Chapter 40: Monday Evening Part 1

“Dad! Pull over.”

“Okay honey, I can pull in up ahead. What is it? Are you going to be sick?”

“No, it’s not that. I’m not sure if I can do this.”

My brain had been busy keeping me distracted up to this point. Then suddenly it hit home what I was about to do.

“What is it about all this that’s worrying you?”

“I’m about to go to dinner with people I hardly know. They’re all going to be watching me – noticing everything I do, expecting me to talk. If I do something wrong or make mistakes or whatever it will be really obvious. I don’t know what they expect from me. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I must have been crazy to say I would do this.”

“If it’s too much, then I have my phone here. We can call them and say you can’t make it. But before we do that, think about this. Why did Mr DiMartino invite you?”

I had to search my memories to find the answer to that. My memory files for Sunday were still all in the wrong order – maybe I was never going to get them sorted.

“He said that he wanted to thank me and Dan for helping Laura at the party.”

“Do you think that someone who wanted to do that would be critical of you?”

“I guess not.”

“I think they expect you to be yourself.”

“Oh!”

I was looking down at my hands folded in my lap. One of my thumbs was doing little circles on the back of my other hand. It was interesting how the skin on my hand shifted and moved around so that my thumb didn’t actually slide across my skin. It was the skin on my hand that moved around, sliding over the bones beneath it.

Dad reached out and used one finger under my chin to move my head so that I was looking at him.

“Honey, I’m not going to force you to do this. And I’m not going to stop you from doing this. Whatever you decide will be fine with me.”

I smiled at him. “Thanks, Dad.” Maybe that was about half genuine and half sarcastic. His comment was supportive but not helpful.

“It doesn’t matter what happens tonight. I’m already proud of you for what you did on Friday night. I know you don’t like Laura very much but as soon as you realized that she might be in trouble, you went straight back into that house to help her. I can’t tell you how proud that makes me. I’m so proud I could burst.”

Dad sighed and glanced around the inside of the car.

“I’m hoping I don’t burst in here. Someone would have one hell of a job getting all the bits of me out of the upholstery. And I’d splatter all over your nice clothes. That would be a shame.”

I laughed. “Don’t worry, Dad. We’d glue you back together again. They make much better glue nowadays than they were using when Humpty Dumpty was around.”

Dad laughed too. “I think with you girls and your mother on the job that I’d have a better chance of the job being done properly. I mean the king’s horses? How did they expect horses to be able to stick Humpty together? And all the king’s men? That’s a lot of men. They would have been tripping over each other all the time – and getting trodden on by all the horses. That was a project that was doomed to fail before they even got started.”

We both had a good laugh about that. I grabbed Dad’s hand and squeezed it. “Thanks, Dad, I needed that. Now you better drive me to the DiMartino house. I don’t want to be late.”

I had decided that I was going to cope by pretending to be Little Miss Normal. If it had worked for me at school then there was no reason why it wouldn’t work here. I sat upright and put a confident expression on my face.

The thing I was most unsure about was how Laura was going to behave towards me and what I would do about that. I guess I would have to cross that bridge when I came to it.

He looked at me for a moment – probably to check that I was serious – and then he put the car back into gear and released the parking brake.

Melissa opened the front door of the big DiMartino house. She was wearing a simple knee-length crushed-silk dress with short sleeves and a jewel-neck top. It was a coral color and she was wearing it with a broad, dark brown, cloth belt. It was simple but elegant. The whole concept of people my age wearing nice clothes and looking elegant is still new to me. I guess when you’re a child, if you dress nicely then the best you can hope for is to look pretty. Melissa looked beautiful. We said hello to each other and said nice things about each other’s clothes.

She asked me about Dan and I told her that he couldn’t make it. I think she was a little disappointed. I guess despite all her elegance and poise, Melissa wasn’t immune to Dan’s charms. She took my jacket and hung it on a wooden coat stand that stood next to the door. I did a quick check that my blouse hadn’t wrinkled up – which it hadn’t – and Little Miss Normal was ready.

Melissa led me through into a formal looking sitting room. Mrs DiMartino and two young boys were sitting quietly. As soon as I entered the room they stood up. Mr DiMartino had been standing in front of a gas heater that was made up to look like a big log fire. It looked very real, not fake like other things like that I’d seen. He came over to me and shook my hand. I apologized that Dan couldn’t attend because he was working. He kept calling me Rebecca and I bit my lip to stop myself from telling him to call me Bec. On the other hand it helped because it kept reminding me to be Little Miss Rebecca and not shy little Bec.

It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I should have phoned earlier in the afternoon and let them know that Dan wasn’t coming. I managed to say something like that and apologized for not calling. Mr DiMartino waved away my apology. He said that if I’d called, he would have offered for me to bring someone else as a guest, perhaps my friend from school ... he clicked his fingers and Melissa said, “Her friend is Elizabeth Davidson, Father.”

I figured out that in his own way, he was trying to make me feel comfortable. He was telling me that if I didn’t have Dan with me, then I could have had someone else so that I wouldn’t be on my own. I also figured out that Mr DiMartino wasn’t happy that Dan had used a part-time job as an excuse for missing his dinner. It seemed like Mr DiMartino was used to having things happen his way.

Mr DiMartino introduced me to his wife and his two boys, Frederick and Benjamin. I would guess that Frederick was about seven or eight and Benjamin was maybe two years younger. I carefully shook their hands when I was introduced. Then Mrs DiMartino pointed to a padded armchair and indicated that I should sit. Melissa and the two boys sat on a sofa and Mrs DiMartino resumed her seat on another sofa. Mr DiMartino returned to his post in front of the fireplace.

I sat on the front half of the seat of the armchair and kept my back straight. I looked around curiously. Laura’s absence from the room shouted at me louder than a foghorn.

“We have a few minutes before dinner is served so we can use this time to talk.”

I swallowed and told Little Miss Normal that she was here now and she should get used to it. She had a performance to put on and she’d better perform.

“Melissa tells me you play basketball,” said Mr DiMartino.

I nodded and mentioned how I’d played basketball that afternoon. Mrs DiMartino prompted me a few times and I found myself explaining how I played each week at the community center and how long I’d been playing and so on. Again in response to questions from Mrs DiMartino, I talked about going to the pro-basketball game on the previous Thursday.

I was kind of proud of myself that I managed to answer the questions and keep talking like that. I didn’t expect that I would be able to do that. I guess I wasn’t giving big long answers like most people would have done but I was talking. I patted Little Miss Rebecca on the back, she was doing well.

I guess my unexpected success made me feel brave because somehow I managed to squeeze in a question.

“Is Laura going to be joining us?”

“No, she is not,” replied Mr DiMartino. “Laura is confined to her room. She will eat later in the kitchen with the cook.”

“Oh!” I looked down at the floor, for a moment and then up at Mr DiMartino.

“I hope that isn’t because I’m here.”

Mr DiMartino looked at me with a flat face. It was like he was trying not to show any expression but somehow I could tell he didn’t want to be talking about this. Maybe he’s not as good at stone-face as Mum and Miss Webster are.

“Laura has been confined to her room and the kitchen since Saturday evening. I expect it will be some days yet before she is ready to rejoin the family. Your presence here is not relevant to her situation.”

“Oh!”

I looked around the room – mostly looking at the spaces between the people. I find that it’s easier to think if I’m not looking at someone. But I’ve been told that if I spend too long looking at the floor then people who don’t know me might think I was being rude – so I looked at the spaces between the people.

I was a bit confused. Then I realized that Mr DiMartino’s statement was code for him having told Laura that she wasn’t part of the family and he would invite her back in when he felt like it. That seemed bizarre to me. Whenever Tara or I did something wrong, we got a punishment or a lecture or whatever, but then the next thing that always happened was that our parents went out of their way to demonstrate that we were still part of the family – still loved, still cared for, still wanted.

It sounded like this family worked the opposite way. Here, the children were a part of the family until they did something wrong. When that happened not only were they punished, but they were also thrown out for a short time – not actually thrown out of the house, but thrown out of the family. I guess all the talk about sending Laura away to boarding school was an extreme version of that. It seemed wrong. Just at the time when they had the most need to be reassured and told they were loved, they were cut off from their family. How could that be right?

In a way, I was disappointed that Laura wasn’t going to be eating with us. It made things feel a bit weird. I know I hadn’t been looking forward to having her there, but I had decided it was something I would have to deal with. I had myself all prepared to face her. Now I wasn’t going to get to do that.

I was able to cover up my confusion because a slightly older Mexican woman knocked on the door and informed Mr DiMartino that dinner was nearly ready to be served. He replied that we would seat ourselves immediately and that there was only one guest instead of two. Everyone stood up and filed towards the dining room. Mr DiMartino held a chair out for me until I sat on it and then went and sat at the head of the table. I was on his left and there was an empty place set next to me which obviously would have been for Dan if he had been able to come. Next to that was Frederick, the older of the two boys. Opposite me was an empty chair with no place setting in front of it. My guess was that it was normally Laura’s place. Next to that was Melissa and next to her was Benjamin – the youngest.

Mr DiMartino instructed the cook to remove the place setting next to me and to start serving as soon as she was ready. I had been watching the way Mr DiMartino behaved towards me as a guest. I realized that I had an opportunity to do something a bit extreme and that I would be able to do it because I was a guest. I guess I was also a bit disturbed by the way Laura was being kept out when this was supposed to be about me having helped her. I guess he kind of provoked my feisty side.

I had a sudden idea. I guess it was like an inspiration or something. Feisty Bec really liked the idea because it was over the top and subtle at the same time. And Mr DiMartino would be forced to accept it happening despite it being completely against his wishes. Feisty Bec was almost giggling with glee.

“Excuse me for a moment. Mr DiMartino, you said that I would’ve been able to bring a guest with me this evening. Did you mean that?”

“Of course I meant it.” He seemed a little offended that I would question that he would ever say something he didn’t mean.

“Is the offer still open?”

“We are about to serve dinner, there isn’t time for...”

I cut him off. “Thank you, sir. This won’t take more than two minutes.” I turned to the cook. “Please leave the place setting,”

I slid off the chair and walked back out of the room. I knew where I was going because I had been there once before. I found Laura’s room and knocked on the door. I heard a noise from inside so I opened the door and walked in. Laura was wearing hot-pink fleecy pants and a close-fitting, long-sleeved midriff top of the same color. She was stretched out on the bed on her stomach with iPod earpieces in her ears.

As soon as she realized it was me, she tugged the earpieces out of her ears and sat up.

“What do you want?” she said in a tone that was nearly snappy but not quite.

“You’re invited to dinner. Hurry up and get dressed, they’re about to serve.”

“Huh?”

“You’re invited to dinner. Get up quickly. You better change clothes.”

Laura shook her head in disbelief but she slid off her bed and walked into her closet. Oh, yeah! She has a walk-in closet.

I think it must have taken fifteen seconds at the most before she emerged wearing a dress. She turned her back on me and said, “Zip me,” so I did. She slipped her feet into a pair of low pumps and we headed back towards the dining room. The entire change took less than twenty seconds. I think it was a new world record for a woman to do a complete change of outfit.

I walked into the dining room holding Laura firmly by the hand. I didn’t want her backing out on me. She looked a bit uncertain about me holding her hand. I mean after all, we really don’t like each other very much. I guess she was still so surprised by what I was doing that she didn’t think to complain. I had my head up and was showing a lot more confidence than I was feeling. As I entered the room, everyone stood up again. I walked right up to Mr DiMartino.

“Sir, I’d like you to meet my guest for the evening. Her name is Laura. The two of us are delighted to accept your invitation to dinner.”

I watched Mr DiMartino with steady eyes. I was almost daring him to take back his offer for me to bring a guest. I didn’t think he would.

In my head I pictured Laura sticking her hand out when she was introduced and making her father shake her hand as if they’d never met before. That would have been perfect. Sadly Laura didn’t do that, she stood there like a statue so my perfect scene had to stay in my head. Working with Laura was so much harder than I was used to. If I’d done this with Tara, she would’ve figured out what I was doing as soon as I spoke to her father and she would’ve gone through the whole introductions routine and maybe even gone into some of that small talk people do when they’ve just been introduced for the very first time. Even Liz would’ve taken the littlest of prods from me and she would have gotten it and done the shaking hands thing. Laura just stood there. Obviously she hadn’t gotten me yet. But then, that had always been the problem. Laura didn’t get me, so she thought I was a freak.

“Shall we be seated?” I said.

Mr DiMartino still looked a bit bewildered. I realize that I was only out of the room for about two minutes, but two minutes is a long time. He should have worked out what I was up to after two minutes. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise. But that was a good thing for me. The longer it took for him to get his head around me bringing Laura as a guest to his own dining table, the more I could achieve before he got around to objecting. If I were lucky, he never would.

I moved to the chair next to mine and held it out for Laura. I waited for her to sit and then I pushed it in. I was deliberately imitating what Mr DiMartino had done for me. Laura was looking a bit confused but she went along with it. I did notice her flinch a little when she sat on the chair – there was virtually no padding on the seat – and that reminded me that Laura had a sore butt.

I moved to my chair and stood there, waiting for Mr DiMartino to repeat his chair holding trick with me. He saw me standing there and his training overcame his confusion as he carefully held the chair for me and then pushed it in as I sat. The whole little ritual with holding chairs seems absurd to me – does it mean that I’m incapable of sitting in a chair without help? I’m not sure what it means but I know it’s something that’s done when people are being posh so I went along with it.

I sat and looked around the table while Mr DiMartino returned to his own chair and settled himself into his place. Laura was looking a bit confused and shooting me seriously savage looks. Mrs DiMartino was glancing back and forth between her husband and Laura. Melissa was looking at me with big, wide eyes, but when she saw me notice her she dropped her gaze to the table. The two boys seemed to be oblivious to everything but the possibility of food. Mr DiMartino still looked a bit unsure of himself. I counted that as a positive.

I noticed he was a tiny bit higher than I would have expected. It took me about three seconds to solve that puzzle. His chair was a slightly different design from all the rest. It had exactly the same fabric and exactly the same back so it didn’t look out of place, but the legs were carved differently. It was as if at some time, one of the chairs in the set had been broken and a replacement had been found that matched as closely as possible. The biggest difference was that the seat was an inch or two higher than all the others.

Dad had once told me that some bosses will deliberately sit in a higher chair so that the other people in the meeting are forced to look up to him. Dad described it as a nasty little trick that makes the bosses feel more important than they really are. And either deliberately or accidentally, Mr DiMartino was pulling that nasty little trick on his own family – and on me.

I guess I was already running a little bit mad at Mr DiMartino about his attitude towards Laura and towards me and that is why I’d pulled the stunt of inviting Laura as my guest. Well, seeing Mr DiMartino doing that made me madder. It really brought out the feisty side of me. It seemed to take no time at all before I had a plan. It was a good plan too, because it would solve another problem at the same time. But it was also a bad plan, because I was probably about to be downright rude to Mr DiMartino –in case I hadn’t done that already.

I looked down the table to Mrs DiMartino. I smiled as sweetly as I could and used my politest voice.

“Excuse me, but this table is a tiny bit higher than I’m used to and I’m petrified of spilling something and making a mess. Would it be possible for me to have a couple of cushions to sit on? That would be so kind.”

There was a tiny smidgeon of truth in that because the table was a fraction higher than I was used to, but seriously...

Mrs DiMartino blinked at me a couple of times as if she was puzzled by the request but she was too good a hostess to say no. She sent Frederick running off to the TV room to fetch a couple of chair cushions. He returned, slightly out of breath, and very politely handed me two flat cushions.

I smiled warmly at Frederick and thanked him as earnestly as I could. I half expected him to do a little curtsey or something, but he didn’t, he did an imitation of an owl at me and then returned to his own chair – oh wait, curtseys are for girls. Maybe he could have done a little bow or something.

I carefully sat on one cushion and did a little pantomime about checking the height of the table. I made it look as if I was satisfied with just the one cushion so I put the spare cushion down beside my chair.

Then I appeared to suddenly notice that now I was taller than Laura.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. You must think I’m being terribly rude, sitting up high like this and towering over my guest. Here, you should sit on the spare cushion and then we’ll both be the same height.”

Laura seemed to be in a daze as I prompted her to lift up so that I could slide the cushion underneath her. I could almost feel the mental sigh of relief that went through her as she sat down on the now well-padded seat. I don’t think she figured out what I was doing until the instant when she sat on the cushion. Her eyes sprang open and she stared at me.

“There,” I said, smiling broadly. “Now we’re back to being the same height. It’s perfect.”

Laura was looking startled. “Thank you,” she said quietly. Then her eyes went narrow as she tried to figure out what I could possibly gain by doing this for her.

Mrs DiMartino was staring at me with a curious look in her eye – I think she was trying to work out if I knew about Laura’s sore butt, and if so, how I knew about it. But I had done it in such a way that I hadn’t admitted that I knew. That meant she couldn’t comment about it either. I was feeling a bit proud of that little move.

Melissa was looking at me with a perfectly straight face but a sparkle in her eye told me that she had noticed both targets of what I’d done. It was like I’d let off both barrels of a shotgun, shooting two different targets at the same time – wait, can you actually do that with a double-barrelled shotgun? The two boys were staring at me as if I’d just invented double-chip, chocolate ice-cream right in front of them.

Benjamin, whose chin was only a few inches above the level of the table, turned to his mother. “Mother, may I please go and fetch a cushion to sit on?”

“May I also?” chimed in Frederick.

She nodded and told them to hurry and to tell cook to start serving as they went past the kitchen.

“So Mrs DiMartino, what are we having?” I asked, wanting to fill the silence while we waited for the boys to return. Laura was peering at me out of the corner of her eyes. I think she was trying to figure out what the heck I was doing.

“I believe it is to be beef medallions with a red wine and mushroom sauce. I hope that will be satisfactory.”

“It sounds wonderful. What do you think, Laura? Will beef medallions be satisfactory for you?”

Laura blinked at me and then she nodded.

I smiled at Mrs DiMartino. “The meal sounds perfectly satisfactory for both of us. Thank you very much.”