Dead Weight by Lori Avocato Page B

would think I should be used to Jagger surprising me after all this time of him popping up in janitorial garb, to an eighty-year-old Italian man, to a rather large woman … yet, here I stood with my jaw dropping down to my chest again.
    Funny how the feeling of … er … excitement (in my head, not down there!) always filled me when I saw Jagger. (Okay. Okay. Down there too. Mostly.) But, standing outside my parent’s house on the night I’d secretly “escaped” from the Rancho Mirage gig, still had me flustered.
    Truthfully, Jagger usually had me flustered, and I still didn’t know how to deal with that.
    â€œWhat the hell are you doing here?” I really wanted to say, “Um, delicious. Glad to see you again after … you know,” but I didn’t.
    Apparently I had some latent pride in myself.
    â€œYour mother invited me,” he said as he passed by, turned and kissed me on the cheek.
    My hand suddenly went to my face and my finger touched the exact spot as I stood there watching him walk past and the gang in the dinning room welcoming him.
    The Twilight Zone.
    I’d entered The Twilight Zone. (Which, by the way, was a common phenomenon around my parent’s house. At least for me. My siblings all seemed so normal.) Mother had invited Jagger on several occasions, shocking me each time I saw him at their house.
    It wasn’t even worth running after Jagger and asking him how he “escaped” the spa and what the heck flight did he take here since I had gotten the only red-eye into Connecticut.
    For a second, I tried to think of all the passengers I’d seen on the plane. Apparently one was Jagger—and, again, I had no idea.
    I really was a damn good investigator with my nursing skills and all, but darn it all if Jagger didn’t baffle me over and over and over. I did give myself a pat on the back for feigning feeling sick to Henry and then sneaking out to come home for this short time—and using the old trick we kids used on our mother. Stuffing pillows in bed so she’d think it was us.
    However, it never worked on her.
    Hopefully Henry was not as smart as a Polish mother.
    â€œPauline,” my mother called. “You are being rude making us wait. Unless you have to go to the bathroom. And, if so, let us know if you will be in there a long time so we can start passing the food without—”
    Ugh. Leave it to Stella Sokol , I thought as I walked back into the dining room full of everyone staring at me.
    I forced a smile and sat down in the only seat left. Next to Jagger. Stella Sokol does it again.
    We all ate the delicious and nostalgia-inducing potato pancakes, and I wondered why I never grew tired of my mother’s “fixed” menu.
    Maybe because it was comforting to me. Maybe coming back here, even if only for two days, was exactly what I needed.
    Maybe it would help to sort out my feelings for … gulp … Jagger.
    I peeked at him from the corner of my eye. The guy was as delicious as the potato pancake he was sticking into his mouth.
    Warm. No, hot. (Stella Sokol always served everything hot.) And familiar and comforting.
    Oh, Lord.
    The thought of dropping a dollop of sour cream on him and licking it … oh, geez.
    I tried to continue eating and looked down at my plate as if that would distract me from admitting my feelings to myself, but a glob of sour cream next to a glob of applesauce is nowhere near a tealeaf reading.
    â€œMiles and I are … going to be daddies,” Goldie announced.
    My head flew up along with everyone else’s in the room.
    â€œYou’re pregnant?” My mother said without missing a beat.
    Goldie and Miles looked at her and began to laugh. For some reason, I realized that Stella Sokol was a pretty darn savvy lady herself. (I had always wanted it on my tombstone that “Pauline Sokol was a damn savvy lady.”)
    â€œMa—”
    This time Jagger interrupted me.