“What do you have there, boy?”
I grabbed a piece of folded paper from his collar. I opened it up.
All it read was:See you at 7.
It lacked some enthusiasm that I had been hoping for, but I’d take it. I practically skipped back into the house.
“Candace!” I yelled from the foyer. “Candace!”
“Calm down! What?” She appeared at the top of the steps.
“She responded.” I held the note up.
“Oh. Cool.”
“She wants to come over for dinner this evening. I thought we could grill out by the pool.”
“Cool. Have fun with that.”
Candace began to walk back to her room.
“Candace.”
“Oh my god. What?”
“I expect you at dinner this evening too. And on your best behavior.” I watched her face fall. “C’mon! It’ll be fun. You and Helen have more in common than you may think.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Um, she loves clothes for one.”
“Whoopie. We can talk about that for a whole two minutes.”
“Look, can you at least give it a chance? Try to be nice?”
“Fine.” She was there then gone, back in her room where she had been camping out since she’d arrived.
I told myself that this dinner would be good for her. She needed to get out of that damn bedroom and off her phone. I had this beautiful property with a nice pool, and she had barely explored any of it. She kept sarcastically saying it was because Helen still had her boots. Tonight would be good for all of us.