The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag 00 - Skeletons in the Closet

idea of home and hearth was “positively primitive”.
    “How are you, Laura?” I kept my voice low and steady because Neil had advised me time and again to show no fear. His mother could smell weakness, even over AT&T.
    “Terrible dear, simply dreadful. I have this baboon’s ass of a CEO trying to tell me how to do my job. It’s bad enough that he thinks he knows how to manage a business and runs the company into the red on a quarterly basis, and then he argues with me over a leveraged buyout, which is, in fact, his only hope of staving off bankruptcy. I wish I could let loose and tell him exactly what an imbecile he is, but he’s been dumping truckloads of money into the firm and he’s the son of one of our other long-standing clients. He’s incompetent. I know it, his father knows it, and the stockholders know it. But you can’t say anything, because he’d take offense. I think I’ll clip out a help wanted ad for the convenience store down the street and mail it to him. Maybe he’ll take the hint.”
    I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut. Laura didn’t need a response.
    “Anyhow, I’m calling because that idiot contractor is taking his sweet time, and the house looks like a third world country, plaster and sawdust everywhere. He promised the renovations would be finished early next week, but we’ve run into problems with the electrician, and I had to fire him. So we’ll be having Thanksgiving dinner at your house.”
    “What?” I staggered out the front door and sat down hard on the porch with my back against the railing.
    “I know it is last minute, but I’m sure you’re up for the challenge.”
    Thanksgiving was ten days away. I looked over at the doormat, deciding I knew how it felt.
    “Now, Ralph and I will be there of course, along with two of our regulars and a potential client who is going through a nasty divorce. Ralph thinks we can garner some good will by inviting him. I’m not so sure, he’s quite the hard ass.”
    Talk about the pot and the kettle.
    “I’ll be faxing Neil the menu and instructions for place settings and a time table. It’s imperative that you stick to the schedule; hungry businessmen are notoriously hard to deal with.”
    Neil parked our blue Ford Escort in the driveway. He climbed from behind the wheel and retrieved his gym bag from the back seat. A frown marred his perfect features as he sat next to me. My eyes rolled up in my head, and I leaned against him. He was so much sturdier than the railing. Laura still prattled away about the importance of homemade pie in business dealings, which I found laughable since her idea of homemade was to have her housekeeper, Leopold, prepare said pie.
    Neil’s iridescent hazel gaze searched my face. “My mother?” he mouthed.
    I nodded. Without another word, he took the phone from my hand.
    “Mom? Hi. Sorry to cut you off, but Maggie and I have an important appointment and we have to get going.” He nodded and said a few cursory salutations before hanging up.
    “An important appointment?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “It’s the one thing she’s sure to understand. So what’s she done now?”
    “I’ve been assigned the task of preparing and hosting Thanksgiving dinner.”
    “You always make Thanksgiving dinner.” Point to the sexy man. For the past nine years, I’ve had to prepare Thanksgiving for Neil, Josh, Kenny, and whatever ragtag bunch of wayward SEALs were hanging around. Cooking for a crowd was nothing new for me, but in this case, more was certainly not merrier.
    “I have to follow her menu, her timetable, and her seating chart.”
    “You could have refused,” Neil pointed out.
    I looked at him. “I can’t say no to your mother.” Bigger and better people have tried to say no to Laura Phillips.
    “You can’t say no to anyone.” Neil smirked, and I stifled the urge to smack his handsome face. “Face it, Uncle Scrooge, you’re a pushover.”
    He was right, but I’d rather stick the car keys in my eye than admit it. “We can’t all be fearless Navy SEALs.”
    “Former SEAL, current fearless Intel electronics technician.” No regret in his gaze, much to my relief. It had taken over a year for Neil to accept that his torn rotator cuff injury had ended his career with the SEAL teams. He could have taught—instructing the men who would then go out into the real world and slink through the night, setting bombs and rescuing hostages while he sat behind a desk—but Neil