Danger, Sweetheart Part 2

His mother just looked at him, and after a long moment he elaborated: "Every girlfriend I've had-"

"Some of them were older than you, boy, and not girls."

"Every womanfriend I've had-"

"No, never mind; that sounds idiotic."

"Every female chum I've had liked my money far more than they liked me." A little more would be tolerable, probably; somewhat more he could live with. How unfortunate it was never a contest. It was always far more. Far more. Faaaaar more. And yes, he could hear the chorus of poor baby! in his head, thank you very much. They all sounded like the fiercely loving woman sitting in front of him. His self-pity, he often thought, was matched only by his self-loathing.

(He would never say such a thing to his mother. Also on the list of things he would never say to his mother: The ones who didn't care about his money liked him for his c.o.c.k, and only his c.o.c.k. And unlike the women interested in his checkbook, the ones who liked his c.o.c.k were up front about it. On the whole, he preferred the latter.) "All right," his mother was saying, "you haven't found the right female chum yet; it happens. It doesn't mean you won't fall in love tomorrow." And never in a hundred years would Blake point out his mother's hopeful-yet-defeated tone to her. She had given up on herself, yes. But never on him. Never on his brother.

"Love is an illusion fostered by the greeting card industry."

His mother opened her mouth. Closed her mouth. Shrugged. "I can't think that's true," she said at last. "It's too sad. And someone your age definitely shouldn't think it's true."

He would never point out she hadn't found The One, either. In the beginning, she was living on tips and finding out about the world. Then she'd gotten pregnant, and the following years had been spent finding out what the world thought of single mothers.

Then, of course, their father's wealth. From Burger King to Trattoria Reggiano in one day, thanks to their absent father's determination to re-create the erotic food scene from the 9 Weeks remake (he had choked to death on a kiwi).

And in all that time, Blake's mother had dated here and there, and apparently having twins wasn't nearly the baggage for a rich c.o.c.ktail waitress as it was for a poor one (she still waited tables one night a month to "keep my toe in the cesspool of humanity"). But the men all left eventually, or she left them, and Blake knew why, because it was the same reason he hadn't settled down: two Tarbells would never settle. The third Tarbell had structured his entire love life around settling. And see how that turned out.

"In your own way, you're just as much a hound as your brother."

"You take that back!" he nearly roared.

"You both go through women like a pig through slop."

"Enough of the farming homilies."

"That's fair," she admitted. "That's how I can tell I need a nap. I start to sound like Sweetheart."

"Change of subject?" he asked. "How was the Louvre?"

"Terrible." She pouted. "Security was far too tight."

"Mother." He shook his head and gulped at his drink. "You're going to get arrested."

"Why are you using the future tense?" she teased. "I've been arrested. And stop calling me Mother."

He shook his head. His mother had the strangest hobby: She enjoyed changing museum exhibits. She would put Egyptian jewelry on a mannequin in the Western exhibit. She would put a kimono on a mummy. Blake had been thirteen before he realized all mothers did not do this.

"I don't want to talk about those unyielding, uptight Louvre employees. I want to talk about why you're alone."

"Leave it."

"Oh, goody! Here just in time for the 'I'm rich and cute and life is sooooo hard' followed by the 'shut up about your problems that aren't problems, boy' section of our program. Thank G.o.d I didn't miss it."

Blake didn't look up. "Apologize for calling me cute. Right now."

Then he did look up and saw, as expected, Rake grinning down at them. Further proof Rake was clinically insane: He was happy to see his brother, and tolerated their mother's loving criticism much better than Blake could. Because Rake was terrible. "And come on. Sus.h.i.+? Are we really having bait for supper again?"

"Breakfast, I think." His mother glanced at her watch. Four fifteen A.M. "Sit down, boy. Give your mother a kiss. Stop pretending you don't like j.a.panese cuisine."

"I love j.a.panese cuisine." He slid into the booth beside their mother and kissed her cheek with a loud smek! that she pretended to dislike but blushed over even as she wiped it away. Blake admired his brother's ease in social situations almost as much as he found the man as irritating as a recurring hemorrhoid. "The j.a.panese are a subtle people when it comes to their meticulous cuisine. This?" Brandis.h.i.+ng the menu like a whip. "This isn't j.a.panese cuisine. It's blasphemy wrapped in rice and seaweed. And you'll still make us tip forty percent."

Blake grinned. "He's right, Mom. The j.a.panese deny responsibility, rightly, for the Philadelphia roll, the California roll, and frus.h.i.+."

Rake snorted. "Thanks, Encyclopedia Blake. But see?" he asked, turning to their mother. "That's how horrible this is: Blake and I are on the same side! We agree. That hasn't happened in ... uh ... When did Lady in the Water come out again?"

"Ah ... 2005? No ... 2006."

"Enough." Another rap on the table; Shannah was ruthlessly wielding the Knuckles of Doom today. "I have news and we need to get down to it. I'm an heiress."

"Again?" They spoke in unison, then glared at each other. They loathed all twin cliches and wouldn't dress alike if someone stuck a gun in their ear. They never tried to speak in unison. Rake lived in T-s.h.i.+rts and leather jackets; Blake felt more comfortable in anything from Savile Row (he occasionally slept in his suit). Rake was a Democrat ("Ironically," he'd explained, "I vote Democrat ironically.") solely because Blake was a registered Independent. And on. And on.

Rake had continued solo: "Seriously? You've inherited a bundle again? And we couldn't meet on our birthday to talk about this while pretending we don't drive each other nuts?"

She shook her head. "It can't wait four months. And my inheritance ... it's not as much fun this time."

"Well, it hardly could be." Ah, the memories. From living on tips and the kindness of friends, to millionaires, and literally overnight. It was juvenile, Blake knew, but his most treasured childhood memory was the week after their mom had explained about their father's death. A six-figure wire had hit her account to "tide them over" while the estate plodded through probate. She had stared at the balance, staggering like a sailor back on land-he and Rake had to hold her up-and then burst into fierce tears.

Blake had been frightened (she never cries!) and Rake had been angry (who made her cry and what part of their face can I fit my fist into?).

As her sons stammered in confusion and tried to comfort her, she had bent (not much-even at thirteen they were almost as tall as she was) and swept them both into a hug so swiftly all three skulls banged together: "Mom, don't-ow!-cry."

Then: shopping spree. Since it was Vegas, baby, land of a thousand daily bachelorette parties and gambling addictions, all sorts of places were open. They started at a gas station to top the tank of their always almost-empty Volkswagen ("Fill it up! Fill it allll the way!"), and from there to a dealers.h.i.+p to buy a new one. From there, Home Depot for a grill ("Why d'you want to make fire in the desert, Mom? Can't we get a walk-in freezer instead?"), the grocery store for things to cook on the grill ("I want, like, a dozen kebabs of marshmallows."), and finally ended up at the Sa.s.siPants nightclub guzzling s.h.i.+rley Temples at 5:00 A.M. All the while their mother giggled and cried and giggled some more, and that was the day Blake found out his face could actually hurt from smiling so much.

"This time," she said, yanking him back into the present, "it's a little more complicated."

"Who died?" Even as Blake asked, he realized he had no idea how many relatives he had from his mother's side of the family. He and Rake had never met any of them. And she never spoke of them, but that, at least, Blake understood.

It wasn't until much later that he realized she'd avoided the question.

"I'm inheriting land."

"Amus.e.m.e.nt park land?" Rake asked, ever hopeful, as well as eternally thirteen.

"Abandoned farmland."

"That you can build amus.e.m.e.nt parks on?"

"No, dolt." A smile softened the rebuke. "Farms formerly owned by several family members-"

Blake straightened so fast it was almost a spasm. "That's impossible. We do not have family."

She sighed. "Blake."

"Yeah, they made that clear enough when you needed help."

"Rake."

"This is your inheritance? Our father at least left something useful, even if he himself wasn't ever useful."

Rake picked up the rant. "They left you- What did you call it? Abandoned farmland? The same a.s.sholes who disowned you when you went home for help? The ones who ignored you for years, then had the b.a.l.l.s to get angry when you wouldn't fix their lives with money they never dreamed you'd have but didn't hesitate to ask for once they found out you had it?" Rake had to stop and gasp for breath, and their mother seized the opportunity.

"I don't know," came his mother's steady reply. "You'll recall we haven't kept in touch."

"And I'll recall why: They shut you out. They shut all of us out, so my advice? Keep it that way."

"I'm not seeking advice, boys!" she snapped. "I'm telling you what I'm going to do. The reason I left Sweetheart in the first place was to earn enough money to buy my own farm."

"It was?" Rake asked, catching Blake's glance for a moment. Blake shrugged; he'd had no idea, either.

"Yes. And now I've inherited several." She paused while the waitress delivered refills, and resumed when she left. "And why would I do to them what they did to me? Turn my back in strength as they did in their weakness? How does that solve anything? How does that help anything?"

"All right," Blake replied mildly. "I apologize." He glanced at his brother, whose mouth was set in a stubborn line all at the table knew well. No apology forthcoming, that was fine. Sometimes Rake needed coaxing. Blake kicked him under the table.

"Agh! You fu- You bas-" Rake jerked his leg away and bent down to rub the no-doubt-throbbing s.h.i.+n, which gave Blake a clear shot at the other one. "Agh, that hurts, f.u.c.kwad!"

"You both stop that. Now."

Cowed, they complied. Blake cleared his throat. "What will you do?"

"Go home. Again. This time for longer, I think." Shannah nibbled her lower lip, a rare external indicator of stress. "And I have no idea how long that'll be; I don't know when I'll make it back."

"If you make it back," Blake pointed out.

"Of course I'll make it back; stop making it sound like we're in a horror movie."

"My bleeding legs are in a horror movie," Rake muttered, sitting as far from Blake as he could while still remaining in the booth.

"You're not speaking with strangers, you know. 'Of course I'll make it back'? Mom, you've been a nomad for over a decade. You rent, or you buy and then rent, or you buy and sell, or you stay in a hotel suite for months at a time."

"As do you," she pointed out.

"Not me!" Rake added with cheerful spite. "Same s.h.i.+thole apartment for the last four years. Location, location, location." He didn't mention, and Blake didn't volunteer, that Rake loved his apartment because it was walking distance to several strip clubs/prime rib buffets, because Rake was terrible.

"You've never put down roots," his mother added. "I have long put it down to you and Rake being restless spirits."

"And lovers of low rent and cheap sirloin. And pretty ladies."

Don't engage; stay focused on Mom. "But really, all this time you have been waiting to go back? You've wanted to buy a farm? You've had the funds for years. You don't want a farm. You want a Sweetheart farm. And now it seems you have several."

A long silence, broken by, "Maybe. If I'm right, I'm fulfilling a family duty. If you're right, I'll have found my true home again. Either way: I'm leaving."

"Well, we've done our best to talk you out of it." Rake was indulging his loathsome habit of helping himself to everyone's water gla.s.ses, and finished draining his mother's. "But you're set in your ways, old woman."

Blake failed to hold back the all-body shudder. "I love you, little brother, and if you ever call her that again I will throttle you."

"Nice way to talk to your bro, Bro!"

"Until my fingers ache. Until they're in spasm from the strangling."

"Enough." Their mother was wisely signaling for the check and the waitress came over at once, laden with a br.i.m.m.i.n.g water pitcher.

"Is it a Tarbell thing?" Rake asked. "Wanting a Sweetheart farm? Needing to go back?"

"I think it's more like a Lifetime Movies for Women thing," Rake suggested.

Their mother shook her head. "I don't know. It's something I have to do. Perhaps it's just a Shannah thing. And so I leave you to your Edward the Fourth biographies, Blake, and your occasional arrests for a.s.sault, Rake."

"Don't forget his impending case of alcohol poisoning."

Shannah quirked a curl of a smile at him. "Yes. That, too. You can always find me, boys. Or call me, and I'll come. As I always have."

She ignored her sons' protests and paid the bill for the three of them. They left their customary 40 percent tip and went their separate ways. That was a Tarbell thing, too.

Four.

Back in the present ... (remember, the last chapter was a year ago!) (I need to remember how to tell a linear story one of these days.) "It's too much for her, too much for anyone; she keeps getting in deeper and deeper. You wouldn't recognize her voice if you took her calls."

"Hey!" Rake yelped. "World traveler, remember? Show me the cell tower on Lopez Island or the Travaasa Hana or the Aran Islands. I always call her back-"

"At three A.M. Sweetheart time, when she's semiconscious and barely coherent."

"She's completely coherent! It's our mom! She'd be coherent if she was dead!"

Blake sighed. "You disappoint me." Unspoken: again. "If anyone could recognize barely coherent, little brother, I'd think it would be you. And the racket when you pulled in! Like this town isn't barely tolerable as it is. A motorcycle and a leather jacket? How original. Lovely periorbital hematoma, Marlon Brando."

"Blow it right out your a.s.s, Benjamin Tarbell Two-Oh."

Blake hadn't realized he had slammed his fist on the table until his knuckles began to throb. "I'm nothing like our father."

"What's the new one's name? Carrie? Terry? Gerri? Fo-ferry? Fee-fi-fo-ferry? Ferr-ee!"

"Ava. And she's fine. I have reasonable certainty she's fine. As couples often do, we came to a mutual decision to give each other-"

"-some breathing room," they finished in unison, and now Blake's temples were throbbing in time with his knuckles. "And you're one to talk, little brother," he added.

"At least I'm open about what I want from them and what they want from me. You, you think you're a gentleman because you insist they spend the night instead of calling them a cab. You're just fooling yourself, pal. And they know it and I know it and Mom knows it and everybody but you gets it."

"Wanting the lady in question to spend the night rather than showing her the door once we've stopped sweating isn't a character flaw, Rake, though it's telling that you think it is."