AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Seventeen
Deidre was singing her little heart out. She was going for it, and it was spectacular as she cupped the mic and curled over, squeezing every last bubble of oxygen from her lungs to hold that note long and strong.
Something had gotten into her that night, Mary mused. Usually, she wasn’t quite so … dramatic. Or good. This was a quality performance. Mary was glad she’d propped up the camera on Deidre’s phone to record just how well things had gone.
As Deidre came up with a radiant smile, the audience whooped, whistled, and clapped in appreciation. And in a very un-Deidre-like way, she did a little curtsy. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. If you would indulge me for a moment, I wonder if you would help me celebrate my best friend’s fortieth birthday. She’s here with us tonight.” Deidre stretched her arm out, palm up, to focus everyone’s attention to where Mary sat.
Offering the room a flat-lipped smile, Mary gave them a finger wave.
Deidre started them off on “Happy birthday to you —”
Mary was surprised they knew the words and had joined in, raising their glasses in her direction and swaying to the tune. It was sweet, Mary thought. Yeah, it was nice. She didn’t mind turning forty. She didn’t mind everyone knowing that she’d hit that milestone. She just hated it when she went out for a birthday dinner; it was mentioned to the waiter, and the waitstaff came pouring out of the kitchen to sing to her when she knew darn well that it was probably the most miserable part of their night. This didn’t feel that way. She was fine with this, Mary decided.
What she wasn’t fine with was the second part of Deidre’s ask.
Once the clapping stopped and the audience turned back to Deidre, she winked toward Mary. “So my birthday friend is quite the burgeoning comedian.”
Mary shook her head.
“She was signed up to try out her new schtick tonight.”
Yeah, Deidre had signed her up in her new-found “Grab the bull by the horns” life philosophy that she had adopted. Just like Mary’s own twenty-new-things goal, Deidre seemed to put her head down and plow ahead as a way to cope with her own child-off-in-the-world, her own divorce, and her hot-flashing, menopausal brain warp.
“But tonight, she was feeling a little shy.”
Bruised. Burned. Exhausted. A bit in shock. Not shy.
“I think if we give her a little encouragement, though, we could get her up on the stage. What do you all think? Should we invite the birthday girl up to entertain us?”
The audience did as asked. The clapping extended on and on until Mary was able to get up from her table and move to the stage stairs.
The look Mary sent Deidre as they passed each other would make any normal mortal wither into a pile of remorse on the stage. But as Deidre handed the mic over to Mary, she smiled her wicked smile and popped her brows, leaning into the privilege of a lifetime of mutual support and sisterly love.
Mary wasn’t feeling that love so much. But she was feeling genuine warmth coming from the people who had gathered. She decided to try on her new material, do her best, bomb if she must, then slam a glass of something strong, and go to bed to pass out.
“My friend Deidre, ladies and gentlemen.” Mary extended the mic in Deidre’s direction as her friend took the two steps down from the platform and wended her way, gratitude arm in the air, back to their seats.
“So here I am. Kinda of spur of the moment. A lot spur of the moment. So I’m afraid that you’re going to get what you get. And I’m going to tell you right here and now that if you don’t enjoy yourselves, it’s your own darned fault that I’m up here.” She pointed toward the back of the room. “I was minding my own business, and you all insisted.”
The crowd laughed.
Laughter was good, actually. After a day of terror, yeah, laughter was good. Maybe she should trust that Deidre had her best interest at heart.
“The great thing about having a standup mic night here at the comedy club in Tallinn, Estonia, is that almost everyone here listening to me is an English-as-a-second-language person. Don’t get me wrong, most of the men and women I’ve spoken with in my short time in your amazing city speak better English than the folks in my hometown.”
A chuckle ran through the crowd.
“Anyway, if you don’t laugh, I’m going to chalk it up to ‘lost in translation’ a lesson learned. Speaking of lessons learned. Let’s talk about the deficit of my education.”
Mary paused as a stagehand dressed in black slid smoothly toward center stage, a stool in each hand. He placed them down, side by side, then pulled a water bottle from under his arm, loosened the cap, and slid back behind the curtains.
“Oh good.” She lifted a thigh onto the stool, so she was half-sitting, half-standing. “I’ve had a busy day today. So this is nice. Okay, so about me. I grew up Catholic. Not the C&E Catholic, where you go to mass only on Christmas and Easter. We were good Catholics.” She put the last words into finger quotes. “My Aunt Mary was a nun. And it was very strange to have a nun in the family, especially one who took the vow of poverty and silence. When she came over for dinner, she’d sit there and smoke. She’d eat what was scooped onto her plate. Then, if she wanted more of something, she’d lift her chin to point it out and make these puppy dog, pleading eyes.” Mary acted it out. “And when she was full, she’d leave.”
Mary paused as a chuckle ran through the room.
“But I guess the nun that had the most impact on my life was a woman by the name of Sister Inez. She’s the one who taught my all-girls, state-required family life course. Here was a woman who—orphaned at age ten—grew up in a convent in Spain. As a fifty-year-old woman, she decided suddenly to leave her cloistered life where the only men she ever saw were the priest and, once a year, her dentist. She got on a plane, came to America, and started teaching language classes. And oddly, she was the one assigned to teach the girls at my school the state required sex ed information that she called ‘Family Life.’”
Mary watched as the silhouettes of the giant men standing in the back of the room migrated to the tables the host brought them to.
