Silken knitted her brow and pushed out her bottom lip then drew it back in. “I just hope you’re right.”
When they got to the racetrack, Max took them straight to the reserved area where Duke and Reed were already seated and there, between them, sat a distinguished-looking couple – the matriarch and patriarch of the Davidoff clan. The man was tall, surprisingly taller than all his sons, probably somewhere in the region of six foot two or three. Even though he was seated it was obvious he was taller as the top of his baseball cap was close to an inch above theirs. Sticking out from the back of the cap Silken could see his dark hair with its scattered streaks of gray. He had an angular profile and strong jaw and even from a distance, no matter what Max had said about his being laid back, she could see that he was not a man to take lightly.
Mrs. Davidoff, on the other hand, looked totally relaxed as she leaned against her husband’s arm, looking over onto the racetrack below. She hadn’t seen them yet so Silken had the opportunity to take a good look at her future mother-in-law.
She’d let her long, black hair fall free to flow over her shoulders and down her back and Silken could see a few strands of gray. The soft smile on her face made her look approachable and pleasant and it made Silken wonder if Max had gotten his parents mixed up. Based on what she could see, Mrs. Davidoff looked like the easy-going one. Now she didn’t know what to believe. To be on the safe side, she would have to tread carefully with both of them.
And then it was time for the introductions. It wasn’t the ideal place, not with the amount of noise in the stadium, but they made do. Max took Silken’s hand and took her through the stands to where his parents sat. As soon as they saw Max they waved, both of them sporting broad smiles. Duke and Reed greeted them, too, then Duke waved Suave over to sit in the free seat beside him.
When they got close, Max pulled her in front of him. “Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet Silken, the wonderful woman who’ll be making a good man out of me.”
“Pleased to meet you, Silken.” Mr. Davidoff reached out to take her hand and the fingers that wrapped around hers were warm and strong. “We’ve heard a lot about you. Great to put a face to the name.”
As soon as he released her Mrs. Davidoff took her hand, and where her husband’s hand had been big and callused, hers was soft and tiny, almost like a child’s. Still, her handshake was anything but weak. “Welcome to the family,” she said. “We have a lot of catching up to do.” She patted Silken’s hand. “We’ll talk later.”
And that was it, at least for the moment. Silken was smiling as she waved goodbye and went with Max to find their seats but her smile hid a tiny prick of apprehension. Mother Davidoff was planning to have a talk with her later and she was not at all sure she was looking forward to that. When Suave had called her impetuous she’d been right. She just hoped that side of her didn’t rear its ugly head while she was under interrogation.
As she sat down beside Max and he put his arm around her, she leaned her head against his shoulder and a renegade thought sneaked into her mind. Suave always knew the right things to say. Could she ask her sister to represent her during the daughter-in-law-to-be interview? But as soon as the thought entered her mind she shook it free. No, that would not do. She was the one marrying Max, not Suave. It was only fair that his mother should know exactly what her son was getting into. She would just have to face her fear.
After a successful first day at the racetrack, a day filled with the roars of high-powered engines, cheers and screams, it was an exhausted Silken who piled into the back of Max’s SUV. “You take the front seat,” she told Suave. “I need a nap.”
“Not too much, now,” Max said as he buckled up. “We’re heading over to Duke’s, remember? We’re all going to have dinner there. My parents want to get to know you guys.”
“Me, too?” Suave glanced over at him.
“Of course, you, too. You’re part of the family. Don’t think that just because you’re the sister you’re going to escape the cross examination.”
Silken groaned. “Do we have to?”
“Yes, you have to. Now relax. They’ll be gone in another couple of days and then your life will be back to normal.”
In the end, the evening didn’t turn out to be quite the torture that Silken was expecting. The atmosphere was so casual at Duke’s place that she began to wonder what she’d been so uptight about. There was no fancy dinner food, just hot dogs, hamburgers and barbecued chicken that Duke prepared himself. And he roped everybody into the dinner-making project with Daddy Davidoff making lemonade, Mother Davidoff whipping up a batch of Duke’s favorite cupcakes – he begged her till she gave in to his pitiful whines – Suave making the salad, Max doing the potato salad and Silken roasting corn in the husk. The only lazy one was Reed who complained that he had absolutely no talent in the kitchen. Duke ended up sending him out to get ice cream.
The whole evening they were all so busy preparing food then gobbling down helping after helping that there was really not much talking going on…and definitely no ‘sit down and get to know you’ interview. As they worked together in the massive kitchen, laughing and getting into one another’s way, the Davidoff parents, and especially the mother, shot off questions to Silken and even to Suave, but while she was bustling around Silken was so relaxed that she shot the answers right back. She didn’t skip a beat.
By the time they’d finished dinner and sprawled in the TV room with dessert, they were all pretty much knocked out. Mr. Davidoff – he’d told Silken and Suave to call him Herbert – was dead to the world, stretched out in the reclining chair, half a bowl of uneaten ice cream melting in his lap. Mrs. Davidoff – now Charlene to Silken and Suave – stifled a yawn then got up to pry the bowl from her sleeping husband’s grasp.
Duke and Reed were sitting on the big sofa, Suave between them, as they watched the last few scenes of Madagascar. Silken had commandeered the love seat and dragged Max over to it so she could curl up beside him. His body was so big and warm and she felt so comfy that she didn’t know how she’d budge when it was time to head home. She felt like she could stay like this all night.