The Dysfunctional Affair

The Arrival

If there was any justice in the world, the mob would attack my house within the hour.  Unfortunately, I had never had that kind of luck.  They only attacked when I didn't want them to, never when it would have been helpful.

My mother was in her Sunday finest, despite it being Friday evening.  This meant a skirt suit worth more than my couch and hooker shoes.  I had no idea why she was obsessed with stiletto heels, considering she was in her sixties, but she never seemed to be without a pair.  The only purpose I could find for them was stabbing people if I needed a make-shift weapon. 

Her long nails were painted a bright purple with wavy lines in a lighter purple.  I didn't have a name for either shade of purple.  Nor did I understand how the wavy lines got put on.  Once, when I had been ten, my mother had taken me to get a manicure.  She'd picked yellow for the color, and it had lasted until we got home.  As soon as I got in the door, I had found the finger nail polish remover and scrubbed it off.  It had already started chipping anyway.  She had given up on making me a girly girl after that.  She didn't seem to understand that with four brothers, two older and two younger, it was hard to be a girly girl and not get picked on.

Zeke was on his way to get his mother from the airport.  Alex and Sebastian were forced to join us for this first meet and greet, since I needed body guards and Daniels' Security Agency was running low.  I couldn't keep up with business even when I wasn't in need of a personal guard.  I made a mental note to hire more staff.  There was no doubt that I would forget it within the hour.

"So, what do you know about Telisa?"  Melina asked me.

"Not a thing.  Until yesterday, I wouldn't have even been able to tell you if he had a mother," I hiccupped.  I was still a little hungover.  My dogs were sleeping it off.  I envied them.

"Nadine," my mother used that tone when saying my name.  "Don't be ridiculous.  Everyone has a mother."

"Alex doesn't," I pointed out. 

"Yes she does," my mother gave me a look that would have stopped me dead if a mother's stares worked that way.  While Alex did technically have a mother, she had never met her.  Her mother had run-off after giving birth.  Her father had gone back to Russia.  My parents had raised her after that.  All Alex and I knew about her mother was that she had been Russian born and married to my mother's brother, Boris.  "That was very insensitive of you," my mother leaned in to whisper, but as usual, my mother's whispers could be heard in outer space.  If NASA had really wanted to find life on other planets, they could just give my mother a megaphone and tell her to shout at the stars.  Of course, this would probably lead to an invasion, because my mother had a habit of being offensive without meaning to be. 

"Are you going deaf?"  I asked her.  "When you whisper, people in the next house over can hear you."

"I absolutely am not losing my hearing, Nadine Daniels."  My mother huffed at me.  "And I will thank you to keep your offensive remarks to yourself.  Never would I have talked to my mother in such a way."  This was probably true.  My family was like most Russian families, the women were in charge.  While society as a whole was patriarchal, there was this mythology built around females that kept them from being second class citizens.  In some ways, they had far more power, skills and good old fashioned determination, than any Russian male could ever hope to achieve.  The difference between my family and other Russian families was that my family seemed to have a double-dose of female willpower.  If one wanted proof, they need look no further than my great-aunt Olga.

"So, what are the bridesmaids wearing?"  Alex asked.  I gave her my own version of my mother's deadly glare.  My mother instantly became personable again.  It was hard to trust someone who had mood swings and wore hooker heels.  In the years since my father's death, my mother had changed, a lot.  During my youth, I would never have seen her in such high heels, she wore more sensible shoes.  She dressed nicely, but conservatively.  Sometimes I wondered if she was advertising the fact that she was single, or if this was the real her and she had just stifled it while married.