my mom’s.
The combination of three competing perfumes was enough to force me to keep the sunroof popped open even though Babe complained that the breeze was mussing up her hair. I knew my mom liked to pour it on heavy when she went out, but I had no idea my aunts had the same bad habit. Between the three of them the car reeked, but none of them seemed to notice.
Hetty was all atwitter in the back seat, hardly able to sit still. She never missed a martini event, even though she technically didn’t drink—which made sense to me now that I’d heard her declaration at the MA meeting. She went for the olives—the vodka or gin soaked olives, and by the end of the evening, after she’d pilfered olives from anyone who would give them to her, Hetty would be completely shitfaced.
The last time I attended one of these, at a location I had no memory of, I made an absolute ass out of myself with Leo, yelling at him for something I never could later remember, and ended up passed out in the ladies room while sitting on the toilet after I’d vomited up my guts. Not my best moment. My mom retrieved me after Leo called her, took me home to her house, and I’ve never left.
I was so hoping this wouldn’t be a repeat performance.
My mom, Hetty and Babe were in a hurry to get inside and couldn’t wait for me to park. “Just let us out by the front door, darling,” my mom ordered, her hand resting on the back of my seat. I glanced back in the rearview mirror and caught that she was wearing the Elvis charm bracelet. But hadn’t she said the clasp was broken? I never checked.
Another lie?
Mom continued, “I hate to have to walk through parking lots. They’re way too dark. I might fall and break a hip or something.”
I knew she was exaggerating her frailty, her last bone scan ranked her up in the bones of steel category, but I did as I was told and looked for a spot to pull over.
Mom hated to miss even a minute of the ball and we were already a half-hour late. She liked to be the first to taste some of the more exotic martinis, then chat them up with whoever would listen as if she was the expert. Afterward, as soon as she arrived home she’d write commentary about them on her blog, if she wasn’t too wasted. Of course, it was the olive factor that dominated all observations. Mom believed that without the venerable olive, there would be no martini.
I pulled up in front, and stopped. The three women were out of the car before I could slide the gear into park.
“See you inside,” Mom said, as she exited the car. Of course, before she took off for the party, she had to linger up next to her car, especially since bank-teller Liz Harrington, a woman my mom disliked ever since she confessed she didn’t care for the taste of olive oil and only used Canola oil, was pacing the front of the restaurant.
Aunt Babe, however, clearly didn’t care about anything or anyone and made a beeline for the open front door, tossing her vintage gray fox stole around her bare shoulders as she swung her hips in total siren fashion. She and Hetty hadn’t exchanged two words since I picked them up. I could tell they’d been fighting, but had decided to be civil to each other for the sake of the martini.
Of course, Aunt Babe had insisted on sitting in the front seat, and this time Hetty didn’t argue about taking the back, even though she usually got car sick, which didn’t seem to bother her on the drive over tonight. I wondered if that was simply another of her tall tales so she would always get the passenger seat.
Funny how a good murder could clear the air in this family.
“That woman gives me a rash,” Mom said, referring to Liz, and not Babe. “Why is she here, anyway?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?” I said.
“Now why would I want to do that? The woman eats Canola oil. Who eats oil that isn’t even a food? There’s no such thing as a canola. It’s just something those tricky Canadians mixed up out of rape seed ‘cause they had too many plants. Did you know that pure rape seed oil will kill you? Even insects won’t