Gone, Gone, Gone(27)

Dad drives me. Maybe my sisters are aware this is all some kind of ruse, but I’m getting the feeling my father has no idea this date isn’t going to end in marriage and children. He’s babbling on about his first date, and his first car he drove to go pick her up. And how in his day they didn’t have these fancy electric car window openers, you had to crank them down by hand. God, I want to crank my head off right now.

He says, “You brought money to pay?”

“It’s her country club, Dad. She’s going to pay. Or her parents.”

“Oh, then they might give you a menu without prices. I’m not sure. It’s been a long time since I ate at a country club. But don’t order anything too expensive. But don’t order anything too cheap, either, that’ll insult her. It’s best to stick with some kind of chicken or fish.”

I like how he thinks I’m straight but has managed to deduce that I’m basically the girl in this situation.

“And don’t linger outside,” he says. “You know.”

I say, “Yeah, I know.”

He doesn’t need to tell me.

My heart starts pounding like after a nightmare, so I close my eyes and take some deep breaths. I know how to calm myself down. I just hate that, ever since that argument with Craig, I’ve had to do it so often.

There is no reason for me to be scared. No one has been shot in hours. Feeling vulnerable isn’t new to me.

Thinking my vulnerability is significant is.

The voice in my head saying, Cody’s dad shouldn’t have died—yeah, that is, too.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but this isn’t the headspace I need to be in right now.

The outside of the country club is deserted. It’s hard to walk in these stupid shoes. They’re my dad’s and too big. It’s like my feet are fish. It takes me too long to get from the car to inside. I breathe.

Amelia is wearing a pink silky dress that falls off her shoulders. I realize now how poorly I know her. I don’t think I would have recognized her if she weren’t the only teenage girl standing alone. But she’s funny over IM. And her dress is pretty.

She gives me a little wave. “Thanks so much for coming,” she says. “I think if I hadn’t found someone to treat, my dad would have been really concerned that I had no friends or something.”

I smile a little. Is she familiar with the fact that I don’t talk? I can’t remember if she’s ever tried to interact with me in real life. Why did she invite me? Maybe she really doesn’t have any friends. At least that’s something we have in common. That can be our conversation starter. Too bad I’m the official conversation finisher.

We get a table. There’s a little useless candle between us. When I was a kid, my sisters and I used to set the napkins on fire whenever we were at a place nice enough to have candles at the tables. That wasn’t very often, since every time we went, my sisters and I would try to set everything on fire.

Amelia makes small talk about movies. I nod and say a few words when I can. We order, and I get chicken in some kind of wine sauce. It’s in the price range my dad would like, but it feels really gay. I feel like Amelia can tell, even though of course she doesn’t say anything.

Really, I ordered it because it has the shortest name on the menu. Seriously, I’m pathological.

“So how are you liking D.C.?” she asks.

People around here have a weird habit of calling it D.C. This is Maryland.

I say, “It’s okay.”

The food tastes like something an old person would eat, but it’s not so bad, really, just suspiciously easy to chew. I get self-conscious about how many sips I take from my water glass and how many times I have to wipe my mouth on the scratchy napkin. We’re not talking anymore, and for the first time ever, I hate it. I hate the silence and I hate this date. Why did I let my sisters force me into this?

It’s not like they pushed very hard. I folded.

I was afraid of saying no to something I would like. And look where that got me. I think I need to figure out what it is, exactly, I would like.

Besides a boy who won’t have me.

I make a lot of efforts to smile at Amelia.

The evening’s ending. Our plates are empty enough to not be embarrassing. She says she doesn’t want dessert, and I don’t drink coffee, so I guess that’s it. She sees me checking my watch. “Is your dad going to pick you up?”

“Yeah. I’ll call him. You?”

“Oh, I live just a little bit away, through the woods. I’m going to walk.”

I look up quickly. “You’re going to walk through the woods?”

“Yeah.” She must catch my expression. She laughs a little, back in her throat. She sounds old. Old enough for the food. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Lio. Don’t get paranoid like . . . I’ll be fine.”

I say, “Listen, my dad can drop you off.”

“No, really. I brought shoes to walk in and everything. It’ll help me burn off some of this dinner.” She laughs. But she didn’t eat that much, not enough to die for.

I say, “Hey . . . please?”

She blows me off again, and I don’t know any other ways to ask.

Dad calls me when he’s at the door. I run to the car.

“Did you have fun?” he asks me.