14
It was like the room just went flat. And cold. God, this woman was the worst.
“Hello Mom,” Wes said, getting to his feet to kiss Gloria Kane primly on each cheek.
“Where’s your wife?” she asked, smiling slightly at her son. “Or did you use the card I gave you?”
Wes’s face went hard and still. “Mom, this isn’t the best time.”
“Well, I don’t know when the best time is for anything anymore,” she said with a brittle shrug. There was a silence in the room, the kind of silence that happens just before a firefight. Everyone holding their breath, wondering if Gloria was a grenade with a pulled pin.
“Penny is working,” Wes said.
“Well, I would think you’d put a stop to that.”
“Mom—”
“It being a holiday and everything,” she said quickly, but what she’d really meant was clear. Clear on her face and the way she’d lived her whole life in her husband’s mealy shadow. I stood and touched Sophie on the shoulder and gestured for her to take my seat, then I stood in the corner.
“Mom,” Sophie said, leading her mother to her chair where the two of them shared a cool hug. Over Sophie’s shoulder, Gloria caught my eye and stiffened.
“I didn’t realize you were still in town,” she said to me.
“He works here now, Mom,” Sophie said.
There had been so many times in my brushes with Gloria Kane when her looks, if they’d had the power, would have had me dead and buried. But this look she was giving me—it was nuclear. I’d have been dead and buried—and so would everyone within a three-mile radius of me.
It was another reason Sophie and I were a bad idea. The cold relationship she had with her mother would literally freeze over and shatter. And maybe that would be all right for Sophie, but it wasn’t up to me to make that decision.
“Mom, would you like a drink?”
“Is your father’s vodka still in there?” she asked, and I caught Sophie’s eye roll and worked very hard not to smile.
Wes poured his mother a drink and W.B. leaned forward, his beer half gone. “Sophie,” he said. “Do you want to finish what you were saying? Your plan?”
“Sophie has a plan?” Gloria asked. “For what?”
Oh God, this was…bad. Sophie was nervous about it already and would never put herself out there in front of her mother.
“Nothing,” Sophie said stiffly.
“Well, I don’t mean to interrupt,” Gloria said, like there was a stiffness competition.
“If you have an idea,” W.B. said, opening up his folders. “I’d love to hear about it. I know we haven’t worked together closely in the past, Sophie, but when it comes to saving money, any idea is a good idea.”
Gloria cleared her throat. Not a scoff, really. But not…not a scoff.
“Here,” Sophie said and pushed the papers she’d been twisting her hands. “You can look at it. It’s probably nothing—”
“You lost money to breakage,” I said, unable to keep my mouth shut. Unable to watch Sophie shrink in her chair when she should be proud of her ideas. And maybe I wanted to give her mother the finger. “She has a plan to help.”
“Packaging,” W.B. said, like the word had just occurred to him.
“It…it costs a little more,” Sophie said. “But in the long run...”
“I do love the long run,” W.B. said as he started to look through the papers.
“W.B., have you met my mother?” Wes asked.
“I don’t think so,” Gloria said.
“A few times, actually,” W.B. said, and he stood and shook Gloria’s hand. I was happy to see she gave him the same limp-wristed shake she always gave me. At least that part wasn’t personal.
W.B. sat back down, his attention on the forms Sophie’d handed him.
Gloria turned my way. “You’re out of the army?”
“Marine Corps,” I corrected her for the hundredth time. “And yes.”
“And you’re working here now?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s convenient, isn’t it?” It was one of her questions that had a thousand different meanings, all of them with an edge of meanness, and I always wondered if it was because I was poor. Or because Wes and Sophie so clearly loved me when they weren’t always fond of her. Or perhaps it was just living in the shadow of her husband, who’d been cruel and suspicious. It had to get cold there. And lonely.
There were times I wondered what would have happened to me without Wes and Sophie. Without their affection and loyalty and trust. My father’s shadow was real cold and lonely, too.
It wasn’t always easy to have compassion for Gloria Kane, but sometimes I managed to muster some up.
“For us,” Sophie said. She had that look in her eye. Fight mode engaged. I loved that look. It was my second favorite of her looks. The first was fuck mode. But that was new and I wasn’t planning on seeing it again. I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder, tell her it was all right. Tell her I had thick skin and that I didn’t need her to battle for me. “Mom, it’s lucky for us,” she said, all prickly. Completely in my corner with her teeth bared.