Sweet Love by Strohmeyer Sarah

Author:Strohmeyer, Sarah [Strohmeyer, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2008-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The course of true love never did run smooth

—A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, ACT I, SCENE 1

“You’re kidding me. You don’t have even one air conditioner?”

“I can live with the heat, that’s not the problem. It’s my mother who can’t deal,” I tell him as we pull up to my house in his gorgeous silver BMW convertible, top down. “The doctor wouldn’t even let her come home tonight because we didn’t have A/C. So she had to stay at Lois’s.”

Michael says, “That’s it,” and starts up the car. “I’m going to get a couple of window units. She can’t live like this.”

“Don’t be crazy. Mom will be fine as soon as the weather breaks.”

He pays me no heed as we hook a left and head for the box stores. “Look, Julie. After all your mother did for me, the least I can do is install a couple of air conditioners—one for her, one for you. It’s not like your father can lift those things anymore.”

"But ...”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you and I know going to Home Depot isn’t the same as lobster on the dock, but have faith. I’m not entirely without charm. Let’s just take care of your mother first, and then I’ll take care of you.”

An hour later the BMW is crammed with not one, but three Frigidaires. One for Em’s bedroom, one for mine, and another for my parents, though I have my doubts. They’re weird about A/C.

“The Legionnaires ruined it for them,” I say, helping him haul the backbreaking unit up the steps of my parent’s apartment. “Remember that? A bunch of guys at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia developed pneumonia from contaminated hotel air-conditioning and overnight they had their own disease.”

“Lucky bastards.” He winces, taking most of the weight as we back through the house from Mom’s heavily upholstered living room done up in variations of dusty rose, through the colonial blue dining room with its matching dark mahogany furniture and polished silver tea sets, through the hallway with its fuzzy gold wallpaper and all our framed family photographs, and finally to her pristine white bedroom with its damask spread and maple headboard over which hangs a picture of a cherubic Jesus, hands clasped.

We drop the air conditioner by the window and immediately clutch our lower lumbars. Michael nods to the painting. “I could make a crack about that.”

“He’s either there to answer Dad’s prayers to get laid or Mom’s prayers not to.” I can’t believe I just said that. “Oh, my God. I made a crack about my parents’ sex life. I’m sorry.”

“Do yourself a favor, don’t think about it. If I did, I’d go nuts.”

He’s referring, of course, to his mother, who turned her bedroom into the big top, come one, come all. Fortysomething years old and I still haven’t learned to think before I speak. “Look . . . I didn’t mean.”

“Forget it.” He waves me off and goes to the window to pop out the screen. “By the way, when I told my mom you’d planned on coming today, a miracle occurred.

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