Eat, Drink and Be Wary by Tamar Myers Page A

rebel."
     
     
Rebel? Do thirty-five-year-olds rebel? Perhaps Gladys was a rebel, but that is not a word I'd used to describe my sister. Any woman who has been married and divorced, and served more men than McDonald's, is not rebelling, she's indulging. Yes, I know, that makes me a codependent, because I allow her to use the inn as a home base, an I give her money from time to time. But what choice do I have?
     
     
"Only one of my kids ever gave me trouble," Alma said.
     
     
She had a matter-of-fact way of speaking that didn't invite questions. I questioned, nonetheless. She didn't have to answer, if she didn't want.
     
     
"What kind of trouble, dear?"
     
     
Alma looked down at her plate. "That was before Ed died. Ed was my husband. He was always hard on the kids. Made them act out, like they say. Anyway, Gary took a car that didn't belong to him."
     
     
"You mean, he stole it."
     
     
"Yes, but he was only fourteen. The slate was wiped clean when he turned eighteen."
     
     
I patted her arm. "That's nothing, dear. My sister's slate is white with chalk dust."
     
     
She sighed. "Okay, so maybe that's not all he did. But holding up that gas station was his girlfriend's idea. And Tiffany's the one who shot the clerk."
     
     
I will confess to an intermittent mean streak. "So, Mr. Dolby, can your daughter top that?"
     
     
"What can be worse than a daughter deserting her father?"
     
     
A father deserting his daughter, I said to myself. I still have not forgiven Papa for dying in that tunnel, squished between a milk tanker and a load of Adidas shoes. Neither has Susannah. Sometimes, however, I think my sister is more upset that the shoes weren't Nike than that Papa perished.
     
     
Alma reached for the ranch, full-fat salad dressing. "In what way has your daughter deserted you?" she asked.
     
     
Gordon Dolby stiffened. "Well, uh - "
     
     
"Go ahead, dear," I said with a smile of encouragement. "Mrs. Cornwater and I are both parents - so to speak. We will certainly understand."
     
     
Alma nodded, her glasses held snugly in place with an index finger.
     
     
"She wants to move out," he said, his voice barely a whisper.
     
     
"Please pass the ranch," someone at the other end of the table called in a loud voice.
     
     
"Will the farm do?" someone else said.
     
     
There was the expected twittering that, I'm proud to say, I ignored. The fact that I tossed the bottle down to the other end of the table was only partly due to the distance it had to travel.
     
     
"Is that really so bad?" I asked Gordon Dolby. Susannah has moved out several times, and each time I danced for joy. Believe me, that's saying a lot for a woman whose religion not only frowns on dancing, but forbids performing the sex act in a standing position, lest it lead to dancing.
     
     
"She's all that I have," he said to his plate.
     
     
Alma stabbed at her salad. "Where does she want to go?"
     
     
"Albuquerque."
     
     
"New Mexico?" I asked stupidly.
     
     
"That's the place. She's never been farther away from home than Washington, D.C., and now suddenly she wants to move to a foreign country. I don't suppose you could talk her out of it?"
     
     
"New Mexico is a state, dear," I said kindly. You'd be surprised how many people, even well-educated folks - i.e. my guests - are unsure on that score. Of course there is no excuse for such ignorance. I learned all forty-eight state capitals, and so can they. But, in their defense, naming a state after a neighboring country is a little confusing. And why, for crying out loud, are there two Dakotas? Why not, in the spirit of New Mexico, rename North Dakota and call it New Canada?
     
     
"Just the same," Gordon Dolby said, "a daughter's place is in the home. She's never been married, you know, and her mother's been dead since she was three. We're all each other has."
     
     
"Maybe she wants more," I said.
     
     
Alma nodded.
     
     
Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done one