her hand on her shorts. “Don’t worry,” Jan said testily, “I was eating an orange when you rang the bell.”
“And this is Danielle’s father,” Elaina said, and—was that a flirtatious look she was giving him, her father of all people, as she introduced him? Dani froze, suddenly terrified for no reason she could name now that she realized there might be some reciprocation of affection.
“Dani,” Dani corrected, her mouth apparently on autopilot. Thankfully.
“Edwin.” Her father introduced himself and settled for an awkward wave hello.
“That’s confusing,” Jan looked at Elaina. “Is he Danny or Edwin?”
“I’m not sure,” Elaina confessed, throwing up her hands with a shrug. “I’ve been trying to figure that out all day.”
“Edwin,” he repeated, and gave Dani a look.
“I’m Dani.”
“Excuse me!” Luke interrupted, obviously well past done with niceties. “Mom gave you a small statue. A bird, I think it was. Do you still have it?”
“You don’t remember if it was a bird?” Elaina asked him, her brow knitting in a disappointed pout.
“Do you still have it?”
Jan blinked, looking at them all in turn. “No. Why would I have it?”
“Marcus.” Marcus raised his hand. For a moment he had everyone’s attention, and then subsided with a mumbled word that was probably better off unheard.
“No, I don’t have it!” Jan said crossly. “I told you that was for the bazaar!” She looked pointedly at Elaina. “I gave it to them along with a box of other useless crap I gathered around the neighborhood. You’d think out here you’d get something better than chia pets, and teakettles with the bottoms rusted out. But nooooo...”
“Well,” Elaina edged off the porch, seeming to be very interested in the flowers growing next to the door suddenly, “I’m sorry, but surely they can get something from it.”
“Sure, maybe a dollar. Maybe they’ll just throw it in the dumpster with all the other trash. What do you want it for? Hang on, I’ll get a quarter, you can go get another one.”
“Excuse me...but where’s the bazaar?” Dani asked, wondering why no one else was thinking to.
“Do I look like Mapquest? Elaina knows where the church is. Kids today...no idea about anything. I’d invite you in but I’m missing Jeopardy.”
Luke and Dani glanced at each other. He stood a moment, one hand on the back of his neck as though to work out a knot. When he finally turned and headed down the stairs, Dani followed.
Edwin offered his arm to Elaina and walked her back to the car.
“I’m driving!” Luke yelled over his shoulder, heading straight for the driver’s side door at a pace that would have made a mall walker proud.
“Nice to meet you,” Marcus said with a half bow, the only one to pause and thank the old biddy on the porch.
Except Jan slammed the door on him.
LUKE REFUSED TO ALLOW his mother to get behind the wheel again, despite her protestations.
“I drive for Disney!” she insisted as Edwin offered his hand to her; she took it reflexively that he might help her into the back seat. If his hand lingered a minute, Dani was sure no one noticed except her. She blinked and tried to process this, not sure how she felt about this development. Her mother was still alive, after all. She was discovering a hint of jealousy in the way her father was looking at another woman. It startled her, especially when she realized that she’d been fostering a tiny hope since she’d found out her mother was still alive, that maybe her parents could reunite and her family be restored.
And we could all live happily ever after. Damn, I need therapy. I can’t process this anymore.
“Disney! I hate to tell you this, Mother, but it shows!” Luke griped, firing up the engine and dropping the shifter into gear. The engine roared, and sprang to life like a demon had suddenly possessed the car. He hid it well, but Dani could see the surprise on Luke’s face. The gas pedal was obviously more sensitive than he’d anticipated. But then he hadn’t had the advantage of having sat in the front yet.
That’s good. Focus on the mundane. The car. The way it sounds. The way Luke looks like he’s just been put behind the controls of a tank and told to drive it in a figure eight marked out with Easter eggs.
“Ok, so how do I get to the church?” Luke called over his shoulder. He’d gotten a little firmer grip on the steering wheel. It had to hurt to speak with his jaw clenched like that.
“Go to the stop sign,” his mother said, pointing down the street.
“Then what?” Luke checked the mirror and moved out into the road. There were no cars at the moment, a good thing since the Cadillac leapt onto the pavement and tried to run off on its own. Luke swore and hit the brake. Hard. Dani’s hands shot out, palms smacking the dash as she gave him a dirty look. Really? Hadn’t the man ever driven anything even remotely combat-ready in the service? Hell, this thing couldn’t be any harder than a Humvee.
“I really think I should drive, dear!” his mother said from the back. Her hand was on the top of the seat beside Dani and she was white-knuckled. Dani gingerly took her own hands off the dash, only because Luke shot her a look that was equal parts frustration and hurt. As surreptitiously as possible she eased herself back in the seat and checked her seatbelt.
“Never mind!” Luke muttered, navigating around a car that was parked too far out into the street. “What do you have in this thing anyway?”
“A 500-cubic-inch big block V-8, but the torque works out a little higher, hi-performance cams, and nitrous injection. Why do you ask?”