by Moon, Dalya
After clearing a few tables and wrapping up some bills, I took a stroll by Marc's table with more coffee. He was slowly putting the last morsel in his mouth and moaning for my benefit.
I said, “You didn't really have to eat it all.”
“Mmm,” he said.
“Feel better now?”
“Mmm.” He nodded.
“So, what was getting you down the other day?” I refilled his coffee cup and put my left hand on my hip in what I hoped was an adorable waitress pose. My feet in the high-heeled boots were killing me, so I smiled to mask my pain-face.
“The usual. Career-choice woes, university dilemmas.”
“I wish I could help with that. Maybe you could talk to me about it sometime.”
“I'd love to talk to a working Engineer, actually.”
Just like that, opportunity fell into my lap.
“My dad's an Engineer,” I said. “A big ol' nerdy one. He works for the city, on the pipes. Not the poo pipes, mind you, but the fresh water ones. Not that there's any shame in working sewage treatment, obviously.”
“Really,” Marc said. “It sure would be cool to pick his brain.”
“You should come for dinner sometime. Like tomorrow night.”
“To talk to your dad? That's generous of you, but I couldn't impose.”
“Are you kidding? He'd love to talk about pipes. He'll show you his special Engineer's ring and everything. He loves that stuff.”
Somebody at a nearby table whistled for service, then someone else commented loudly on having seen a waitress with coffee pass by a moment ago. I did not like to hear so much whistling during a shift. Even though it's acceptable and part of The Whistle experience to whistle for service, I took pride in anticipating people's needs even before they had them.
I glanced back, looking for Courtney, but she must have been in the washroom. I didn't want to tear myself away from Marc without completing my task of asking him out.
Marc checked the time on his phone. “I'm late! I have to run.” He threw down a twenty to cover the bill, along with a business card.
“Dinner? Yes or no,” I said.
He pointed to the business card. “Email me your address and tell me what to bring tomorrow.”
“Will do,” I said as he dashed out the door.
Someone whistled again and a bunch of people laughed. The crowd was turning on me. I ran around amidst their jeers, refilling coffee cups.
“You all think you're a clever lot, don't you!” I yelled jokingly.
Someone tapped his cup on his table, chanting, “Coffee, coffee.”
I filled it as quickly as I could, but they wouldn't let up with the whistling, enjoying seeing me scramble. One older gentleman gulped down his whole cup and told me I forgot to refill his. Everyone laughed.
“You pranksters!” I shouted. “Little do you know, I control the stereo, and you're all about to hear James Blunt sing Beautiful. You'll all be laughing out the other side of your mouths while tears are streaming down your cheeks.”
Dodging past me with a tray of food, Courtney said, “Oh dear, not again.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “It's happening.”
With my poor feet back in some sensible waitress footwear, my pirate boots with the buckles, I finished the shift without further incident, which left me time to ponder two huge problems: was the dinner with Marc actually a date, and what was I going to make? Bonus problems included all the potentially horrifying things my family would do.
I imagined my brother telling Marc about the time I peed my pants when we were camping because I thought I saw a bear. My father could imbibe in a beer or two then bring up marital problems and all the woes of being wed to a rock star.
Anything could happen.
I had a date!
Chapter 10
Later that Monday night over dinner, I told my father and Garnet we'd be having a special guest the next evening, and asked what they wanted in exchange for good behavior. I didn't have much to bargain with, but I figured it was worth a shot.
Garnet asked, “Are you trying to get him to touch your boobies?”
“Not at the dinner table,” I said.
My father put his face in his hands.
Garnet said, “My friend Kyle, he pushed the fat on his chest up so we could feel it. We all closed our eyes to see what it would be like to feel a girl's boobs.”
My father kept his hands over his face and didn't comment on this particular revelation.
“How'd you like that?” I asked Garnet.
His expression pensive, he said, “When I closed my eyes, I really tried to pretend it was a girl. It felt like a butt. I don't see what the fuss is about.”
“You'll feel differently when it's a girl,” I said. “And she'll touch you, too.”
“I've touched myself plenty. Isn't it just the same?”
“No,” I said. “Put your finger in your ear and take it out.”
He did so. Then, I put my finger in his ear.
He giggled. “It tickles!”
“Felt different when it was someone else, didn't it?”
My father interrupted us with, “You two, that's enough.”
Garnet turned to our father. “Dad, how old were you when you touched your first boobs?”
“Older than you.”
“Were you a virgin when you met Mom?”
My father, his cheeks turning red, poked around at his lasagne. “I understand some parents have to drag honest conversation out of their teenaged children. How did I get so lucky?”
Garnet and I laughed at our father while he separated his lasagne into distinct layers.
“Let's all be on good behavior tomorrow,” I said.
My father said, “I look forward to meeting this young man with an interest in engineering.”
I said, “If it helps things be less weird, for the record, you should know he's never touched my boobs. We barely shook hands, though earlier today he did sneeze on me.”
“Strangely, that does help,” my father said.
“Can I bring Kyle?” Garnet asked, snickering. “For the record, I have touched Kyle's boy-boobs.”
“Your mother is missing out on so much,” Dad said.
At the mention of my mother, I felt the tension ramp up in the room. I prepared myself for more talk about Mom, but my father changed the subject to Garnet's grades in school, which was a fairly standard dinner-time conversation.
Since the previous week, when my father had mentioned they were having troubles, he hadn't brought up my mother much. She hadn't taken my hint about making him feel missed, because he didn't say anything about getting any sort of gift delivered to his office.
At least they'd been talking on the phone almost every day. From my room upstairs, I'd heard him pacing around the lower floor, talking. Either because of his ADD or his personality, my father doesn't sit still when he talks on the phone. He paces from room to room in a circuit. It's really annoying when you're watching TV and he keeps passing through the room, but I guess he could have much worse habits.
When I'm talking on the phone, I like to lie on my back on the couch or my bed, because it sends all the giggles into the top of my head and makes me laugh more.
For my big maybe-date dinner on Tuesday, I got a recipe from Donny at work for a home version of our most popular dinner item: cottage pie. Cottage pie is similar to shepherd's pie. In fact it is commonly mislabeled as shepherd's pie, but it has ground beef under the mashed potato crust, whereas shepherd's pie is made of lamb. A shepherd tends sheep, which is another word for lamb, hence the name. Where the cottage part came from, I had no idea.
Donny told me cottage pie was comfort food and thus the way to a man's heart. Comfort food is hard to pin down, but seems to usually involve potatoes.
I was going to make Caesar salad, but wised up at the last minute, since eating a bunch of raw garlic could lead to kissing disasters, and I did hope the dinner would end in some kissing.
Hey Marc, what's up?!
See you for dinner at 8. Just bring your fab self. Dad is looking forward to meeting you.
Peridot Martin (Perry, from The Whistle)
I ran it past Courtney, who felt the part about my father seemed a tad creepy, but in the end she agreed it sounded fine, especially with the phrase fab self, which was her idea.
I attached a google map showing the house, and included my cell phone number in case he got lost.
I wondered where he lived. If he ate at The Whistle, on Main Street, that meant he wasn't that snobby. What would he think of our house?
My parents bought the ol' homestead when I was twelve or so, which would have made it either 2005 or 2006. The place cost something like four hundred thousand dollars, which I know sounds like a lot of money, but Vancouver real estate has been insanely expensive since before I was born, and houses at that price level are near lot value.
I was lucky to be born into a family that could afford a house, even though it's not a fancy one. Dad makes decent money at his job and Mom had a lot of cash from her first two records—what little her former manager didn't embezzle, but that's a whole 'nother story. Before we moved to our current place, they sold their smaller but more expensive house in Dunbar, on the west side, and paid cash for the new place, so they didn't even have a mortgage. The plan was to take the pressure off Mom to have to make money, so she could relax and recharge her creative battery.
They figured they could always sell and move back to Dunbar later, but in the last twelve years, prices have shot up so much that our old house is now worth over a million dollars. You would think that would make my parents happy, but the idea causes them distress, because the gain is only on paper, and one day it might plummet.
Whenever people bring up real estate and how much they're making, Dad gets a constipated look. Yes, the house we have now is awesome, but even if we sold it, we'd never be able to get back to our old neighborhood, where my grandparents live and where my dad grew up. The house they sold is worth two million, last I heard.
The price of houses here has a way of making everyone feel poor, even if they aren't. My parents both grumble over the cost of artisan cheeses and fancy organic foods, so we shop at the cheaper grocery stores. I'm glad they save on some things, and that they'll help pay for my college tuition, even if it means selling the Land Rover.
I'm glad I've never had to worry about money, because it left me so much time to worry about other things, like what to wear when Marc came for dinner.
From the vintage side of my closet, I chose a retro 1960s dress that looked like something Betty Draper on Mad Men would wear. I put on antiperspirant, then stuck folded-up paper towels in the armpits so I wouldn't get stink-pit on the polyester while I was sweating over the dinner prep.
To help me in the kitchen, I had not one, but two teenage boys.
At my suggestion, Garnet did invite his friend Kyle over. I figured they would cancel each other out, and they could goof around with each other instead of trying to get entertainment from making me squirm. I was rather proud of my cunning plan.
Kyle has kind of an androgynous look, with no facial hair, but a bit of rosacea that makes his cheeks flush really red, all the time. I'd feel sorry for the kid, but he's got such a positive attitude and a sunny smile. You can't meet him and not want to grab him in a headlock and rub your fist on his fluffy, baby-chick-like, pale gold hair.
When he stands next to Kyle, you can see how grown-up Garnet is getting these days, with my father's solid square jaw, but not the hairline yet.
We were nearly done making dinner when Garnet disappeared to the bathroom to “birth Godzilla,” so Kyle and I had some bonding time over dinner preparations.
“So, Kyle, what are you going to be when you grow up?” I asked as we tore lettuce together.
“Tall,” he said, grinning with dimples so big you could stick quarters in them.
“Fair enough. I don't know what I'm doing either.”
“Are you any good at singing? Couldn't your mom get you a record deal?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Yeah.”
I belted out the opening of The Sun'll Come out Tomorrow from Annie.
“There's always trade school,” Kyle said.
As punishment for his sass, I continued with the rest of the song, and Kyle joined in for the ending. What we didn't have in pitch, we made up for with enthusiasm.
From behind me, a male voice said, “Nice harmonies.”
I whirled around to find Marc, standing in the kitchen doorway with a bottle of wine and a bouquet of spring irises.
My father, standing behind him, said, “This young man was knocking on the door for at least a minute. He was about to call the police to report some wild animals in the area.”
Garnet returned from the bathroom. “The bathroom, no, the whole back of the house is a biohazard. I didn't light a match, because I thought it might explode.”
“Welcome to dinner,” I said, taking the wine from Marc and grabbing the flowers eagerly.
“Do you need help?” he asked, surveying the mess all over the kitchen island.
Kyle, with his thumb in his mouth, said, “You can help me find my thumbnail and a chunk of skin in the carrot sticks.”
I grabbed the bowl of carrot sticks and quickly dumped them in the kitchen garbage.
Kyle pulled his thumb out of his mouth, revealing it to be undamaged. “I was joking.”
“We didn't need those carrots,” I said.
“Two brothers?” Marc asked.
“God, no!” my father practically shouted. “Not that we don't love this one, here, Kyle. We love you, Kyle. This other one, Garnet is the fruit of my loins, along with Peridot.”
In unison, Garnet and I said, “Gross! Dad!”
He'd been using the fruit of my loins term since The Paternity Incident of 2009, and neither of us cared for it.
My father offered to take Marc on a grand tour of the house, and as soon as they disappeared, I allowed myself to jump up and down over the flowers. I'd never gotten flowers from a boy before.
“Gimme those,” Garnet said, yanking the folded paper towels that were lodged partially in my armpits, yet hanging out of my cap-sleeved dress.
I inhaled sharply. “Do you think he saw them?”
“Bro, it doesn't matter. Just play it cool,” Garnet said.
Kyle looked me up and down. “You look pretty, but you should put on more face-stuff.”
“Blush?”
Kyle shrugged. “I dunno. Stuff.”
I instructed them to set the plates out and I ran upstairs to check my face.
Showtime, I told myself. Be authentic.
I put on one of my mother's lipstick shades, but it was all wrong and made my teeth look yellow. Shoot, were my teeth actually yellow? I didn't have time to do a session with Whitestrips. I rubbed the red lipstick off with some toilet paper and went over my lips with a sparkly pink.
In my vintage dress, I admired my feminine shape and my not-too-shabby cleavage. Damn it, why didn't I own a padded bra? I made a snap decision and stuffed a sports sock into the bottom of my bra cup on each side.
Turning sideways to admire my new silhouette, I congratulated myself on my quick thinking.
As we ate dinner, I came to regret the socks, because Kyle couldn't keep his eyes off my bosom. Up until that point, I'd all but assumed he was gay, what with his enthusiastic love of Glee and musicals, but there was nothing innocent about the way he looked at my chest.
Marc didn't seem to notice, what with my dad talking his ears off about specialties and Engineer stuff.
When the conversation died down, I mentioned how people frequently call cottage pie shepherd's pie.
“Why cottage, I wonde
r,” Marc said, taking the bait. “It should be named after the cow.”
I grinned broadly. “Because then it would be called COW PIE!”
My teen fans, Kyle and Garnet, laughed at the joke, but Marc looked down at his lap, avoiding eye contact with anyone. He wasn't rude, at least I didn't think so, but perhaps he was a bit shy, or socially awkward.
What was his deal?
I'd never understood people who don't simply say what they want and ask for what they need, but in a general sense, I did get that people are all different. If everyone in the world acted like me, movie theaters would have to shut down, because nobody would be able to hear Tom Cruise over all the talking.
Finally, after several seconds of me staring and trying to read his mind, Marc looked up at my father, seated next to him, and asked about resumes and summer job postings.
The boys finished wolfing their food down and disappeared to play Skyrim in Garnet's room.
“Where'd you hide that wine?” my father asked me. “Let's finish that bottle before it oxidizes.”
I got up and retrieved the wine from the fridge. Couldn't my father get his own wine? I may have been looking after my family in my mom's absence, but I wasn't their servant. I wasn't the house waitress.
As patiently as I could, I waited for them to be finished talking.
“That's rude,” my father said when he realized I was playing Cupcakes on my iPhone. It's a silly app where you bake, decorate, and virtually eat cupcakes, and it makes long boring conversations much more tolerable.
“I don't want to interrupt you guys, but I have nothing to contribute to this conversation,” I said.
“We can talk about something else,” Marc said, which I appreciated.
I put on my most winning smile and encouraged them to keep talking, as it was the point of our little get-together, and I switched over to a game of Doodle Jump while they refilled their wine glasses. I don't like the taste of wine, so I didn't even try to get some for myself, though Dad did offer.
I was deeply engrossed in Cut the Rope when they got up from the table and went to my father's office without inviting me along.