“My, my, you have put your aunt in a taking,” she said with satisfaction. “Sent me up here to find out what in hell was going on with you.”
Molly threw herself back down on the bed, wondering absently whether she looked any different. Could Mrs. Morse see that Patrick had kissed her? Probably not—people were kissed all the time. Everyone had made it clear she’d done a lot more than kissing, and with a number of men besides her husband. It was hardly the soul-shattering event it seemed to her overwrought imagination. “I don’t care much for Aunt Ermy,” Molly said in a meditative voice.
“Well, now that’s a new thing, I must say. You and the old battle-ax used to be inseparable buddies, always tearing poor Patrick apart each chance you got.” She sniffed. “I’m glad you’ve seen the error of your ways.”
“We don’t seem to have much in common,” Molly said. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said flatly. “I’m just glad that’s over and done with. I came to find out if you’d be coming down to dinner. There’ll only be the three of you—Willy, Ermy, and you. Patrick took off about an hour ago in a towering rage. Said he wouldn’t be in for dinner. I wondered if you would know anything about that?” Her curiosity was unabashed, but Molly wasn’t in the mood to satisfy it.
“Can’t imagine.” She scrambled off the bed. “And of course I’ll be down to dinner. Can I give you a hand?”
“It’s all done. Everything to her highness’s liking, you can be sure.” She pursed her thin lips in disgust. “You can come down and keep her off my back, though. She and Willy are having a high old time in the living room, drinking Patrick’s liquor and heaping insults on him in his absence.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Molly promised, running a brush thought her hair and following Mrs. Morse’s upright figure through the halls.
She paused at the entrance of the living room, just long enough to take stock of its inhabitants. Aunt Ermy was Wagnerian, all right, with a high-swept pompadour of silver hair and three determined chins, each one more determined than the last. Tiny, piglike eyes, a retroussé snout with a fierce mustache bristling beneath completed the picture, and of her massive body the less said the better: a mountainous bulk on tiny trotters. She looked as unpleasant as Molly had imagined her to be, and she was mortally glad the relationship was, at best, a distant one.
“Good evening, everyone,” she greeted them airily as she sailed into the room. Aunt Ermy’s tiny eyes took in the jeans, the T-shirt, the lack of makeup, and her face screwed up into a look of pouting disapproval.
“Well,” rite said at length, “I’m pleased to see you finally decided to come down and greet your poor aunt after your long and mysterious absence. Going off like that without a word!”
Molly smiled at her, not a bit disturbed. “Sorry,” she said briefly, helping herself to a large glass of cranberry juice and slipping into the hard-backed chair left—the two relatives having commandeered the most comfortable ones in the room. “Did you enjoy your visit?”
“I might well ask the same of you,” Aunt Ermy said frostily. Molly eyed her with cold-blooded calm, and she immediately changed her domineering attitude. “Molly, dear, couldn’t you have told us where you were going? We were worried about you! ”
Molly shrugged, and Aunt Ermy leaned closer, the air heavy with the expensive but unsuitably girlish scent she had splashed all over her. “And Willy here tells me you’ve lost your memory. Surely you can’t have forgotten your Aunt Ermy? And all the fun things we used to do together?”
“I’m afraid I have,” she said in a brisk voice. “I’m starving. Mrs. Morse should have dinner ready by now—shall we go in?” Molly rose gracefully, and Aunt Ermy stared up at her with increasing annoyance.
“Well, really, Molly, we’ve hardly started on our second drink,” she began, but Molly interrupted her.
“Oh, that’s perfectly all right, you can bring it in with you,” she said, nipping her protests in the bud. Uncle Willy looked up from his chair, a gleam of amusement and something else fighting through the sodden expression on his face. He wandered after them into the dining room, bringing not only his glass but the crystal decanter of whiskey with him.
Molly watched Aunt Ermy bear down on the seat at the head of the table like a steamship. As soon as she pulled out the heavy chair Molly darted into the seat, smiling at her with all the charm she had at her beck and call. “Thank you, Aunt Ermy,” she said sweetly, pulling out the heavy linen napkin and placing it on her lap.
Ermintrude stood there for a moment in a floundering rage, immovable and furious. She seated herself with awful majesty at Molly’s right, her mountainous form quivering with indignation.
“You used to dress for dinner, my dear,” was all she said in an aggrieved tone, and Molly considered she’d gotten off lightly.
“I prefer to be comfortable, Aunt Ermy,” she replied calmly.
“And where has he gone tonight?” she questioned.
“Do you mean my husband?” Molly asked her politely. Whatever her differences were with the man, she wasn’t about to let this awful old woman insult him. “He had some business to attend to, I believe.”
“Business like la belle dame Canning, if I’m not mistaken,” Willy snorted from the foot of the table.
“Perhaps,” Molly said, undisturbed. “But I don’t think that’s any of your concern.” Her calm statement put a damper on the dinner conversation, but by the time they were back in the living room and well-fortified with additional alcohol Uncle Willy and Aunt Ermy grew quite loquacious once more.
“I’m glad to see you’re drinking your cranberry juice,” Aunt Ermy observed heavily as she accepted another tail glass from Willy’s drink-fumbled hands. “At least you’re following my precepts in that matter.”
Molly immediately tried to refuse the drink, but Willy took no notice, trying to add a shot of vodka to the glass she held firmly out of reach.
“Come on, my girl,” he pouted. “Don’t go all prudish on us. You used to put away quite a bit of this stuff before your transformation into Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Patrick’s not here to see you—live a bit,” he bantered clumsily.
Molly shook her head, frowning in annoyance. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Patrick,” she snapped irritably, remembering the feel of his hot mouth on hers. She shivered and sipped at the cranberry juice. She didn’t want to drink. She didn’t like the idea of alcohol, and if she really was pregnant it gave her an even stronger reason to abstain.
She wondered how her two so-called relatives would react to the notion of a pregnancy. With screams of horror, no doubt. She imagined Aunt Ermy would try to drag her off to the nearest abortion clinic if she could.
