Page 83 of Clinically Bewitched
“No, Stevie.” His ice-blue eyes were fixed on Mr. and Mrs. Darcy. “I’ve been sitting here for the past hour listening toyou two talk down to my wife, to my daughter, tome, with your polite smiles and your condescending questions and your absolute certainty that you’re better than us because you wear expensive clothes and eat at fancy restaurants and have the ‘right’ kind of careers.”
“I don’t think—” Mr. Darcy started.
“I’m not finished.” My dad’s voice was still quiet, but it cut through the restaurant like a blade. “You look at us and you see hippies. Free spirits. People who don’t understand the ‘real world’ because we talk about energy and the universe and spiritual connection. You think we’re naïve. Foolish. Beneath you.”
Mrs. Darcy’s face had gone pale.
Julien looked like he’d stopped breathing.
Vivian was watching with wide eyes, her wine glass frozen halfway to her lips.
“But here’s the thing about looks,” my dad continued, leaning forward slightly. “They can beverydeceiving.”
He reached into his pocket, his khaki shorts pocket, which somehow made this even more surreal, and pulled out a business card.
Then he slid it across the table to Mr. Darcy.
“Woodlawn Malpas,” he said. “Owner and CEO of Malpas Shipping. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? We’re a billion-dollar Greek shipping company. We operate in forty-three countries. We employ over fifteen thousand people. My family built the company from the ground up, and I now own it while still maintaining my spiritual practices and my connection to the universe and my belief that there’s more to life than money and status.”
The silence was deafening.
Mr. Darcy stared at the business card like it might bite him.
Mrs. Darcy’s mouth had fallen open.
Julien made a sound that might have been a whimper.
“So when you sit there,” my dad continued, his voice still deadly quiet, “and imply that my wife and I are somehow less than you because we choose to live differently, because we value spiritual connection over social climbing, because we wear comfortable clothes instead of designer labels, I want you to understand something very clearly.”
He leaned in closer.
“I could buy this restaurant. I could buy the entire block. I could probably buy your country club and turn it into a meditation retreat if I wanted to. But I don’t. Because that’s not what matters to me. What matters is love. And my family. And raising a daughter who sees the beauty in the world instead of just the profit margins.”
He straightened up.
“And I will not,will not,sit here and let you treat her, or my wife, or anyone else at this table with anything less than the respect they deserve.”
My mom stood up then, her jewelry jingling softly in the stunned silence.
She was smiling.
Not her usual warm, open smile.
Something sharper.
Something that reminded me that my mother, for all her flowing skirts and crystal necklaces and talk of energy healing, was also one of the most brilliant people I had ever known.
“And while we’re clearing up misconceptions,” she said, her voice honey-sweet, “I should probably mention that I hold three doctorates. One in molecular biology from Stanford. One in neuroscience from Johns Hopkins. And one in pharmacology from Cambridge.”
The world tilted.
Julien’s wineglass, which he’d been raising to his lips, jerked violently.
Wine sprayed across the table.
Across the white tablecloth.
Across his mother’s shocked, mortified face.
