Amber drove up the winding road toward her mother's country home. She loved the seclusion of the old manor as a child and found it comforting still. Leaves scattered from the road as the car rolled along. Amber argued with herself about the last time she had visited her mother anywhere other than the city. The irrelevant chronology nagged at her as a way of diverting attention from how little she visited her mother at all. She did not hold all the blame for the sudden lack of time together. When Amber left for college, her mother, Marie, started traveling more and more. Amber did not mind. She was busy with school and friends of her own. She even found it encouraging that after so many years staying in the city to help raise her, Marie had finally decided to travel. Which made it all the more unusual when she received a call from Marie about a big surprise.
Amber's thoughts turned to her father. He'd had no trouble visiting though. They met once a week for lunch on campus. Amber never told her mother about this for fear of upsetting her. The divorce had not been pleasant, and Marie had not forgiven her former husband for cheating on her. Amber held some resentment for years as well. Her father made his own point eventually, and Amber understood more and more as she got older. Marie had never been exactly affectionate. Amber's mother had been very pretty in her younger days, but turned plain from age and neglect. It wasn't difficult for an outsider looking in to see why her father strayed.
The wood on either side of the road cleared, and Amber turned onto the small driveway that led up to the country house. Though it had once been smoothly paved, it too had suffered from years of age and neglect. Huge cracks in the pavement rattled her car as she drove, shaking her teeth slightly. Her father's sensibilities kicked in, and she grew angry at her mother for letting the property fall into neglect. As she grew closer, she saw the lawns and hedges were growing out of control. At least, the house itself looked presentable. It also seemed that Marie had brought some staff with her.
A handsome man in his mid thirties stood in the flowerbed beside the front stoop. He wore no shirt while working under the autumn sun and apparently did not mind the slight chill in the air. Amber suddenly found herself thinking about the last time she'd had sex. It had been too long. Her last boyfriend had split with her at the end of the previous semester, and she'd turned to her studies in consolation. She hoped the rest of the staff her mother had hired had the same bronze, muscled physique. Amber lost her virginity to one of her mother's staff in the city, a twenty one year old Brazilian man who kept her mother's loft pool in chemical balance. The whole thing had played out like a stereotypical porn scene. Amber was lying out in the summer sun before her freshman year of college, her lithe body glistening in the sun. The pool boy took his shirt off to do his work and after watching him for a while, Amber simply walked up and offered to take him to her room. He spoke very little English, but her intent was fairly clear when she pulled down her bikini and pressed his hand into her breasts. Amber took a lot of pride in her exotic first conquest. She knew she would never be like her mother, abandoned for lack of vitality and adventure.
The car rolled to a stop, and she hopped out. "Excuse me! Could you help with my bags?"
The man in the flower bed looked up and smiled, wiping his hands clean on his pants. "You must be Amber," he said as he walked over.
"Yes, the bags please," she ignored him and strode up towards the house.
"I don't think you understand," the man said as the door opened. Marie stepped out of the house to grab her daughter in a hug.
"Mom?" Amber managed to blurt out before her mother's arms wrapped around her.
"Amber sweetie! We're so glad you came! Stand there let me look at you. It's been ages hasn't it?" her mother rattled off the words quicker than Amber could react.
"Look at me? Look at you! Mom, what have you done to yourself?" Amber tried to take in the full vision of her mother. The last time they had seen one another, her mother had looked her age in every way — iron gray hair, bags under her eyes, and a general droop to everything on her body. The woman standing on the steps beside Amber looked nothing like that. Marie's hair had returned to the vibrant cherry red of her youth. Her skin was smooth and toned with a healthy, rosy color. She'd lost weight, and, perhaps it was only a posture change, she seemed taller. The most obvious change jutted out from Marie's chest. Amber knew they should be fake, but had not noticed the hard feeling of implants pressing into her chest when they hugged. Her mother looked like a pin up girl. "Did you have work done? Botox? A...uh, boob job?"
Marie looked confused. "What? Oh! All this. No, honey, none of that surgery or anything. It's what we've got to tell you about. Well one of the things we've got to tell you about. Oh, Amber, I'm so excited you're here."
"You keep saying 'we.' Who are you talking about?"
Marie pointed down the steps to where the shirtless man stood, one bag on his shoulder and the other underneath his arm. "You've already met Marc, I think. He's your new step-father."
***
They went inside. Marie directed her new husband up to Amber's rooms with the bags. Amber pulled her mother into a sitting room and hissed questions at her. "Mom, when the fuck did you get married?! When did this happen? Where did you meet him? Why didn't you tell me?"
Her mother sat down with a daydream smile on her face. "No need to be upset, Amber. We married last weekend, in Paris. Marc and I have been seeing each other for over a year. I wanted to be married months ago, but Marc wanted to wait. Let's see, what were your other questions? Oh yes, where we met. I went to this class with Evelyn. She's remarried too, you know. The class is about personal empowerment or something, but that's where she met her husband, Antony. She told me Antony had been with several other young men at the class who all expressed interest in her. Since she and I had a lot in common, she thought I would have similar success. I did. Marc and I hit it off immediately, and we've been together ever since."
"And why didn't you tell me? You've been together for a year and at no point during that did you think your daughter might have some input on getting a step-father? Or, shit, want to go to the wedding?"
"We wanted it to be a surprise!" Her mother feigned a smile. Amber wondered whether she'd also got small collagen injections in her lips. "And, to be honest, we didn't need you complicating things."
"Am I a complication now?" Amber whined.
"With that attitude, you are." Her mother snapped back. "And it's not like you've made the effort to be overly involved in my life lately. You only come round if the credit card has been declined. Forgive me for not wanting my spoiled daughter at my wedding to suck up all the attention."
Amber's brow furrowed. Her mother hadn't spoken to her so harshly since she was a young girl. "You're different."
"I am. But I didn't bring you here to fight with you. Marc wanted to meet you, and I wanted you to meet him. I know the two of you are going to get along perfectly."
"You haven't explained why you look so different." Amber was sullen and thought mostly of storming out, but curiosity had the best of her. If her mother had some new beauty regimen, she wanted to know about it. Amber had the beauty of youth, but not much more. Too much like her mother, she expected to fade into another plain girl sooner rather than later.
Marie looked nervously towards the door. "Marc is a scientist." Amber waited for a more thorough answer, but Marie didn't offer one. Before she could prod her mother along, Marc entered the room.
"I think we started off on the wrong foot." He had found a shirt and washed himself somewhat. He still exuded a scent of earth and sweat that Amber found strangely appealing. Marie drank it in like ambrosia. "I'm Marc." He offered his hand to her and she shook, limply. "Look, I know this may seem sudden, but your mother and I have been together for a while now. Frankly, we don't need your approval. We would like it though. Let's get to know each other first, how about? You don't have to call me dad or anything. Just Marc."
Amber felt strange while he spoke. Something in his voice or his smell put her off guard. She felt at ease the closer her came to her. He was certainly handsome, and Amber understood why her mother maintained the daydream smile. A new thought came to Amber almost immediately, "How old are you?"
"Thirty-three."
"Holy shit," Amber blurted out. "He's, what, fifteen years younger than you?"
