She shook her head, but her expression was tight, because it hurt. I could see it. “He had a heart attack. We told him to quit smoking so many times.” She shrugged, hard and sharp. “High school wasn’t very good for me.”
It clicked. I’d already figured out she had a past that included partying and sex, one she was trying desperately to leave behind. I had a hunch that past had started around the time her father died. I knew a little bit about how tragedy could fuck you up, derail you. But I didn’t want her to start crying while we were still driving, so I changed the subject. “You have a sister?”
She nodded. “Trish. She’s only seventeen. There was a big gap between me and her. Eight years, and she was only little when Dad died. I think maybe Trish was unexpected, you know? But I’ve never asked my mother about it, because of the nuns.”
“Right,” I said. “The nuns.”
I’ll admit it, the nuns were spooking me a little. I’d never met someone educated by nuns, and I’d pretty much debauched the woman’s daughter. I wondered if I’d trail smoke and brimstone when I entered the house, like Temptus did in the cartoons Andrew and I made.
I’d been half asleep and orgasm-drunk when I made this promise to come to dinner. But I was in it now.
“My mother is very nice,” Evie said, “don’t get me wrong. She doesn’t mean to judge. She just literally has the mentality of about 1955. She’s never dated, and she only watches a little TV. She’s had the same job as a receptionist in a doctor’s office for fifteen years. She doesn’t understand anything about what it means to be dating right now. It’s like a foreign language.”
It was weird, how tangled up she was over this. “So explain it to her,” I said.
“No, no.” She shook her head. We were pulling into the driveway of her mother’s house. “I can’t do that. I can’t talk to her about condoms and one-night stands and sex. I don’t know who’d die of embarrassment first, her or me.”
“Okay,” I said, backing off. There was something else under the surface, something she wasn’t talking about. But it was too late now. We were here. And her mother was already opening the front door to welcome us, like she’d been waiting.
Mrs. Bates was in her mid-forties, and she was freaking small. Tiny. She weighed maybe a hundred and ten, a portion of that the pouf of her permed brown hair. An actual perm. She wore pleated tan pants and a golf shirt tucked in, with a slim brown belt. Her face was open and kind, but she dressed like a catalog from 1984.
“Come in, come in!” she said. She took both of my hands in hers when I came near, squeezing them. “You’re Nick? Well, how lovely. I’m glad you’ve come to dinner.”
The house was immaculate, every inch decorated. Bunches of flowers and dried flowers. Twee little sayings in frames. Paintings of ladybugs. Framed photos of Evie and another girl who was obviously her sister—school pictures, high school pictures. The house smelled like roast chicken and sunshine.
Jesus Christ, it was theTwilight Zone.
I had never been in a house like this. Andrew and I had been raised in a big, cold house, where there were staff and we weren’t allowed to touch anything. I was wearing jeans, motorcycle boots, a long-sleeved black Henley. I was pretty sure I’d washed it recently and it had no holes, but I wouldn’t bet money. I’d taken a shower, so I hoped I didn’t smell like dirty sex. That was all I could say for myself.
I really did not belong here.
Evie’s hand grasped my wrist, like she knew exactly what I was thinking. Which she probably did. Her fingers were cold, and I remembered how freaked out she was. Strangely, that made me calm down. It was just a house, a chicken dinner, and a hundred-and-ten-pound woman. I’d dealt with worse shit in my life. It was no big deal.
Mrs. Bates gave us cups of Perrier water—no alcohol, which was probably a blessing—and chattered on to Evie about inconsequential things as she bustled around the kitchen, getting the meal together. Then Mrs. Bates turned to me. “Nick,” she said, “you have to tell me. How did you and Evie meet?”
I looked at Evie. Her gaze was panicked. I realized there was supposed to be a cute story, one that didn’t involve the scene of me standing over Bank Boy’s bloody face while Gina wailed, bare-assed. Still, it was the truth. I opened my mouth to say something, maybe leaving out the bare ass or the obvious fucking.
But Evie answered first. “Mutual friends introduced us, Mom,” she said.
Mrs. Bates pulled out a salt shaker for the roast potatoes. “Like a blind date?” she said. “How nice.”
“Like a blind date,” Evie said.
“Well, it was a good choice, because you two hit it off so quickly,” Mrs. Bates said, putting a slight emphasis on the last word. “What do you do for a living, Nick?”
Evie opened her mouth, but I was faster this time. “Nothing,” I said.
Mrs. Bates’ eyebrows went up. “Oh? You’re between jobs?”
“No, I mean I don’t do anything for a living.”
Evie jumped in. “Nick is figuring out what he wants to do.”
“Not really,” I said. “I don’t do anything. By choice.”
Mrs. Bates watched us, looking back and forth. “I don’t understand.”
“I have a lot of money,” I explained, “and I don’t have to work. So I don’t.”