"Wife! Frank, did he say wife?" Mrs. Weinstein's voice hit a decibel like fingernails down a blackboard as she covered her mouth with both hands.
"That's what he said, Stella - wife," Mr. Weinstein said with a smile.
"Mom - "
Mrs. Weinstein looked at the rabbi, ignoring her son. "Is she - "
"I married them. What do you think?" the rabbi said in a feigned huff, cutting off Mrs. Weinstein's question before she could ask if Heather was Jewish.
"She's beautiful," Mrs. Weinstein said, coming up to Heather to look her over. "My son married a girl this gor geous? My Daniel, who in high school, wasn't able to - "
"Mom!" Dan said closing his eyes.
"He was too smart for those other girls," his mother said, preening and kissing Dan's cheek. "But I bet they'd be sick now to see our Daniel with such a lovely wife," she added, holding Heather back and then hugging her.
"And smart, too, don't forget, Stella - she has an important, high-security job like Dan ... the two of them have the same shtick. Cut from the same cloth."
"Yes, sir," Carlos said, now fully enjoying the role. "She works in Dan's same unit."
"I'm so pleased to meet you both," Heather said in a quiet, relieved tone as Mrs. Weinstein released her. "I've heard so much about you both. Dan loves you so." She looked at Dan, and he touched her hair.
Dan's parents hugged her again, taking turns handing her off to each other and then embracing their son. Dan's father gave him a huge smile of approval that made Dan seem to stand even taller.
"So, when was this wedding, and we have to meet your parents; I have so many questions," Mrs. Weinstein said in one run-on sentence. "And you want children, right?" Heather's eyes filled with terror and she glanced at Dan, who'd lost the color in his face.
"I just have one question," Mr. Weinstein said, making everyone turn. "Why are we standing in the foyer? Why haven't we come into the house like normal people?"
"Yes, yes, we should come in and everyone just relax for a very short while," Rabbi said, already staging the excuse to leave as he and Mr. Weinstein deflected Mrs. Weinstein's probing questions.
"But you have to have dinner." Stella Weinstein looked around at everyone as though mortified by the concept that her son could visit, bring home important guests, and even a rabbi, and not eat. "If I'd known you were coming," she said, covering her chest with her hand in mild shock, "I would have cooked. General, make my son eat - he doesn't eat." The thought of food made Carlos's stomach roil, but he knew better than to decline. This was family.
Dan and Heather looked at Carlos with such appreciation and affection that Carlos looked away.
"Thanks, General," Dan said. "I'll never forget this. Ever."
* * *
he thought they'd have to give Mrs. Weinstein smelling salts when it was finally time for them to leave. Carlos kept breathing back dry heaves - it wasn't that the food wasn't fantastic, but rather the volume on a shaky stomach. Each time his plate was threequarters cleared, a heaping dollop from what should have been a military-chef's spoon dropped more on his plate. The argument Dan's mother gave was re lentless: "Eat. You should be glad a mother is cooking this instead of the government - not that I'm casting aspersions on the government, but who knows how clean army food is?" Who could argue?
* * *
violet beacon light filled the bedroom and mingled with the late afternoon sun's roseorange beauty. Damali lifted her head, feeling a bit better, but still wrung out. At least the headache had gone, and the nausea had slightly calmed. Her white tank top felt slightly damp and another shower was calling her name, but there wasn't time. Damali pushed herself up and then got out of bed, yank ing on her jeans and shoving her feet into a pair of flip-flops. If the Queens had called her like this, then there was impor
tant news to be had. It didn't take long for their warm light to surround her and bring her to their opalescent table.
"Damali," Aset said, walking up to her quickly and dis pensing with all formality. She airkissed Damali quickly, holding her by her upper arms and then hurried back to the table.
"Look," she said, showing Damali the thrashing tenta cles that fought to get out of Carlos's black-box.
"Eiiiw," Damali said, glancing at the writhing morass, and then she looked at Aset and the other Queens. "That came out of the oracle? What the heck is it?"
"Medusa's contribution to the spell," Nefertiti said. "If I tell you what Jezebel added, you will be positively ill."
Damali held up her hand. "I'm already queasy enough, ladies, so - "
"It got on her," Nzinga said, drawing the Caduceus into her hand and tossing it to Eve. Eve caught the golden rod that was ensnared with golden serpents and rammed it into the floor by Damali's feet. In stantly a golden carpet of light spread out along the white marble floor, washed over Damali's flip-flops, and entered her body through her feet, causing a warm, peaceful sensa tion to overtake her. After a few moments, Damali opened her eyes. The residual effects of last night seemed to dissi pate. Right now she would have paid five bucks for a stick of gum, though.
"It wasn't that bad, because her husband caught some of the charge - it only got their hands," Eve said. "But it was a vile spell, indeed."