Chapter 17 – Juliette
SEVENTEEN
JULIETTE
“Let’s go, Jules!”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I shouted, through my closed bedroom door.
He’d been calling up to me every five minutes. Saying we were going to be late for our reservation. Saying we were going to miss our reservation. Saying they were going to give away our reservation.
I was so damn sorry I’d said anything about going somewhere nice, I could almost pull my hair out. That was if I wasn’t working as hard as I fucking could to straighten it in a way that made it look more like April’s and less like…well mine.
There was no hope for it.
I’d borrowed the damn straightener from April last week, thinking that maybe I just needed hardware to change my impossibly straight, impossibly zero motion hair. Maybe lean into the straight and long thing with more straight and long.
I should have known by April’s skepticism that this probably wasn’t going to work.
A hundred YouTube videos later and I still just looked like me.
Turning the damn thing off and unplugging it so I wouldn’t cause a fire, I stared at myself in the mirror again. My soft brown hair fell evenly on either side of my shoulders, but would not pass for the model’s I’d tried to mirror. Flipping my head over, I brushed it out as best I could.
Then flipped it back. It immediately defaulted to straight and even.
“Jules!”
Okay, even I could admit I was running out of time. Taking a deep breath, I stepped into my dress, which I had carefully ironed. It needed it, because I’d tried it on like a dozen times in the past two weeks just to make sure it looked like I remembered it.
This part didn’t take too long because I still loved the way it looked. I pushed my feet into the ballet slippers, dabbed a bit more of April’s pink cream blush on my cheeks and took a deep breath.
“This, Juliette Clarke, is the best you’re ever going to look,” I told the mirror.
What if he doesn’t like it?
Then I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t supposed to care even a little bit if he liked it. This moment was for me. Taking a deep breath, I opened my bedroom door and stomped down the steps just to remind him that I was annoyed at being rushed.
He was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps with a thoroughly annoyed look on his face, until he glanced up at me.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t nod his head or anything. He just…stopped breathing for a second.
I wasn’t totally sure what that meant.
“You look so pretty,” he finally said. “Real pretty, Jules.”
“Thank you.”
Then he pulled something out from behind his back.
“What is that?” I asked, stepping closer to him.
“It’s a corsage,” he said. “Give me your hand.”
I did and he slipped the white orchid with baby’s breath over my right wrist.
“It’s nice.”
“A birthday girl should have flowers,” he said. He cupped my face in his hands and stared down at me like he had a hundred things to say. Finally, he landed on. “Let’s go. We’re going to be late.”
It was so romantic.
We took his truck and any time we lost with my hair straightening attempts, he made up for. He was taking us to a fancy steak house in Jefferson and I was so nervous I didn’t even know how I was going to eat anything. But because it was my special birthday dinner, I was going to try real hard.
We didn’t talk much on the ride there and when he pulled up into the parking lot he told me to wait where I was. He circled the truck, opened my door and offered me his hand to help me out.
Then he held onto that hand as he led us into the restaurant.
All his fears about losing our reservation did not come to fruition and we sat in a booth across from one another, with a big menu for each of us.
There was a white linen tablecloth, silverware wrapped up in a white cloth napkin, and a candle in the middle of the table that I thought smelled like vanilla.
I had no clue what to do with my hands. I wanted to sit on them so he wouldn’t see me fidgeting, because this was by far the nicest place I’d ever been to in my life.
I’d explored the internet a lot. I never wanted to be one of those rubes who grew up on a farm and that was all I ever knew.
I watched videos of Paris, Rome, and New York.
I took virtual tours of Seattle, because for some reason, that was the place I thought I would live one day.
My phone was now my window into the world, but sitting in this restaurant, the conversations muted all around us, the seats of the booth deep and cushioned, it felt like I fell into another universe.
My throat was tight so I focused on the flower at my wrist.
“Take a breath, baby.”
“What?” I huffed out.
“You look nervous,” he said, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. I was tempted to tell him this was not a place where elbows on the table was permissible, I didn’t think.
“I’m not,” I lied.
“Okay. So you can drink now. What’s it going to be? Wine? A beer? A cocktail? But know, I’m not letting you get drunk tonight.”
“How come? Lots of people who turn twenty-one get drunk. It’s a rite of passage.”
“Hmm. Because I want a make out session later, and we can’t do that if you’re drunk.”
Make out sessions. That’s what he called them. Sometimes in the morning after breakfast. Mostly after dinner while we were watching TV together.
He’d put a halt to getting each other off. It was either move back into his bedroom if I wanted more orgasms, or we would both do without.
But making out was just some fun for both of us and he didn’t see the harm.
I suppose I didn’t either, other than it usually left me frustrated. But the frustration was starting to become something I was looking forward to. Probably because I knew he was frustrated, too and there was a certain satisfaction in that.
“You’ve never made out with a drunk girl?” I asked him, even as a busboy came over to fill our glasses with water.
“Your server will be with you shortly,” he said, before he disappeared.
“I’ve made out with too many drunk girls. It’s usually sloppy as hell,” he said. “Two drinks. That’s your max. Choose wisely.”
It was funny, but when I was thinking about this night, (and I’d been thinking about this night nonstop for weeks), I wasn’t really thinking about the whole being able to drink in public. It was more the idea of doing something I’d always thought about as a girl growing up.
Going on an actual date.
I wasn’t even sure why. Five, six years ago, I didn’t think there would be any kind of end to my life with Herb. Still, there had always been fanciful ideas about what dating a cute guy would mean. What holding his hand would feel like. Butterflies in my stomach.
“Did you see that gash on the rooster I told you about?” Creed said. “I’m thinking that fucking cock’s got an ego bigger than he can handle with some of those chickens.”
“I don’t want to talk about the farm,” I said, quietly.
Just then a woman, fortyish, short brown hair, dressed in black pants, crisp white button down shirt and a black vest approached the table with a smile. “Hi, I’m Susan, I’ll be your server. Have you had a chance to check out our wine list yet?”
Oh, shit. There was a test. Homework. We were supposed to be looking at the wine list this whole time, and like an idiot, I’d been sitting on my hands.
“Oh, my gosh, that’s such a pretty flower,” Susan said, gushing over my corsage.
“Thank you,” I offered, resisting the urge to hide it under the table. Like maybe it was too old fashioned or something, but I still liked it.
“Hey, Susan,” Creed said, easily. “It’s my wife’s birthday tonight.”
“Happy birthday!” she said immediately to me.
“Thank you. Again.”
That was weird. I couldn’t remember the last time a stranger wished me happy birthday.
“We’re going to start off with a bottle of your best champagne. We’ll see if she likes it.”
“Excellent! Let me get that started for you, and I’ll have Miguel bring you some fresh bread.”
I waited until Susan walked away.
“Champagne,” I hissed, leaning over the table. “That’s going to be expensive. Did you even look at what the best costs?”
“I did,” he said. “I checked out this place online while I was booking the reservation. We’re good. This is a special occasion.”
“What if I don’t like champagne?”
“Everyone likes it. It’s fizzy water. What’s not to like?”
I fumbled for the large menu in front of me. I also had checked out the menu online, but having all these choices presented in front of me seemed more intimidating now.
The prices! Holy fucking shit.
“We can’t afford this,” I muttered. “I mean seriously, I don’t know what expectations you have for a sugar beet crop, but it’s not steak dinner money.”
Creed chuckled. “We can afford it tonight.”
I continued to study the menu like I was cramming for a test. Susan was going to be back any minute. She was going to ask me to decide. How the heck was I supposed to figure out what I wanted when I had all this to choose from?
“You want me to order for you?”
I picked my head up from the menu.
“Not in the dick way, like I need to choose for you, but you seem a little overwhelmed. I think I know what you like. I’ll just order for us.”
“You’ve been paying attention to what I like?”
“Yep,” he said, smugly.
Herb had watched me grimace over broccoli my entire life and had never once clued into the fact that I did not like broccoli.
“Prove it,” I challenged, dropping my menu at the end of the table.
Miguel dropped off some bread rolls and fresh butter and Creed immediately dug in.
I wanted to wait for the main meal. Also, I was planning on ordering desert.
Any rolls we didn’t eat, I could just sneak into the small canvas tote I’d brought along with me.
It carried a brush, April’s compact and some tissues.
“So, what are we going to talk about if we’re not going to talk about the farm?”
I’d been distracted by looking around at some of the other guests. Clocking the women who wore dresses. There were a number of them, so I was outfitted properly for the occasion.
“Huh?”