“I thought Tony was like that. He’s so smart, you know. Okay, stand up.”
Harrison stood. Hillary went behind him, reached her arms under his, then pulled his shoulders back so that his shoulder blades were touching. “Try and hold that,” she said, and dropped her arms, then hopped around in front. She stood before him, studying him. She moved one of his arms. “Okay, let’s swing.”
“Great,” Harrison said, ready to move. He picked up a club.
“It wasn’t just then, either.”
“Pardon?”
“With Tony, I mean. It wasn’t just that time. There have been several times on tour. Didn’t you notice?”
“Umm…” He had not noticed. Why would he have noticed?
“Okay, get ready to swing.”
Harrison stepped up to the carpet. She stood behind him, her hands on his hips, urging him to tuck them. He would like to tuck this PT session into a garbage bin. “Ready?” She stepped back. “Swing.”
Harrison took the club back, but before he could power through his swing, he heard a loud “Yoo-hoo!” and abandoned the drive. He and Hillary turned toward the sound, and lo and behold, four older women wearing identical sweatshirts emblazoned withBossy Posse Girls’ Tripin fancy lettering had appeared. In addition, all four of them had reindeer-antler headbands that were doing a very slow light-up of red and green fairy lights.
The scene wouldn’t compute. Harrison could not for the life of him imagine who or what this group of women was. He looked at Hillary. “Is that your mom?” Hillary asked.
“Mymom? Not a chance.”
“Well, hello, there!” one of the women said, waving. “Who do we have here?”
Well, here they had the man who had rented this house for two weeks.
“We weren’t expecting anyone to be here,” said another one of the women.
Neither was he. Had Sam and her sister booked more people into the house? Those two women were going to have to seriously work out some kinks in their booking system.
“That’s okay, we’ll keep you,” said the first one. “You’re cute. So are you, sweetie, but a little young.” All four of the women burst into laughter, as if that remark made sense on any level, or was funny.
“Mom!”
The roar that came from the direction of the studio startled them all. Amy had appeared, wearing a painter’s smock and fuzzy jacket and looking wild with fury. Duchess had come out, too, and was sniffing her way toward the stairs, her tail wagging furiously.
“There you are!” one of the women said. “What a nice place you’ve got here, honey.”
Amy turned a wild-eyed gaze to Harrison and Hillary, and then back to the ladies. “What are youdoinghere?”
“Elaine was right. This place is beautiful and huge.”
Amy gasped. “Elaine?” she very nearly shouted, marching up the steps to confront her mother. “Julie’smother Elaine?”
“Well obviously. I don’t know any other Elaines.”
“Yes you do, Barb. Remember Elaine from the church potluck?” one of the other ladies said, prompting another one to say, “Oh, thepotluck.” All four laughed again, in on the private joke.
“Mother,” Amy said, her voice lower and full of authority. “I have this house booked for two weeks, remember? So that I can paint. Everyone in the family was on board with my two-week break, remember?”
“Of course I remember,” said Amy’s mom. She had short gray hair, topped with the slow-blinking reindeer antlers. She wore chino capris with her sweatshirt. She looked like a dozen women on any given Saturday at a supermarket. Except for the antlers, obviously. “But I ran into Elaine and she told me howbigthis place was. Who knew? And she said since Julie had already lent it to you, we ought to come out and take advantage. They are going to put it on a B-and-B site, and we won’t be able to afford to come then. Anyway, Elaine assured me there would be no problem, that you would still have your privacy and then some. That’s the first thing I asked, isn’t it, June?”
“It is,” said the shortest and roundest of the women.
“June was with me. And, you know, the Bossy Posse had been looking for a little getaway. We’re not that far from Denison. We’ll probably do a little shopping. And you don’t want to be alone at Christmas.”
“It’s not Christmas.”
