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While we were talking, my dad had gone about collecting their bags. “Do you have everything?” I asked. “My friend is outside with the car. They probably made him circle around.”
“You didn’t have to come pick us up,” Mom said.
“I wanted to, and my friend offered to drive.”
Ethan pulled up almost as soon as we got outside. My parents took one look at the Mercedes, then looked at each other. When Ethan got out of the car to help them load their bags, they appeared even more intrigued.
“Mom, Dad, this is my um, friend, Ethan Wainwright. We work together. Ethan, these are my parents, Frank and Lois Chandler.”
Ethan shook hands with both of them. My mom caught his hand in both of hers and said, “It was so nice of you to offer to come pick us up. You must be a very special friend to our Katie.”
An impatient cabdriver waiting to unload his passengers spared me potential further embarrassment by honking. Everyone had to scramble to get in the car so Ethan could pull away. It was only a temporary reprieve from embarrassment, though, for once we got on the road, we were trapped inside a car with my mother, whose potential-wedding-for-her-only-daughter radar was pinging loud and clear. She’d probably make Gemma scrap the sightseeing expedition and take her shopping for mother-of-the-bride dresses instead.
“So, Ethan,” she asked. “What is it you do?”
“I’m an attorney.”
“And you work with Katie?”
“Sort of. I have my own firm, but I’m on retainer for Katie’s company.”
“And that’s how you met?”
I tried not to groan out loud. I hadn’t even thought of working out a cover story with him in advance.
“Actually, it’s kind of funny, but no. I’m a friend of Jim’s, Connie’s husband. You know Connie?”
“Of course. The girls were always coming home with Katie on weekends from college.” Connie was my other college friend who’d moved to New York with Gemma and Marcia. When she got married and a spot in the apartment opened up, they’d persuaded me to join them in New York.
“Well,” Ethan continued, “Jim originally set me up with Marcia, but we didn’t hit it off so well. But Katie and I did.”
I didn’t have to look at the backseat to see my mother’s satisfied smile. “So you two are dating?”
“Yes, we are.” He said it like he was proud of it, and that gave me a warm glow.
If I could read minds, I knew at that moment I’d be able to hear my mom rehearsing the speech she’d give her friends back home. “Oh yes, and our Katie is dating a very prominent Manhattan attorney. He drives a Mercedes, you know.”
“We only just started dating,” I said, before she got carried away with thinking of how she’d tell her friends that she was expecting an engagement announcement any day now. I changed the subject by saying, “I got you a room at a hotel down the street from where I live, so it’ll be easy for us to come and go.”
“I hope you didn’t go to any bother,” Mom said.
“We’ll pay our own bill,” Dad added.
“It wasn’t any trouble at all,” I said. “I wish we had enough room for you to stay with us, but believe me, you’ll be much more comfortable in a hotel. It’s the same hotel where Gemma’s and Marcia’s parents stay when they visit.”
“Then I’m sure it’ll be fine,” my mom said.
I glanced over my shoulder to the backseat and saw that both of them were staring out the window. It was dark already, so there wasn’t much to see. It was probably for the best. That part of Queens wasn’t the most scenic section of New York and probably wasn’t the best way to introduce them to the city. “You can see the skyline ahead,” I pointed out. “We’ll be crossing the Triboro Bridge soon, and then you’ll have a great view.”
That cut off the personal questions for a while as they looked for landmarks. Ethan shot me a glance, a smile, and a wink, and I winked back at him.
We made good time heading down FDR to Fourteenth Street, so my parents didn’t have a chance to start the truly personal questions. “I’ll take you to your hotel so you can unload your bags,” Ethan said, “and then I’ll leave all of you to have some time together.”
“You’re very sweet to go to all this trouble,” Mom said, a lilt of Southern belle flirtation in her voice. Was that what I sounded like when I pulled that stunt?
“It wasn’t any trouble at all.” I knew he was lying through his teeth. The tolls alone were outrageous.
“You’ll have to come over for Thanksgiving if you don’t have any other plans. Katie and I are planning a big feast for all her friends.”
