"Will you?" - Enthused Isabel - "That's mighty fine of you! I have arranged for everyone to join me for dinner tomorrow evening. It's a Saturday, so people don't have to go to work the next day."
"How very considerate." - I stammered and Isabel laughed throatily:
"Don't be so distrait. It won't be as awkward as you fear. Sit next to me and watch the show as I expose these fraudsters and frustrate their plans!".
About to exit, she turned around, her wrinkled face suddenly smooth and becalmed:
"I will be expecting you. Be there. You must be present. For your own sake as much as for mine."
And she left the door ajar as she swooshed down the hall and out the building, into the flaking snow.
****
Isabel never looked more imposing as she sat at the head of the elongated table, attired in a sleeveless white chiffon dress, no hint of make-up on her imperious, commanding face. A beetle-shaped brooch complemented a lavish pearl necklace that emphasized the contours of her truly delicate neck. She was very animated, laughed a lot, and administered light touches of familiarity and affection to her husband and son, who flanked her.
Her spouse, a rubicund mount of a man, face varicose and hairy hands resting on his folded napkin, was clearly still smitten with his wife, paying close and ostentatious attention to her minutest wishes and utterances. His enormous girth twitched and turned towards her, like a plant craving the sun. His deep blue eyes glittered every time she humored him or re-arranged his cutlery.
The son was more reluctant, contemplating his mother with suspicion and his father with an ill-disguised hint of contempt. He was lanky, with a balding pate, and sported a failed attempt at a moustache, inexpertly daubed on his freckled face. He was also myopic and his hands fluttered restlessly throughout the evening. I found him most disagreeable.
There was a third person at the table: a mousy, inconsequential thing with an excruciatingly bad sartorial taste. She stared at everyone through a pair of dead, black, enormous pools that passed for eyes. Her hands were sinewy and contorted and she kept fidgeting, clasping and unclasping an ancient purse ("a gift from mother"), and rearranging a stray curl that kept obscuring her view. No one introduced us and she made it a point to avoid me, so I let it go.
The dishes cleared, Isabel came to the painful point:
"Dears," - she declared - "I summoned you today to make an important announcement. As you well know, my previous will and testament left everything to you, the two exclusive loves of my life." - A hiss of withdrawn breaths welcomed the word "previous".
"However, in the last couple of weeks, I have had reason to suspect foul play."
They stared at her, not comprehending.
"I am convinced that you are not who you purport to be. You look like my dearest but you are actually impostors, doubles, hired by the perpetrators of a malicious operation, bent of absconding with my inheritance."
The silence was palpable as her kin, jaws dropped in disbelief, listened to the unfolding speech with growing horror.
"I don't know yet what you have done with my real relatives but, rest assured, I intend to find out. Still, I am being told by one and sundry that I may be wrong or, frankly, that I am off my rocker, as they say."
"Hear, hear!" - Interjected her son and rose from his seat, as though to leave the table.
"Sit down!" - Snapped Isabel and he did, meekly, though clearly resentful.
"I have devised a test. Should you pass it, I will offer you all my most prostrate apologies and hope for your forgiveness. If you fail, his shall be proof of the subterfuge. I am then bent on altering my will to exclude all of you from it and bestow my entire estate on my good companion here." - And she pointed at a mortified me.
They all turned in their chairs and studied the intruder at length. The son's lips moved furiously but he remained inaudible. The husband merely shrugged and reverted to face his tormentor. Only the third guest protested by extending a pinkish tongue in my direction, careful to remain unobserved by her hostess.
"I will ask each one of you three questions." - Proceeded my new benefactor, unperturbed - "You can take as much time as you need to respond to them. Once you have given your answers, there is no going back, no second chance. So, think carefully. Your entire pecuniary future depends on it. These are the terms that I am setting. You are free to leave the room now, if you wish. Of course, by doing so, you will have forfeited your share of my riches." - She sneered unpleasantly. No one made a move.
"I take it then that we are all agreed." - Isabel proceeded and turned toward her husband:
"John, or whoever you are," - He recoiled as if struck with a fist - "what was the color of the curtains in the small hotel where we have consummated our love for the first time?"
"Must I go through this in public, in front of my son and this complete stranger?" - He bellowed, his monstrous frame towering over her. But she remained undaunted and unmoved and finally, he settled back in his creaking chair and resignedly mumbled:
"The room had no curtains. You complained all morning because the sunlight shone straight on your face and wouldn't let you fall asleep."
His visage was transformed by the memory, radiant and gentle now, as he re-lived the moment.
"True. You have clearly done your homework." - She confirmed reluctantly and addressed her son:
"Edward, what did you see in a book that made you cry so violently and inconsolably when you just a toddler?"
"It was an art book. There was a color reproduction of a painting of a group of patricians standing on an elevated porch, glancing over the railing at a scene below them. I can't recall any other detail, but the whole atmosphere was tenebrous and sinister. I was so frightened that I burst into wails. For some reason, you were not there, you were gone!" - And he pouted as he must have done back then when he had felt abandoned and betrayed by his mother.
"Althea, what was I wearing the first time we met, when Edward introduced you to me?"
Althea, the mouse, looked up in surprise:
"You introduced me to Edward, not the other way around!" - She protested - "I met you at the clinic, remember? Lording it over everyone, as usual." - She laughed bitterly and I shot her a warning glance, afraid that she might provoke Isabel into violent action - "Anyways, you were wearing precisely what you have on today, down to the tiniest detail. Even the brooch is the same, if I can tell."
And so it went. All three were able to fend off Isabel's fiendish challenges with accurate responses. Finally, evidently exhausted, she conceded defeat:
"Though my heart informs me differently, my head prevails and I am forced to accept that you are my true family. I hereby offer you the prostrate apologies that I have promised to make before." - She sprang abruptly from her seat - "And now, I am tired, I must sleep." - She ignored her husband's clumsy attempt to kiss her on the cheek and, not bidding farewell or good night to any of us, she exited the room in an apparent huff.