“Mom,” Victoria said, stepping out from the next room where she and Kevin had disappeared together, a practiced smile on her face. “Oh—you met Bridget. Thanks for having my friend here for this. It’s good to establish some community here now that I’m back in town.”
“Mm. Your friend,” Miss Jameson said with a stony look between the two of us. “She’s an interesting one. She was telling me how she thinks it’s a… beautiful house,” she said, her voice dripping derision. I withered. Had I said the wrong thing? I did what I did best, which was doubling down and screwing everything up more.
“It is,” I said. “I really enjoy design, aesthetics… I set up aesthetics and visuals for my work.”
Victoria turned away sharply, looking at her mother. “Mom, would it be okay to talk for one second—”
“Oh, is that so?” Miss Jameson said, her gaze steely on me. “What sort of work do you do?”
I didn’t know why I’d said that.Lesbian smut machine.I was assaulted with the visual of what would happen if I actually said that out loud, and it prompted me to break out into nervous giggles. Miss Jameson narrowed her eyes.
“Work? I assume you’re familiar with the concept.”
“Oh, I am. Very familiar. Ah, just… reminded me of an inside joke with Victoria. I have a lot of nonpublic works pending at any given time, so I’m not at liberty to disclose a lot of it, so I’ve been cagey when she asks before, we have all kinds of jokes about it. Isn’t that right?”
Victoria smiled stonily at me. I was gonna die. Miss Jameson didn’t sound pleased. “Nonpublic works pending,” she said.
“Yes, well, I do media marketing, content strategy, but often on a direct-to-consumer level. I specialize in multimedia development and personal brand development, with depth-first distribution.”
“Mm. And thus the aesthetics.”
“Yes, well. I do some of the videography myself, so it involves creating sets and staging visuals. You must have had some professional work done on your home,” I said, speaking faster, desperately trying to change the subject. “The thematic development on the approach, incorporating the landscaping to create a sensation of opening up, and leveraging the construction with the pond to invoke the concept of the secret oasis, the architectural concepts reimagining classic themes in a contemporary lens. I can tell there was clear inspiration from a variety of different backgrounds, cultures. And then the interior design… whoever was the designer on this is a master of color especially. Muted greens and blues is difficult to pull off, but the hue balancing on the accents makes everything pull together harmoniously.” I was just saying words. I needed to stop. I didn’t. “And the chandelier!” I rambled. “A statement piece, but one that’s subtle, ties everything together and immediately livens the space without demanding more attention than the rest of the composition can withstand.” I needed to shut up. Half of that I pulled out of my ass. Miss Jameson’s expression hadn’t changed one micrometer. “I think it’s beautiful. It’s very clean, too. Spacious. Warm. Welcoming. I love it.”
“Hm.” She turned away. “Well, you’re here now, so that’s lovely. Victoria, let’s talk in private.”
“Ah, Mom, we’re not—” Victoria cleared her throat, standing up taller. “I mean… of course.”
I thought things were already bad before the door swung open, and a little old lady with short white curls and a hunch toher shoulders, chin jutting forward, wearing a tacky little floral dress, came in the room and said, “Miranda, your son’s gay.”
Miss Jameson whirled on her with a wild look. “Victoria is my daughter, Grandma.”
“Gay, the whole lot of them,” the great-grandmother said, and she handed me a mug that looked like eggnog and smelled like so much rum you’d get drunk if someone took a sip in the next room. “You’re Victoria’s girlfriend, right? Your girlfriend’s a handful. Drink up.”
“Oh, uh, about that,” I said, but there was something powerful about the woman, and I found I had no choice but to take the drink in my hand.
“What do youmean,my son is gay?” Miss Jameson said, her voice raising too high, and Victoria stepped in front of her.
“Mom, it’s okay, Nan is just talking—”
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” the nan said. “He’s gay, Miranda. Do I have to explain the concept to you? Kids these days are all gay. Good for them. Look how being straight worked out for me, your father, you. His boyfriend’s in the living room bonding with your father over 70s music.”
“Nan, please, just give us one second,” Victoria said, her face marble-white.
“You’re telling me youbothbrought your… same-sex lovers around without telling me for Christmas.”
“About that,” I said.
“No,” Victoria said. “Mom—”
The door swung open again, and a man who looked like he’d stepped in from a classic novel about sad men and fish came in the room, holding a mug that looked like it had eggnog, and I could assume the other primary component. “Miranda, get a move on. Your uncle and I are talking to Samuel in the living room. Just when I’d thought there weren’t any young men with good sense in this world anymore.”
The nan sighed wearily, giving me a conspiratorial look. “Men are all such a crude, simple bunch. You picked well.”
“Oh, uh… here’s to that.” I tapped my mug against hers.
I never did manage to get a word in properly, and neither did Victoria. Miss Jameson stormed off to go confront Samuel, our carefully constructed sting operation crumbling in a heartbeat, and Victoria chased after her, trying to salvage things and, I think, not succeeding.
I got swept along in things, and apparently Miss Jameson did not take well to Sam—there was some shouting, some arguing, and Kevin tried to step up, which just introduced more factions into the shouting. Victoria’s and Kevin’s cousin Daniel started arguing too, even though he didn’t really seem to have a side—from what I could tell, he just liked to argue—and one of Victoria’s aunts complained her energies weren’t in good alignment if everyone was going to argue, and she fixed the energy alignment issue by drinking a lot of vodka, which wound up with her yelling at people a lot too, and the crisis was only settled by dinner being finished and ready on the table, where we all sat around with tensions simmering even as everyone pretended to be polite. Miss Jameson made passive-aggressive remarks to Kevin and twice as much to Sam, and she didn’t so much as look at me, which, at least she was with Victoria on that—we went an entire dinner without Victoria looking at me.
