Page 41 of The Fine Art of Faking It
“How much you want to bet it was a senior citizen brigade hopped up on pot brownies and running amuck?” Emma joked.
“I doubt it. They really cracked down on what they call ‘senior clumping’ after the incident of 2003.” Eden pointed out.
Emma blinked at her.
“Never mind,” Eden murmured.
17
After picking up the flowers from Every Bloomin’ Thing, Eden had just enough time to squeeze in a quick stop at her parents’ house on the way back to the inn. The grocery store was out of dried lavender, Eden’s not-so-secret ingredient in the butter she served with her biscuits. “Mom? Dad? Are you guys home?” Eden called pushing in the front door without knocking. There was no point. Half the time her parents were in their basement recording studio working on their guided meditation albums and didn’t hear visitors troop inside.
“Back in the kitchen,” her mother called.
Eden hesitated. “Are you fully clothed?” She’d walked in on her parents naked more times than she ever cared to catalogue. It was a major con to being born to hippies that didn’t understand social constraints like clothing.
“Mostly,” her father yelled.
“Ugh.” Eden left the living room and turned sideways in the hallway to skirt past the overflowing bookcase her mother had found on the curb. There’d been no space for it, so her father had plopped it in the hallway to the kitchen temporarily. That was seventeen years ago.
The kitchen was bright and warm and in desperate need of updating. The yellow linoleum countertop peeled up on the corner of the peninsula. The wood paneling had been painted a street line yellow before Eden had been born, and no one had thought to change it since. There was a small collection of macramé plant holders hanging in front of the breakfast nook window. Her father was wearing underwear and an apron decorated with chickens.
“Jeez, Dad!”
“All the important bits are covered,” he insisted. Ned Moody slid in at barely five-foot-eight. He had a scrawny build that, for some reason, her mother found irresistible. Lilly Ann was perched on the countertop swinging her bare feet while Ned fried eggs.
“Want a fried egg sandwich, sweetheart?” Lilly Ann offered.
“No thanks, Mom. I just needed to raid your lavender stash.”
“You know where to find it,” her mother sang, waving her braceleted hand in the direction of the pantry cabinet. “Oh! While you’re here, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What’s that?” Eden asked, opening the cabinet door and wrinkling her nose at the chaos. Organization was not her parents’ forte.
“Hmmmm,” her mother hummed. Neither was remembering things.
“Was it about Atlantis?” Eden’s older sister lived in New Jersey with her plumber husband and their six kids.
“Noooo. I don’t think so.”
Eden moved a sticky jar of paprika out of the way and stretched an arm into the back of the cabinet.
“About Thanksgiving?” Ned suggested.
“Oh!” Lilly Ann breathed. “I forgot about that, too. Sweetheart, your father and I aren’t going to be here for Thanksgiving. Atlantis invited us in for the holiday, and then we’re finally using that scratch-off money for a weekend getaway to Atlantic City.”
Her parents were under the constant assumption that someday their ship would come in. They just had to “open themselves to the favors of fortune.” Which meant buying copious amounts of scratch-off tickets and spending the second Sunday of every month at the casino and race track. They were still waiting for that ship, but having a damn good time doing it.
“That sounds like fun,” Eden said, finding the collection of baggies behind a jar of Marshmallow Fluff.
Triumphantly she freed one of the bags. “Dad! This is not lavender.” She tossed the bag to him and he stuffed it in his apron pocket.
“Huh. I wondered where that got to.”
“Aha!” Lilly Ann’s exclamation caught Eden’s attention. “I remember what it was! And I am about to be absolutely furious with you!”
“Me?” Eden deadpanned.
“Yes you! My daughter who is harboring a horrible human being who doesn’t deserve the lovely roof you’ve put over his head.”
