Fix It Up - Mary Calmes Page 0,52
on her ring finger another beast that had a piece of rose quartz at the center, flanked by two carved turquoise leaves. All of them were set in silver, and none of them could be called delicate in the least. “Where’s the one I got you the last time I was here?”
“I change them out,” she said as she gazed lovingly up at me. “You know I’m a fickle creature.”
“I don’t think so,” I apprised her thoughtfully. “I’ve never been on the receiving end of that.” I finished by touching the heavy gold belcher chain around her neck, where a large Victorian eighteen-karat rose gold locket hung that I had bought her with my first paycheck when I became a policeman. It had cost a lot at the time, and was probably worth quite a bit more now, but her face, when I gave it to her, before the bawling, was priceless.
As she said, she rotated rings, discarded wedding ones, earrings were a disaster, forget about pins, and expensive hair forks or sticks were a waste of money. She wore other necklaces with my locket, like the strand of olive pearls she wore at the moment, but she never, ever took off the only piece of jewelry she’d been wearing for the past fourteen years. She was supposed to press pictures inside, but if she didn’t, she could wear it in the shower, and that was more important. There was no glass, just my stupid engraving, because I wasn’t good with words. It said, “I love you, Mom. Love, Loc.” Short and to the point. She had cried until her eyes got all puffy.
“You’re a sap,” I told her.
“My baby,” she said, sighing long.
I was very lucky, and told her so, and then announced that I was hungry.
“Yeah, me too,” she grumbled, yelling over to Jamie to see if we could start eating.
“Oh my goodness, I’m sorry, my friends,” he said to everyone. “Please, grab food. I seem to be blinded by the beauty and brilliance of a new friend.”
I might have thrown up a little in my mouth.
My mother made a soft retching noise because she was always on my side, and we went to get our plates.
I checked on Nick. He was meeting all Jamie’s friends, and Jamie had his hand on the small of Nick’s back. It was just gross. I ended up on the other end of the long table with my mother and three of her friends, and Nick was on the opposite end with Jamie, who fed him a date covered in brie and wrapped in prosciutto, off his plate. If eye-fucking led to the regular kind, that was where Nick was going to end up. But as it was none of my business, I took a breath and focused on my mother. It was never hard to do and always enjoyable. She regaled me and her friends with stories about her last book signing. I loved hearing about her fans and the gifts they brought her and the stories they told her.
When the dinner party was breaking up three hours later, I was surprised when Nick came walking down toward my end of the table.
“You can stay here with him,” I told him before he could say a word.
“Yeah, I know,” he told me, scowling. “I don’t need your permission. But he has a teleconference with some overseas buyers, and he said he’d come by and visit with us later.”
“Oh, that’s lovely,” my mother told him, turning to me. “Isn’t that lovely, sweetheart?”
“Lovely,” I echoed, rolling my eyes when he turned away.
She smacked me.
Once we were back at my mother’s, the two of them went outside on the back porch, where she lit her million or so candles, and they sat there on the chaises and stared up at the stars. I was still in the kitchen when Nick’s phone, which he’d left on the counter all day, chirped. Glancing at the screen, I saw a voicemail notification. When I looked closer, I saw he had thirty-two missed calls, all coming in the last three hours, and all from the same private number. I stared. Thirty-two missed calls in three hours was not normal. Thirty-two missed calls in three hours was someone hurt or dead. I glanced out the window at the two of them, chatting, smiling, so at peace, and after a brief war with my conscience I thumbed the phone open—thanks again, Owen—and hit the voicemail icon. I was going to