Chapter 30 Willa
WILLA
Ichecked my phone before I left the gym and saw two texts that I assumed were from Eng along with a missed call with an eerily long stretch of silence for a message.
I was proud of myself for ignoring them, although I couldn’t quite manage to delete the texts or the silent voice mail.
Instead I went home, looked up recipes for leg of lamb, and called my parents to tell them I’d be bringing a contribution to tomorrow’s dinner.
The rest of the evening I occupied myself with grocery shopping, a solo dinner at a sushi place a few blocks from my apartment, and an audio book. Idiot that I am, I continued to check my phone for new messages or emails, but received none.
Was this it? Did he give up after a couple of texts, an unanswered call, and a leg of lamb on my doorstep?
Part of me was relieved that I wouldn’t need to stay strong against an onslaught of messages.
Part of me was angry that I meant so little to him that he was willing to move on after two unanswered texts.
I mean, he could hardly expect me to know the leg of lamb was from him.
It wasn’t like leaving packages of meat at a woman’s door was a typical apology in human culture.
I slept fitfully, up early the next morning to head to the gym for my two client sessions, then back home to grab breakfast, prep the leg of lamb, and put on an outfit suitable for Sunday dinner with the family.
None of us were particularly religious, but a few of my siblings did occasionally attempt to attend church service, so the official gathering time was always after one o’clock.
Dinner was usually at four, so we had plenty of time to talk, snack, and play a quick game of pickup ball with the ancient, ragged-net basketball hoop affixed to the front of the garage.
There were so many of us that it was a good thing we seldom were all in attendance at Sunday dinner except for major holidays.
Today in addition to my parents and my grandparents on my dad’s side, my brother Terrance with his husband, Michaela and her family, and Trey and his family would be there.
That brought the total to fourteen for dinner—too much for one leg of lamb, although mom had been happy to hear there would be an additional source of meat to go along with dad’s barbecue ribs and grandma’s golabki and fresh bread.
Michaela was bringing a huge Greek salad, and Terrance was bringing brownies and pie.
I was glad that I could provide something aside from my usual bags of chips or charcuterie platter.
Just as I was leaving my phone dinged. The notification showing a text from Eng sent my heart to racing. It took four seconds of debate, but I ended up reading it instead of just hitting delete.
It was a picture of the paper target from our axe-throwing date with a slash through the center. The caption said “This is when I knew you were an orc at heart.”
Tears stung my eyes. To keep myself from replying I shoved the phone in my purse and zipped the top.
No, I didn’t delete the text. No, I didn’t block him.
It may have seemed as if I were torturing myself, but it would have been far more painful to not know if he was still trying to win me back, and exactly when he’d give up on me.
Driving to my parents’ house I kept thinking of the target. I’d been horrible at axe throwing, but with Eng’s guidance, with him showing me how to angle my arm and use my body, I’d finally landed one right in the center.
The picture hadn’t been taken onsite. He’d retrieved the target and kept it, me completely unaware. And he still had it.
I wasn’t his princess. I was just a booty call to him. I meant nothing to Eng beyond my availability for frequent sexual encounters. He hadn’t even bothered to remember my name.
But he’d kept the target.
The driveway was empty, but I parked on the street knowing that we’d want to use the driveway for basketball later today.
Grabbing my purse and the container with my seasoned leg of lamb, I made my way across the weed pocked grass of the front lawn to the front porch.
The main door was open with only the screen door keeping the cool fall weather from coming inside.
Normally dad would have had a fit over wasting electricity trying to heat the whole darned neighborhood, but with so many people inside, some fresh air would do us all good.
The laughter and loud voices could be heard from the street, but I loved how the sound increased as I stepped inside.
My grandfather was sitting on the couch with Michaela’s husband James and my brother Leroy, who I hadn’t expected would be here this weekend.
They were watching football and arguing over if the Ravens were going to turnaround their latest losing streak and beat their nemesis team, the Philadelphia Eagles.
I bent down to plant a kiss on my grandfather’s cheek, and smiled over at Leroy. “Are Sarah and the girls here too?”
“No, they’re off to see Gabby’s Dollhouse Live then to some American Girl Doll tea.”
I laughed. “How’d you manage to get out of that one?”
“In the way of all successful marriages, I made a deal.” Leroy grinned. “Sarah does the theater and the tea, and I chaperone the zoo trip next week, and take the girls to the splatter-paint obstacle course later this month.”
“I think you got the short end of that stick,” I told him, although the splatter-paint obstacle course sounded like a blast.
“Anything to get out of American Girl Doll tea,” he replied.
The others shushed me as the game resumed, so I waved at Leroy and headed into the kitchen. Mom and Grandma were there along with Michaela.
“TaDa!” I announced as I pulled the leg of lamb from the bag.
Michaela snatched the container from my hands, putting it on the counter and removing the lid as the other two women gathered near.
The chorus of “ooo’s” made me laugh. It was as if they were admiring a newborn or a piece of artwork instead of a hunk of meat.
“That’s a fine leg of lamb, right there,” Mom announced.
“Did you marinate it or is that a dry rub?” Michaela asked.
“I used a rub, but I scored the meat and let it soak in for a couple of hours,” I told her. “Lemon and olive oil base with garlic, smoked paprika, ground dry mustard, and onion powder.”
Grandma nodded. “I usually do mint, or a rosemary rub, but that paprika and mustard sounds good. Is it from Binkert’s, or Wasserman and Lemberger?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I found it outside of my door yesterday morning.”
The words were out before I realized how absolutely weird that sounded.
Michaela folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrows. “Girl. You’re telling me you brought us a piece of meat you found lying around the hallway of your apartment? What’s next, dumpster diving for your contribution to Thanksgiving dinner?”
“It’s not like that,” I protested. “It was on my doorstep, wrapped in butcher paper with those freezer things in it.”
Michaela huffed. “Random ass piece of meat. I’m not gonna eat it.”
“I am,” Grandma announced. “Look at it. I don’t care where she found it, that’s a nice-looking leg of lamb.”
Mom nodded. “Even if she found it in some alley, it’s not spoiled and I’m sure she washed it off good before she put the dry rub on it.”
“It’s not some ‘random ass piece of meat’ and I didn’t find it in an alley,” I argued. “I’m pretty sure my ex…ex-boyfriend left it for me. It’s a thing in his culture, evidently.”
“Oh, hell no,” Michaela announced. “Ex-boyfriend? I’ve heard about some of your ex-boyfriends, Willa. It’s probably laced with cyanide or something.”
Grandma leaned over and sniffed. “I don’t smell any almond. Even if he did lace it with cyanide, the moisture plus the washing, and then the heat of cooking would get rid of almost all the poison.”
We all stared at her.
“What?” She returned our stares. “You learn these things in the old country, especially when your mother had to poison a few Nazis during the war.”
“A useful skill to have,” Mom said before turning to me. “Okay Willa, tell us about this ex-boyfriend of yours so we can best judge if we need to have your Grandma test the lamb for other known poisons.”
My face heated up. “He wasn’t really a boyfriend. We…we were sort of hooking up regularly for a few weeks.”
Michaela blew out a breath. “Let me guess—you wanted more.”
My cheeks were on fire by this point. “I thought he wanted more too. He took me out to dinner and dancing and axe throwing. Quite a few dinners out, actually, and a sail boat ride on the river too.”
Grandma nodded. “A man’s serious if he’s taking a girl axe throwing. Is he good? I mean at the axe throwing. I know he’s good in bed, because you don’t tolerate that sort of ineptitude. Michaela might, but not you, Willa.”
Face. On. Fire. “He’s very good at axe throwing.” And in bed.
“Hey!” Michaela glared at Grandma. “I do not tolerate men who are bad in bed.”
Grandma began ticking the names off on her fingers. “Sean. Todd. That Mathew boy. I swear if you had married him I would have disowned you.”
“I was nineteen,” Michaela protested.
Grandma waved a hand. “No excuse, especially with all those romance books you were reading.”
“So tell me more about this ex-boyfriend,” Mom interjected, unfortunately turning the focus back to me. “Is he the one you took leftovers to three weeks ago?”
“Yes, that’s him.” And now I regretted taking Eng those leftovers.
“He had to go away for a few weeks on a business trip, and I didn’t hear from him at all.
No texts, no calls, nothing. When he came back and I confronted him, he didn’t see where that was a problem.
And then I found out he didn’t know my name. ”
Michaela shrugged. “So he didn’t remember your last name. It’s not like our surname is Smith or Jones or something easy. And you only knew him for a couple of weeks.”
My face heated up again. “No, he didn’t even know my first name.”