I wish.
“What hunky cop?” Lucien asks, perking up. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Mattiekins? Have you been bumping uglies with someone?”
“Lucien!” Desi chastises. “That’s a bit personal.”
“Relax, I’m not dating anyone,” I tell them both. “The person I want to invite is a friend that I think might be a perfect match for Mom.”
“Ooh,” Desi says, raising her eyebrows. “That could be interesting. Give him a call.”
I don’t have William’s number so I ring Izzy instead. “Having second thoughts about letting that one get away?” he asks.
“Hardly,” I snort. “I’m going to invite him to dinner at Desi’s so he can meet my mom.”
I hang up and call William. The phone rings several times and I’m about to hang up when he finally answers, sounding impatient and out of breath.
“Hey, William, it’s Mattie Winston.”
There’s a long silence before he says, “Okay,” rather cautiously.
“I’m wondering if you’re free for dinner.”
There’s another pause followed by a sigh. “I don’t think I can survive another trip to your house,” he says.
“You don’t need to. It’s at my sister’s house, over on East Street. And while her daughter sometimes looks like she should have fangs, there are no animals here. My mother is coming and I’d like you to meet her. I think the two of you will hit it off.”
He considers the proposal for a few seconds and then says, “Okay. What time?”
“Now. Dinner will be ready in about half an hour.”
“Should I bring anything?”
“Just your handsome self,” I say. I hear him suck his breath in so fast he whistles.
As I’m hanging up the phone I hear the front door open and my mother’s voice holler out, “Lucien? Desi? Is everything okay?” Her voice sounds frantic and she enters the kitchen at a fast clip, looking paler than her usual color, which is about as pale as a living human being can be. When she sees me she stops cold and stares for a moment, blinks hard several times, and then looks around the room. “Is everything okay?” she asks again, clapping a hand to her chest. “There’s a hearse parked out front.”
“A hearse?” Desi says.
“That’s mine,” I explain. “I wrecked my other car and needed to find something else to get around in for a while.”
“You’re driving a hearse?” my mother says, her eyes wide.
“Well, I haven’t actually bought it yet, but it seems to be in pretty good shape and it’s about the only thing I can afford right now.”
My mother shakes her head, clucks her tongue a few times, and looks at me as if I’ve just died and someone is getting ready to load me into the back of the hearse. It’s bad enough that I’ve let a doctor get away and have taken a job cutting up dead bodies; in my mother’s eyes, that’s tantamount to sleeping in an alley with a screw-top bottle of wine wrapped in a brown paper bag. With the hearse I’ve hit an all-time low.
Desi pours a glass of wine and slips it into Mom’s hand, no doubt hoping it will take the edge off her. Mom takes a sip and then settles onto a stool at the breakfast bar next to Lucien. She turns and looks at me with an expression of keen disappointment.
“Mattie, if you need money I can help you out a little,” she says.
“Thanks, but I can manage. It’s about time I established some credit in my own name anyway. I was a fool to give David the financial reins in our marriage.”
“Well, he is the primary breadwinner, isn’t he?” Mom says, taking another sip of her wine.
“He was,” I say. “But I make enough to do okay on my own.”
Mom dismisses my comment with a look of disgust and an impatient wave of her hand, as if she’s wafting away some nasty odor. “What have I always told you about letting your husband feel as if he’s the king of the castle?”
This is Rule #1 in Mother’s Rules for Wives, a set of ten conventions she swears will keep any marriage strong and intact. She’s been beating the rules into my and Desi’s brains since we were old enough to walk. The fact that Mom’s been married and divorced four times makes the validity of her advice a bit dicey, but she chooses to ignore that.
“You undermined David’s masculinity by insisting on working all the time,” Mom goes on. “It’s no wonder he strayed.”
Desi, who is stirring her sauce on the stove, sucks in a breath and gives me a wide-eyed look. Lucien wisely takes this opportunity to slip off his stool and escape from the kitchen.
“I’ve worked all my adult life, Mom. That was how I met David in the first place, if you’ll recall. Had I not been working, I most likely never would have married him.”
“Yes, but once you did marry him you should have quit your job. You should have focused on being a wife instead of a nurse, and on making a nice home.”
“We had a nice home, until David wrecked it. And why shouldn’t I be allowed to do something I love the same way David does?”
Mom shakes her head sadly. “You just don’t get it, Mattie,” she says.
“No, Mom,” I say irritably. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it. David risked my life by sleeping with another woman. In my book of rules, that’s an unforgivable sin.”
Mom is about to come at me with another comment when we are all literally saved by the bell—the chiming of the front doorbell. I make use of the interruption to escape Mom and her insane list of rules. By the time I reach the front door, Lucien has already opened it and I see William standing on the stoop. I hurry over to greet him and make introductions.
Lucien is courteous but it’s obvious he doesn’t want to get caught up making small talk to an odd-looking man with a bad comb-over, so I steer William out to the kitchen, praying that my instincts on this one are correct. After doing a quick round of introductions, Desi pours a glass of wine for William and hands it to him. Making no effort to conceal what he’s doing, he holds the glass up to the light and examines it carefully. Can’t say I blame him after what happened at my place.
“William is a very talented financial analyst and accountant,” I say.
“That’s nice,” Mom counters, watching him with a curious expression.
As soon as William is done inspecting his glass, he takes a sip and then focuses on the other two women in the room. He nods at Desi and then zeroes in on Mom. His expression softens noticeably and one of his eyebrows arches in surprise. With her porcelain skin, blue eyes, trim figure, and well-maintained blond dye job, Mom is an attractive woman, at least physically.
“It’s a definite pleasure to meet you,” he says, taking Mom’s hand and brushing his lips over it. As I watch, I make a mental bet with myself as to which of these germaphobes will try to wipe the cooties away first but surprisingly, neither one does. “Mattie said you were attractive, but she didn’t do your beauty justice. You are a very striking woman.”
Mom makes a stuttering motion with her mouth but no sound comes out. For once, she is speechless. She smiles at William and does a coquettish tilt of her head as a faint tinge of pink colors her cheeks.
William stares for a few seconds more, then looks over at Desi, who has just finished scraping Italian sausage from her cutting board into a frying pan. As she takes the board to the sink and starts to wash it with one of those soap wand thingies, William’s eyes grow huge.
“You need to use bleach,” he says. “Meats can harbor all kinds of bacteria that soap alone won’t get rid of. You’d be amazed at the horrible diseases you can get from something like that.”
My mental uh-oh is quickly countered by the heightened interest Mom is now showing William. “You are so right,” she says, apparently in control of her voice again. “I’m constantly on these girls about stuff like that. One can’t be too safe when it comes to germs.”