Filed to story: The One That Got Away
I point at him and put my finger to my lips.
“Well, we’d better get out of here fast before the guy in charge of the sale sees him giving stuff away for free.”
I get up in a hurry. “Bye, Mr Clarke,” I say, not too loud. Probably better to let him sleep. He was very down earlier, when he was telling me about his divorce.
Mr Clarke’s eyes flutter open. “Is this your feller?”
“No, not really,” I say, and Louis throws his arm around my shoulder and says, “Yes, sir. I’m her feller.”
I don’t like the way he says it, like he’s making fun. Of both me and Mr Clarke. “Thank you for the clothes, Mr Clarke,” I say, and he sits up straight and reaches for my hand. I give it to him and he kisses it, and his lips feel like dry moth’s wings.
“You’re welcome, Patty.”
I give him a goodbye wave and grab my new things. As we walk out the front door, Louis says, “Who’s Patty?” and I pretend I don’t hear.
I must fall asleep in about two seconds from the excitement of the day, because the next thing I know, we’re parked in my driveway, and Louis’s shaking my shoulder, saying, “We’re here, Bella.”
I open my eyes. I’m clutching my dress and shirt to my chest like a security blanket, and my reindeer is in my lap. My new treasures. I feel like I just robbed a bank and got away with it. “Thanks for today, Louis.”
“Thanks for coming with me.” Then, abruptly, he says, “Oh yeah. I forgot to ask you something. My mom wants you to come over to dinner tomorrow night.”
My mouth drops. “You told your mom about us?”
Louis gives me a dirty look. “Kitty knows about us! Besides, my mom and I are close. It’s just her and me and my brother, Owen. If you don’t want to come, then don’t come. But just know that my mom will think you’re rude if you don’t.”
“I’m just saying … the more people that know, the harder it is to manage. You have to keep lies restricted to as few people as possible.”
“How do you know so much about lying?”
“Oh, I used to lie all the time as a kid.” I didn’t think of it as lying though. I thought of it as playing make-believe. I told Kitty she was adopted and her real family was in a travelling circus. It’s why she took up gymnastics.
I’m not sure how dressed up I should get for dinner at Louis’s house. At the store his mom seems so fancy. I just don’t want to meet her and have her be thinking of all the ways that I’m lacking compared to Genevivian. I don’t see why I have to meet her at all.
But I do want her to like me.
I go through my closet, and then Alice’s closet. I finally pick a cream-coloured sweater and a blouse with a Louis Pan collar, with a corduroy mustard circle skirt. Plus tights and flats. Then I put on some make-up, which I hardly ever wear. I put on peach blush and I try to do some eye make-up, but I end up washing everything off and starting over again, this time with just mascara and lip gloss.
I go show Kitty and she says, “Looks like a uniform.”
“Like in a good way?”
Kitty nods. “Like you work at a nice store.”
Before Louis arrives at my house, I go on the computer and look up what fork to use with what, just in case.
It’s strange. Sitting at Louis’s kitchen table, I feel like I’m living someone else’s life. It turns out Louis’s mom has made pizzas, so I didn’t even need to worry about forks. And their house isn’t fancy on the inside; it’s just normal and nice. There’s a real butter churner on display in the kitchen, pictures of Louis and his brother hanging on the walls in wooden frames, and red-and-white gingham everything.
There are a bunch of pizza toppings on the breakfast bar – not just pepperoni and sausage and mushroom and pepper, but also artichoke hearts and greasy kalamata olives and fresh mozzarella and whole cloves of garlic.
Louis’s mom is nice. She keeps putting more salad on my plate all throughout dinner, and I keep eating it even though I’m full. Once, I catch her looking at me, and she has a soft smile on her face. When she smiles, she looks like Louis.
Louis’s younger brother is named Owen. He’s twelve. He’s like a miniature Louis, but he doesn’t talk as much. He doesn’t have Louis’s easy way. Owen grabs a slice of pizza and shoves it into his mouth even though it’s too hot. He puffs out hot air and he almost spits a piece back out into his napkin, and their mom says, “Don’t you dare, Owen. We have company.”
“Leave me alone,” Owen mumbles.
“Louis says you have two sisters,” Mrs Kavinsky says with a bright smile. She cuts a piece of lettuce into bite-sized bits. “Your mother must love having three girls.”
I open my mouth to answer her, but before I can, Louis does. He says, “Bella’s mom passed away when she was little.” He says it like she should already know, and embarrassment crosses her face.
“I’m so sorry. I remember that now.”
Quickly I say, “She did love having three girls. They thought for sure my little sister Kitty was going to be a boy, and my mom said she was so used to girls she was nervous about what she was going to do with a boy. So she was really relieved when Kitty turned out to be a girl. My sister Alice and I were too; we would pray every night we’d get a sister and not a brother.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with boys?” Louis objects.
Mrs Kavinsky’s smiling now. She puts another piece of pizza on Owen’s plate and says, “You’re heathens. Wild animals. I bet Bella and her sisters are angels.”
Louis snorts.
“Well … Kitty might be part heathen,” I admit. “But my older sister Alice and I are pretty good.”
Mrs Kavinsky takes her napkin and tries to wipe tomato sauce off Owen’s face, and he swats her hand away. “Mom!”
When she gets up to take another pizza out of the oven, Louis says to me, “See how my mom babies him?”
“She babies you way more,” Owen counters. To me he mumbles, “Louis doesn’t even know how to cook ramen.”
I laugh. “Can you?”
“Hell, yeah, I’ve been cooking for myself for years,” he says.
“I like to cook too,” I say, taking a sip of iced tea. “We should give Louis a cooking lesson.”