“It’s not going to rain,” said Bellamy. He licked his thumb and held it up to the wind. “No, I can tell it’s not going to.”
“I can feel the rain coming,” said his mother, wrapping her sweater tighter around her.
“Emma’s starving. Let’s go inside,” said Bellamy.
“I’m fine. I can wait,” I said.
“Larry…” said Bellamy’s mom, rolling her eyes at his dad.
“You kids go ahead,” said his dad. “I’ll take care of it.”
“No dad. You don’t need to,” said Bellamy. He gave the keys to Irene. “Here you go, miss. Would you mind putting the top up? Thanks. Okay, let’s go inside.”
We all headed inside, cameramen in tow. The hostess had clearly been warned that we were coming. She greeted us like we were royalty and gave us a huge table overlooking mountains… and the parking lot. We all sat down and arranged our napkins on our laps as Irene crawled around in the convertible down below us, pushing buttons. We watched the windshield wipers take off, and then the headlights flashed on and off a few times. Bellamy’s family politely ignored her. A waiter came around delivering glasses of water with floating bits of cucumbers in them, as the clouds rolled in, all settling like thick gray cotton directly above the convertible. I couldn’t help myself; I identified with the help so strongly that it might as well have been me out there.
I half listened while they ordered some wine with blackberry, peppery notes. I nodded along to a few chirpy anecdotes from our waiter, who seemed to know them all very well and who was clearly hoping to get some airtime. As he went on to describe the vegan wild rice and cranberry loaf that was the chef’s specialty, and Bellamy’s family beamed at me, giving the impression they’d arranged it all on my behalf, Irene was fishing through the glove box, retrieving a leather portfolio that contained the car’s instruction manual. She was thumbing through it, thumbing through it, thumbing through it again. Her misery was palpable and utterly distracting. She was a pathetic, nervous flipbook that wouldn’t stop flipping. I turned away from the window as much as I could, but her panic still dominated my peripheral vision.
“Yes, yes, I’ll take the rice loaf,” I told the man.
“It’s wild rice and lentils. And cranberries, of course.”
“Fine, fine.”
“I’d like the Moroccan flank steak with onion pancakes and chive crepes,” said Bellamy.
“You always get that,” said his sister.
“If it ain’t broke...” said Bellamy. He draped his arm over my shoulder, and I remembered the note in my pocket. I needed to get away so I could read it.
“Emma, tell us about your family. What do your parents do?” asked Bellamy’s mother.
“They’re both retired now, but my dad had his own bookbinding and restoration business and my mom taught home economics. What’s funny is that my mom is the worst cook. I mean, she knows she is so it’s okay that I’m telling you this, and she doesn’t enjoy sewing, or anything like that. I’m not sure how she ended up teaching home economics.”
Everyone looked uncomfortable. Did they think I was being mean? Disloyal? Critical?
“Actually, I take that back. She makes excellent gravy. And isn’t gravy the hardest thing to make?” The story was true-ish. It was all I could come up with under pressure. Once when I still ate meat, when I was very young, she’d made mushroom gravy from some powder and it had been fine. She’d served it over some very bad meatloaf. It was one of her last attempts at cooking. Come to think of it, I recall her saying once in a confessional way that her home economics class was mainly about making salad dressings and watching movies.
“Oh, is gravy difficult to make?” asked Bellamy’s mother. She looked bored and confused.
“I guess.”
“Bookbinding is unusual,” said Bellamy’s brother. He said it encouragingly, as though unusual might mean special. At the same time, the car alarm went off down below us. Irene pointed the key fob at the car, pressing buttons with aggressive desperation. A different waiter politely lowered the blinds so we wouldn’t have to watch Irene’s misery. It did nothing to drown out the noise, of course.
“Dwight,” said Bellamy’s mother, trying to speak over the din, “Why would you say that? I think it’s useful.”
“I didn’t say unuseful, I said unusual,” said Dwight.
“Oh. Unusual, yes.” She nodded. The car alarm stopped and there was a stretch of awkward silence.
I thought about telling them how people from all over the world came to my dad when they needed their rare old books fixed up, and how he painstakingly would repair smalls tears and recondition leather covers, adding many years of life to family bibles or other treasured books that had been passed down for generations, but I sensed that no one would care, or w
orse, it might confuse them. “So that’s their story,” I added to wrap it up. “They live in Florida now.”
“Oh, you’re from Florida?” asked Bellamy’s father.
“I’m from Chicago. My parents retired to Florida.” I was realizing that Bellamy had not exactly prepped them on me. It couldn’t be a good sign.
“And you’re an only child?” asked Bellamy’s mother.