“Salmon again?” I give a tiny shake of my head. “You’ll turn pink and get gills.”
“If it’s not broke.” She smiles back. “Oh, leave those,” she says as he begins to clear away a third setting. “It’s a table for three today.”
Oh, do fuck off, I want to yell. Instead, I wave the server on. “No, just two today. I should know. I booked the table.”
“Yes,” she says, ignoring my heavy tone, “but I rang and changed the booking.”
Change the booking to a private members club… she’s not a member of. This is the magic of my mother.
“Who?” I put my menu down because… “It better not be who I think it is.”
“Calm down.” Reaching out, she pats my hand. “You’ll have an aneurysm.”
“That’s not funny.” Especially not if our third is who I think it is. “Don’t make those jokes in front of her.”
“Do you think I’m so careless?”
“No, of course not. But what the hell, Mum? I don’t even know how you’ve gotten involved with the Valentes. It’s not like they live down the street.”
“They took you under their wing, Leif. Of course I made it my business to get to know them. After Connor died, I wanted to offer my condolences, and we were quite close back then. Well, telephone close. I’m sure things were very changed. It’s been very hard on Mimi.”
“I know that.” I press my elbow to the table and drag my hand down my face. “I mean, I can imagine it.”
“Can you, really? Imagine losing Sorrel or Brin or Orion.” Orion, who prefers to go by his middle name of Daniel. Not that Mum pays any attention to that. And poor old Sorrel… “Or one of the girls.”
Sometimes I do imagine losing my siblings, but not in the way she means. Maybe more like losing a toddler in a grocery store for ten minutes and being blissfully unaware of it. I love my family. I’d die for any one of them. I’m also dying for a little peacefromthem.
“I don’t know why you’re making such a song and dance about this.” Avoiding my eyes, Polly lightly rearranges the silverware.
I am neither singing nor dancing about Mimi Valente working for me, and it has nothing to do with her coming so beautifully for me. My reluctance began way before that moment—the moment Polly suggested it, actually. But that’s not to say I can explain the reason behind it. I kept in contact with the family when Connor passed, too. I’ve even sent Mimi a gift card every year on her birthday, or at least Jody has done on my behalf. I just hadn’t realized she was as old as she is. I thought for some reason she was still a kid. Is it not enough that I have practically half of my family on the payroll?
“I know you’re a little grumpy about Mimi working for you,” my mother begins again, “but if you were really set against it, you should’ve sat in on the interviews or mentioned specifically to Jody who you didn’t want.”
I doubt Jody interviewed her quite so thoroughly as I did.Fuck it all to hell. Come on, brain—get with the program.“I might well have done if I’d realized you were up to no good,” I grumble.
Maybe I should offer her a second interview. But a second interview would only mean she’d come twice.
“It wasn’t like that,” Poll says with a tinkling laugh. “You’re so suspicious!”
No, Mother dearest. What I am is so fucked.
“Jody knows her job inside out. She was the right person to choose her temporary replacement.”
“Exactly.” She nods. “It might not be temporary, either.”
“Don’t put a hex on this for me.”
“Jody might not come back. Have you considered that? New babies, such bundles of joy. She might find it hard to leave them.”
“And she might be desperate to get away from them.”
Mum laughs again. “There speaks a man without an idea of what makes the world keep turning.”
“That would be sex, obviously.”
“Yes, in a way. That’s how your father and I ended up with seven children.”
I groan like I’m in pain. Because I am. It’s called childhood trauma. “Remember the line we spoke about?” I mutter. “You just samba’d your way over it.”
