CHAPTER ELEVEN
(Matthew)
Charlotte and I had been living together for about a month before her parents’ visit was imminent.
“I need help,” I begged Scott over the phone the night before their arrival.
“I’ve been saying that for years, and you never listen,” he quipped.
I ran a hand through my hair and glanced toward the bathroom door.
Charlotte had just gotten into the shower, so I only had about forty-five minutes to an hour for this conversation, and frankly, six months of intensive study wouldn’t calm my nerves.
“This isn’t funny. I’ve never been this nervous to meet someone’s parents before. ”
“You’ve met my parents,” he pointed out.
I hadn’t forgotten. “I know. But not in this context. Do you know how easy it is to impress someone when they’re showing up to their kid’s dream wedding that you paid for?”
“It wasn’t exactly my dream wedding,” Scott said. “My dream wedding was Jamaica—”
“But we couldn’t get the bear there. That’s right,” I recalled. “And then you suggested Hilton Head—”
“Because it stopped her from booking a plantation,” he finished.
How “plantation wedding, with bear,” hadn’t been a big enough red flag to get him to dump her right then, I had no idea. I wasn’t going to ask, either. There was no sense in digging up a past that I wouldn’t understand, anyway.
“You don’t think your apartment is going to impress them enough?” Scott asked.
That was a completely different branch of the problem.
Despite my offer to put them up in the most luxurious hotel suite I owned in the city, they didn’t want to “put us out” and clung tenaciously to Charlotte’s initial offer.
Not only would I meet her parents as the boyfriend for the first time, but there would also be no escape from the stress for the five days they planned to stay.
“Are your parents the types to be impressed by money?” I asked.
“Everyone is the type to be impressed by money. Especially in the quantity you have.” Scott made an impatient noise. “You know I’m going to be there, too, right? You’re not going into battle alone and unarmed.”
“You’re not staying at my apartment, though.”
“Yeah, no. Bill and Holly are my parents, and I love them. But I also love boundaries.” He said this like I was some kind of freakish, full-time extrovert.
And I was, but only sexually. Not in a capacity that would work when meeting the parents.
“I think you’re expecting my dad to roar in there and knock your head off because you fucked his daughter. That’s not gonna happen. My parents are more than aware of my sister’s enthusiasm for ‘meeting new people’.”
I somehow heard his air quotes.
“The only way you’re going to mess this up is if you treat her badly in front of them,” he went on. “And I know that’s not going to happen, because if you treat her badly at all, regardless of witnesses, I’ll throw you out of one of your fucking sky palace windows.”
“They don’t open.”
“I didn’t say I would open it.”
“What time are you getting here?” I asked, pacing nervously.
Holly and Bill would arrive on Thursday afternoon, but Scott wasn’t coming until Friday.
“I’m taking the train up after work.” Scott’s new firm was in Boston, which delighted Charlotte.
She was used to being on opposite coasts from her brother.
“Are you going to get here in time for the show?” Charlotte had gotten tickets for the four of them to see a Broadway musical; I’d used epilepsy as an excuse not to go—“You never know when they’re gonna hit you with a strobe light,”—but I couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting in the same room with people singing and dancing at me.
Apparently, Scott was of the same mind. “Wouldn’t that be awful, if I missed it because I thought I’d gotten the fast train, but it was the regular commuter?”
“You’re a terrible son,” I said.
“I’ll come over as soon as I get in, and I’ll be there as a buffer Friday night, okay?” he promised.
“I’ll give you five thousand dollars to come on Thursday.”
“I can’t be bought. But I can tell you that you don’t have anything to worry about.
My parents already know who you are. They’re thrilled that you and Charlotte are together.
And even if they weren’t, what are they gonna do?
Forbid her from seeing you?” This wasn’t the first time he’d given me this exact peptalk, but it also wasn’t as super effective as I would have liked it to be.
What I had been looking for when I’d called him had been something more along the lines of, “I have seen into the future and know for certain that there is no way this visit will affect your relationship with Charlotte.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about whether our parents like you. I think your biggest worry is that they’ll like you too much.” It was the first new piece of advice on the subject I’d gotten from Scott, and it perked my ears right up.
“Oh?” It made sense; Charlotte seemed to run from anything remotely resembling positive reinforcement.
“Come on. You know my sister,” was all he had to say.
Because I did know her, and I was coming to know her even more every day.
I was prepared for the fact that she would become a totally different person while her parents were visiting, but I’d been more worried about how a bad impression would influence her than a good one.
“You’re right,” I said, my guts knotting up. “Fuck, if they like me, she’s going to bolt.”
“Maybe not.” The maybe was concerning.
“That’s very helpful, thank you.”
Scott sighed in frustration. “Look. I know what you want. You want me to predict the future for you. Obviously, I can’t do that.
What I can tell you is, my parents aren’t going to hate you.
They’re thrilled to see my sister in a serious relationship and a job.
As far as I can tell, Charlotte likes both of those things, too.
You’re putting way too much on this visit.
And if you’re nervous... well, big fucking deal, dude.
You think this is stressful? What was Charlotte feeling when you took her up to Connecticut? ”
Point.
“If anything, she was in a higher-pressure situation then than you are now. Maybe keep that in mind while you run in circles about how nervous you are,” he finished.
“That was... deeply shaming,” I admitted.
“It was supposed to be. I’ll be there on Friday night, well after the curtain goes up, and we’ll have bro time. Until then, chill the fuck out, okay?” There was that tough love that I needed.
“You’re right. Thanks,” I said, a little sheepishly. “Safe travels.”
We hung up and I paced the bedroom. I wanted to win the Holmeses over. There had to be a way to signal that I was a normal, healthy guy for their daughter to be with, despite the part where I was a billionaire who lived in what Charlotte described as “a supervillain’s weekend lair.”
My gut rumbled again. Maybe it wasn’t nerves. Maybe it was the scallops Charlotte and I had made for ourselves.
That was it! I could surprise them with a home cooked meal, without any of Charlotte’s help.
That would be a charming, normal thing for a regular boyfriend to do.
I wouldn’t go with scallops, but the internet was full of recipes, and I’d learned enough from Charlotte that I could pull off something simple.
I was going to pass the parent test so hard, I would become legend.
I just wouldn’t do it with scallops.
* * * *
I was halfway through the middle of cooking The Dinner when Charlotte texted me announcing their arrival.
I’d sent her to the airport with my driver to collect her parents because it would buy me time for the surprise, but to my dismay, the recipe I’d picked had turned out to be a little more complicated than what Charlotte had taught me.
I needed one of those meal services that had suddenly started advertising to me on social media.
There didn’t seem to be any danger of burning at the moment, so I hurried to the foyer, catching them as they entered.
“Hey,” I said, weakly raising my hand. “Welcome.”
Charlotte’s parents were the type of people you would handpick to represent upper-middle class white boomers.
Bill had a broad, perfect-toothed smile and the freckles of a chronic golfer—unfortunately the exact type of older man who rang my daddy bell.
Holly dressed a shade too chic to be described as casual and had too few lines on her face to be aging naturally.
Not that I was in a position to judge; my premature crow’s feet hadn’t miraculously vanished on their own.
“How was your flight?” I asked, shaking Bill’s hand firmly.
The last time I’d spoken to Holly and Bill, it had been when I’d first called to check in on Scott after the wedding debacle.
I’d still been in the hospital and on heavy drugs, but I distinctly remembered apologizing profusely for the fact that my last words had almost been about fucking their daughter.
Her dad squeezed my hand a little too tight.
“It wasn’t too bad,” Holly said, and she went in for what, according to everything I knew about them, was an uncharacteristic hug.
Behind her, Charlotte mouthed, “Xanax.”
“Wouldn’t it have been nice if you’d been able to fly in his private jet?” Charlotte asked, blinking innocently at me.
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Bill swooped in and rescued me. “She told us that you don’t have a jet because of the environmental concerns. Don’t cave into her demands. She can be doggedly persuasive.”
“What’s with the apron?” Charlotte asked, tipping her head.
I looked down. “Oh yeah. Surprise. I’m cooking dinner.”
“All this, and he cooks?” Holly said with a broad smile.
“No. But Charlotte is working on that.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “But I don’t want to burn anything so… Charlotte, if you want to show your parents to the guest room and then bring them up?”
“Formal dining room or regular dining room?” she asked.