Gennie showed up at Bella Cucina at twelve o’clock the next day, ready for work. She had no idea what to wear so she actually went shopping for a new outfit, something she had never done by herself. She ended up buying a pink tank top with buttons on the shoulders, a red pleated skirt, and red and white flats.
“Hey, what are you doing coming to work looking so fancy?” Lacey Anderson, the restaurant’s host, asked.
“I know this sounds hard to believe, but after work, I’m going out on a date.”
“Really? Good for you! Who’s the lucky guy?”
“I don’t know him, but his name is Foster Conrad. Is he listed?”
Lacey looked at the reservation list for that night. “No, but there’s a Charlene Conrad, party of six. I’m guessing he’s part of that crowd.”
“Charlene is his sister,” Gennie said, feeling relieved that so far it didn’t seem to be a prank. “When will they be here?”
“They have table eighteen reserved for eight o’clock.”
Eight hours later, Gennie was hot and sweaty and her tank top was wet. She went into the restroom to straighten herself up. Her stomach was in knots. She didn’t know how she was going to eat. She wanted to throw up instead.
Lacey entered the ladies’ room. “Your friend Charlene just came in with a guy. Do you want me to take you to their table or do you want to wait?”
Gennie inhaled deeply. “Take me to their table.”
Lacey led her to a large round table near the back of the restaurant. The lighting was very dim back here, with the glow of a single candle on the table being the brightest thing in the room. Gennie almost choked when she saw Charlene sitting next to…of all people…Ben!
“Great,” Gennie said to herself.
Charlene was caressing Ben’s arm and talking softly to him. Gennie was tempted to turn around and walk out of the restaurant, but she didn’t want to alarm Lacey. Lacey pulled a chair out across from Ben and Charlene.
“Do you want anything to drink?” Lacey asked Gennie.
“Yeah, I’ll have a Coke,” Gennie replied, sitting down.
“Oh Gennie, it’s so nice to see you here!” Charlene gushed. “I was afraid you would get the last minute jitters and not come!”
“I was thinking the same thing about you,” Gennie said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in her voice. “So, where’s your other boyfriend?”
Charlene seemed to be taken aback by that question but then laughed. “Oh, Johnny’s probably taking a shower and getting ready. He gets all sweaty after practice and he knows I don’t like that.”
“You and Ben aren’t an item yet?”
Ben glared at her. She could tell by his clenched jaw that he was itching to say something to her but was holding back.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Charlene said to Ben as she rubbed his back. “She’s just kidding around. No, Ben and I are just very good friends. Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah,” Ben said miserably.
“Actually, he’s dating my best friend, Barbara Duffy.”
“You’re going out with Bouffant Barbara?” Gennie did her best to try not to laugh.
“Yeah, I am,” Ben said. “You have a problem with that?”
“Nope, I think that’s great. Congratulations.”
“Barb is late all the time,” Charlene said. “There’s always something she has to do at the last minute.”
“Like putting another layer of Aqua Net on?”
“You could say that again,” Charlene said, chuckling. “She’s so obsessed with her appearance. I believe people should always look their best, but she does go a little overboard at times.”
“You don’t say?” Gennie replied. Barbara was the most overboard person she knew. Gennie couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t see that girl without a mirror and a can of hairspray.
“Well, it’s better than looking like a grub all the time,” Ben said, a nasty edge to his voice.
“It is, definitely,” Charlene said, seemingly unaware that the comment was an attack on Gennie. “By the way, I like that outfit. Is that new?”
“Yeah,” Gennie said.
“Where did you get it?”
Gennie wasn’t about to admit that she purchased the whole ensemble at Montgomery Ward for twenty dollars. Even though that was huge amount of money to her, it was probably a pittance to Charlene.
“I don’t remember,” she finally said.
“It looks like Neiman Marcus to me. I’ll have to go there and see if I can find something similar. Oh…and look who’s here!”
A young man in his late teens walked up to the table. He had the usual preppy outfit on, light brown tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, white broadcloth shirt and a striped white and cranberry colored tie with black dress pants. The only thing not preppy about him was that his dark hair was longer than his shirt collar and it looked like he just hastily took some hair gel and smoothed it back.
“Gennie, I want you to meet my darling brother, Foster. Foster, this is Gennie Perrin.”
Foster’s dark brown eyes took on a look of surprise. She couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.
“Hi, Foster,” Gennie said. She stood up and held out her hand. Because of the eight hours soaking in dishwater, her hands were very clean and soft. “Nice to meet you.”
“Oh, hi,” he replied, his voice not much louder than a whisper. He took one of his hands out of his pockets and shook hers. It was dirty, rough and calloused. So, he is the real deal, Gennie thought. They both sat down next to each other.
“And this is my friend Ben,” Charlene said. “He’s the one I told you about.”
“The new Romeo, right?” Foster said.
“Gennie is his twin sister,” Charlene replied.
“Oh, okay.”
“Great to meet you,” Ben said. He reached over and shook hands with Foster.
“You too,” Foster said. Gennie surmised that Foster wasn’t much of a talker. It would make the night all the more awkward.
“Now,” Charlene said, glancing at her expensive looking gold watch with a red dial, “just two more people to go.”
“I wish they would get here,” Gennie said. She couldn’t wait for this night to be over.
“Charlene, do you mind if I order an appetizer or something to tide us over?,” Ben asked her. “I’m starving.”
“That would be a great idea,” Charlene replied.
“Hey, Liz!” Gennie shouted to the waitress who normally served their section of the restaurant. She was busy taking another customer’s order. Out of the corner of her eye, Gennie saw Ben cringe and she was glad he did.
“Hi, Gennie,” Liz said as she walked over to the table. “Sorry it took so long. Are you all ready to order?”
“Not yet,” Gennie said. “We’re still waiting on two people. But in the meantime, we were thinking of ordering an appetizer.”
“Sure,” Liz replied. “Do you want breadsticks too?”
“Okay,” Gennie said.
“What do you all want for an appetizer?” Liz asked.
“The antipasto sounds good,” Ben replied.
“Since you’re the gourmet here,” Charlene said, “let’s go with that.”
“All right,” Gennie said. She noticed Foster didn’t have anything to drink yet.
“Hey Foster, do you need something to quench your thirst?”
Foster looked a little uncomfortable. “A beer would be okay,” he said to Liz.
“What kind would you like?” Liz asked.
“Foster’s,” Gennie blurted out, partly as a joke. Charlene seemed amused by it, but Ben’s face turned beet red.
Foster didn’t seem to mind, chuckling a bit. “That works,” he said.
As soon as Liz walked back to the kitchen, Johnny Briggs walked in, followed by Barbara Duffy. Johnny looked like a sports announcer with his navy blue blazer, matching pants and white shirt with his tie loosened
. Barbara was her usual overly made up self. She had on a red mini dress decorated with small silver stars at the collar, matching earrings, thigh high red leather boots and glitter in her hair and eyelids. Gennie noticed Charlene pushed her chair away from Ben’s. Ben looked at Johnny and Barbara as if they were both his worst nightmare come true.
“Hello, Babe,” Johnny said, as he slid in the chair next to Charlene.
“Hello, Johnny,” Charlene replied politely, offering up her cheek. Johnny gave it a quick peck and took hold of her white gloved hand.
Ben looked like he was about to wilt. Barbara sat next to him, not looking overly thrilled by her date. She took out a pack of Larks and a slim pink lighter out of a leather cigarette case and lit one up. Ben’s face turned green as she puffed on it and blew the smoke in his general direction.
Oh boy, this is not going to work out, Gennie thought. One of Ben’s biggest pet peeves was girls who smoke. That was one of the many reasons he hated Page so much. If he knew that Gennie smoked with her, she would have been officially disowned a long time ago.
“I’ve got a question, Barb,” Gennie said. “Isn’t it dangerous to smoke with all that hairspray?”
Foster cracked a smile. To Gennie’s surprise, Johnny burst out laughing. Barbara shot them an annoyed look.
“No,” Barbara replied, as if that was the dumbest question she was ever asked, “as long as you don’t do both at the same time.”
“Barbara found that out the hard way,” Charlene said. Gennie was sure this was something Barbara didn’t want anyone to know. “When we were in sixth grade, she lit up a cigarette while I was spraying her hair and this foot long wall of flame appeared. We accidently set fire to her bedroom curtains. We then ripped the curtains off the rod and shoved them in the toilet. We were so afraid her parents would find out that we tried to flush the curtains down the toilet. That caused the toilet to back up. I can’t tell you how much of a mess we made. At the time, her parents didn’t know she smoked, so we made up this story about how we lit a couple of candles on the windowsill and the breeze made them catch the curtains on fire. Luckily, they believed us.”
Liz came back carrying a large dish of antipasto. Johnny wrinkled his nose.
“What’s this crap?” he said.
“Antipasto,” Charlene replied. “Ben picked it out.”
“Figures,” he said under his breath.
“Your breadsticks will be here in a moment,” Liz said. “Are you all ready to order?”
Johnny ordered the spaghetti with meat sauce, which caused Gennie to change her order at the last minute. She didn’t want the same thing as the dumb jock. She decided to have the chicken parmigiana instead. Barbara and Charlene each had a chef salad. Ben ordered something that was barely pronounceable, and Gennie heard Johnny mutter ‘sissy’ under his breath. After everyone was done, Foster decided to order a small pepperoni pizza.
Charlene and Barbara did most of the talking throughout the evening, while everyone else ate. Once in a while, Johnny would tell Foster some story about the high school baseball team or talk about the Forty Niner’s. Foster usually nodded or gave the shortest answer possible. Gennie sensed that Foster wasn’t too crazy about Johnny. Barbara didn’t acknowledge Ben at all, and surprisingly, Charlene wasn’t snuggling up to Johnny the way she did with Ben. She seemed to like him, but she wasn’t gaga over him like Gennie thought she would be. Johnny appeared to like Charlene in a possessive sort of way, as if she was some kind of trophy, though he wasn’t paying too much attention to her. Gennie began to think Ben actually did stand a chance of wooing Charlene away from her boyfriend, though he probably wouldn’t live too long after that.
She wasn’t sure if Foster liked her or not. He didn’t say much to her, though he was eyeing her with interest throughout the evening. He appeared to be a pretty laid-back kind of guy, which Gennie liked. She was glad that he wasn’t the male version of Charlene like she feared. One could tell by looking at him that he was rich, but at least he was down-to-earth. Gennie wasn’t getting her hopes up, though. She didn’t think his parents would approve of her. Besides, he probably hadn’t gotten over his old girlfriend, who she imagined was a typical preppy rich girl. If this was their first and last date, Gennie had no problem with that.
Considering that almost everybody at the table hated each other, the evening went smoothly. Liz asked them if they would like desert and everyone except Charlene and Barbara said yes. Ben ordered the tiramisu, Gennie and Foster had the panna cotta with strawberry sauce and Johnny ordered an apple pie a la mode. Charlene had a bite of Johnny’s pie and ice cream. When Ben asked Barbara if she wanted to try his tiramisu, she frowned and shook her head. Three bills arrived and the guys paid, Johnny and Foster using credit cards instead of cash.
When they left the restaurant, Barbara got into Charlene’s car and they drove off.
“Hey, do you want me to come with you?” Gennie asked Ben, who said he was going to walk home before they left.
Barely looking at her, he shook his head and walked away.
She expected Foster to get into his car, which was a 1950’s Mercedes gullwing, but instead he stood next to her.
“Would you like to take a walk with me instead?”
“Where?” she asked.
“Maybe around Pine Lake Park.”
“You actually want to be seen alone with me?” Gennie said.
Foster seemed perplexed by that comment. “Why not?”
“I don’t know…”
“Do you have cooties?” Foster said, smiling.
“Yeah, tons of them.”
“So do I,” he replied. Gennie laughed. They walked across the street, making their way to Pine Lake Park.
“So, you’re in your last year of high school?” Gennie asked.
“Yep,” Foster replied.
“Do you plan on going to college?” Gennie asked him.
“Yes, I got accepted at Stanford and Berkeley,” Foster said. “I’m still deciding where I’m going to go.”
“Wow,” Gennie said. “Two great schools want you. Are you worried about the expense at all?”
“A little,” Foster replied. “I’m probably going to burn up all the money in my trust fund plus the money I saved up fixing cars.”
“I couldn’t afford to go to either one,” Gennie said. “I’d be in debt up to my eyeballs.”
“Where are you planning to go to school then?”
“I’m not. Actually, I’m going to drop out after this year is over and get another job.”
“You should finish high school,” Foster said. “You only have a couple more years to go.”
“That’s what everyone says. The problem is I hate The Lane Academy. I don’t think I can take another year there, let alone two.”
“I went to military school for my first two years and I hated it too,” Foster said. “I wasn’t very popular with anyone and the training and school schedule was insane. Lane is a dream compared to that place. Even though some kids are snooty and competitive, at least I’m not being tortured. Sometimes I wish I went to a public school, but we have to keep up with the Joneses.”
“You guys aren’t rich?” Gennie said, surprised. “From the way you dress and act, I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“Yeah, it drives me crazy sometimes. Well, we aren’t in the poorhouse, but things aren’t what they used to be. My dad spends most of his money keeping up payments on the mortgage, and my mom’s and Charlene’s wardrobes. Plus, my dad’s business hasn’t been going too well lately.”
“Sounds like one of those soap operas,” Gennie said.
“You watch those?”
“Hell no, I can’t stand them, but Colleen, my foster mother, watches them all the time.”
“Good. My old girlfriend was obsessed with As the World Turns. She’d even talk about it on our dates.”
“Ugh!”
“Yeah, that�
��s what I thought too,” Foster said.
They finally reached Pine Lake Park’s entrance. They walked to a gazebo and sat down in it.
“So you broke up with your girlfriend?”
“Well, she actually broke up with me a couple of days ago. When she told me about it, I was upset, but I realize now it was for the best. It gives me more time to myself, you know?”
“More time to fix your cars?”
“Exactly,” Foster said. “My latest project is a 1934 Bugatti Type 51.”
“That’s a cool car,” Gennie replied. “It would be fun to take that baby for a spin.”
“That’s my plan eventually,” Foster said, “but I have to rebuild the engine first.”
“You need help?” Gennie asked.
Foster looked stunned by that question.
“Yeah, I’m a girl, but trust me, I know what I’m doing,” Gennie said. “I’ve been working on engines since I was seven years old.”
“What got you into that?” Foster asked.
“Well, my dad liked working on engines and my brothers weren’t too interested, so my dad started teaching me about them. I mostly just helped him out until I was about ten. That’s when I knew enough to start fixing engines myself. I mostly worked on my snowmobile, which always needed something replaced.”
“My dad hates the fact that I’m into cars,” Foster said, “but he puts up with it. He knows zero about them himself.”
“How did you learn to fix them then?”
“I took some book out of the library and started reading up about it. My uncle gave me his old car, which looked great but didn’t run very well. He said that if I could fix it, it was all mine. I really wanted a car as soon as I was able to drive, so that gave me the motivation to work on it.”
They continued to talk about all the cars they planned to work on until Gennie looked down at her watch. She was shocked to see that it was twelve thirty. Luckily, Page’s family didn’t set any sort of curfew. If she were still living with Malcolm and Colleen, she’d be dead by now. She wondered if Page was worried about her. She hoped not.
“I’ve got to get going,” she said. “I don’t want my friend Page to call the police.”
Foster didn’t seem to mind. “All right. I was wondering…would you like to come over my house tomorrow? You can take a look at the Bugatti.”
Gennie couldn’t believe he asked her that. He must really like her! “Oh, okay.”
“Do you want me to pick you up?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” Gennie said. “Why don’t I stop by your house after work? Where do you live?”
“31 Pond Terrace. It’s in the Sea Cliff neighborhood. Do you know where that is?”
“I’ll find it,” Gennie said.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Foster said.
Gennie wasn’t sure if it was okay to hug him, so she extended her hand. He took it and shook it gently.
“You too,” she replied. “I’ll be over around eight o’clock. Is that a good time?”
“Sure,” Foster replied.
They walked back to Foster’s gull wing. He asked her if she wanted a ride home, but she declined. She waved good-bye to him as she watched him drive away.
She walked back to her bike, which was chained up in the back of the restaurant.
“Oh my god,” she said excitedly into its brand new rear view mirrors, “I’ve got a boyfriend now!”
Chapter 22: May 3
What They Left Behind Page 21
