“I threw them in the Salvation Army collection box near where I work. They’re gone. Make do for now,” he ordered. “You’re ruining the mood for our first romantic dinner with all these complaints.”
“It’s easier for a man,” I said. “All you do is throw something on and brush your hair quickly.”
He smiled. “My mother used ta say something like that. My father would just growl back at her. At least, that’s what it sounded like to me, a growl. He was half pack dog. And he had a lot more hair on him than I do. Well, I do, but I shave it,” he said. “He had as much hair on his back as most guys have on their heads. I get a barber to do my back. Maybe you’ll do it for me now.”
The expression on my face brought a smile to his.
“Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to do that. Girls have weak stomachs, I know. My mother wouldn’t do his back, and he wouldn’t let anyone else do it. So most of the time, he looked like an ape when he was naked.
“Hey,” he said, waving a stirring fork at me, “don’t fret. You look damn pretty, even in a dress too big. You got the hair. I know how proud you are of it, too. My bad. I shoulda brought down one of her hair ribbons. I’ll remember next time. She had lots of that stuff. I buried it all in a carton in the closet in her bedroom.”
He turned back to his stove. “You set the table,” he ordered.
I walked slowly, afraid that I would trip over the hem of the dress. As I was carrying the dishes to the table, a salad plate slipped and shattered into small pieces as soon as it hit an uncovered part of the floor. I froze, staring down at it.
Trembling, I turned to him. He was glaring at me, all softness gone from his face.
“Those are my grandmother’s dishes,” he said slowly. “How could you be so damn clumsy? Don’t you care about the value of older things, family treasures?”
My shoulders shook. I can’t do this, I thought. I can’t pretend in order to make him happy and keep him from doing something terrible to me.
It was making me too sick inside. Tears began to trickle down my cheeks.
How would Haylee handle this? I wondered. There wasn’t anyone, including teachers, who could intimidate her. Where was the Haylee in me when I needed it the most?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t do this. I shouldn’t have led you on to believe I could. It was immature of me to flirt with you. I’m not right for you. I really don’t believe anything I said about us. You shouldn’t want me here. I’ll just disappoint you constantly.”
He stared hard, his eyelids narrowing.
Then he broke into a wide smile. Was he going to let me go?
“It’s just one dish,” he said in a tone completely opposite to the one he had just used. “Don’t make a federal case over it. The dishes are a bit brittle, old. Maybe we should have a new set of dishes. Yeah. I’ll buy new dishes for a new home, but until then, try not to break any more, okay? Go on, set the table. I’ll clean up the mess. Go,” he ordered, and returned to the food.
He really doesn’t hear anything he doesn’t want to hear, I thought, or he just refuses to. Ironically, Haylee could be like that, too. She was the one with the bag of excuses: I didn’t hear you. I didn’t understand you. And of course, to Mother, that had to mean both of us.
I continued to set the table. What else could I do?
“Get the music going,” he said as he mixed our salad. “You know how to use them things better than me. I was thinking of getting you a pair of headphones, too. I might get tired of the music you like. But then I thought I shouldn’t do that. I shouldn’t dislike anything you like. See? I’m willing to make changes for you. You should be willing to do the same for me. Go on. Get the music going. I’ll light the candles.”
Where was this leading? What would happen tonight? Obviously, he thought we were going to have a romantic dinner. He opened a bottle of wine at the table while I was getting the music going. When I looked at the CDs, I realized they were indeed singers and songs Haylee preferred, some of which I didn’t, some of which I actually hated. Why would she put those on the list? There were even some that she hated almost as much as I did.
There was so much fear rising in my body as I envisioned where all of this was headed. What had I done by being so cooperative? Perhaps all I’d done was support his mad belief that I wanted to be here after all. I had trouble manipulating dials and switches. My fingers were trembling, but if he noticed, he didn’t say. In his mind, he was probably telling himself I was excited about everything.
The music started.
“Perfect, he said, and sat at the table after he had cleaned up the broken dish. He served our salads and poured the wine. “Yeah,” he said. “This is sweet, like our first dinner should be. C’mon. Sit. Tell me more about that crazy mother of yours and how she drove your father nuts.”
He sipped his wine and began to eat, looking around and nodding as if we were in some fancy restaurant and not in his hidden basement apartment.
“Well? Tell me.”
“I forget what I told you.”
“You said she wouldn’t let you decide a thing for yourself. What’d ya call her? An ogre. That’s the way I often felt about my mother, too. I mean, she’s your mother, but you can hate her, too, right?”
Haylee had told him that? Was she simply trying to make him feel comfortable about his own parents? She couldn’t hate Mother that much, could she?
He nodded at my salad. I had yet to touch it. “It’s all fresh stuff, crisp, and that salad dressing is made to perfection. I made it for my father and mother once, and my mother liked it. My father did, too, but he wouldn’t admit it. He wouldn’t admit that anything I did was done good. Stubborn bastard. I bet Death’s unhappy he met him,” he added, and laughed. “He got a heart attack right out front of the house. I was down here playing with my dart game. Oh, I got that in a closet, and I’ll bring it down for you. So,” he said, chewing.