Free Fag Hag (Robert Rodi Essentials) by Robert Rodi

kind of motivational gesture.”
    “This won’t take long, Mom.”
    “Well, I like that! You scarcely speak to me at the wedding, then days go by and I don’t hear from you, and when I finally do you don’t want to talk long. Honey, don’t you know what it means for a mother to see one of her children wedded? Didn’t you think to call me the next day to see how I was feeling, or at the very least to gossip about everyone’s outfit?”
    “I had a hangover! And if that’s how you felt, why didn’t you call me?”
    “I was far too disgraced by your behavior to do that. Honey, you spent the entire reception making a fool of yourself over that male model of yours.”
    “Peter’s not a fucking model, Mom.”
    “Language, Natalie.”
    “Well, what do you exp—”
    “Hush, I’m talking. Now, as I said, you scarcely spoke to me, you ignored your brother, you never welcomed Vera into the family, you nearly startled Aunt Lucy into an early grave by having Peter in the ladies’ room—”
    “Oh, for…”
    “… and you made poor Hank Bixby feel like an also-ran.”
    “He is an also-ran.”
    A brief pause. “You’re a very proud young lady, Natalie. Life will bring you down a peg, and don’t come crying to me when it does.”
    She sighed. “Can we please get back to the reason I called?”
    “By all means. Let’s do what Natalie wants. Natalie has decreed.”
    “Don’t make me hang up, Mom.”
    “‘Make’ you! Oh, of course. If you did something as rude as that, it’d be my fault, wouldn’t it?”
    “Mom,” she said determinedly, “at Peter’s table at the reception there was this guy, Lloyd Hood, who owns a gun shop. That’s why he was invited. He said he sold Calvin his first gun. Did you know he was into guns?”
    “If he is, it’s his own business, and all I can say is thank God he’s not having any children, then. A house full of firearms is no place for babies.”
    “So, you didn’t know about this gun thing he’s into?”
    “Calvin’s just like you, he never tells me anything.”
    “So he probably never mentioned this Lloyd guy, either.”
    “Not a word. You know your brother. What would you expect him to say? ‘Mother, I just bought some wonderfully destructive ordnance from my good friend, Lloyd the pistol merchant’? Not likely! If Calvin had his arms and legs amputated, I’d be the last to know about it. Even then I’d have to ask, ‘Darling, what happened to your limbs?’ And he’d treat me like I was intruding.”
    Natalie sighed. “You don’t happen to know his number in Hawaii, do you?”
    “I’m afraid not. Why do you want to go bothering him on his honeymoon?”
    “I just want to get the scoop on this Lloyd guy.”
    She brightened. “Are you interested in him?”
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mom. He’s a lunatic. He sells guns!”
    “So does Adnan Khashoggi. I wouldn’t mind if you married him.”
    “Ick. You’re weird.”
    “I have to go, honey. At any moment I expect the girls and—oh, did I tell you? We have a male member now, too!”
    “No way!”
    “Yes, Frederick Kelsey, who works with Doris Kuntz at her real-estate office.”
    “Not wildly anonymous, is it, your anonymous group.”
    “Apparently he spends all his commissions on jackets and shoes. Very flighty fellow; I think he might be—well, you know.”
    “No. Tell me.”
    “You know, a—a—” Silence.
    “Gay, Mom? You mean gay?”
    “Yes, that.”
    “So what?”
    “Oh, nothing, nothing, nothing. It’s just so hard for me to imagine. Men together, I mean. But Frederick is obviously no Clint Eastwood. You couldn’t ever imagine calling him ‘Fred.’ Terribly amusing, of course; keeps us all in stitches.”
    “How nice.”
    “Lives with his mother! Can you imagine?”
    “No,” said Natalie with too much oomph.
    “Was that sarcasm again? It does you no credit. You’d think I’d reared you in New York or someplace awful. Do you get it from television? Everyone on