18.
“You’re skinny. How much weight have
you lost this week?” Mike’s big hand molded against her ribcage and slid around
to the front of her charcoal dress, pressed up beneath her breasts as his
reflection towered over her in her closet door mirror. He dropped his head and
sniffed her hair like a dog. “You smell good though.”
“Don’t say ‘skinny’ like it’s a bad
thing,” Delta chastised as she fastened her teardrop earrings into place.
“You were skinny to start with,
though.” He pulled her back against him with just the one hand, a sort of
almost-hug. He was hands-on anyway, but it felt like he’d been holding her up,
waiting and ready to catch her while she was sick. It would have bothered her
if she’d thought it was a macho, possessive behavior. But she was starting to
learn that it wasn’t about that; it was about affection and attachment and him
wanting excuses to touch her.
She brushed a finger across the
shining crown charm around her neck and glanced up at his reflection to see him
watching her. “What?”
“Are you sure you feel up to this?”
She was still a little pale and
shaky, and only just getting reacquainted with solid foods. She’d lost eleven
pounds in two days and was exhausted because of it. But it was Christmas Eve
and Mike was expected at his mother’s house at six. The prospect of another
visit with the Walker clan was a strain on her fragile digestive system, but
where Mike was going, she was going. He wasn’t the only one with affection and
attachment issues now.
“Yes,” she said with a smile she
didn’t quite feel. “I feel really good today.”
He kissed the top of her head and
said, “you’re lying,” against her hair before he let go of her and stepped
away.
**
The Walkers had a massive tree that
was too big for the room, wedged between the mantel and the window. Most of the
ornaments looked like they’d been handmade by the kids years ago – painted
glass balls and hard baked gingerbread men, popsicle stick Stars of David and
plastic spoon reindeer with red pom-pom noses. Somehow, Delta laid eyes on the
tinsel and colored lights and red strands of beads, said, “It’s lovely,” and
sounded halfway sincere.
“It’s tolerable,” Mike’s older
sister Jessica amended. She was in a simple red sheathe dress, a glass of wine
held loosely in one hand, and Delta wondered if she might be the one other
Walker she might actually have something in common with. “Come on. Are you any
good in the kitchen?”
Delta had spent countless hours in
the kitchen with Mrs. Miller and her husband, the Brooks’ chef, pouring and
measuring and boiling and learning how to do what her mother never could. “I’m
okay,” she said, and followed Jessica down the hall and into the laminate and
linoleum nightmare that was Beth Walker’s kitchen. There were too many silk
plants and too many ceramic birds and wallpaper that should have been outlawed.
Beth was in a red and green Christmas sweater complete with Santa Claus face, a
black skirt and flats that had seen better days. Her hair was clipped on top of
her head, but loose strands were curling in the steam that hissed up from the
skillet she stood over.
“Oh, Jessie,” she said distractedly
as they entered, “pull the roast out of the oven, honey.”
Jessica picked oven mitts up off the
counter and did as asked, leaving Delta standing alone and awkward in the
threshold.
Beth’s eyes came to her, a fast,
uncertain darting, and then returned to the roast she browned. “Delta…um…I’d
hate for you to get your dress dirty. Jo’s setting the table. You could help
her with that.”
She shouldn’t have been, but Delta
was a little bit offended. Who was to say she couldn’t tie an apron on over her
dress and whip the potatoes? Beth Walker, apparently. But she dipped her head
in a nod and backtracked down the hall to the dining room. Jo was pulling what
was probably the good china out of the cabinet against the far wall and
stacking it on the edge of the table. She had piles of flatware and napkins in
a wadded up bundle. As if her jeans and dirty socks weren’t enough proof, she
clearly didn’t know a thing about tablescapes. Or anything feminine. Her eyes
were unfriendly as they lifted from the short stack of plates she added to
those she’d already pulled.
“Your mom said you needed help,”
Delta offered and earned a displeased frown.
“I can’t cook. Now I can’t even set
the table, apparently.”
“Well…the napkins are probably wrinkled.”
“So?” Jo challenged. She picked up a
plate and set it at an empty place setting. “We’re going to wipe our mouths
with them.” She gathered knife, fork, and spoon, flanked the plate with them,
but not in the right order.
“Do you actually need help setting
the table? I could show you how.” Delta asked, truly curious. It was hard to
imagine that someone could get to twenty-one without knowing which side of the
plate the fork went on, but Jo had somehow managed. Maybe it wasn’t even her
fault. Her name was Jo after all, and
maybe the tomboy curse of Jo March was inescapable.
“Gee, thanks,” Jo said to the table
as she went for another plate. “I don’t know how I’d live without knowing where
the forks go.”
Delta’s hands found her hips – they
were bony thanks to the tuna salad from Highrise Deli – and formed a retort she
knew she couldn’t use. Thoroughly miffed, she knew her hands were tied by the
necklace around her throat, by the gentle brush of Mike’s hand across her
forehead two nights before, by the sight of him making her toast in her kitchen
and the feel of his big, strong fingers laced with hers at the hospital. These
people were offensive, but they were his family, and if she wanted him, she’d
have to learn to deal with all of them.
“Fine,” she said coolly to Jo and
left her to make a fool of herself, returning to the living room and the arm of
the sofa beside Mike.
He was talking to his brother Walt
about some sort of dull problem Walt was having with his trash pickup service,
but flicked a glance up to her face, a hand closing over her knee in silent
question.
She tidied a piece of his short
blonde hair and forced a smile.
**
Dinner was beef tenderloin with
potatoes, green beans, salad and big fluffy rolls. None of it was fancy or
artfully arranged, but it smelled like heaven. Or, at least, it would have, if
Delta’s stomach wasn’t still tender and angry. She put exactly five bean pods
and a small dollop of potatoes on her plate that she picked at with her fork.
She hoped no one would notice, but of course, that was impossible. She was some
exotic bird in the Walkers’ eyes – mysterious and never before seen and
possibly ugly.
“Delta, you’re not having roast?”
Beth asked in a voice that wavered just enough to reveal how self-conscious and
nervous she was.
“No, I…” Beth’s pinched expression
told her there was no way to say this acceptably. “I don’t eat red meat.”
Jo smirked down into her plate and
Jordan gave a little twitch of his eyebrows.
Randy frowned, not unkindly, but it
was still a frown. “You’re not one of those – what do they call ‘em – vegans,
are you?”
And what if she was? She didn’t get
the feeling that would be welcome news. “No, I -,”
“She’s been sick,” Mike stepped in,
and she felt his shoe butting up against hers under the table. “She had really
bad food poisoning a couple days ago and she’s not back to her fighting weight
yet.”
If he’d intended to quiet their
curiosities, he’d done the opposite.
“Oh, no!” Gwen said. “That’s awful.
Where’d you eat?”
“The Highrise Deli.”
“Down the street from Phipps?”
Jessica asked.
“Yes.”
“That place is disgusting,” her
husband, Dylan said, lip curled in demonstration.
“Believe me, I know that now,” Delta
said with a little sigh.
“I didn’t know you’d been sick,”
Beth fretted. “I would have made something else if I’d known.” The look she
tossed to Mike was absolutely wounded.
“Don’t get upset, Mom,” Jessica
said.
“Well, I would have liked to know -,”
“The potatoes are fine, Mrs. Walker,”
Delta offered with a tight smile that was an effort. “The doctor said to stick
to just starches until I was feeling back to normal.”
“Doctor?” her pale brows knitted
together. “It was bad enough you had to go to the doctor?”
“She passed out,” Mike blurted
before she could stop him. “She had to go to the ER and get hydrated.”
“Oh my God!” Beth gasped. “Michael,
you didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t know I needed to,” he
grumbled.
“I’m always in the dark with you
these days,” his mother complained.
Delta glanced up to find Randy
watching her. “You’re not pregnant, are you?” he asked.
His wife smacked at his arm
immediately and he had the grace to look sheepish, but all Delta heard was
another father asking her if she was pregnant. Mike’s hand found her leg
beneath the table, but it didn’t make the moment any less awkward or painful.
She stared at her plate and tried to pretend none of them existed.
**
The family would open presents the
next morning and be joined by a boatload of relatives for lunch the next day.
Mike informed her of this in a whisper as the dinner plates were cleared away
and then asked if she was ready to, “blow this hole.”
She was.
Delta made the awkward goodbye
rounds, thankful that an end to the evening was in sight. She wanted nothing
more than to skip Jo, but her ingrained sense of propriety won out and she went
in search of the youngest Walker against her better judgment.
Jo was back in the empty dining
room, just barely visible thanks to the light from the streetlamp outside that
filtered through the windows. She was sitting in the sill, arms wrapped tight
around herself, one leg drawn up and crossed over the other. In profile, her
face looked even smaller and more delicate, fairy-like almost, her eyes
luminous half-disks bright with the streetlight. She was lost somewhere in her
head – maybe in 2003 in a photo booth with her older brother’s best friend.
Maybe some other moment. The grim, downward twist of her mouth reminded Delta
of Tam, and left her almost curious enough about what had happened to the two
of them to actually care.
“We’re heading out,” she said
finally, and thought Jo gave the slightest twitch of surprise that she tried to
hide. “Merry Christmas, Jo.”
“Hmm. Merry Christmas,” she said to
the window without turning.
It was a shame things hadn’t worked
out between her and Tam – they were both miserable and rude enough to deserve
each other.
**
Both of Mike’s parents hugged her,
but the gestures felt empty. There was an undercurrent of stress in every
moment that hung between her and Mike’s mother and she couldn’t explain it or
shift the tide of it. Beth was either intimidated or embarrassed or overly protective
of her son, and Delta hadn’t the skills to deal with any of the three.
When the front door closed behind
them, the cold caress of December air against her face was wonderful. It was
crisp and crystalline and blessedly free of uneasy small talk. Delta released a
deep breath that felt like it caved her ribs in together and led the way down
the sidewalk to the Beemer.
Mike didn’t speak until he’d opened
her door and handed her down into the passenger seat. He braced a hand along
the roof of the car and gave her a look through the darkness that was full of
apology, the streetlight touching the lines on his face. “I don’t think they
mean to be like that,” he said, which surprised her. She’d expected an outright
tirade about his family. “They’re just…” he twitched a frown. “I dunno. They’re
weird about new people coming into the family, I guess.”
“You haven’t ever brought a girl
home, have you?” she guessed, and was rewarded with a chuckle.
“No.”
Somehow, that felt good. Good like
the way the night was giving her goose bumps. Good like the way tension was
fading and being replaced by the kind of internal warmth she’d wanted for this
night.
“It’s cold out,” she pulled her legs
up into the car, “let’s go home.”
He closed the door so he could walk
around and she realized, as her breath fogged a patch of window glass, that she
didn’t know where home would lead
him. She didn’t really care.
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