“I’ll ask him,” I say.
Dad rises from the table, heading to the garage to deal with the breaker situation, and I take a seat across from Mom.
“How was Fiji?” I ask her. Those two are always globe-trotting, and ever since I left home a few years back, they’ve been acting like a couple of twenty year olds going on honeymoons every other week.
Not that I try to think about it, but I’m sure there’s a reason I’m never invited to tag along on these little excursions.
That said, I think it’s pretty incredible that their love has stood the test of time. The divorce rate in this area is something like seventy-two percent, but these two have only ever had eyes for each other.
I can only hope to be as lucky in love as they are someday.
“Fiji was a dream,” Mom says, her eyes rolling back as she clasps her hands. “Oh, sweetheart, you should’ve seen how clear the water is. You can see all the fish and everything. Even got your father to snorkel for the first time.”
The kitchen lights flicker and the clock on the wall oven starts to flash. A moment later, Dad returns and tries not to act annoyed. But I don’t blame him … this happens every Sunday when Gram has every kitchen appliance in her house running at the same time as she whips up her elaborate feasts.
“Where are Maritza and Isaiah?” Dad asks, taking a seat next to Mom. “Thought I’d see them today. Wanted to talk to Isaiah about my nine-eleven.”
Mom swats her hand, and the stack of gold bangles on her wrist clink. “You’re never going to get around to restoring that old thing. It’s been sitting in storage since Melrose was twelve.”
My mother is a lover of all things shiny and new. My father loves his wife, his daughter, and anything that reminds him of his happy childhood—which includes that Porsche, which is a replica of the one Granddad had when Dad was younger.
“Someday, Bits,” Dad says, giving her a wink. “Someday soon we’ll be cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in Janine.”
“You named it?” I chuckle.
Mom rolls her eyes, fighting a laugh. “Of course he did. Your father names everything.”
Dad grins and I think about his dorky penchant for naming squirrels that scamper into their yard, neighborhood free-roaming cats, and every car, truck, and motorcycle he’s ever owned. He was the one who named me Melrose—and it was only because he met my mother on the set of Melrose Place, where he was a production assistant and she was working in the hair and makeup department.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her teased blonde mane and cutesy Southern twang.
She lit up the room, he always says.
“Maritza and Isaiah seem to be getting pretty serious,” Mom says, studying me. “Always thought you’d be the one to settle down first.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
Mom shrugs. “I don’t know. You’re older than she is, and you’ve always done everything first.”
“By a year, Mom. Older by a year,” I say. “Anyway, nobody gets married in their early twenties anymore, Mom.”
“I always see how googly-eyed those two are all the time, and I want that for you,” she says, offering a bittersweet smile, like she feels sorry for me and she’s offering me her sympathies. “Can’t remember the last time you brought a boy around.”
Neither can I.
And it isn’t by accident.
My parents are a bit … California-weird. If that’s even a thing. Mom is a Southern transplant who wears her Georgian accent loud and proud. Big hair, big lashes, big personality. Every once in a while, she’ll work her psychic friend, Miss Starla, into the conversation and by the end of it, she’s convinced whoever she’s talking to that they probably had a past life too. Dad is … Dad. A dead ringer for Kevin Costner, he thinks it’s hilarious anytime someone asks him for a picture or an autograph and he almost always goes along with it. Dad, too, believes in psychics, and Mom has him convinced they were forbidden lovers in a past life and this is why their love is so robust in this life—they can finally be together.
I try not to roll my eyes when they wax poetic about their previous lives, which they’ve both supposedly accessed via extremely expensive hypnotherapy sessions from some world-renowned guru in the mystic red mountains of Sedona.
Anyway, between the psychic stuff and their obsessions with crystals and essential oils, they’re good people. Just a lot to throw at somebody if I’m not serious about them, so I don’t ever subject them to the circus sideshow that is Bitsy and Rand Claiborne.
Two different timers chime in the kitchen, and Mom heads over to help Gram, who insists she doesn’t need her assistance. Same old song and dance.