As we walked toward the house, which was almost as big as Eric’s, Eric held my hand, and I knew that every girl at the party would have traded her date for mine.
Fat chance.
A week before Thanksgiving break, Eric came over to help me fill out my Mizzou college application. We sat at the kitchen table, with Adam and Eve curled up under it. “I wish you hadn’t waited so long to send in your application,” Eric said, thumbing through the course catalog.
“Exactly,” Mom chimed in. She was doing laundry, going back and forth from the laundry room and appearing at just the wrong times. “I kept telling her she needed to get that thing done. I just hope we’re not too late to at least try for a scholarship.”
Eric knew we didn’t have money, but Mom didn’t need to rub it in. There were still things Eric and I didn’t talk about. The subjects simply didn’t come up. Like my job. Eric knew I worked in retail, but that was about it. I wasn’t sure a gas jockey fit the image of Eric Strang’s girlfriend.
“You need to put down a major,” Eric said, pencil poised.
“Um . . . interior design? ” I joked.
He smiled, but didn’t laugh.
“I don’t know. I can’t decide.” Actually, I’d decided to be undecided. That way I could take different classes and see what I liked.
“But you must have a central interest, right? ” asked Eric the Focused Boyfriend.
Mom set down the laundry basket of clothes. I could see my underwear in there. “Yeah. What’s your central interest, Bailey? ”
Great. Now they were ganging up on me. “Well, I like my creative writing class.”
Eric frowned. “And you’re a good writer. But you can’t make a living writing stories.”
“I love dogs. I’m good with dogs.” I reached down and stroked Adam and Eve. They’d come to a truce with Eric. They left him alone, and he left them alone.
“I guess you’ll just have to major in dogs,” said Mom the Smart Aleck. “And if that doesn’t work out, you can write about it.”
“Don’t you have dirty clothes to pick on? ” I asked.
Mom took the hint and left us alone.
Eric smiled after her, but in a nice way, not like Went had. “I like your mom.”
“Me too. Most of the time.”
He put down his pen. “Bailey, it’s time you met my parents.”
Amber thought it was weird that I hadn’t met Eric’s parents, but I hadn’t thought much about it. I liked things the way they were. What if his parents hated me?
“Why don’t you come with me to my grandmother’s for Thanksgiving dinner? ”
“Really? ”
“You could meet everybody in one fell swoop. My family and my dad’s brother’s family from Lee’s Summit meet at Grandma’s every year on Thanksgiving. She lives in Overland Park, Kansas, so it’s a couple hours’ drive. You should come with us. Wouldn’t that be great? What do you say? ”
“Are you sure? She won’t mind? ” I couldn’t believe it. Thanksgiving with my boyfriend? In Overland Park, which was about the richest city in the Midwest.
“They’re going to love you, Bailey.” He hugged me, and I closed my eyes and almost believed him.
I waited until Eric left before I told Mom that Eric wanted me to go home with him for Thanksgiving. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be psyched about the idea. I was right.
“I guess you can go, if you really want to,” she said, refolding a purple towel so she didn’t have to look at me.
“We’ll be back on Friday. And you and I and Eric can have our own Thanksgiving Saturday. Amber can come. We’ll pretend it’s the real Thanksgiving, okay? ” I wasn’t sure which one of us I was trying to make feel better. Mom and I had spent every Thanksgiving together since I was born.
All week I swung back and forth between excitement and dread. “What if they don’t like me? ” I asked Amber while we waited for writing class to start.
“Then they’re all a bunch of rich stupidheads, I guess.”
“This is my boyfriend’s family you’re talking about.”
“Then what are you so worried about? ”
“Who’s worried about what?” Jeannette asked, sliding into her seat. She was wearing a straight wool skirt, a cream-colored blouse, and a pink sweater tied around her shoulders.
I panicked, just looking at Jeannette. “What will I wear? ”
Amber groaned.
Jeannette wrinkled her classically high forehead. “What will you wear? When? ”
“Thanksgiving! Eric’s invited me to his grandmother’s. I’m going to be meeting his parents and his whole family. And I have no idea what to wear.”
“You’re going to Overland Park for Thanksgiving?” she asked.
I nodded. “Have you met Eric’s grandmother? ”
Jeannette smiled. “She’s sweet, Bailey. You’ll like her.”
“I’m not worried about me liking her. Seriously, Jeannette, what should I wear? I don’t have anything that looks like . . . like that.” I pointed to her skirt. “Sophisticated.”
“I’m sure anything you wear will be fine. But if you want, you can come shopping with me. I’m going by the mall after school today. I need shoes.”
“You’re kidding! That would be great.” She’d know exactly the right thing to wear to Eric’s Thanksgiving. I couldn’t believe she’d do this for me.
Eric arrived just as the bell rang. “What would be great? ” he asked, coming in on the tail end of our conversation.
“Jeannette,” I answered.
Amber bowed out of the shopping trip, so Jeannette and I set out for the mall in her BMW. I sank into the plush leather seat and wished we had farther to drive than across town. Her car matched her blouse. Maybe she had a car for every outfit.
We parked by Saks, only the most expensive store in this most expensive mall, where Mom and I had never done anything but window-shop. Jeannette weaved through the store like it was her second home. “Saks is pricey,” she warned, “but they’re having their semiannual sale. What are you looking for? ”
“Something like you’re wearing.”
“Good idea. Keep it simple. A skirt. A couple of blouses.”
We split up. Every price tag I looked at was in the healthy three digits.
Jeannette came running up with three skirts on her arm. “Bailey, you’re not going to believe this! My skirt in three colors. And they’re on sale!”
“On sale? Really? ” Maybe there was hope for me yet.
“Twenty percent off! Try them on. I’ll look for blouses.”
I didn’t look at the price tag until I was in the dressing room. I couldn’t have afforded this skirt if it had been 80 percent off. But I tried it in navy, and it looked great. Maybe it was the fabric or the tiny tucks in all the right places. But it made me look thin, stylish, sophisticated. I had to have it.
Jeannette knocked on the changing room door. “Here. Try these.” She handed me two silk blouses. One was as expensive as the skirt.
I tried them on and wanted them both, but I couldn’t do that. I settled for one blouse and the skirt and the hope that something in my closet would work for a second outfit. I couldn’t begin to pay for them from my checking account, so I did what I had to do. I slapped the whole lot onto Mom’s credit card. She’d have to understand.
7
“You what? ” Mom shouted.
“I didn’t have a choice, Mom.” I’d told her straight off what I’d done, charging her card. The honesty should have counted for something, but she was fired up. Adam and Eve took off to my bedroom to hide.
“That card is for emergencies only, Bailey. You know that.”
“This was an emergency! Have I ever used that card when it wasn’t one? ”
That slowed her pacing down a step. “Not until today.”
“Then you have to believe me. This felt like an emergency. I’m going to meet Eric’s family, and I didn’t have anything I could wear that wouldn’t mak
e me feel like I had no business being with Eric Strang.”
“But an emergency is when your car breaks down.”
“I don’t have a car.”
“Or you’re kidnapped and locked in some maniac’s trunk.”
“And he takes MasterCard? ”
I think that one made her grin. “This isn’t like you, Bailey.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll pay you back.”
“You bet you will. And before that bill comes.”
“I’ll work at Grady’s every spare minute. I promise.”
She nodded, and I sensed the worst was over. It was all systems go. I was on my way to meet my boyfriend’s family.
Eric picked me up Wednesday morning so we could leave right after school let out. Amber was already at her locker when I walked up in my new skirt. “So? ”
Amber shut her locker and eyed my outfit. “Very classy and sophisticated,” she said without much enthusiasm.
“But—? ” I knew her well enough to know there was a “but.”
“It’s just not you.”
That hurt. “So my skirt’s sophisticated and classy, but I’m not? Thanks. ”
“Don’t be that way.”
“Well, you’re wrong. Eric loves me in it. And in case you haven’t noticed lately, this skirt is me.”
Eric, Roni, and I set out for Overland Park before lunch, since classes would be dismissed at one o’clock anyway. Roni took the backseat, and Eric opened my door for me. Soon as he went around to his side, Roni leaned forward and said, “I still can’t believe you’re going to Gram’s with us for Thanksgiving.”
“Why not? ” I snapped.
“Because you don’t have to go.”
We hadn’t gotten more than twenty miles out when I spotted a dead animal on the side of the road. “Stop!” I shouted.
Eric punched the brakes. “What’s wrong? ”
“Dead animal. I think it’s a coon, but it could be a cat!”
He sped back up. “You’re kidding. You wanted to stop for that? I didn’t hit it.”
I stared out the back window. That animal would be there for weeks, months.
“You were serious, weren’t you? ” Roni said.
I nodded. I’d always made fun of Mom for stopping and burying roadkill, but I couldn’t imagine not doing it.
Roni grinned. “I like that. There’s still hope for you, Bailey.”
The closer we got to the state line, the more nervous I became. “Your mother is going to hate me, isn’t she? ” I asked Eric as we entered Overland Park city limits.
He reached over and squeezed my knee. “She’ll love you, Bailey. Everybody loves you.” He was quiet, and I think we were all evaluating the truth of that lie.
Grandmother Strang’s sprawling stone mansion loomed at the end of a long cobblestoned drive, lined with trees. Flowers still bloomed in artful shapes in front of the house. No butler opened the front door, at least. But the entry was straight out of a Disney princess movie. “Anybody home? ” Eric shouted.
A thin woman in a white blouse and wide-legged, silky black pants rushed up to Eric. I shouldn’t say “rushed,” because she appeared to float or glide. She was beautiful—maybe fifty years old, but could have passed for thirty-five or forty, with extraordinarily large breasts, a perfect bod, and hair to die for.
She hugged her son. “You’re late. I was afraid something had happened. Your grandmother is taking a rest.” She turned to me. I’m not sure what I expected—an icy glare, a turned-up nose, maybe a sneer or an outright declaration that no son of hers would be caught dead in the company of a trollop like me. But I didn’t get any of that. Instead, she gave me a hug. “And you must be Bailey. We’ve heard a lot about you.” She stepped back and took a good look at me. “I can see my son wasn’t exaggerating.” She smiled back at him. “Can’t you picture that gorgeous hair on top of her head in that Swedish style? Like Jeannette wore hers for the Anderson wedding?” She sized me up again. “Yes. Absolutely perfect, Eric.”
I should have felt relief at those words. They were much better than “Absolutely a trollop.” But my neck and back got tension knots in their knots.
“Hey, Eleanor,” Roni called to her mother, easing past Eric. “I’m going to check out Gram’s kitchen. I’m starved.”
Eleanor Strang glared after her daughter, then smiled back at me. “Come with me. You must be exhausted after that drive.” She led us across the polished marble floor, under a shiny chandelier, to a winding staircase with just about the best banister for sliding I’d ever seen.
No banister sliding,I told myself. But it made me grin thinking about it. My mom would totally have slid down that banister. Eric’s room was in “the west wing” near “the master bedroom,” and mine was above “the sunroom” in the east wing. I felt a little like Masterpiece Theatre meets Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
Eric took me to “the study,” and we waited for his father to get off the phone. He didn’t look a thing like my Eric and might have been fifteen years older than his wife.
We exchanged a few words, and he informed us that we had tickets for the opera tomorrow night. I guess he was nice enough, but I wouldn’t exactly have called him warm. When we left the study, Eric shut the door so softly I barely heard it click.
“What now? ” I whispered.
“What do you say we get out of here? ” Eric whispered back. This was evidently a house where smart people moved quietly and whispered. No pets here either. The “Do you have a pet?” question was one of the first I’d asked my Eric. Hard to believe that I had a dogless boyfriend.
“Eric,” I whispered as he led me down the stairs. “I just figured out what to get you for Christmas.”
“What? ”
“A dog.”
Eric burst into a laugh that echoed through the foyer.
Mrs. Strang appeared. “I’m glad to see you two are having such a good time.”
“We’re going out,” Eric said. “Maybe have dinner at that new French restaurant.” He put his arm around me.
I thought I detected a twinge of disappointment on his mother’s face, followed by stoic acceptance. “That sounds nice. I was thinking we might have a late dinner here, but you young people go on ahead.”
“Are you sure? ” I asked, not wanting one strike against me already.
She smiled so convincingly that I thought maybe I’d imagined the disappointment. “Go. I want you to see the city, Bailey. Eric, your grandmother told us that Money magazine just rated Overland Park as the sixth-best place to live in America.”
“Wow,” I said, honestly impressed.
She smiled at me. “We’re hoping Eric settles in the area when he takes over the family business. But I’ve kept you here long enough. Go along and eat.”
“Do you want to come with us? ” I didn’t really want her to, but it felt funny leaving her already.
“How sweet. Thank you. But I have plenty to do to keep myself occupied.”
“I’ll bet,” I agreed, realizing that we’d be eating Thanksgiving dinner with Eric’s whole family in less than twenty-four hours. “My mom would already be going crazy. Thanksgiving is about the only real meal she cooks. The rest of the year, we use the oven for storage.” They laughed politely, probably thinking I was kidding. “Maybe you need me to stay and help out in the kitchen? ”
Eric’s arm tightened around my shoulder, and immediately I sensed I’d said something wrong.
“Didn’t Eric tell you? We have reservations at Mother Strang’s country club.”
“It’s a great club,” Eric said.
I couldn’t imagine having Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant. I wondered if Eric really liked the idea.
“So you see, Bailey,” Mrs. Strang said, “my greatest concern preparing the meal is how to get Ronisetta into the dress I’ve bought her.”
“Ah,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.
Eric drove me all over the city and bought me dinner at a
French restaurant on top of a fourteen-story office building. City lights glimmered. I gazed around the candlelit room, with white linen tablecloths, waitresses who couldn’t help staring at my dashing boyfriend, and waiters who didn’t reveal the cost of menu items because it didn’t matter. And I knew for certain that my life would never be the same.
8
On Thanksgiving Day Eric and I sat at a white-linen table full of Strangs: Eric’s parents; his uncle and aunt; their grown daughter, Millicent; and Grandmother Strang, who had welcomed me politely and called me Jeannette twice, maybe on purpose.
I sat between Eric and Roni, who, the apparent victor over her mother, was dressed in a slinky black dress and a pink boa. “Great outfit,” I whispered to her.
She grinned and flipped her boa. “What did you do to your hair? ”
I elbowed her. “Thanks, mademoiselle.” I’d worked all morning to get my hair into a version of Mrs. Strang’s on-top-of-the-head hairdo, and I hadn’t done a bad job if I did say so myself. It made me look older, and I was enormously pleased when both Eric and his mother complimented the style. But I suppose I secretly sided with Roni. I liked my hair down better.
The country club was even more amazing than Eric’s, twice as big, with orchids and roses everywhere. On the walls were paintings by artists I’d flunked quizzes on in art class. Live orchestra music played in the background.
The waiter—one of an army of waiters—snapped my linen napkin and placed it over my lap. I thanked him. “What a great dance floor. I love to dance.” I turned to Eric. “Can we? ”
“I think we should at least dine first, dear, don’t you? ” Mrs. Strang said.
I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to argue with her.
“Bailey,” Eric’s grandmother began, “where will you go to school in the fall? ”
Eric took my hand under the table and squeezed it. “We told you, Grandmother. Bailey is going to the University of Missouri.”
“A state school? ” she queried.
“They have a great journalism school,” Eric countered.
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