Shame on Me

CHAPTER 13

I immediately pull back from Matt as my mother shoulders past us into my condo. “Do you have any Tums? My indigestion is flaring up.”

Matt laughs behind me and my mother shoots him a dirty look. He immediately stops laughing and clears his throat.

“Who is this yahoo, and why is he standing in your doorway? Did you stand him up for one night—is that what this is?” she demands.

“It’s ‘one-night stand,’ Mom, and no. This is my friend Matt. Matt, this is my mother, Margaret McCarty.”

Matt moves around me and extends his hand out to her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. McCarty.”

My mother crosses her arms in front of her and glares at Matt. “It’s Miss, not Mrs. Are you one of the people who takes indecent pictures of my daughter?”

Here we go again.

I sigh as Matt slowly brings his arm back down to his side when he sees my mother has no intention of shaking his hand. “No, Mom. He’s not a photographer. And once again, they aren’t indecent pictures.”

“I saw your tush in the one you did for that Maximum magazine. Everyone in my needlepoint club saw your tush,” she complains.

“It’s called Maxim, Mom. And what were you doing reading Maxim magazine anyway?”

My mother shrugs and digs in her purse, finding a package of Kleenex and pulling one out. “I read it for the articles.”

Matt chuckles while my mother blows her nose, her eyes zeroing in on the bag still draped over my shoulder.

“Are you going somewhere?” she asks, crumpling up the Kleenex and shoving it back into her purse.

“Actually, yes. I was just heading out to do some work when Matt showed up.”

My mom purses her lips and crosses her arms over her chest again. “Are you doing nudie pictures again? No, don’t tell me. I want to make sure I show enough shock on my face when Eunice and Fran tell me they saw your bump-bump at the supermarket checkout next to Good Housekeeping.”

“Mom, I’m not doing nudie pictures or any pictures of any kind. I told you, I retired. I work full time at the private investigation firm,” I remind her.

“I don’t want to talk about your work as a prostitute.”

Why do I bother . . .

“Uh, is there something else you want to tell me?” Matt whispers in my ear.

“I am not a prostitute!” I raise my voice to bring my point home.

“You kiss a bunch of men and get paid to do it,” she reminds me.

“I’m an investigator, Mom. I’m paid to catch men who cheat on their wives.”

My mother turns her angry glare to Matt and walks toward him. “Has my daughter kissed you?”

Matt’s eyes widen in fear. He looks from my mother to me.

“Mom, cut it out.”

“I’m going to take that as a ‘yes,’” she tells Matt, completely ignoring my warning. “So you’re a cheater. You don’t look like a cheater. Andy looked like a cheater. I told Paige she should have never married that good-for-nothing.”

“Matt is NOT a cheater, Mom. Matt is a good guy, so leave him alone. I really need to get going. I have work to do. Why don’t I stop by next weekend for dinner?”

I slide my hand around her arm and gently steer her toward the door.

“I’ve got my bridge club next weekend, and Fran is making her Jell-O salad. I can’t miss Fran’s Jell-O salad. I’ll just come with you to work.”

I stop in my tracks and stare down at her. “You can’t come to work with me. I’m going on a stakeout. It could be dangerous.”

Yeah, not really. All I plan on doing is parking my car a block away from Vinnie DeMarco’s house to see if Melanie makes an appearance. The most dangerous thing that will happen is not being able to say no to the ice cream truck when it drives by ten times.

My mother reaches her hand into her purse and this time, instead of a Kleenex, her hand comes back out with a revolver.

“JESUS CHRIST, MOM!”

“HOLY SHIT!”

Matt and I shout at the same time as we dive for the floor while she waves the gun around.

“Oh, for the love of Saint Patrick, will you get up off the ground? It’s not even loaded. The bullets are in my glove box,” Mom says with a roll of her eyes.

“What the hell are you doing with a gun?!” I screech at her from my position on the floor, flat on my stomach with my hands still covering my head.

“The church was broken into again two days ago during our Altar and Rosary meeting. They took the Communion hosts for the next few years this time,” she explains. “We think it was Father John from Holy Cross because he plays poker every week with Father Bob, and Father Bob keeps winning. Father John is a sore loser. Anyway, it’s a dangerous world out there when someone starts stealing Communion. Eunice and I went up to the gun shop and got ourselves some protection. Get up off the floor. I can’t talk to you down there.”

I stare up at her as she points the gun at me while she speaks.

“Could you please aim the gun elsewhere?” I mutter.

My mother sighs in irritation and lowers her arm. Matt pushes himself up off the floor when he sees it’s safe to do so, reaches down, and pulls me up next to him. “What exactly is this stakeout you speak of?”

Brushing myself off, I stare at Matt’s ass as he turns away from me, bends over, and picks up my bag that fell to the ground during my dive to safety.

He really has a great ass.

My eyes flick away guiltily as he turns around and smirks at me.

“I found out where Vinnie DeMarco lives. I’m going to park down the street and see if Melanie shows up.”

Matt stares at me in shock. “Wait, you’ve still been working on this even after everything that happened?”

I shrug. “Well, yeah. It’s not fair, what she’s doing to you. I couldn’t just let that go.”

He has a really good poker face right now and doesn’t give away anything that he’s thinking. I hope this goes a little way toward proving to him that he can trust me.

“I’m coming with you.”

It’s not even a question. He just tells me what he’s going to do. With my sense of independence since I kicked Andy’s ass to the curb, I don’t take too kindly to people telling me what to do. Matt leans in close to me and brushes a lock of hair off of my cheek. “If that’s okay with you.”

Son of a bitch.

A gun with an arm attached to it suddenly shoves its way between our bodies. “Save room for the Holy Ghost. Let’s get a move on. I need to get some food in my stomach so I can take my arthritis medication.”

My mom pushes her way between the two of us and walks out into the sunshine.

I grudgingly follow behind her, leading the way for Matt to follow. I close and lock the door behind us and slide my hand into his as we walk down the front steps toward the parking lot, where my mother is already tapping her foot next to the passenger-side door.

I can’t help being a little embarrassed. This whole thing with Matt didn’t exactly start off under great circumstances, and now I’m dragging him out for an afternoon with my insane mother. Even if I did still believe in fairy tales and happily ever after, I’d have to light that romantic notion on fire at this point. I’m a little shocked he didn’t crash through the front door like a cartoon character as soon as she pulled her gun from her bag.

“If this is too weird for you, you don’t have to come with us,” I tell him, stopping far enough away from my car so my mother doesn’t hear us.

“I’m not going to lie—this is all a little crazy right now. I like you. A lot. And that scares the shit out of me because I don’t know if I can trust you. You’re going out on a limb to help me and I don’t know if it’s because you have feelings for me or you just feel guilty.”

When I open my mouth to tell him it has absolutely nothing to do with guilt and everything to do with how I feel about him, he holds a hand up to stop me.

“Don’t. Just . . . not yet. I’m not trying to be mean or ungrateful for what you’re doing. I just need time for my brain to process everything,” he admits.

I put on my big-girl panties and nod at him, not letting his words cut a hole in my heart. I know what he’s going through. I know what it’s like to lose your trust in someone and struggle to find it again. I just never thought I would be the one someone didn’t trust. At least he still thinks about kissing me, so there’s that.

“Well, a stakeout in my VW Bug with my seventy-year-old, gun-toting, arthritic mother sounds like a great way for you to start processing things, doesn’t it?” I ask dryly.

“As long as you don’t leave me alone with Margaret and her gun, I think this will be a good start.” Matt smiles at me as I hit the button on my key chain to unlock the doors to my car.