“Jane,” Serj said, mouth turning up beneath his mustache. Friendly. Kind and casual enough, but there was a little formalness to the way he greeted me in his black suit coat and jeans. And as he reached back to grab a glass of wine from the table, his gaze quickly surveyed me, head to foot, and I swear I saw him make a face. The kind of face you make when you want to laugh at something, but you know it’s not the time or place to do so.
He was confused by me. Or didn’t approve. I felt as if something was wrong with me—was it the dress? My boyish cropped hair? A slow and heavy humiliation crept over me. I gave him the best smile I could and canted my head politely as his wife stepped toward me.
“You are Eddie’s girl?” Jasmine said. “I can’t believe he kept this from me. I’m so happy to meet you. Let me see you, Jane. That’s not short for anything, right? How old are you, dear?”
Whoa, a lot of questions. My response got eaten by my word-pixie. I stood mute and nervous, dying a little inside, as Jasmine’s arms emerged from the glittery black shawl draped over her bare shoulders. Her hands were soft and warm as they gripped mine.
“Just Jane,” Velvet offered quickly, seeing that I was struggling. “Freshly graduated from high school back home in L.A. Eighteen.”
“Fennec’s age,” she murmured, steadily holding my hands inhers. She smelled faintly of sweet flowers. Brown eyes ringed with heavy makeup searched mine as if, like her husband, there was something she couldn’t figure out. But there wasn’t judgement from her. Just curiosity. “How long has this been going on with Eddie? I’m just trying to figure out how… logistically. You aren’t in the same cities.”
“Oh, we started talking after my accident at the dam.” I struggled for the words. “After. The festival app. We… just talked.” Privately. He hadn’t told his mother that I existed, apparently, which was freaking me out a little. But how could I judge? I didn’t tell my dad about Eddie until I was introducing them at the airport.
“Online?”
I nodded.
She made an amused noise, as if she couldn’t believe it. “Eddie is no wordsmith.”
That made me laugh a little. I relaxed. “No, ma’am. But he’s nice.”
Jasmine smiled softly. “Heisnice, isn’t he? Sometimes. He tries very hard in whatever he does. He wants to be the best, like Serj.”
“No such thing as second place,” Serj said from over her shoulder, raising his wineglass to the Taylors. “Isn’t that right?”
“Competition is for the young. I had a stroke. I just make wine now,” Mr. Taylor said.
Mad Dog lifted his glass. “And good wine it is. I’m the same. Just want to make good music and get paid.” He pointed at Serj.“And the longer I don’t hear from my lawyer on this little seven seas trip your kid took, the longer I’m nervous about that last part.”
“He’ll call, big dog, just relax. Meditate or whatever you do,” Serj said, laughing.
Yikes.
Jasmine didn’t seem bothered by their talk about Eddie. She lifted my hands to her face and inhaled. “Onion.”
My ears burned. “I… helped prep dinner in the kitchen.”
Velvet looked as embarrassed as I felt. “It’s an all-hands-on-deck situation at the lake, Jas. Sometimes I even help.”
Well. She sometimes ate breakfast in the kitchen and chatted with Exie while she was prepping food. I guess that counted.
“Don’t be ashamed,” Jasmine told me. “Onions remind me of cooking with my mother when I was your age. We would cut up a dozen red onions for her to pickle, and our hands would smell like that all day.” She laughed. “I still like to cook with Ms. Makruhi, my housekeeper.”
“You do?” I felt a little spellbound by her. Maybe it was the tiers of teardrop diamond pendants that spilled down her throat in a neat little row, each lower than the one above. Maybe it was her bountiful hair, all ringlet curls. It reminded me of Fen’s. But on her, it was so glamorous.
“I think you’ll be good for Eddie.” She squeezed my hands and let go, smiling genuinely. “I’m very happy to get to know you. We will be good friends. Come, tell me about yourself.”
Could you fall in love with someone’s mother? I was prettysure I was in mother-love with Jasmine. She had some kind of weird magnetism, and I wanted to follow her around like a puppy and tell her everything. I didn’t care about my word-pixie tripping me up. I didn’t care about the droopy dress, or that Velvet had left us alone. She asked me just the right questions. My brain unlocked, and I could answer. Before I realized how much I was talking, I’d told her about Frida and graduation, and I’d taken her over to Dad and introduced them.
“We’ve met before at a fundraiser that Mad Dog attended a few years ago,” she said. “You kindly drove me and my son to the ER. He’d hurt his leg, and I couldn’t find Serj.”
I forgot about that.…
“I remember,” Dad said. “You sang to him in the car. Was that opera? You have a beautiful voice.”
“I sing in my church choir; it’s nothing. And my son got a few stitches that day. Kids…”
Kids? She was talking aboutFen. He’s the one who rode in my dad’s car and got stitches. I remembered that now. I think I was fifteen, and I’d talked to Fen that day before he hurt his leg.
