Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
I pressed said speaker button and my husband immediately said, “Hello, Mrs. Kowalski.”
“Hello, Mr. Parker.”
“Okay, no . Why are you being so… so… formal ? His name is Blake.”
“Yes. But we were never introduced. Imagine my surprise when I turn on the television to see my only daughter campaigning for Brockton Parker, of all people, with a man the news states is her husband .”
“I can only imagine it to be as shocking as meeting my mother’s boyfriend of a year for the first time , after only just learning he existed. ”
“You’re punishing me?”
“I’m—”
“Glory isn’t punishing you.” My husband had my back. “There are things we need to discuss with you concerning my brother, so I’d like to invite you to come to visit us in Vermont. I can have a ticket to you today. You just have to give me the dates.”
“You called her Glory,” she said softly. “Only her father ever called her that.”
“Her father and me.”
“I’d love to visit, but I’m not leaving Carl.”
“You don’t need to. He’s more than welcome in our home.”
I let Blake hash out the details of my mother’s trip and picked up my glass full of now slightly less frozen strawberry daiquiri, sipping and sighing in contentment. Blake watched me out of the corner of his eye, smirking.
After swallowing my drink, I blew him a kiss and sipped another sip—and yes, that was a lot of sips in one sentence. But when I started drinking, I sort of lost my ability to make evocative, thought-provoking sentences. The alcohol went right to my head. It always did.
Magically, the man not only confirmed my mother’s visit, but by the time they hung up, he had her laughing . Loudly and somewhat shrill. My mother always had a shrill laugh, but my dad and I had both loved it. Letting out that particular laugh meant she’d really been enjoying herself.
Blake had that effect on people. By people, I meant me. And now my mother. Apparently, Blake Parker knew how to impress Kowalski women.
“That was harder than I wanted it to be.”
“You did great.”
“No, you did. But now I’m ready for my booty to be called upon.”
“We’ll clean up later.” He slid off the sofa only to put his shoulder to my gut, lifting me. The crazy man carried me like a damn caveman up to our bedroom where he broke out the alpha… and the toys.
Two weeks later—yes, only two weeks. I’m unsure how she managed it—we stood in the airport waiting for my mother’s plane to land.
My mother and Carl .
I felt fidgety. Blake, to his credit, saw my fidgety and raised me a calming arm wrapped around my waist, giving me his full support. But why’d I even need it? The woman had given birth to me. She’d raised me. Picking my mother up from the airport shouldn’t have been this damn hard.
My stomach gurgled nervously. Not the ‘ I have to vomit ’ kind of gurgle—the other way. Downward. If they didn’t leave the plane soon, I was going to crap my pants from nerves. I’d never been a nervous pants crapper.
“Your whole body is rigid and you feel like you’re clenching your butt cheeks together,” Blake whispered low out the side of his mouth.
“If they don’t get here soon… My bowels feel ready to erupt like Vesuvius.”
My husband bit his lip to keep from laughing at me. “Go. Get to the bathroom. I’ll stay.”
“I can’t let you meet my mother for the first time while I’m literally being the party pooper .”
Forget any lip biting for my benefit this time, his boisterous laughter filled the terminal.
“It’s not funny.”
“Honey, if you don’t see how seriously funny that is…” Letting that thought trail off he finished, “Once again, I’m so glad I married you, Gloria Parker.”
The gurgling grew worse. Thank all the gods and goddesses in the universe that anybody in the history of humanity ever worshipped, for allowing me to catch a glimpse of my mother’s thick mane of soft, brown hair bouncing down the walkway toward us. Carl rolled their carry-ons behind him.
“Can you hold it in a bit longer?” Blake, asked, snickering.
“They’re right there.” —I pointed out the pair— “I think I can make it a few more minutes.”
Carl waved and I lifted my hand and waved back, but that was a mistake because everything moved south. “Houston, we have a problem . ”
“ What ?” Blake dropped his arm, taking a step away to check me over.
“I have to go,” I whispered to him before calling out, “Mom, Carl—this is Blake. I’ll be right back.”
Then I took off running toward the bathroom. I heard my traitorous husband making my excuses to our guests, and I wanted to die from the embarrassment.
Courtesy flush after courtesy flush, it just… kept… coming. Maybe I’d eaten something bad or caught a bug? Sweat dripped from my brow. I felt feverish. But eventually, the misery ended allowing me to leave the stall. As I washed my hands, a woman walked into the restroom. Immediately, she stopped short, wrinkling her nose.
“A woman changed her baby,” I lied. “She threw the dirty diaper in the trash.” I pointed to the trash can before hightailing it out of there. Yes, lying was wrong but that was why the universe granted us an exception clause: Thou may lie your way out of embarrassing situations without consequence. I might’ve paraphrased a bit, but you get the gist.
In the ten minutes I’d been gone, Blake and Carl appeared to have become best buds, laughing at something, the latter patting my husband on the back several times because whatever they laughed about required emphasis.
“How are you feeling, honey?” Blake asked when he finally noticed me.
“Humiliated.” Although that was the truth, I still managed to ask, “Mom, Carl, good trip?”
Carl dropped his arm from around my mother’s waist to hug me. A big ol’ bear hug. I sagged against him. He dad hugged me. No, he wasn’t my dad. My dad had given the best dad hugs in the history of dad hugs. Still, it’d been soooo long since I’d received a dad hug that it felt good. The best kind of good. Then I hugged him back.
“I’m glad you came,” I said, muffled against his royal blue Detroit Lions jersey.
It certainly would have been nice if the meeting between my mother and I had been that welcoming. Our conversation stalled just past, “Hi, Mom. You look good,” and her returning, “You, too.” Okay, so we still had some issues to work through.
We walked over to baggage claim, but since they’d waited by the bathroom for me, their large suitcase already rolled around on the conveyor belt.
The bag had a handle and wheels. Carl wheeled it and his carry-on behind him out to Blake’s car, while my husband rolled my mom’s. Blake unlocked the trunk and helped heft the bags inside. My mom and Carl took the back seat.
“Are you hungry?” Blake asked. “We can eat in or go out. Whatever you want.”
“There’s this Italian place that we love. Carl, do you eat Italian?” I asked, regretting once again that I didn’t know more about the man.
“Love it,” he answered. “Liz, you feel like Italian?”
“That sounds wonderful,” my mother answered.
“Looks like we’re headed to Amalfi, Blake.” I reached my hand over squeezing his knee to show my appreciation and my ‘ we got this .’ Go Team Parker!
Amalfi found inspiration from the Amalfi Coast, which meant a plethora of seafood. Yes, you could get pasta, but they didn’t really do those heavily tomato-sauced dishes that people usually thought of when they heard Italian food .
Blake clicked on his blinker and took the turn that would lead us to the restaurant located in a strip mall in a suburb reminiscent to where I’d grown up in Michigan. We didn’t do fancy. We did good company, delicious food, and friendly staff.
“Where are we?” my mother asked, sounding just a little bit disappointed. Like, what? She expected a Michelin star restaurant?
“This is Amalfi, Mom. It’s the restaurant we’re eating at. Best food in the city.” I explained, giving her the benefit of the doubt. Most people held expectations on how ‘ the other half ’ lived. She’d grown up middle class, met a man, got married ant went on to live a beautifully middle-class life. If I’d never met Pen or Sierra—my gateway friends—I’d probably think the same way.
Now though, my mouth began to water as Blake turned his beemer into a parking spot and shut off the engine. But it seemed Carl wanted Italian food even more than me. He hopped out first, offering his hand to my mother to help her out of the car.
Knowing his opinions on chivalry, especially towards his wife, I waited until Blake rounded the car to open my door, holding my hand out for him to guide me out of the seat. I let him take the lead in ushering us inside the welcoming, brightly lit space.
“Blake! Gloria!” The hostess, who happened to be the owner’s mother, greeted us. Maria Theresa wore her big hair dyed in a reddish-brown shade of auburn. She liked to think of herself as Vermont’s answer to the 1950s Italian starlet Sophia Loren. I already knew the beauty of Ms. Loren, given Pen’s love of all things vintage. But if you walked into Amalfi not knowing the— assets— of the Oscar winner, you left knowing where she’d grown up: Rome. Who she’d married: Carlo Ponti. And what movie won her an Oscar: Two Women .
Maria Theresa even married a Carlo of her own. Only this Carlo—Carlo Carrano—hailed from, you guessed it, the Amalfi Coast. Carlo Jr. bought his father out when the older man had been ready to retire. Though just because he retired from owning a restaurant didn’t mean he’d retired from showing up to sit, and talk, and laugh, and tell stories to everyone who had the good sense to sit and listen. These were the kind of salt-of-the-earth people who welcomed you as customers, but sent you off as family after your very first visit.
Carlo Sr. sat at a booth on the far side of the room. He waved us over.
“Maria Theresa, this is my mother, Elizabeth, and her partner, Carl,” I said. Maria Theresa’s eyes lit up. “They’re visiting here from Michigan.”
“Your mother?” she asked excitedly. “Carlo,” she shouted to her husband. “This is Gloria’s mother!”
“Mom, Carl… this is Maria Theresa. That’s her husband, Carlo Sr., over in the corner.”
“Great to meet you,” Carl said, holding out his hand for her to shake, which she did eagerly before leading us over to the table next to the booth Carlo Sr. occupied. His back rested against the wall under the enormous poster-sized photo of Maria Theresa standing with her arm around one Ms. Loren. They’d met at the airport once back in the sixties.
“Oh, my…” my mother said, staring at the photo, and Carlo smiled a toothy grin.
“Which is Sophia and which is my Maria?” he asked, jovially laughing. “When I met her, I had to marry her before some other man swept her off her feet.”
“He swept me off my feet, all right—we had to lie to the priest, given that our Lucia was born nine months after we met , not after we married, ” she said with absolutely no embarrassment.
My mom threw her hand over her mouth to hide her laughter, but Carl never even tried. While the others took menus, I waved mine away. Amalfi’s spaghetti alle vongole— basically spaghetti and clams, might’ve been the best dish I’d eaten in my life—and I’d traveled through Europe . They bought farm-raised clams so as to deliver the freshest mollusks possible, given Vermont’s landlocked location.
Maybe I wanted this dinner to go well to butter them up before we got down to admitting the real reason we invited them out here—or, one of the reasons. Deep down, I think I just wanted my mom back, but I lived in fear of losing her for good. I liked Carl. I felt like he liked me. I wanted that to continue. He gave great hugs. I couldn’t lose the hugs. He’d only just started giving them.
Blake took the lead with our conversation, understanding that I needed this dinner to go easy, and that we had time to give them the hard. We spent our time eating delicious food. My mom told stories of my childhood foibles and I asked Carl plenty of questions.
“Do you have a family?” I asked.
“Never been married, but I have a daughter, Lola. Her mom and I split custody. She’s up in Houghton.”
“Michigan Tech?” I asked, next.
On a nod and with a proud grin he answered, “My baby’s going to be an engineer.”
“I have a lot of connections,” Blake said. “She wants an internship or when she’s looking for a job, let me know.”
“You’d do that?” Carl asked.
“Family helps family,” Blake responded before taking a sip of his wine.
Then Carl smiled. “I should correct myself. I’ve never been married but will be next month.”
My eyes went huge as I gasped, then as any woman would do, dropped my gaze to my mother’s hand. How had I missed this?
The dinner turned into a celebration with Blake ordering the best bottle of wine in the place. Maria Theresa and Carlo, and the other patrons celebrated with us until we left the restaurant to drive them home.
“ Wow ,” my mother gushed in awe, and I had to agree. Our home, deserved a “ Wow. ” Blake had great taste.
Maisie met us in the circle drive to roll my mom and Carl’s suitcase inside. Blake and I both tried to protest as we were perfectly capable of wheeling in a bag. But Maisie insisted that this was what Blake generously compensated her for and how it would be offensive of us to deny her this, as she’d assume we thought that she couldn’t properly do her job. To compromise, we took the carry-ons.
Maisie rolled the bag up the stairs while Blake and I were able to carry ours. The wheels caught on each lip and thunked when they hit the marble of every step until she reached the second floor. My mom and Carl followed us into the guest bedroom that she’d made up for them.
Maisie put them in the sunshine room. No, Blake didn’t give his guest rooms official names, but this room reminded me of running through an open field in the bright, happy sunshine. Don’t worry, he’d hung up blackout curtains—or, most likely, Maisie hung up the blackout curtains—so guests were able to sleep in the mornings until they were ready to face the day.
“Our room is across the hall,” Blake said. “The refrigerator and cupboards are full. Help yourself to anything. If we don’t have it, let Maisie know while she’s here. If not, tell me or Glory and we’ll make sure you get what you need.”
“Does Maisie live here?” my mother asked.
I shook my head. “No. Maisie has her own home, where she lives with her husband. We also have Dee. She’s our cook and she’s amazing.” I watched my mother’s eyes light up. “I know,” I gushed. “I’m getting used to it.”
Tomorrow we’d talk to them about the Parkers. I wanted them to live the fantasy tonight.
“Okay, well… I’ll leave you to it,” I said.
Blake caught my discomfort and grabbed for my hand, giving it a squeeze. Then, after giving Carl and my mom a one-armed hug, we left them to it.
Stiffly, I walked into our room, dropping onto the edge of the bed, and huffed.
“What’s going on?” he asked, dropping down to his knees in front of me, peeling off my shoes. Then as he stood, he gripped the hem of my Polish peasant blouse pulling it up and over my head.
“What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.
“This seems like a naked snuggling kind of night.” When I opened my mouth to protest, he shook his head. “It’s two-fold. You find your calm faster when we’re naked and you’re more open to my suggestions.”
I rolled my eyes even as I allowed him to unbutton my jeans. He snagged my panties along with my pants while I unclasped my bra, tossing it onto the floor. I scooted up the bed, climbing under the covers waiting on him to get naked, then he slipped between the sheets next to me.
“Now, tell me what’s on your mind,” he said.
“Blake, I just got my mom back and Carl is a really good guy. He’s everything I’d pick for her since my dad’s passing. They’re getting married. I’m afraid it’s all going to change once they meet your parents.”
“We’ll explain the situation.”
“Really? How do we tell them that your father threw down a credible threat against them if they don’t comply?”
“Like ripping off a bandage—we just do it.”
“They didn’t ask for any of this. I married you, not my mom.”
“Thank god,” he muttered. “Otherwise, this would be awkward.”
“I’m serious. What if this is too much for Carl and he leaves her?”
“He loves your mom.”
“Yeah, but he also has a daughter to worry about. What if I’ve ruined my mother’s life?”
He pressed his finger to my lips to stop me from going any further. “If Carl is the man I think he is, he won’t leave her. The situation sucks, but my father will threaten them not to publicly go against Brock or the family, and then they’ll spin your story to say you grew up in Detroit among some of the Detroit elites like the McCain and Von Dutton families. It’s not a lie.”
I shrugged. “But it’s not exactly the truth.”
“Do you think that matters? He likes to throw his weight around, but neglected to consider how that’d work with the world watching.”
“I’m trusting you,” I replied with a sigh. But he pressed his advantage moving on top of me, and pressed a deliciously languorous kiss to my lips. Totally a romance novel kiss. But Blake didn’t take it past the kissing. Uh… you don’t romance novel kiss a woman and then just leave her wanting.
Because of that, I gripped his face with both hands and said, “If you don’t alpha me right now—” He shut me up with another kiss, his erotic romance novel kiss, and proceeded to alpha my worries away for the time being.
As a lover, my husband outshined every man on the face of the planet. No one could’ve convinced me otherwise. Five-star Yelp review. Ten out of ten, would do again.
The next morning, Robert Parker called to summon us to a dinner on Friday night.
Until then, we’d show our guests a good time. Since neither had ever visited Vermont before, we showed them all the state had to offer. Then we arrived at Friday. I’d taken my mother and Carl shopping so as not to put up with Parker judgment. Carl, understandably, became skeptical and I knew it was time.
“Listen,” Blake started, “we didn’t know how to tell you this, but don’t expect a warm welcome.”
“I thought they wanted to meet us,” my mother said.
“He wants to intimidate you.”
“Intimidate us?” Carl asked.
“They’re not good people. It’s why…” he stopped but I nodded telling him to go on. “It’s why Glory and I started campaigning for my brother. They threatened you and Maisie and Dee if we didn’t comply.”
“Comply?” Carl raised an eyebrow.
“My guess is they’ll order you not to make a stink about the Parker family or Brock as president, and they’ll suggest you don’t admit to being Gloria’s people.”
That went over about as well as one might expect, but at least they understood what they were about to walk into.
Blake drove us to his parents’ home. Brock and Emily’s car already sat in the drive. I assumed Jupiter would be arriving soon.
Maggie opened the door and welcomed us all inside. She warmly expressed her happiness at meeting my family. And that was where the good vibes ended.
The moment the Parkers laid eyes on my mom… and Carl . Robert Parker’s eyes narrowed. “Who is this?”
I moved forward. “This is my mother and her partner, Carl.”
“Brock, Blake,” Robert said, turning to leave the dining room where Maggie had led us. We, of course, followed them out because I wasn’t about to stay in the room only Adair and Emily. Brock and Blake accompanied their father into another room, where the elder Parker slammed the door.
The front one opened with Jupiter asking, “What did I miss?” Her eyes scanned the rest of us, landing on my mother and Carl. “ Oh .” She smiled, yes, smiled ! “I know exactly what I missed.” Then she walked over to my mother and Carl, holding her hand out to shake. “I’m Jupiter, Blake’s sister.”
Both my mother and Carl shook her hand.
“Mother, you’re being rude to your guests,” Jupiter called into the dining room. And she did it smirking like a Cheshire cat. Oh, the little troublemaker knew exactly what she was doing.
As it turned out, we didn’t stay long. Blake stormed out of his father’s office, grabbed my hand, and kept walking toward over to my mother and Carl in an act of solidarity.
“Carl,” Robert said. “I need to speak with you.” He waited for Carl to join him but the man didn’t take one step.
“I know what you want. The public won’t know our connection to Gloria. The name Parker won’t leave our lips but you have to agree to leave us alone. We’ve got nothing to do with your son or his campaign. Agreed?”
“Well, at least the man is sensible,” Brock muttered.
“Agreed,” Robert replied. “You don’t exist for us and we don’t exist for you.”
We offered to take them out to a fancy dinner but Carl preferred our place. We stopped at a specialty food market on the way home because Carl fished as a hobby and in his words, ‘made a mean trout.’
As we sat around the firepit in the backyard, eating the delicious, pan-fried masterpiece, Carl put his fork down on his plate, cocking his head. That got my attention so I asked, “What’s up?”
“You really campaigned for that man for us?”
“We’re family,” I replied.
“It’s what families do,” Blake finished.
Carl nodded his head.
In the end, Robert’s summons went better than predicted.
It wasn’t much of a consolation, but I grabbed it with both hands and held on tightly.