He was stupidly, embarrassingly proud to have impressed her.
“Oh my God!” she suddenly exclaimed. “This is my earring!” She picked up the earring, and this, too, made sense to Jack. It was a dangly thing that looked like a chandelier crystal from the Barbie Dreamhouse—and like something this Bohemian child would wear.
“You can keep it, though, because I tossed the other one ages ago.” She set it back in the dish. “OK, showtime.”
Esme skulked across the yard like she was a secret agent, and Jack had to smile. She had her mother’s dramatic streak. But also, he should talk. Maybe he should start humming the Bond theme again.
“Hey!” Blair called when Esme slid the door open. “I’m in the living room with a giant cat on my lap, which doesn’t happen that often.”
Esme grinned and made a jazz-hands gesture in Jack’s direction. It was possible he was making a reciprocal jazz-hands gesture internally.
“I don’t know why I’m resisting getting up,” Blair said as they made their way into the kitchen. “It’s not like Morticia isn’t going to abandon me the moment she realizes you’re—”
Esme had come to stand in her mother’s sight line.
There was a long, silent pause. Blair Kellermoon struck dumb. Jack hadn’t seen that before, and he suspected he never would again.
“Surprise!” Esme finally said, and Jack thought there might be a hint of concern in her tone. He shared it. Had they made a mistake, ambushing Blair? Would this aggravate her anxiety or compulsive tendencies or whatever it was she had going on that they had yet to talk about?
“Ahh!” Blair came to life and vaulted off the sofa—Morticia had, as Blair predicted, already vacated her lap when Jack appeared—and the two women hugged and cried and laughed and exclaimed.
He shouldn’t have come. He was uncomfortable with this much emotion displayed so unselfconsciously.
He was going to slink out. He reached down to pat Morticia before making his way back out through the kitchen.
“Jack!”
He wasn’t sure which one of them had shrieked his name, and when he turned, he had to laugh. They were posed identically with their hands on their hips, wearing matching expressions of indignation. They were distinguishable only by a couple of decades and different aesthetics. Blair, in jeans and a white Oxford shirt with her blond hair up in a high ponytail, looked like she belonged in a Calvin Klein ad, whereas Esme looked like she’d come from a Grateful Dead concert. If he squinted and blurred his vision, he’d almost think Esme was the mother, given her chronologically older style.
“What’s so funny?” Esme asked.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t go,” Blair said.
“I’m going to let the two of you catch up.”
“No!” Esme cried. “I’m the one crashing your date.”
“It’s not a date,” he and Blair said in stereo.
Blair seemed startled by their identical reactions and furrowed her brow for a moment before recovering. “Why don’t you play bartender and make us drinks?” she said to Jack as she guided Esme to sit on a stool at the kitchen island.
Jack hesitated.
“I’ll have a sauv blanc,” Blair said.
“Me, too,” Esme said.
“Nope,” Blair said to Esme, who groaned. To Jack she said, “I’m not one of those cool moms who let their kids drink.”
“Ugh,Mom. I’m in college now. I can assure you that I’ve—”
Blair held her hands up. “I don’t need to know.”
“I make a mean mocktail,” Jack said to Esme. Since they’d beenspending most evenings together, Jack had grown familiar with the contents of Blair’s pantry and refrigerator, and she had a lot of fancy seltzers and cold-pressed juices and the like. He felt confident he could come up with something.
“Fine,” Esme huffed. “I’m going to stick Mrs. Frankenstein in the… guest room.” She looked at her mother as if for permission.
