After James walked inside, I sat down next to my mother and grabbed the bottle of Jack that I’d set out earlier and poured myself a drink.
“Get that sappy shit out of your system, yet?” Ma asked.
“Ma.”
“No, Izzy. Listen to me.”
I turned to face her, giving her my full attention because I wanted to hear her pearls of wisdom, and she was going to give them to me whether I wanted to hear them or not.
“Don’t worry yourself sick. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. The doctor is confident that even if it is cancerous, it’s easily beatable. I plan to be around for many, many years. Stop putting my ass in the grave before I’m ready. Ya hear?”
“Izzy. Listen to your mother,” Aunt Fran said, giving me a stern look. “She’s fine. We’re all fine. Get your mind off things. Climb that beautiful man of yours tonight and forget about everything else.”
Suzy spat out her Coca-Cola as Fran told me to climb James. “I can’t,” Suzy laughed, trying to wipe away the mess she’d made.
“Come on. If I were young again, I’d give him a run for his money.”
“Aunt Fran,” Mia gasped and shook her head.
Angel cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “You know, Bear’s not an old man Fran. I hear about some of the crazy shit you two…”
“Don’t.” I held up my hands. “I don’t want to hear about old-people sex.”
“Um,” Max muttered and gave me a crooked smile. “We’re getting pretty fucking old ourselves.”
“Speak for yourself.” I twisted my lips and groped my breasts. “These are not the breasts of an old lady.”
“That’s Victoria’s Secret padding, and they’re not as perky as they once were,” Suzy told me, which caught me completely off guard because she was always the nice one.
“Aren’t those bras the best?” Angel asked, pinching at the sides of her breasts, which looked spot-on and spectacular. “They’ve saved me from looking like an old hag for way too many years.”
“Oh, please,” I scoffed. “Your tits are always amazing.”
Pop walked out, cheering about the Cubs like a proud peacock and like he had something to do with their win. “Did I interrupt?” he asked as all conversation ceased as soon as he walked onto the lanai.
“Talking about tits,” Aunt Fran told him, crossing her arms over hers and waiting for his response.
He didn’t say a word. Just strutted back into the living room, closing the sliding door behind him and going back to the guys and the safety of sports talk as opposed to our conversation.
The table erupted into laughter because the look on his face was priceless. Although my dad loved to tease, he didn’t want to get into a conversation about breasts with the girls in his life, and we all knew it, including Fran, who just wanted him to leave us alone and not have to hear any more about the Cubs being winners.
“That’ll teach him.” Aunt Fran smiled.
I knew exactly how she felt. There was nothing like making your brother so uncomfortable and forcing him to slink away to put a smile on your face. She was the master, though, since she had more years perfecting it with my father than I did with my brothers.
“So let’s talk about this Kat woman,” Max said, and that was the end of the fun. She pulled out her phone and started typing away, looking more like Anthony at that given moment.
“What’s she look like?” Suzy asked, twirling the straw of her Coke against her tongue. “Is she young?”
“What’s the problem, ladies?” Ma asked, drawing her eyebrows downward.
“They’re worried some young, hot thing is going to try to steal their man.” I rolled my eyes at the sheer stupidity.
“That’s ridiculous,” Ma said, and finally, I felt vindicated.
“But,” Mia started to say when my mother shushed her.
“My boys love each one of you with every fiber of their being. There’s no woman who’ll make any difference or catch their eye when a man is truly in love with a woman. If you’re concerned that someone is going to try to take your place, maybe you need to look in the mirror and see if there’s something you’re not doing that could put the relationship at risk.”
