“Thank you so much, Mr. McBride.”
“Please, call me Michael,” he said.
“You can simply call me Mrs. McBride,” his mother said.
“Now, sweetheart, play nice,” Michael said.
But all she did was huff.
We all sat down to dinner and the cooking was phenomenal. The filet mignon was cooked to perfection, and the green beans must’ve been fresh out of someone’s garden. I couldn’t help but hum and moan over the bites of food I took, and I smiled every time I caught Bryan’s stare.
“Mrs. McBride, this dinner is delicious,” I said. “Where in the world did you learn to cook like this?”
“Me? Cook? Oh, sweetheart. No, no. Our chef made this. Sweetheart, did you tell her nothing of how we live?”
I looked over at Bryan who was eyeing his mother darkly. I knew what she was doing. It’s a tactic my mother had tried many times before. We didn’t have a personal chef or anything, but she did attempt to separate herself from people she felt were beneath her.
That’s what his mother was doing to me, and I could handle it.
“Well, my compliments to the chef, then,” I said, smiling.
“A woman with a taste for food! I love it,” Michael said.
“Just know it’s important to follow up a meal like this with a bit of exercise. Wouldn’t want anything sitting on anyone’s thighs,” his mother said.
“Don’t worry. We get plenty of exercise,” Bryan said, grinning. His father let out a broad bout of laughter as my face reddened, but the look on his mother’s face was less than pleased.
“Mhm,” was all she had to say with her pursed lips and her icy stare.
“The renovations on her gallery are almost finished,” Bryan said. “It’ll be opening soon, hopefully by the beginning of August.”
“Oh, I’m really excited about it,” I said. “Bryan’s been a massive help. He came up with the entire concept for the sign and the outside of the building. You guys really should come by and check it out.”
“I think I might enjoy seeing some of our son’s handiwork,” Michael said.
“Depends on the date. We have a very busy social calendar, and the value of the artwork we would be seeing would be the only thing that could justify a trip to that end of San Diego. There’s a great difference between making a drive to see Caravaggio and a drive to see finger paintings.”
“Well, of course the girl isn’t putting finger paintings in her art gallery, Dorothy,” Michael said. “She’d never sell anything. I’m sure she’s got a wonderful painting or two to put up. Maybe by Pollock? You strike me as a Pollock girl.”
“No, there are no finger paintings,” I said, “and there is no Jackson Pollock.”
“Rembrandt?” Michael asked.
“Nope.”
“Dali?”
“Nu-uh.”
“You must have a Picasso. Something to draw the public in,” Michael said.
“It’s interesting that you feel infamous artistry has to pull people in from the streets. Art is just as healing as it is beautiful. Many people walk into galleries to partake in its beauty as they do to actually engage in it.”
“Which is why you should have something beautiful hanging on the walls, dear,” his mother said.
“You know, man was producing art tens of thousands of years ago. Cave drawings and storytelling on rocks with mashed berries and painted on dirt,” I said.
“What cavemen should’ve been doing was inventing corporations. Think of the progress we could be in now if they weren’t so absent-minded.” Michael exclaimed.