I didn’t think it appropriate to give him a kiss goodnight, but I couldn’t imagine parting with a handshake. I decided to go for a compromise and hugged him. He hugged me back.
“Are you gonna be OK?” he asked.
I nodded into his chest.
Tony put his lips to the top of my head. “You know you have me al confused, right?”
I nodded again. I didn’t want to let go, but I did.
“You’l be fine,” Tony said. “I’l cal you tomorrow.”
“Would you real y do it?” I asked
“Cal you?”
“Shoot her.”
Tony grinned again. “So far,” he said, “you have a pretty good record of making me do things I shouldn’t.”
Yeah, I thought, but we hadn’t actual y done anything yet.
I watched him walk until he was gone. Then I went upstairs to face the fresh horrors that awaited me.
CHAPTER 5
I opened my apartment door and found my mother unpacking her bags. “I thought I asked you not to do that.”
“Don’t be sil y,” my mother said, shaking out a garment bag. “Do you know how hard it is to get wrinkles out of silk?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. But Mom, what are you doing here?”
“I told you. I found out a few days ago that your dad was… involved with that bitch Dottie Kubacki.
There was no way I could stay in the house after that.
I would have kicked him out, but where would he have gone? Dottie’s? I’d cut his legs off, first. I tried to cal and tel you that I was coming, but you never answered my messages.”
“What about Kara?” Kara was my married sister who lived in a big house in New Rochel e. A house with at least two guest bedrooms.
“You know she wouldn’t want me there. Besides, those kids would drive me crazy before too long.”
“‘Too long?’ How long do you plan on staying?”
My mother started opening closets. Wel, closet.
There was only one. “Where’s your ironing board?”
“I don’t have one. And stop going through my things.” I was glad I hid my porn the other night when Tony was coming over, but it wasn’t that wel hidden.
“How can you not have an ironing board?”
“Kara has an ironing board.”
“And five-year-old triplets who should have their vocal cords cut,” my mother answered.
“I only have one bed,” I whined.
“I don’t mind if you sleep on the couch.”
There was no use arguing with my mother. She’s like a force of nature when she gets like this: determined, inevitable, implacable. I’ve found that people are either appal ed or amused by her. I was usual y both.
So I helped her unpack. Tomorrow, I would cal my father and have him get her back. It was inconceivable to me that he was actual y having an affair with anyone, let alone with a woman who needed to have her dresses made at Omar the Tentmaker’s. I was more likely to sleep with Dottie Kubacki than my father. I was sure it was al a big misunderstanding.
After an hour spent turning on the couch, I realized I’d never get to sleep. The heavy snoring from my bedroom assured me that my mother wasn’t having the same problem. But then again, there happens to be a very comfortable bed in there.
Maybe I’d get to use it again someday.
I got out of bed and sat at my computer. I decided to see if I could find out a little more about Al en’s sons before I met them at the reading of the wil tomorrow.
First, the younger one. A Google of his name led to a few relevant links. The first was to the financial firm Ingerson Investing. Paul managed two of their largest mutual funds.
His picture was in the annual report. A handsome man, he was posed standing in front of his desk, arms crossed across his chest. His grim, serious-guy expression was meant to convey gravity and strength. But the slimness of his build, his thin lips, the two-hundred-dol ar haircut, and the perfect tailoring of his suit spoke to a certain effeteness. He seemed more likely to study himself in the mirror than to study financial reports.
I fol owed a few links to his funds, and sure enough, they had underperformed the market. I looked at the stocks he had recently bought for the funds, and some of them were real dogs, companies whose malfeasance or misfortunes had made the front pages. Unlike his father, who had a Midas touch with investing, Paul seemed to have the instincts of a born loser.
Another search led me to an article from the New York Times. Paul and his wife were pictured at a cancer fundraiser at the Ritz Carlton. “Investment fund manager Paul Harrington and wife Alana,” the caption read.
Paul looked even spiffier here. Gucci shoes, a suit that fit him like it was custom made, and a white linen shirt buckled to the col ar, no tie. His wife, Alana, was attractive, but severe looking. Almost as tal as he, with sharp, birdlike features that made her smile look predatory. In a strapless white evening gown, her bony shoulders and prominent col arbone gave her the chic appeal of a bulimic. Lara Flynn Boyle would have to diet to get this skinny. Whoever said you can’t be too rich or too thin never saw this picture.
Next, I searched the name of the older brother, Michael. The first link took me to the Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. There on the homepage was a picture of Michael, with a caption reading “Founder and Leader.”
Although the picture was just a head and shoulder shot, you could see Michael Harrington was a powerful y built and stunningly good-looking man.
Square jawed, heavily muscled, with sharp cheekbones and electric blue eyes. Although there was some resemblance between Paul and him, Michael seemed to have gotten both brothers’ al otment of testosterone.
Like his brother’s official portrait, Michael’s also showed him unsmiling. With his stern expression and piercing eyes, Michael gave you the feeling that if his “creative empowerment therapy” (whatever that was) didn’t work, he could just beat the neuroses out of you.
Hunky as he was, he could have made a fortune with Mrs. Cherry doing just that.
A click on his picture took you to his bio. I was just about to read more about him when an instant message popped up on my screen.
“Angel, what r u doing up?” Freddy typed.
I wrote him an abbreviated synopsis of my evening, making out with Tony, and my mother’s moving in.
“Just when I thought ur life couldn’t get any more dramatic,” Freddy wrote back. “What tragedy wil befal you next? A plague of locusts? Boils? A new Celine Dion album?
“Speaking of crazy divas,” he continued, “would u say hel o to ur mother for me?
I assured him I would.
“Good. Now go to bed. We have to be beautiful for the reading of the wil tomorrow.”
I looked at the time in the Windows taskbar. 2:45
A.M. Ugh.
I signed off and lay on the couch for another hour until sleep came.
CHAPTER 6
Three hours later I was awakened by the sound of grenades exploding in my kitchen. “What the hel?” I shouted.
“Honey,” my mother said cheerily. “I was just looking for where you keep the food.”
Welcome, Hurricane Momma. For one blissful moment, I had forgotten about my new roommate.
“I don’t keep any food,” I groaned.
“Toast?”
“Toast is food.”
“Coffee?”
“Nope.”
“How about some tea?”
“I have protein powder, milk, and bananas.”
“Maybe some eggs?”
“Am I going to have to get out of bed?”
“You’re not in bed,” my mother reminded me.
“You’re on the couch. And yes, you have to get up.
Momma’s going to take you out to breakfast at that greasy spoon on the corner. You know, breakfast is a very important meal. The most important of the day, I always say. I don’t know how you can be productive if you don’t start out with a good breakfast