"Mother, sit down," my daughter hisses.
Well. Didn't her mother ever teach her to treat the elderly with respect? Damn straight, I did.
"Hush up, Helen, if I want to make a speech, I'll make a speech. Who knows how many years I've got left? Besides, how many times does my favorite granddaughter get married for the second time?"
Valerie looks hurt, but not the least bit surprised. She knows she's too much like her mother and Stephanie's too much like me for it to be any different. Valerie is a dear, but I can't go kick bad guy ass with her.
It is so easy to guilt Helen into whatever I want. She got that from her daddy, she did. Helen chugs her champagne since she can't get up and iron in the middle of a wedding.
"So, where was I?" I ask, knowing full well where I was. I just like to remind everyone that I'm old sometime so they will let me do what I want.
"Well, he isn't Mister Tall Dark and Handsome, but Officer Hottie has a nice ass so I guess he can be a part of the family. As long as he bends over some more. And maybe takes his shirt off sometimes."
Helen groans and flags down the server for another glass. She's becoming quite the alcoholic. I'll have to remind her to watch herself in public. We wouldn't want her to do something embarrassing.
"As much as I'd like to continue on about Trenton's finest ass, and believe me, I will, I should probably mention my granddaughter since it is her wedding after all. Thank God for that. We were beginning to think she'd never get her act together after that horse's ass piece of shit cheated on her."
I smile winningly at Stephanie, but she's got her head in her hands.
"I should probably tell you some of my favorite stories about the happy couple. Well, it all began when Steph was six-"
Helen inhales sharply. "Mother," she warns.
"Quiet, Helen, I'm telling a damn good story. Anyway, Helen had warned Stephanie about those rotten Morelli boys."
I wave at Joseph's brothers who are staring at me with open mouths. Don't they know they'll catch flies if hey keep looking like that? No wonder Helen didn't want her girls to associate with them.
"Which was, of course, a terrible idea because Stephanie just does whatever we tel her not to so I wasn't at all surprised when she followed Joseph into his garage. She came over to my house in tears later since her mother had yelled at her for getting fingered by a horny eight year old."
Wolf whistles accompany my speech brilliantly.
"That's enough," Helen snaps, trying to pull me back into my seat. I swat her hand away.
"Ten years later she came to my house crying again. This time, though, it was all Joseph's fault. If you want the details, I think some of the poems are still in some bathrooms around town. Eighteen year old Joe had no idea how to rhyme, but he sure had an extensive vocabulary."
I check on the bride again to see how well my speech is going. She still has her face covered and now Joseph is running her back soothingly.
"I promised never to tell her mother and daddy except I guess I just did."
I can tell Helen is trying to decide whether to be furious or to just let it go. I mean, they are married now after all. Who can blame someone for what they did so many years ago? Helen can, that's who.
"My favorite part of the story was three years after that when Joseph was home from the Navy. My good old Stephanie ran him over with her car and broke his leg. We celebrated with beers afterwards, which I also promised not to tell her mother."
I'm not even sure Helen is listening anymore. She's had so many drinks that there's no more room on the table for more. The server is just handing them to her, one by one.
"Fast forward to just a few years ago when Stephanie decides to blackmail her greaseball cousin Vinnie into giving her a job."
I wave cheerfully at him. He gives me the finger in return, which I gladly send back. That's the Plum side of the family for you. No class at all.
"She ends up pulling Joseph's case and tried to bring him in to jail. He was on the run at the time for a murder or something. I don't know. Anyway, they had lots of hijinks which Stephanie wouldn't share, but I do know a few. Like how she sole his car and got it blown up (and she's done that quite a few more times since then). He handcuffed her make to her shower and even though she tells me it wasn't a kinky game, I'm not buying it. That Joseph is a horn dog."
He smirks at me. He seems to be the only one enjoying this speech. Nobody else is appreciative. At the beginning, though, he didn't seem happy with me sharing what he did when he was young.
"That adventure ended wish Stephanie looking Joseph in a meat truck with three dead bodies. Then when he got out of jail, he bought her pizza and they would have done it right then and there except she had stitches in her rear."
"How does she know this?" I hear Stephanie groan.
Unfortunately, I think most everybody else missed it since I could barely hear and I'm just at the next table over.
"So then they got together and then broke up and got together and broke up and got together and broke up and got together and -"
"I think we get the picture," Joseph's nice cousins, Mooch I think his name is, blurts out.
"Yeah, yeah. And somewhere in between that, they fell in love. And got a dog. And blew up more cars. So now that they're finally married, Helen can stop pressuring them and inviting dates over for dinner. Hopefully, somebody will be able to keep my granddaughter safe from all those bad guys out there. I mean, I'm only here for a few more years. So, a toast to Officer Hottie and the finest damn ass in Trenton. Oh, and Stephanie too."