Chapter 11
“Are you sure that you don’t mind?”
“What?” I pulled my head from beneath the kitchen sink, where I had been scrubbing. “Did you say something?”
“I asked, are you sure you don’t mind? Also, I don’t think that anyone is going to look under there,” Shane told me. “You don’t have to clean it.”
I scooted up to sit, coughing slightly because this cleaning spray was the same one I had used in the bathrooms at Walter’s Café.
It was extremely strong and possibly poisonous, but this shit worked.
I had always been diligent about doing the bathrooms, tables, floors, and other areas at the restaurant because it was required, like homework, but I hadn’t actually cared very much about the outcome.
It had to get done so I did it, without minding how it looked or if others would have been impressed.
Today, I was quite wrapped up in those things.
“I don’t expect your mom and dad to stick their heads under our sink,” I assured him.
But just in case anyone did, we were prepared.
I knew how much they worried about him, because we did spend a lot of time together and I saw how much they called and texted.
If they knew that our house was neat and clean, they would think, “Wow, he’s doing fine.
Everything is so well-kept! We can settle down and stop bothering him so much, because every time we do, we force him to think about his problems and worry.
We’re making everything worse although we don’t even realize it. ”
Would swiping Q-tips in the grooves of the refrigerator door seal actually help them to see the issues with their behavior?
Maybe not, but I had Q-tipped anyway. And it certainly felt good that I was accomplishing things and striking problems off my list. The refrigerator seal was practically sparkling and on top of that, I had also recently removed another concern from my mind and my life: I had decided to stop worrying about my entire family, and it was a real load off my shoulders.
Yes sir, I was feeling great! I was no longer concerning myself with any of them, which had been a great choice. Everything was much better now.
Shane held out his hands and pulled me to my feet. “You really don’t have to wash off the p-trap, and I don’t think this is a great time for my parents to visit,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re miserable right now, sad all the time. I should have suggested a different weekend.”
“Are you kidding? This is the only couple of days that you’ve been free in forever.
And I’m fine!” I also shook my head, but a lot more vehemently than he had.
“I’m not miserable at all. I feel wonderful and I would love to meet your parents, immediately.
” I wanted to secretly strategize with them about his life and future, if I could manage to get them alone for any length of time.
“Yeah, they’re excited to meet you, too,” he said. “I think you’ll all get along great.”
Later that morning, his mom and dad arrived and I learned that either he was an overconfident optimist or a flat-out liar.
No, they didn’t like me at all, not a sliver of liking.
I saw it after he picked them up at the airport and drove them back here to show them his home before they went to their hotel.
I had suggested that I could give up my room for their use. “You live here,” he had reminded me. “Of course you don’t have to get out.”
But maybe that was why they were already angry when they arrived, because they didn’t want to shell out for a motel?
I could understand that because I also disliked spending money, which was why I was still in this affordable duplex—why leave, Shane had asked, when we have a great setup?
He wanted to save, too, which I understood a lot better now.
It wasn’t only that he was worried about the present, but about the future, when his job prospects in football might have been severely curtailed…
But here were his parents, standing in the living room on the floor that I’d mopped and then gone back over on my hands and knees, just in case. I was smiling and so was their son, but they were looking around the apartment and frowning, and then they looked at me and did the same thing.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked. I started to list the options and felt my pockets for my server pad. Carrying one was new to me at the restaurant where I was now working because we had done counter orders at Walter’s.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Shane offered. They did, on the couch. I realized then that the furniture was a bit lacking, because the two of us could have either stood nearby or joined them by sitting cross-legged on the floor. At least that was very clean.
“How was your trip?” I asked.
His mom answered. “It was fine. There was a delay in Detroit.”
“I could have come down to get you,” her son mentioned and she looked upset.
“You shouldn’t be driving for that long!” Then she frowned again, and she looked over at me.
“Um, I was thinking we could have sandwiches for lunch,” I said. “I’m great at BLTs.”
“All those additives?” his dad asked, staring accusingly in my direction. “That’s not a good choice.”
“Dad, come on,” Shane said. “You know I’m only buying healthy bacon.”
He did, and it was extremely expensive compared to the bulk orders of non-healthy bacon that we’d bought for Walter’s.
“And I would use organic tomatoes and non-GMO lettuce,” I added, but both of his parents were now glancing at each other and they only seemed more worried, not less. So I gave up on the idea of sandwiches.
I was supposed to go to work, anyway, because I had gotten a second job as a clerk at the drug store—with the part-time hours there along with the full-time hours at the restaurant, I was making some money, although I’d had no bites on all the applications and résumés I’d sent out.
I left, saying it was nice to meet them and they murmured something back, but I tended to doubt their sincerity.
They didn’t appear to think that it had been nice to meet me at all and I wasn’t sure why.
No, people didn’t fall in love with me at first sight (and in fact, no one had ever fallen in love with me, period).
But usually, they didn’t dislike me this strongly until they’d known me for a while.
It would have made a lot more sense if we’d talked and they’d hated me after learning more about my personality.
But to step into the house and immediately glare?
“Did you tell your parents something awful about me?” I texted Shane when I had a short break and could disguise the fact that I was using my phone. My manager didn’t want us to be on them even when we weren’t officially on the clock.
“Why would I have done that?” he asked me back. “And what would I have said?”
Well, I could have thought of a few things.
“Mom, Dad, we’re so close as a family and we love each other so much.
Molly’s family has completely splintered and they all hate each other.
The next thing that will happen is them all rolling in the gutter to fight over the few pennies of profit from the sale of the house and the restaurant, provided those sales ever occur and also in the unlikely event that there’s any profit at all after the debts have been paid.
” Or he could have said, “Mom, Dad, here’s Molly.
She moved in with me because I felt pressured into accepting her and she has no prospects for the future besides a degree she took too long to obtain, which has done her no good.
Oh, also, she doesn’t have any other friends. ”
I didn’t answer him by saying any of that, though.
And there was no reason that he would have poisoned them against me, either, because he was a basically kind, nice person.
Of course, he had his moments. He had lost his temper when his truck was recently leaking oil in the driveway (there had been a plethora of good-gollys when that had happened).
He was annoying about dishes. If you put down a glass or cup, even for a few seconds, you would find it next on the dish drainer beside the sink, already washed.
The biggest problem that I had with him was his absence.
He just wasn’t around enough! It would have been nice if he were home every night and also every weekend, so that we could have done more hiking or just hanging out.
I would have enjoyed that even if his parents were pestering him the whole time with questions about his sleep, diet, and mental state (which they did).
I left the drug store and went to the restaurant where I was now working, a slightly more upscale place than Walter’s (they had real menus, they had servers, and they didn’t have a sign that said anything about refusing service due to shirtlessness).
I regularly had customers that I recognized or who recognized me.
I didn’t usually care, even if they made a remark about the throw-up girl from the frat party or asked me if I’d tried any butt stuff yet, since that had been a question I’d answered in that fun, famous interview.
This evening, though, I ran into someone that I didn’t expect and it did throw me off more than usual.
I went home still thinking about it, still agitated, and that feeling only grew when I found Shane sitting on the couch.
It hadn’t seemed small when he and I had used it together but when I had left the apartment earlier today, his parents had wanted him to squeeze in the middle, between them.
We really needed a few chairs and probably a table where we could eat.
“Why are you still up?” I immediately asked. I wasn’t very pleased about this sleep disruption for him.
“I’m not tired. We drove around today so I could show them the area and then my mom insisted that I nap in their hotel room.”
I tried to think of the last time I had napped and concluded that I must have been a toddler. “Did you really sleep?”