Futures and Frosting (Chocolate Lovers 2)

“Oh my God, Mom! I never said his parents were stuffy!” I argue as I smacked her hand away from my hair. My mother, while well-meaning, treats me more like a best friend than a daughter and possesses even less of a filter between her brain and her mouth than I do.

I give Carter a look of embarrassment and beg him with my eyes to not listen to a word she said. My mother continues talking like I'm not even there.

“Now, Carter, you look positively yummy and not at all tired. Shouldn’t you be exhausted from staying up all night sleeping with my daughter? Claire, why aren’t you keeping this man up until the wee hours of the morning having lots of sex?”

“Jesus, Mom! Can you tone it down a bit please?” I beg.

Carter had met my mom the day we moved in when she came to help us unpack and has stopped by for dinner several times since then. He is quite familiar with the way she acts but that doesn’t mean I can't try to nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand.

“What? Can’t a mother be concerned for her daughter? I just want to make sure your vagina doesn’t get full of cobwebs like before. Those things can take a pounding so don’t worry about breaking anything. I once pulled a muscle in my vagina. Did I ever tell you that story?”

So much for the no vagina talk today.

I chug the rest of my glass of wine, reach for the bottle on the counter, fill the glass back up, and then took a swig right from the bottle before setting it back down.

“Mom, did I tell you dad brought Sue with him today? You know, the woman he’s been seeing? She’s really nice. And never, ever talks about pounding vaginas. Ever.”

I think maybe making my mom a teensy bit jealous will deter her from all things inappropriate but sadly I'm mistaken. Sometimes I still forget just how cordial my parents divorce was.

“Ooooooh goody!” she squeals, clapping her hands together like a two-year-old. “I’ve wanted to meet her ever since your father first told me about her. We have so much to talk about. I wonder if he’s used his Sean Connery accent on her yet and tried that move where he puts his foot on the headboard and then thrusts-”

“STOP! Jesus Christ, please stop,” I plead before taking another big gulp of my wine. “Carter, can you let everyone know dinner is ready and we’re doing it buffet style. They can all come in here and fill up their plates before sitting down at the table. If you need me, I’ll be in here with my head in the oven.”

~

An hour later everyone is still picking at their food after going back for seconds and thirds. My mom sits next to Sue and the two of them have been whispering and giggling like school girls through the entire meal, stopping every once in a while to glance over at my dad before falling into a fit of hysterics all over again.

“Hey, Claire, does this apple pie have nuts in it? I don’t like nuts,” Drew states.

“I like nuts. Nuts are delicious,” Gavin pipes up, taking a big bite of apple pie to prove it.

“Well, I don’t like nuts,” Drew argues.

“Guys, that’s enough nut talk,” Liz complains as she pours herself another glass of wine from the bottle in the middle of the table.

“I’M GOING TO PUT MY NUTS ON ALL OF YOU!” Gavin yells through a mouthful of food.

Carter clamps his hand over Gavin’s mouth and then leans over to quietly tell him it isn’t polite to yell at the table.

“So, Claire’s mom, do you have any good stories to tell us about your little cupcake when she was growing up? Any slumber parties with naked pillow fights or lesbian experimentation?” Drew asks.

“What’s a lez bean? Is that like a lima bean? I don’t like lima beans. I am NOT going to eat a lez bean,” Gavin declares.

“Oh, you’ll change your mind about that someday,” Drew tells him with a wink.

“Gavin, how about you go pick out a movie, and I’ll put it on in the living room?” Carter suggests. He obviously doesn’t want our son learning about the fine art of carpet munching just yet.

Gavin lets his fork clamor to his plate, jumps down off of his chair, and takes off running to the DVD shelf in the living room.

“Sorry, Drew, my childhood was pretty uneventful,” I tell him, bringing the conversation back to the original subject. “No one has anything even remotely interesting to tell,” I inform him as I hold my glass across the table towards Liz so she can give me a refill.

My mom nods in agreement and gives Drew a sad look.

“Unfortunately she’s right. Claire was a very boring child. She liked to read and take naps. We used to invent things to do just to mess with her and try to f**k her up a little bit. She was entirely too well-rounded. It was disturbing. George, remember that time you had your friend Tim call the house when she was eight because she wasn’t listening to you? Didn’t he pretend he was Santa Clause?”

My dad leans back in his chair and comes an inch away from sticking his hand in the waistband of his pants in post-dinner bliss before he realizes he isn’t alone in his own home. He quickly switches directions and moves his arm to the back of Sue’s chair.

“Yep, she was being a mouthy little shit so I had Tim call and put the fear of Santa into her,” he says with a chuckle.

“Hey, that wasn’t funny. He told me I was a very bad little girl and that he’d been watching me. He said he lived in the basement and came up at night to watch me sleep. He’s the reason I still take the basement stairs two-at-a-time when I run up them and why I called America’s Most Wanted when I was nine because there was some killer on the loose hiding in people’s basements,” I explain. “I told them the killer was Santa, that he called me the year before, and that he was probably still in our basement.”