wide awake.
I yanked my pillow out from under Catherine the Great,
grabbed one of the quilts off the bed, my portable alarm clock from
the nightstand, and headed for the den. With luck, Ralph would be
asleep and not wake from the nocturnal intrusion into his domain.
I could do without Shakespeare at three in the morning.
As I made my way down the darkened hall, I spit cat hairs from
between my lips. Mama was missing the entrepreneurial venture
of a lifetime. Catherine the Great shed enough fur to provide
Dolly Parton with an unending supply of wigs, which would in turn provide Mama with a steady income-something she sorely
needed, given her penchant for marrying men who lived way
beyond their means and left her with little besides short-lived
memories.
For the next several hours I tossed and turned on my makeshift
bed. The den couch had seen better days a decade ago. A replacement had been at the head of my home improvements list for ages,
but something more pressing always bumped it back to Number
Two. Or Three. Or Thirty. Like a leaky roof. Or a dead washing
machine.
Or a gambling husband.
Besides a lumpy couch keeping me awake, thoughts of extortion and murder raced through my veins and my brain like a triple-shot espresso. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a dead Marlys,
heard a threatening Ricardo. Saw the crime-fighting duo of
Batswin and Robbins jabbing their accusatory fingers in my face.
And I still had no idea what I was going to do when Ricardo demanded his money a few short hours from now.
A discordant orchestra made up of Mama and Lucille and Mephisto and Catherine the Great played in the background. Above
the din of their grumbling and griping and growling and hissing,
Ralph squawked, "Help, ho! Murder! Murder! Othello. Act Five,
Scene One." Eyes open or closed, the nightmare pounded in my
head.
I tossed and turned and tossed some more. Finally, out of sheer
exhaustion, my brain called it a night-or a morning, considering
the late hour-and drifted me back to the sands of Maui.
A moment later the alarm clock screamed the arrival of six A.M.
"MOM! WE'RE GONNA MISS the bus," yelled Alex a short time later.
"Grandmother Lucille's set up base camp in the bathroom."
"For a change," added Nick.
"And Grandma Flora's taken your bathroom hostage," continued Alex.
"Tell me about it," I muttered. The moment I'd stepped out of
my bathroom in search of clean underwear, Mama had commandeered the commode, locking herself in and taking my hairdryer
and make-up prisoner.
I pounded on the door. "Mama, are you coming out any time
soon?"
"I don't think so, dear. Having a bit of a problem this morning."
Lord, please don't let me have inherited Mama's internal plumbing, I prayed as I headed for the other bathroom. One working
mother, two elderly women with an assortment of semi-dysfunctional bodily functions, and two hormone-driven studmuffin teenagers definitely required more than two bathrooms and a
forty-gallon hot water heater.
I pounded on the door of the hall bathroom. "Lucille, the boys
need to get in there." She didn't answer. I tried the knob. Locked.
I pounded harder. Mephisto's bark echoed off the tile. "Lucille!"
"Leave me alone. I'm busy!" A sound better left to the confines
of the bathroom punctuated her statement. The Devil Dog yelped.
"She cares more about that dog than she does us," said Nick.
"We don't choose our relatives," I said, as much as I wished
otherwise.
"I'll bet Dad was secretly adopted," said Alex.
"Or maybe stolen at birth," offered Nick. "He was nothing like
her. Ever."
In truth Karl had been the complete opposite of his mother in
both appearance and personality, not to mention political persuasion. Then again, had Karl been more like his mother, I never
would have married him, and I wouldn't currently be treading
water in the middle of piranha-infested Lake Titicaca. Pun intended.
Karl had inherited all his genes from his father. Or so
I yanked my pillow out from under Catherine the Great,
grabbed one of the quilts off the bed, my portable alarm clock from
the nightstand, and headed for the den. With luck, Ralph would be
asleep and not wake from the nocturnal intrusion into his domain.
I could do without Shakespeare at three in the morning.
As I made my way down the darkened hall, I spit cat hairs from
between my lips. Mama was missing the entrepreneurial venture
of a lifetime. Catherine the Great shed enough fur to provide
Dolly Parton with an unending supply of wigs, which would in turn provide Mama with a steady income-something she sorely
needed, given her penchant for marrying men who lived way
beyond their means and left her with little besides short-lived
memories.
For the next several hours I tossed and turned on my makeshift
bed. The den couch had seen better days a decade ago. A replacement had been at the head of my home improvements list for ages,
but something more pressing always bumped it back to Number
Two. Or Three. Or Thirty. Like a leaky roof. Or a dead washing
machine.
Or a gambling husband.
Besides a lumpy couch keeping me awake, thoughts of extortion and murder raced through my veins and my brain like a triple-shot espresso. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a dead Marlys,
heard a threatening Ricardo. Saw the crime-fighting duo of
Batswin and Robbins jabbing their accusatory fingers in my face.
And I still had no idea what I was going to do when Ricardo demanded his money a few short hours from now.
A discordant orchestra made up of Mama and Lucille and Mephisto and Catherine the Great played in the background. Above
the din of their grumbling and griping and growling and hissing,
Ralph squawked, "Help, ho! Murder! Murder! Othello. Act Five,
Scene One." Eyes open or closed, the nightmare pounded in my
head.
I tossed and turned and tossed some more. Finally, out of sheer
exhaustion, my brain called it a night-or a morning, considering
the late hour-and drifted me back to the sands of Maui.
A moment later the alarm clock screamed the arrival of six A.M.
"MOM! WE'RE GONNA MISS the bus," yelled Alex a short time later.
"Grandmother Lucille's set up base camp in the bathroom."
"For a change," added Nick.
"And Grandma Flora's taken your bathroom hostage," continued Alex.
"Tell me about it," I muttered. The moment I'd stepped out of
my bathroom in search of clean underwear, Mama had commandeered the commode, locking herself in and taking my hairdryer
and make-up prisoner.
I pounded on the door. "Mama, are you coming out any time
soon?"
"I don't think so, dear. Having a bit of a problem this morning."
Lord, please don't let me have inherited Mama's internal plumbing, I prayed as I headed for the other bathroom. One working
mother, two elderly women with an assortment of semi-dysfunctional bodily functions, and two hormone-driven studmuffin teenagers definitely required more than two bathrooms and a
forty-gallon hot water heater.
I pounded on the door of the hall bathroom. "Lucille, the boys
need to get in there." She didn't answer. I tried the knob. Locked.
I pounded harder. Mephisto's bark echoed off the tile. "Lucille!"
"Leave me alone. I'm busy!" A sound better left to the confines
of the bathroom punctuated her statement. The Devil Dog yelped.
"She cares more about that dog than she does us," said Nick.
"We don't choose our relatives," I said, as much as I wished
otherwise.
"I'll bet Dad was secretly adopted," said Alex.
"Or maybe stolen at birth," offered Nick. "He was nothing like
her. Ever."
In truth Karl had been the complete opposite of his mother in
both appearance and personality, not to mention political persuasion. Then again, had Karl been more like his mother, I never
would have married him, and I wouldn't currently be treading
water in the middle of piranha-infested Lake Titicaca. Pun intended.
Karl had inherited all his genes from his father. Or so
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