Page 73 of Mr. Big Shot

My mom guffaws with a laugh and a teasing smile. “Mrs. Rhodes?! What am I, 80? You can call me Renee.”

“Mom, this is Scarlett, and you can let go of her now.”

“Oh hush, you.” My mom loops her arm around Scarlett and scoops her inside. I’m left, forgotten, on the front porch.

“Happy birthday, Mom!” I add with dry sarcasm.

Again, no one pays me any attention. I could leave them and go get a Starbucks if I wanted. Wouldn’t matter.

“Scarlett,” my mom says with an admiring tone. “That is such a gorgeous name.”

“Thank you, it’s a family name. Scarlett was my grandmother on my mother’s side.”

My mom lays a hand over her heart like she’s completely enchanted by this information.

“You named me after your dad,” I point out.

Crickets.

In the foyer, my mom takes the presents out of Scarlett’s arms and dumps them in mine. “Are you hungry, Scarlett? Here, come in the kitchen and I’ll make you whatever you want.”

Scarlett laughs as she follows after her. “It’s your birthday—I should be making you something to eat!”

“No, no, come on.”

She bands her arm around Scarlett’s shoulders and starts to lead her down the hall, but Scarlett stops abruptly in front of the landscape painting that has hung there in the same spot since I was a child. If I lifted the frame, I’m sure the paint behind it would be three shades lighter than the surrounding wall. It was the first piece my mom ever did, a lot moodier than the ones she paints now.

Painting has always been her hobby of choice. And though she’s never listened to my sister and me when we tell her how talented she is, how much people love her work, she did relent and let me commission a dozen pieces for my corner of the Elwood Hoyt offices.

“Oh, these are just like the ones Hudson has at work,” Scarlett notes. “I love them.”

My mom looks taken aback for a moment. “Oh.” Then she laughs. “They’re nothing. Little abstracts.”

“Did you…” Scarlett turns to her with nothing short of awe. “Are these yours?”

A shake of her head, a bashful little laugh. My mom is so used to slithering her way out of a compliment about her art, but Scarlett won’t let her.

“I love them, truly.”

She nods, taking it in. “Well thank you. I do like this one in particular.”

“You’ll have to show me any others you have around the house,” Scarlett insists before continuing on into the kitchen.

Before she follows, my mom looks at me over her shoulder and gives me an emphatic thumbs-up when Scarlett isn’t looking.

For the record, I do try to go into the kitchen to join in their conversation, but my mom makes it clear she wants one-on-one time with Scarlett. “Hudson, can you go see why that toilet in the hall upstairs won’t flush?”

Sure.

Then, “Also, there’re some flowers outside that need water, I bet.”

Surprised she didn’t say, And you might as well mow the grass while you’re out there.

My sister, Corinne, arrives thirty minutes late with a cacophony of screaming children and a slew of apologies. “It took us forever to get on the road and then my gas light came on, and then Wren had a blowout that almost got all over her car seat.” She suddenly grips her baby bump. “Holy shhhh—if I don’t make it to a bathroom in the next five seconds, I’m going to pee all over Mom’s floor.”

I point up. “Upstairs hall bathroom is working again.”

“Oh thank god.”

---