“Trevor! That baby is not calling me Nan, or nanna or grandma. He or she can call me Daisy, like everybody else.”
Twitch giggled at the image of a little toddler calling her mother by her first name. God, she loved her parents. They were quirky and irreverent and lived how they liked. Most things about them raised the eyebrows of their stodgy neighbors, but they didn’t care. She wished she had a tenth of the self-possession of either one of her parents.
“Now, all this baby talk is taking the spotlight off your father, and you know how he hates that,” Daisy continued. “The big birthday is in a month, and I expect you home for the festivities.”
“Cancel it. I’m not turning fecking eighty,” her father muttered.
“I’m not canceling. You don’t have to turn eighty if you don’t want to, but there is that other thing to celebrate.” A sly smile crept across her mother’s face.
Twitch grinned. Her father had the lifestyle and vim of a much younger man. He’d also had some expensive plastic surgery to maintain the image. Her mother joked that he had always acted twenty years younger than his chronological age. When he was twenty-five, he behaved like a toddler, at thirty-five, like a teenager. Thank God I met him when he was in his fifties.
At her mother’s mention of the “other thing,” Twitch swore she saw her father blush through the screen. “Dad?”
“You tell her.” Her father spoke softly to his wife.
Daisy Devlin beamed. “Your father is being knighted.”
“What?” Twitch leapt off the stool.
“Ain’t that a pisser. Reckon I’ve made quite a contribution to society—drugs and venereal diseases aside. I bought a suit of armor at an auction last week. I’m going to wear it to the ceremony. Picture it, Ginger Biscuit: your old man clanking and banging down the red carpet in full armor. It even has a sword.”
“You’re not wearing that tin can. Ever.” Daisy Devlin laid down the law.
A knock on her kitchen door had Twitch looking across the room. “Hello? Twitch?” Calliope poked her head in and extended the bottle of wine she held.
“Come on in.” She waved her friend in and turned back to her phone screen. “I have to go, but I’ll talk to you soon. I love you guys.”
“We love you too. I’ll be down for a shopping trip soon. You’re going to need a mountain of stuff,” her mother commented.
“Okay, bye.” Twitch ended the call before her last word was out.
“Why do you need a mountain of stuff?” Calliope asked as she set the wine down on the kitchen island and searched the drawers for a corkscrew.
Twitch busied herself eating a cracker. She was comfortable keeping her news a secret, but openly lying was another matter. “New house. My mother is an obsessive decorator.”
“Oh, right.” Calliope muscled the cork out of the bottle and poured herself a generous glass. “Didn’t you mention she had a design business for a while?”
“Yes, when I was little. She was pretty well known and got a lot of business.”
“Pretty well known? I only watched Almost There in reruns, but I have all six seasons saved in my DVR. Your mom rocked on that show.”
“She did rock,” Twitch agreed. “She does rock.”
Twitch’s mom was an actress who landed a role on a hit sitcom in the nineties. She’d played the gorgeous neighbor that all three of the main characters had a crush on. When the program wrapped, Daisy Devlin quietly retired from show business, saying only that the experience had been wonderful, but she was pursuing other passions.
What no one had known at the time was that the “other passion” was Twitch’s dad. Trevor Roy had met Daisy Devlin at a Hollywood party, and, as he put it, he finally understood what all those vomitous love songs were about. He had pursued Daisy with embarrassing persistence. Halfway through her show’s final season, Daisy had become pregnant, and Trevor vowed to settle down, a vow that, as it turned out, he couldn’t keep.
After a very rocky road, they had married in secret in Las Vegas when Twitch was seven and moved to the New York suburbs. After dealing with his issues, Trevor was able to stay true to his word and was a loyal and devoted husband and father, but he also stayed true to his roots. As a result, Charlotte had a most colorful upbringing.
“Oh, before I forget, Tox and I are both going to be away at the end of the month on separate assignments. Can your dog-daughter come stay with you?”
Twitch was taken aback for a moment. Daughter.
“Twitch? If it’s a problem, Emily says the kennel the vet runs is great,” Calliope said.
“No, no. Of course, Coco can come for a visit. I love having her.”
“You okay?” Calliope asked.