“TAKE THAT!!!” she shouted as Mike called outNooooand she fired on him with Jack’s help. The tables had turned, and for the next few games, Agnes kept changing to more and more destructive weapons as Mike tried to flee certain death. Mike was glowing with anger, but he was incapable of defending himself. I couldn’t care less about video games, but even I found it too funny to look away. She only let him off the hook when a bossappeared on the screen and she decided to sabotage Mike, making excuses for why she couldn’t use this or that weapon or how she didn’t want to hurt their poor enemies. The whole scenario was so absurd that none of us could stop laughing, and I wished it would keep going for the rest of the evening. But then we heard steps. Jack was the first one to notice, though he didn’t bother looking up.
Mr. Ross was wearing elegant slacks and a Ralph Lauren golf shirt, the one with the big pony on the breast so everyone knows how expensive it was. Looking through his square lenses, he took stock of the situation, then said with a frown, “Stop wasting time and go help your mother set the table.”
“Stop being so stiff, son, we’re all having fun,” Agnes replied.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Mother. Now boys, did you not hear me?”
Mike looked over at Jack, as though waiting for his reaction, and Jack responded, “how about you go do it and leave us alone?”
Mary rushed out just then, her arms full of plates and silverware and a nervous smile on her lips. “It’s fine,” she assured us, “I’ve got it, it’ll just be another second!” From the dining room, we could hear the clatter as she set everything down.
All of us froze, pinned in Mr. Ross’s stare, until I stood and said, “I’ll help.” Mike got up and joined me. We set the table in silence, and when we sat down, Jack and Agnes served us. After his outburst, I was surprised to notice that Mr. Ross didn’t lift a finger to help. He just took his place at the head of the table and pushed his food around his plate. Mary seemed to be trying to get his attention, but he couldn’t have cared less. I felt bad for her, knowing how hard she’d tried to make everything perfect.
“This is incredible,” I told her, and I kicked Mike under the table just as he was stuffing an entire serving of mashed potatoes into his mouth. He tried to talk through it to congratulate his mother on the meal, but all that came out were impossible-to-understand murmurs. That did get a laugh out of her, though, so it was better than nothing.
“I have to give some of the credit to Agnes,” Mary said. “The dinner was her idea, actually.”
“Well, we had to celebrate our favorite girl’s birthday, didn’t we?” Agnes responded. “How old are you now, dear?”
“Twenty,” I replied.
“Oh, to be twenty years old again…” she mused.
“You’re almost there. Just multiply it a few times,” Jack said with a wicked smile.
Agnes laughed and threw a napkin at her nephew. That elicited a grunt from Mr. Ross. “Can you all not share a simple dinner without acting like fools?” he shouted.
Agnes ignored him, asking Jack if he’d gotten me anything.
I answered for him: “He did. A set of paints. It’s wonderful, and I didn’t see it coming. I can’t wait to break them out and start using them.”
Jack grinned. Was he being bashful? That was so sweet… Mike, provocative as ever, asked what the point of painting was when you could just take a photo, and his brother responded by asking what the point was of screaming into a microphone and trying to burst your audience’s eardrums. Mike defended himself, but without much luck. Unfortunately for him, everyone at the table had heard his music.
Mr. Ross frowned and huffed, but we all acted as if he weren’t there. Even I nearly forgot him. It was as if we had tacitly agreed to ignore him, which he clearly didn’t like, as I discovered when I left for the restroom and came out to find him standing there. A part of me had figured he might do something like that, especially when I heard footsteps outside as I was washing my hands. Because of that, I was ready for him, even if his bitter tone took me aback as he hissed, “You and I need to talk.”
“We already talked the other day,” I said, looking up at him from below.
“Why are you here, then? Did you come to hit me up for more money?”
Was he seriously trying that line with me again? I scowled as I shookmy hands dry and said, “I don’t know how to tell you this so you’ll get it through your head, but I’m not with your son for his money.”
“That certainly didn’t stop you from accepting my check.”
“You’re the one who offered it,” I replied. I’d bet he was dying to know what I’d do with that money. I’d bet he was asking himself whether he should threaten me to try to force me to give it back, but he had to have known that if he pushed his luck, I’d reveal what he’d done, and he wasn’t willing to let everyone see how deceitful he really was. He reminded me of Monty, the way he liked pushing people around, and even something in the way he was standing resembled my old boyfriend’s attitude.
“You really think you’re smart, don’t you?” he murmured. “Well, I’ve met a lot of smart girls before, Jennifer. Smarter than you. And you’re all the same. You want money, something about it just draws you toward it like a magnet, and you’re always on the hunt for someone stupid enough to let you have some.”
“I’m sorry you see people that way, but nothing could be further from the truth. And you’re the stupid one if you think Jack would ever fall for something like that.”
I stopped, waiting nervously to see how he’d respond. It was clear he wasn’t used to being talked to that way, and as he sputtered and cursed, I tried to slip past him, making it partway down the hall before he reached me. I could feel his hand reaching for my shoulder, and I turned and shouted, “Don’t you dare touch me!”
I told him how arrogant he was; told him I’d never once thought about how much money Jack might or might not have; told him I loved his son, and he’d better get used to it.
“I’m just looking out for his future,” Mr. Ross said.
“Bullshit!” I replied, unwilling to play nice any longer. “If you’d cared about your son, you would have known how he felt about me and how fragile he was last year. If you’d cared, you wouldn’t have come up withthat bullshit at Christmas about how what he really needed was to go live his life in France without me.”
“I never told you to leave him hanging!” he said. “That may be how you remember it, but that’s not how it happened.”
