EMBITTERED, NAH. SHE WAS STILL HOT, A MIRROR DIDN'T HAVE TO TELL HER.
"Mom, we're in the ballroom now." Eric said in his mother's ear. He insisted on taking her arm, even though with her long white cane, she got around better than he did. He'd never known his mother when she'd had her eyesight, and her upbringing sounded like something from that "Grease!" play.
"I know, I know. I'm assaulted wit' Old Spice. The ennobling scent of the mid-life Trump voter."
Eric bit his lip. He didn't want to start laughing his ass off in this grotesque place.
Audrina had begged to go along. "I want to document this with my phone. Nana, please make Dad bring me." But Sally had dragged their daughter away, bribing her with Lollapalooza tickets. At Kochanski's Concertina Beer Hall. He should ask Mom if Sinatra or Bobby Darin ever played there.
"Y'know, we shoulda brought Audie along for this. Then when she puts it online, she could describe and re-describe the weirdness."
Weirdness. This was why Nana was so "hip" with Audrina and her friends.
Eric shook his head, and bent down to the card table where the old biddies were fumbling with nametags. "I need one for Laverne Defrense-"
"DeFazio, you ungrateful half-Sicilian shame. If your gran-dad was still alive, he'd come up beside your head."
"Well, Mom. You've been hitched a few times, a lot of last names. I just wasn't around for this first."
One of the women stood up. She was grossly overweight and jiggled as she leaped up and down. "Oh my God. You're Laverne Dabney, the blind mystery writer. You are! I can't follow suspense, it's creepy but wait till I tell my next door neighbor that I sat behind her favorite author for Earth Science, and I think we were in gym together...you hit me with a towel once."
"Don't try to get even just 'cause my peeps're broke. I still got a reachin' right cross."
Eric hoped fervently that there would be a bartender who could make a Long Island Iced Tea.