Okay, guys, bear with me here. I'm gonna finish it even if no one's left out there! Sorry for the confusing jumps around. It's sorta becoming a common theme here.
Chapter 17
The Suburbs of Chicago
"Dammit!"
She pushed a strand of hair from her face and impatiently smashed the back of her hand to her nose to wipe away the sweat. The sun beat down on the back of her neck—the skin there was beginning to burn—but she didn't care. On the stoop of her doorstep she sat with wrench and rag in hand, using her entire weight to try to loosen the bolt which bound the ruined tire to her bicycle.
Her grasp slipped and the wrench flew from her hands to the sidewalk several steps below her. Nearly throwing the bike from her lap she jumped the steps and snatched it from the ground. "Couldn't just buy another one, could we? It's vintage, is it? It's vintage shit, is what it is…"
She could feel her spine aching already from sitting hunched like that for so long. Reluctantly, it allowed her to crumple back into that shape and try again. Attacking the ruined wheel with fervor, she muttered under her breath. "Come on, you little fu—"
"Harley! Language, please!"
Two pairs of identical bark-colored eyes met, and one rolled sarcastically. "Mom, seriously. I'm—"
"Nine! Nine years old! You're not supposed to even know how to use those words! Do you know what nine-year-olds are supposed to be talking about? Shopping! Fun stories from their from their fourth grade class!"
Harley crossed her arms and shifted all her weight to one leg. "You're right. Except for I'm in fifth grade."
"And that's so much diff—" Her mother's voice suddenly failed her. Never giving up, Harley didn't relax her stance, but her confusion was evident nonetheless. They had argued thousands of times before, just like this—what was the big deal? Her brow furrowed.
"What? Do I have grease on my face?" she scoffed uneasily. She knew they had a dinner party later tonight; maybe she was mad she hadn't cleaned up yet. Leaving the bike sprawled out for someone to trip over? She didn't think she'd mouthed off more than usual. Harley suddenly grew very anxious, her true age shining through. "Mommy, what's wrong? I'm sorry I swore, okay? I'll try to stop, okay Mom?"
But it was not the swearing that had abruptly rendered her mother speechless. It was not the state of the bike blocking the doorway to their home. It wasn't even the grease and dirt which was smeared across her sunburned cheeks.
The source of her mother's muteness was something very new and completely different. She was looking directly into her daughter's face and something was there which had not been there before. Shame flooded her mother as she realized perhaps it had been, and for quite a while, but she had been so busy with work so as not to notice it. Her daughter's face was not the chubby oval of a prepubescent child anymore—it had shed the deceptive sheen of youth and the first hints of what it was to be come had shown through.
Her mother gazed at her so intensely that Harley finally relented and flung her arms around her mother's tailored business suit, burying her face into the polyester. But what her mother had seen was still emblazoned in her memory. It was the slightly upturned upper lip. It was the crease between the eyebrows. It was the defensively accusatory stare. It was the shadow of a face she hadn't seen for nearly a decade.
Samantha looked into her daughter's face, and Jack's had stared right back.
--
She was a wreck the rest of the afternoon, and Martin's frustration with her was apparent. It was the night of the dinner which everyone knew would determine whether he would be promoted to the position from which his boss was retiring or not. He had only asked one thing of her--a passable pot roast, some wine, and a little perfume. So far, she'd almost burnt the roast, was on her third glass of their only bottle of pinot and had dropped and shattered her most expensive vial of Chanel No. 5.
Harley knew better than to press her mother over what strange thing had come over her outside on the stoop, and Sam was grateful from this. At least she had inherited something good from her side: her intuition. And his chin.
"Shut up!" She banged her hand down hard on the cutting board and several finely shaved radish garnishes flew through the air. The dog immediately scarfed down the delicate roses before she could reach them. "No! Shit! Dog, no! Oh, shit, SHIT!"
The hairs on the back of Sam's neck bristled and slowly she looked up. Harley stood in the doorway, her dinner dress limp around her waist. A mixture of fear and humor twisted her expression. "Okay, Harely, when the dog eats something you've been working the past forty minutes on making and have to start all over, then you can say grown up words, okay?"
She nodded and came over to where Samantha was kneeling. "Zip me?"
Sam sighed and turned her daughter around, tugging the stubborn zipper up to her shoulders. "Sorry mommy's a little neurotic today, Bean."
"It's okay, mommy."
She sighed and stared into space.
"Mommy?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"What does 'neurotic' mean?"
"It means we're serving Daddy's boss overdone pot roast with no alcohol to wash it down," Martin suddenly interrupted, sweeping into the room with a tie flung around his neck. Samantha straightened up and grabbed his shoulders. He submitted as she began to work on his tie.
"Martin, the roast's fine," she said as calmly as she could. He dragged his hand through his miraculously not-graying hair and sighed. "It's just not as moist as it could be. And they're not going to decide whether to hire you or not hire you based on the quality of cooking you're afforded at home."
He ignored her. "Harley, go put your patent leather shoes on, please? They could be here any minutes."
Harley's shoulders sagged. I hate those shoes, it read. Because if you want the shoes, you want the--
"Don't forget the ruffle socks," he threw in before breaking away to pour himself a scotch. The nine-year-old slouched off, biting back more scathing words than any of those she'd spat out previously. "What am I forgetting?"
Samantha looked around the kitchen and peered into the dining room. The places were set, windows opened to let in a little of the spring breeze. Despite the dryness of the pork (she would season it later) and the sparcity of wine (there was always Martin's scotch), things were for all outward appearances running smoothly.
"I think you've covered everything," she answered, sitting across the island from him. Samantha appeared to be the picture of an attentive wife by the way she was studying her husband's face. But the study served a different purpose altogether. Each slight movement, each change in profile, each angle of his face further provided her substantiating evidence. She told herself it was all in her head, that it was the heat, but look at that nose! Those ears! That mouth! All so obviously Irish and New English! God, it was a wonder Martin hadn't been asking questions years ago! Their daughter was an Italian Mofia brat!
Harley popped her head in. "Daddy, there's a car on the street."
Martin downed the contents of his glass and ran to the door, smashing his hand over her head in thanks. Sam smiled a small sigh of relief. Harley's light amber hair, button nose, pink cheeks were as Irish as they came. Look at her: she was practically speaking the language with the mouth on her!
The mouth on her. The slightly upturned top lip. The cheeks not so much pink as they were warmed with sun. Amber hair betraying hints of future shades at its root. Skin glowing from the sunburn, not red and angry as the Fitzgerald skin always became when outside in the direct sun for too long. No, hers reveled in the exposure, craved more to enhance the easily mistaken tones beneath her skin--the olive brown pigments, inheritance of a dominant, unusually foul-mouthed and hot-tempered Italian gene--
"...yes, I don't know where she must have gone to. Sweetheart!" Samantha jumped as now Martin's face reappeared at the threshold to the kitchen. "The Nelsons have just arrived, wouldn't you like to come welcome them?"
Immediately, she filed the thoughts away to all the others which she set aside when Martin's priorities overwhelmed them. She had a show to put on.