Chapter 17
Chapter 17
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, WE stood together on the doorstep of my old family home, dressed in much less formal attire.
“Ready for this?” I asked Parker with a grin.
Up until I had met Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton yesterday, I had thought it would be much easier for Parker to meet my family than me his. Even though I knew Mum and Dad would be happy for me in whatever person I chose to be with—unless he was a drug lord or leader of a terrorist organization or the like, clearly—as I stood next to Parker, I was suddenly anxious he wouldn’t like them .
“Yes,” he confirmed with a smile.
It was now or never. I turned the knob and pushed the front door open. “Hi, it’s me!” I called out.
As though they had been lurking around the corner, awaiting our arrival—and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had—both my parents materialized in the hallway at once, wide grins on their faces.
I greeted them with hugs, as was the Dunhill way. “Mum, Dad? This is Parker Hamilton. Parker, this is Cheryl and Joe Dunhill.”
I watched as Parker extended his hand and gave my dad a firm handshake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“Sir?” Dad roared with laughter, his belly wobbling like a bowl of jelly in an earthquake. “Call me Joe. We’re not in the military, you know. And what’s with this handshaking? Come here.” He pulled Parker in for a hug, slapping him on the back the way men do, as if half maiming one another was perfectly acceptable.
“Of course . . . Joe.” Parker extracted himself from the hug, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Dun—ah, Cheryl.” He greeted my mother with a kiss on both cheeks.
“Oh, look at him, all French,” Mum said to me, still clutching onto Parker’s arms. “Aren’t you the fancy one? But then, you are a doctor.” She pulled him down for one of her famous bear hugs, squeezing the living daylights out of the poor guy. I swallowed as I noticed Parker’s eyes bulge in surprise.
I closed mine in silent mortification. Why did Mum and Dad have to be so . . . so not Parker’s parents?
“Well,” Mum said, her cheeks pink. “Why don’t you come on in? We don’t stand on ceremony here, Parker.”
Dad slapped Parker on the shoulder. “No, we don’t. Come and put your feet up, have a nice cup of tea, Park. Can I call you Park?”
“Ah, Parker,” he replied.
Oh, no.
Dad’s smile didn’t drop. “Parker it is then.”
I followed the three of them down the hall and into my parents’ living room. I glanced at the eighties-inspired sofa, with its plastic arm covers that crinkled when you touched them, Mum’s extensive plate collection, and the large TV dominating the room. Over time, it became clear to me my parents weren’t overly interested in moving with the times in interior design. I’d never felt this quite as keenly as I did today. Where once I had simply thought of this as my childhood home, suddenly it looked old, tired, and in serious need of a style injection.
Is Sara’s family home like this?
“What a lovely room you have here. Very relaxing,” Parker said, looking about as relaxed as a lamb in docking season.
“Thank you,” Mum said, brimming with pride. “Come and have a look at this.” She signaled for him to go to the far wall and look at a collection of photos of me and Bella at various stages of growing up. I closed my eyes, knowing what was about to come next.
“Is this you, Cassie?” he asked, pointing to a photo of me, dressed in my girl guide’s uniform, aged about eleven.
“Yup. Embarrassing, huh?” I shot Mum a look. Why didn’t we meet at a café somewhere instead?
“Oh, I don’t know. I think you look pretty cute with your long plaits and knee-high socks,” he replied, shooting me a teasing smile.
“Oh, well, if you like that one, you should see this one over here,” Dad said, standing in front of what was quite possibly the most embarrassing photo of me ever taken. Period. “Cassie hates it, but I think it’s just wonderful.”
Parker took in the photo of me, dressed up for my first ever school formal. I was wearing an orange knee-length dress with a full skirt, complete with ruffled puff sleeves and sewn-on flowers. I was grinning, clearly feeling like a princess in my get-up, my mouth a flash of metal. My hair fell about my shoulders in soft auburn waves, which should have been my one saving grace, but it clashed so perfectly with the orange of the dress it made me physically ill just looking at it.
“I hate that picture, Mum,” I said, shaking my head. And now Parker had seen just how awful I looked back then. Wonderful .
“I know you do, sweet pea, but you look so happy. You know how much you loved that dress.”
“Yes, when I knew zero about fashion and what suits me.” I took a handful of hair and brandished it toward Mum. “Orange, Mum? Really?”
She put her hands up in surrender. “You insisted on it.”
“You looked adorable. I never understand why you don’t like that photo,” Dad added. Yes, you guessed it: my dad was color blind.
I rolled my eyes. “Look at what I’ve got to put up with!” I said to Parker, hoping he wasn’t considering bolting to the hills. “Parents who love to embarrass me at every turn.”
To my relief, he smiled back at me, looking a little less like a rabbit in headlights. Perhaps the walk down bad-fashion-choice-lane had taken the edge off his discomfort?
Parker and I sat down on the sofa next to one another. It was so old we sunk down into it a good half a foot more than we should. I suppose it was bought new in 1988, back when it was probably the height of fashion.
Mum handed Parker a photo album. “Here.”
Parker raised his eyebrows in question at me, a smile teasing the edges of his mouth. “A family album?”
I tried to smile. I knew what was coming next.
He opened onto the first page. There were cute baby photos of me with the dog, my Dad at a picnic. So far so good. Then, he turned the page and saw me, sitting in all my naked glory on a potty in the very room we were sitting in today, laughing my head off with a diaper on my head.
Parker chuckled. “How old were you?”
“Three.”
“I bet you were adorable.”
“Oh, she was!” Mum gushed. “Here, let me show you.”
And so the search through the family photo albums continued, with Mum explaining every photo, Dad chipping in with the odd bit of background on various events, Parker making all the right noises, and me? Sitting on the eighties nightmare of a sofa, wishing it would swallow me whole.
When Mum finally put the albums away and toddled off to the kitchen to make us all a cup of tea—despite the fact Parker was a committed coffee drinker—I watched as Parker surveyed the room once more. “Your parents like plates, don’t they?” he said in my ear.
I stifled a giggle. My mum and her plate collection go way, way back—back to when she was a little girl and her grandmother gave her her very first plate. Or so the Dunhill legend goes. She now has nothing less than about thirty adorning the walls of the living and dining rooms, and at least another dozen in the kitchen. They come from all over the world, and Mum would be more than happy to tell Parker the story behind each and every one of them. I think I’ll save that treat for another time. He’d had more than enough to contend with for one day.
“Now that you know everything you need to about Cassie, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?” Dad said as Mum placed a tray of tea and cakes on the coffee table. My mouth watered as I spied her famous chocolate mud cake.
“Here you go, sweet pea. I made your favorite.” Mum handed me a plate with a large slice of cake and a dollop of cholesterol-laced cream on the side.
“Thanks, Mum. You’re the best.” Mum’s chocolate mud cake never lasted more than a couple of hours in the cake tin, it was so good.
“Thank you. This looks delicious,” Parker said, taking a slice of cake from Mum, who looked as pleased as punch. “Tell you about myself? Of course, Mr.— I mean, Joe. Well, I’m an only child, I grew up in Auckland, I like fine food and wine, and, of course, spending time with your wonderful daughter.” Parker gave my hand a quick squeeze, and I beamed.
“Fine food and wine, eh?” Dad asked, taking his slice of cake and leaning back in his leatherette chair. “Have you been to Davey’s? Now there’s a place that knows how to fry chicken!”
“Oh, yes,” Mum confirmed, a fried chicken glaze in her eyes.
I cringed. Davey’s had been Mum and Dad’s favorite place for a “slap up meal,” as they called it, since I could remember. Run by Dad’s friend, Davey—no surprises where he got the name for the place from—they specialized in deep-fried anything, including the vegetables, and desserts with enough sugar to give you diabetes on the spot. The paleo, low carb, clean food movements had completely passed Davey and his cronies by, that was for sure.
“I don’t believe I’ve been there. Where is it?” Parker replied politely.
“You haven’t been to Davey’s?” Dad sounded astonished, as though it was beyond human understanding why someone, who had lived their whole life in Auckland, had never been to Davey’s for an artery-clogging meal. “Cheryl, did you hear that? Parker’s never been to Davey’s!”
“Well, we’ll just have to remedy that, won’t we?” Mum chirped, licking her lips at the prospect of some of that deep-fried crapola.
Oh, great. That was all I needed, a “slap up meal” with Parker and my parents in a place that smelled of rancid fat—on a good day. On a bad? You don’t want to know. Davey’s was about as far-flung from the refined and elegant surrounds of Parker’s parents’ country club as could be. I squirmed in my seat. A change of subject was needed, stat!
“So, Dad. What’s happening in the world of the Rocket Road Pharmacy?”
As Dad launched into stories from the store, with Parker listening, I leaned back in my seat and tried to see my parents through Parker’s eyes. The hugging when we arrived got us off to a difficult start, but he seemed to have recovered since then. My parents, with their stories and cups of tea and endless props (I’ll have a word with them later about that photo of me in the orange disaster), were at least friendly. But they weren’t refined like Parker’s parents. I wondered what Sara’s parents were like, whether they were like Parker’s, all high class and stiff.
For the first time since we began dating, Parker was seeing where I came from—not just the person he thought he knew. As I watched him nod along to my Dad’s story about a customer having a fainting spell by the hand lotions, I wondered if he liked what he saw.