Alana sent the jet for Reagan and her mother and they joined her in Paris for fashion week and to celebrate Rae’s birthday. She had also reserved a massive suite for them at the Georges V and had the bedrooms filled with the latest DeLuca fashions. Betsy, Rae’s mother, had attended junior college even though she had warned Rae against it so many years before. She was devoted to bettering herself and giving back to the community as her daughter had given to her. She booted her last husband out as soon as Rae returned to Texas as the DeLuca girl. Rae bought her mother a spacious house in the lovely retirement community of Sun City where Betsy soon became the reigning queen. Betsy quit smoking and drinking, immersed herself in yoga and was mindful of her health. She read voraciously and could discuss almost any topic with anyone at any time.
“My baby girl made something of herself and I owe it to you to be the kind of mother you won’t ever be ashamed of,” she told Rae as she lay on the bed watching her try on clothes. Her hair was silver and cut into a pageboy, it suited her, there was nothing of the high school dropout barmaid about Betsy any longer.
“You look so beautiful Mama, but your awfully thin, are you taking care of yourself?”
“Honey, I’m old and you just don’t realize it, I’ve got aches and pains and old lady mess that I’ve just learned to live with.”
They dressed up for dinner in spectacular attire from the DeLuca signature collection. Reagan wore a short, sixties inspired sheath with leather boots that hugged her legs and ended high up on her thighs just beneath the hem of the dress. Alana had reservations that were nearly impossible to come by at Rae’s favorite restaurant, Laperouse. The three women drank gallons of champagne and nibbled impossibly delicious food and talked and laughed and were the last to leave. They were Rae’s two mothers and she felt like the luckiest girl in the world to have them.
In a cozy semi-circular booth in the hotel bar they ordered more champagne and Alana proposed a toast.
“Here’s to our birthday girl, the daughter I never had and a better one than I could ever have hoped for. And here’s hoping that now that she is of a certain age she will toss that fraud of a husband out on his ass and meet a kind and beautiful man with a large penis and have a dozen babies!”
They all laughed until tears stung their eyes and once or twice they snorted in a very unladylike fashion.
When she could finally speak, Rae’s mother said, “Here, here, I know that big-shot Carlo is no more Italian than I am, he’s probably from Nueva Laredo, and whatever happened to that sweet policeman who saved you at the bus station? Now that was a real man.”