When she had finally arranged the display according to the draft layout, he'd applauded loudly, and pressed his face against the glass, inviting her to coffee at the top of his lungs. She'd shaken her head disdainfully, all too aware of the delighted spectators. Steve had made a pantomine of a breaking heart, much like the male figure which she had just edged into a slightly more esthetic angle. Then Steve had dropped to one knee, in full sight of the amused audience. Horrified, Mirelle had motioned him frantically to get up and go away. To her surprise he did so, shoulders drooping, expression lugubrious with rejection. He'd been so funny. However, as she stepped out of the window in the store proper, there was Steve, leaning against the wall, grinning at his deceit.
She had absolutely no intention of doing more than drink a cup of coffee with him, but he'd left with her name and phone number. She had had no idea, either, of getting serious about anyone. She'd planned her life. She was going to amount to something. Marriage had stifled her mother's career. Marriage was not going to have a chance to ruin hers. Yes, Mirelle had had many plans, and not one of them included a phenomenon like Steven Martin. A year later they were married. While Steve went to college, Mirelle worked. She was five months pregnant with Roman when Steve, overwhelmed by his new responsibilities, took a job in his home-town.
Then things started to fall apart, reflected Mirelle. All in the name of mother-love.
Her previous contacts with Steve's family had been mercifully short, confined to long weekends when everyone had been delighted to meet Steve's stunning, if foreign-looking, wife who was so good about working to help Steve get his degree. There had been slight doubts whether or not Mirelle should have got pregnant so soon, 'with so many modern theories about', as Mother Martin sweetly put it. The crowning blow had been her inheritance and that had torn down the veil of hypocrisy. Mirelle was sourly informed that she had 'stolen' Steve away from Nancy Lou Randolph, (whose father owned the largest hardware store in town), who was everything a wife for a young up-and-coming salesman could be (particularly one who would work in papa's store).
Steve, insecure enough and wanting his parents' approval, had not known how to deal with his mother's un expected reversals and accusations. He had been proud of Mirelle: viewed his imminent fatherhood as the outward display of his other achievements, and now Mirelle had brought shame on him and his family. He had tried to defend his wife at first, but his mother's strong personality, her infallible belief in her own judgments, and a long habit of obedience made him a poor advocate for Mirelle.
The estrangement that followed had not been all Steve's fault. Mirelle could see that now. Because of the guilt which she'd always been made to feel over her irregular birth in the Barthan-More nursery, Mirelle had acquiesced at just the time when she should have continued to fight. In the first place, she'd been stunned by the bequest, since she'd never had any communication with Lajos Neagu, though Mary Murphy had told her that he knew of her birth. She was sick with her first pregnancy and bitterly hurt by her parents-in-law's violent reaction to the 'notoriety'. Mirelle never did think that there'd been any more than the natural curiosity of people when they heard of someone inheriting money. The way Mother Martin had carried on suggested that Mirelle was going to be forced to wear a scarlet letter, or run out of Allentown on a rail.
Well, such thoughts were not clearing the breakfast table. Mirelle ruefully reflected that yesterday's lovely mood was completely dissipated. "Had I felt like that today, I'd've overthrown the shadows of five mothers-in-law," she muttered as she rose.
"Mothers-in-law?" asked Sylvia, whirling in the door. "Oh, you are lazy today. I expected to find you elbow deep in someone's head."
"No, I'm recovering from the shock of hearing that my in-laws arrive on the 10th."
"Eeek! What vile timing. And if your mother-in-law is anything like my mother… Really, I can't blame G.F.," Sylvia rattled on as she helped Mirelle stack the dishes. "Oh, dear," and she nearly dropped the cups she had just nested. "She's the one who doesn't want you artistic?"
Mirelle nodded, grimacing.
"And she'll be here during the Bazaar?" Sylvia made an unhappy sound against her teeth. "Well, coffee is indicated and we'll kick this around a little."
"I know what I'd like to kick around."
"Naughty, naughty. Respect for the aged and decrepit, please. We will take steps. Yes. We will plan a campaign. Say, what was Steve's reaction to the impending invasion?"
"Well," and Mirelle could feel herself blushing as memories of the previous night's bedgames came to mind.
"That's using your head, gal," Sylvia said with a bawdy laugh. "You're one up on his mother right there."
"Sylvia, don't be so earthy."
"Why not? It gets me somewhere. At any rate, Mirelle, what was his reaction? To his mother's coming, I mean."
Mirelle explained.
"You said 'in-laws'. What about papa?"
"Oh, Dad Martin is very nice but he gave up struggling against Marian years ago."
"Course of least resistance? Did he take part in holding the bar sinister over your head?"
"No," Mirelle grudgingly admitted. On the other hand, Dad Martin hadn't said anything or done anything, just stood there in the dining room on the night of the worst vituperation, listening to his wife and daughter-in-law.
"This will be my Cause for December," said Sylvia, rubbing her hands together. "I've given up putting Christ back into Christmas. They were displaying Christmas wrappings in the drug store before Hallowe'en. That's the end!"
"Sylvia, I don't want you to do anything…" Mirelle stopped abruptly.
"Now, my dear, have you ever known me to do anything?" Sylvia began, all charm and guile.
"Yes."
"All right, all right. Look, I promise I'll be very circumspect but play along with me."
"Only if you tell me what you plan to do."
Sylvia regarded her with a deceptively innocent expression. " 'There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, and every single one of them is right.' If I may quote Kipling?"
"Not in front of my mother-in-law. She's reactionary."
"I don't doubt it. Look, I can't stay any longer this morning. I've got an endless boring organizational meeting. Are you going to get in any work at all today?"
"No, I think I'll take the day off and get squared away for the coming invasion."
Sylvia dashed off, leaving Mirelle feeling not only slightly breathless but considerably dubious about any confrontation between her good friend and her bad mother-in-law. However, Sylvia's visit had dispelled the last of the nightmare's gloom, and Mirelle finished the necessary tidying. She took down the curtains in the boys' rooms to be cleaned for the state visit. She dropped them off in the dry cleaners on her way into town to the one fish market that she trusted and ran into a traffic jam. She took the first side street and drove back ways until she got out to the highway again.
Seeing that her route would not take her near Jamie's, she deflected to swing by and see how effective the sickpig was. She turned into a wooded area on a short leg of the triangle to Howell's house when she noticed a white Cadillac parked in a turn-off. She got a flash of two heads through the back window, kissing close. It wasn't until she was in Howell's driveway that she realized why the car had been familiar. It had been G.F. in that car, and the woman's head had not been Sylvia's. Mirelle slammed on the brakes in unaccustomed violence.