Grace Wilkinson - A family perversion

"Hi, Ma!" he called. "You getting dressed?"

She picked up her shoes and carried them with her out of the bedroom toward the front of the house.

"Yes, I'm getting dressed, but only for dinner," she told him.

"Aren't you coming to the party?" he asked dumbfounded, or so it seemed.

"No, I…" she started to say, and then she stopped. She couldn't remember what she had told him about that. She thought she had refused, but she had done so much talking to herself since he called, that she wasn't sure what she had told him and what she had simply mused on.

"Why not?" he asked innocently.

"Kevin, if your father is there," she said, surprising herself by how unfalteringly she was able to speak of such matters, "I don't care to surprise him."

"Ma, the lights will be almost non-existent. We have a colored strobe, and you'll be able to see in about a three foot radius, period. Don't worry. I dare say Natalie will keep him so busy that neither one of us will be the least bit noticeable. You know," he took her face in his hands. "It's my house and my friends, and I don't expect Natalie will know I'm anywhere around."

"Well," she sighed uncertainly, pulling away out of danger, "let's worry about that later. What would like for a cocktail?"

Liz Rouelle might have known from her moment of uncertainty that she was placing herself squarely in the hands and plans of her son and would be at that party. For one thing, Kevin made her too many martinis, and they drank for two hours instead of one while Liz told him about her drive to the beach, and she learned in her turn about many of the beach parties and dances and so forth that her son had attended for the past five years and about which he had never told her before. It was odd that he had never mentioned any of it around her, but their relationship had changed within the last week in more ways than one. They were more companionable as equals. And, she recognized suddenly, she was no longer in a superior, teaching, patronizing position. He had taught her something and had taken a leadership role with his mother.

They arrived late enough so that they could hear loud music and laughter coming from the hallway upstairs while they were entering the front of the building downstairs.

"Won't someone complain?" she asked naturally. "I mean, that very likely is your party!" She had taken one too many martinis.

"That is our party," he agreed. "We've invited everyone in the building, so there is no one left to complain." He had taken one too many martinis, too, she suspected with a smile.

"It sounds like everyone's having a good time," she noted congenially. "Excellent. They all sound too drunk to notice us at all!" he said. Liz couldn't tell whether he was trying to assure her that they would get in unnoticed, although she cared about that much less now than she had, or whether he was disappointed that he was financing a party no one would even notice he was attending!

The party, they found, had spilled out into the hallway, in fact. The door was open, and the apartment was so dark inside that it was probable, Liz thought, finding her observations remarkable, that people stepped out in the hall in order to see each other. She made a hurried survey of the group outside the apartment, to see if Tom were among them. Yet, so what if he saw her? What was the reason she didn't want to catch him doing anything wrong? She could no longer recall. It had something to do with not wanting to make him feel guilty, but she could not for her life remember why that was so important. She would think about it tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow morning, she knew, would be consumed by ridding herself of her hangover.

"Let me peek inside, Ma," Kevin suggested.

"No, I'll go in with you," she said boldly. "What difference does it make?" He either refrained from reminding her that it was she who had been skeptical about running into her husband or he had forgotten all about her reticence. He took her gently by the elbow, steered her by the doorway crowd, greeting everyone briefly, those who greeted him first, and into the dark room where the colored lights of the hired strobe glittered colorfully around and around the walls and barely recognizable faces of his guests. Liz did not see Tom at all, but she was surprised to see so many people in the one room. A few couples were dancing in the middle, but almost everyone else was sitting and standing around and… and there was a good deal of petting going on.

"Where did you get all the sofas and overstuffed chairs, Kevin?" she asked surprised, just before he left her to get her another drink.

"All borrowed, Ma. Can I trust you to sit here and be good while I get you a drink?"

"Oh, silly," she giggled. He was treating her just like a school girl. She was beginning to feel more like his younger sister than his mother, but then, she had felt that way even before dinner tonight. It was so very pleasant. She couldn't remember when she had last felt so lighthearted and pleasant. She sat on one of the sofas, and he left.

It didn't take him long to get the drinks, and he looked a little serious when he returned.

"Don't look now," he whispered as he sat down, very close to her as though it was important that his voice be as still as possible. She was already light headed from her martinis before leaving the house. He had just handed her another. She heard an ominous tone in his whisper, and she felt a small knot of fear growing in her stomach. She was remembering vaguely, something about guilt driving a person away and that had to do with her husband, and now there was something in Kevin's tone that told her before his words did that he had seen Tom. Trying not to raise her chin, Liz looked from the top of her eyes around the crowded room for a sign of her husband, but most of the corners and the faces were so in the dark that it would be impossible to find him, she decided, unless he fell over them here on the couch, God forbid! She watched her son raise his glass to his lips and take a deep swallow as though he were nervous. She did the same, trying to look in the same direction his glance took, but she saw nothing.

"Don't look at what?" she ventured in a whisper somewhat louder than his had been. She took another generous gulp of martini. "Go easy, Ma," he cautioned her with a chuckle. "You'll have me running constant waiter for you, refilling your glass."

"Oh, no," she said. "I'm not going to drink a lot. I know better than that. What did you see?" she insisted. "Tom?" Then she seemed to forget her question as she leaned back and rested against Kevin's arm, feeling more relaxed and slightly lightheaded. She was feeling the loveliest glow! A new giddiness was pervading her body somehow, and she sipped heavily again as she felt her son's arm wrap gently around her shoulder. She kept thinking that she ought not to let him do that in public, but her thought seemed incapable of translating itself into any kind of palpable objection. She seemed completely unable to say anything or to even pull away.

"I think I saw Tom," he whispered then, and that gave her the energy she needed to move.

"Kevin, I don't think we ought to behave so cozily," she said, trying to scold good-naturedly and pushing his arm off her shoulder with a gentle movement of her hand.

"We don't want to look conspicuous," he explained. "If we sit here like two watchbirds studying the room and everyone in it, somebody is going to suspect something, and Tom and Natalie's attention could be brought to us."

"I suppose," she agreed. It did make sense. She relaxed again and was glad she had found an excuse to do so with a clear conscience.

Liz Rouelle strained again to see if she could find her husband in any of the groups of three or four people talking on the open space of floor in front of them. It was the best lit area, and she noticed that she and her son were more or less protected by shadow. She began to feel uncomfortable, though, as once in awhile someone would look their way. Her son was pressing insistently close to her, and she wondered if anyone knew their relationship and what they would think if they did. "We can't see anything from here," Liz said nervously.