God give me patience. “I’m trying to spare everyone some unnecessary awkwardness.”
“Awkwardness?” She blinks like she doesn’t know the word.
I’m not fooled. I’ve never forgotten how she and Dad embarrassed me in front of my first girlfriend in Geneva.
For some reason—although in retrospect, I suspect they had a spat behind my back—they insisted on meeting her at the same time. I didn’t want to introduce Chantel, but she was a nice girl and said she wouldn’t mind if my parents really wanted to meet her.
I warned them to behave like normal human beings. Chantel didn’t grow up like my brothers and I did. She was from a good family, with sane parents. Her father was a highly respected dean at the Sorbonne.
But no. My parents couldn’t feign normalcy or decency for even a second. After saying hello to Chantel, they started to insult each other. When that failed to make them appear sufficiently deranged, they started to drag each other’s significant others into the mix. And the worst of it was that they both demanded that Chantel pick a side.
It was humiliating. Awful. Chantel dumped me immediately. Said she could never be with somebody she couldn’t respect. Guilty by association was the verdict.
Unfair, but I honestly couldn’t blame her.
And she wasn’t the only girlfriend who left after being treated to the Lasker Parent Shitshow. I’ve had others.
“Now, Mother. You know you’re too beautiful to be sitting here in a hotel lobby by yourself.” Anything to steer Mom’s attention away from this terrifying desire to see Sierra. “Where’s your boyfriend?”