Been There, Done That (29 page)

But it was even worse than that. “Then maybe you know my son?” he asked, standing up. “Jeremy?”

I gawked in horror before finally squeaking, “I do,” as far as I’d get to saying those words in his presence. Next thing you know, I was leading Jeremy’s father up the stairs to his room.

Jeremy practically ran over when he saw me. “I missed you,” he said under his breath. I pretended not to hear him.

His mother was already there. Apparently, they had had an hour to kill until Jeremy got out of classes. So his father (“Call me Mr. Dunbar”) had eaten lunch alone while his mother (who, as far as I could tell, preferred that I not call her anything) browsed in the “quaint shops” on Main Street (which, unless she had discovered some other Main Street that had heretofore eluded me, meant a hardware store, a discount tire center, a liquor store, and the college bookstore). Then again, the situation still seemed weird; couldn’t they spend an hour together?

Jeremy’s mother was not what I expected. Or, rather, she was not what I would have expected had I ever expected to meet her at all. By Jeremy’s account, she was well groomed and brittle, a WASP wannabe. I’d have expected pearls and silk, manicured nails, sleek hair. But while she’d mastered the icy, brittle routine, Mrs. Dunbar’s hair was too blond and too big—in fact, all of her was a little too big. Her navy blue dress was conservative but cheaply cut. She’d worked hard on her diction, though, resulting in an accent that landed halfway between Audrey Hepburn and the Kennedys. Apparently, no one had ever told her that the Kennedys weren’t Protestant.

“Well, boys,” she said, pointedly looking at just the “boys.” She tightened her mouth into something that resembled a smile. “Ready for lunch?”

“I thought Dad already had lunch,” Jeremy mumbled, scuffing his sneaker on the carpet. He looked about twelve, which would be cute if I didn’t already have enough reservations about our, er, thing.

“Yes, but I haven’t eaten a thing since breakfast,” she said, tilting both of her chins up. “Just because your father couldn’t suppress his appetite doesn’t mean the rest of us should suffer.”

Mr. Dunbar crossed his arms and gazed at Jeremy calmly. “Your mother wants lunch. So we’ll have lunch.”

“But you ate already,” Jeremy said, with a hint of a whine.

“I can have a beer,” Mr. Dunbar said gamely.

“At one o’clock in the afternoon?” his wife asked.

“A nonalcoholic beer,” he said evenly. Then, to his son, “With a shot of whiskey in it.” They both guffawed.

I started for the door. “It was really nice meeting you all.” I held my hand up in the perkiest good-bye wave I could manage.

“Aren’t you coming to lunch with us?” Mr. Dunbar said, sounding truly baffled.

“Oh, I don’t want to get in the way of your, you know, family thing.”

“But Jeremy has been talking about you for weeks,” Mr. Dunbar said. “We’ve been looking forward to getting to know you.”

I looked desperately at his mother, hoping, I guess, for some confusion on her face, some indication that he’d been exaggerating, that Jeremy had not, in fact, mentioned me before today. The look I met was filled with such hatred, though, that I knew Mr. Dunbar spoke the truth.

“Surely Katie’s own parents are coming,” Mrs. Dunbar said, dismissively. “It is Parents Weekend, after all.”

Oh, crap: it was, wasn’t it? I’d completely forgotten. I blurted out something about how my parents were in Europe to celebrate their anniversary. Jeremy gawked at me. Shit. “I mean, my dad and my stepmom. And there was no way she was going to miss out on a trip to Europe.” I rolled my eyes. “My mom lives in Santa Fe, but she’s in Romania. She’s on a, like, spiritual journey.” I shrugged as if to say,
Just another dysfunctional family
.

Because there weren’t a lot of options, we went to The Snake Pit. Except it wasn’t The Snake Pit, technically, because the restaurant half was called The Spit. I think that was supposed to refer to a cooking technique, but it never failed to make me look twice at my water glass.

Gerry left his perch behind the bar to take our order. When he saw me, he raised his eyebrows and smirked. He squatted next to the table in that overfamiliar way some waiters adopt so they can be at eye level with you, as if you’re some three-year-old they are trying to befriend. But the glint in Gerry’s eye was anything but friendly. “Glass of white wine?” he purred. “A nice chardonnay, perhaps?”

I stared at him. His shiny skin gave off the yeasty smell of beer. “Diet Coke,” I said.

Still smirking, he wrote down my order and continued through the table. He didn’t suggest wine to anyone else.

“They’ll sell booze to anyone around this place,” Mrs. Dunbar huffed when Gerry had left. “You aren’t even twenty-one, are you?” she asked without looking at me.

“No,” I answered truthfully. “I’m not twenty-one.”

I called Marcy as soon as I got back to my room. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” she assured me. “I’m hormonal. And I think I’m starting my midlife crisis a little early.”

“You always were an overachiever.” I sighed. “It’s Parents Weekend, and everyone else has someone coming.”

“Where are your parents?”

“On a barge on the Rhine.”

“Not your
real
parents.”

“Oh, right.” I screwed up my face, trying to remember what I’d told Jeremy’s parents. “Mom’s in Romania, consulting with a shaman.”

There was a moment of silence. “I don’t think they have shamans in Romania,” Marcy finally said.

I sighed. I hardly even cared whether I got caught anymore. Sunday I’d be packing up. Monday I’d be back in the office, admitting defeat. “Dad and his second wife have left their horse farm in Virginia for a trip to Europe. I keep getting the feeling that it’s a last hurrah, and that the step-monster is pregnant. Horrible to think I could have a sister who’s almost thirty years younger than me.”

“Twenty years.”

I paused. “Oh, shit.” I didn’t think I could make it through the weekend.

 
 
Tiffany’s parents were due to arrive at six o’clock. They showed up at five-thirty. Mrs. Weaver, who was all edges and angles, skipped right over hello and moved on to, “You should really wear makeup, sweetheart.”

“I
do
,” Tiffany shot back. “I just got out of the
shower
. I haven’t had
time
yet. You said you’d be here at
six
.”

“Six-
ish
,” her mother replied evenly, smirking at me and rolling her eyes.

Mr. Weaver, a short heavyset guy, kissed Tiffany on her cheek and then just stood there with his hands shoved firmly in his pockets, while her younger sister, Brittany, walked around the room examining our crates, posters, bedspreads and—I couldn’t even believe it—closets. “Brittany!” Tiffany snarled. “
Privacy
?”

Brittany rolled her eyes. “What. Ever.” She was thirteen, but she looked more like sixteen. She wasn’t pretty—heavy makeup covered an obvious acne problem—but she was tall and had inherited her mother’s metabolism. She was all breast and no butt. I had always wondered who size 0 jeans were meant for. Now I knew.

“Stand up and let me look at you,” Mrs. Weaver commanded her oldest daughter. Tiffany did so, reluctantly. She wore a fuzzy long-sleeved powder blue sweater and a peasant skirt. Her feet were bare, her toenails unpolished and overgrown. Mrs. Weaver forced a smile. “When you complained about the cafeteria food, I guess I thought—” She shook her head dramatically. “Never mind.”

Mr. Weaver rolled his eyes. There was a lot of eye rolling in this family.

“What?” Tiffany asked.

Mrs. Weaver flicked her hand. “Nothing.”

“
What?
”

Mrs. Weaver tilted her head to one side. “I just thought you might have. You know. Taken off some of your baby fat.”

“I’ve lost ten pounds,” Tiffany muttered.

“Are you sure?” her mother asked, squinting.

Brittany poked though the plastic mesh carryall that held Tiffany’s toiletries. “Can I try some of your scented lotion?” she asked, unscrewing the cap before Tiffany had a chance to answer.

“It was nice to meet you all!” I chirped, backing toward the door. “I’ve really got to get to the, um, library.”

“Won’t your parents be here for dinner?” Mrs. Weaver asked, suddenly full of warmth.

“They couldn’t make it.” I shrugged. “They’re divorced.” I figured that would be enough to convince the self-satisfied and still-married Mrs. Weaver that my parents were too busy with their own lives to think about me rather than make her wonder why I wasn’t missing just one but two sets of parents.

“I understand,” Mrs. Weaver said with equal amounts of sympathy and smugness. “Then you must have dinner with us.”

I stared at her, truly caught unprepared.

“I only made the reservation for four,” Tiffany hissed. Wow—she really disliked me.

Mrs. Weaver and Tiffany argued over whether or not I’d be welcome at dinner. “I’m not hungry, really!” I insisted. “I had a late lunch.”

Tiffany and I had just about lost out to Mrs. Weaver, who kept saying, “I insist you join us! I insist!” when Marcy poked her head through the door. “I couldn’t leave my little sister all by herself on Parents Weekend!” she squealed before I had a chance to say anything. She swept into the room and gave me a suffocating hug. Someone crept in behind her.

“Dennis!” I gasped, stopping short of “What the hell are you doing here?” He turned red.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Marcy chirped. “You wouldn’t expect me to leave my
husband
at home, would you?”

thirty-four

In honor of Parents Weekend, a gourmet buffet was being served in the dining hall. But it was basically the same swill as always along with some really tough roast beef accompanied by horseradish sauce and “o juice.”

Marcy explained herself while Dennis searched for some rolls that hadn’t been fossilized from too much time spent under heating lamps. “The twelve-year-old from next door came over to watch the kids until Dan gets home. Eight bucks an hour! Is that obscene, or what? I told Dennis you were doing an undercover story about dorm decorating,” she said, slurping mashed potatoes covered in sludgy gravy.

“And he believed it?”

She shrugged. “People generally assume you’re telling the truth if you don’t give them reason to think otherwise.”

I smiled. She was right. “You know, my gig here is almost up, anyway. It really would have been okay if you had told Dennis the truth.”

She blinked twice and then laughed with relief. “Oh, thank God. I did tell him the truth. I just didn’t want you freaking out on me.” She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her oversized belly.

Dennis returned with breadsticks. “At least these are supposed to be crunchy.” He took a noisy bite. “I can see why you’ve lost so much weight. The food here is really revolting.”

“Did you think I was fat before?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Of course not,” he said soothingly. “You’ve always looked great. You’re just skinnier now, that’s all.” He settled into a plastic chair. “So tell me about your story, Kath. I love the idea, by the way. Cheap chic, posters beyond the Saint Pauli girl and all that.” I remained silent and let him dig further in. From the corner of my eye, I could see Tiffany eating with her family. What was it she had said about reservations? True, there had been a presale for the buffet, but it was covered under the meal plan. She really wanted to avoid me. I should have felt relieved, but I felt oddly slighted, as if the geekiest boy in school had refused to dance with me. I slunk lower in my chair, lest her mother command the family to haul their trays over to us.

“I really admire the way you used a bedsheet to make a curtain,” Dennis continued. “It’s a very loose look, very contemporary. I’m really looking forward to your article.”

Marcy was squirming. I sighed. “She told me, Dennis.”

“What?” he asked disingenuously.

“This has nothing to do about decorating,” I said under my breath. “As you know. We’ll talk about it later.” I took a bite of the roast beef and chewed for a really, really long time until it was soft enough to swallow. “Uck,” I said. “Dennis, where did you come up with those breadsticks?”

At the salad bar, I snagged a few packets of breadsticks and crackers. On my way back to our table, I stopped short. Troy sat at a table with an older, yellow-haired woman and a bald, gray-haired man in a blue blazer. Troy had parents? I guess I’d always assumed he had just hatched or something. As I stood there, they threw napkins on their chunky plates and pushed back their chairs. Troy’s mother hauled on a long, red wool coat. They left their trays on the table in a most horrendous breach of cafeteria etiquette. If ever I’d doubted that evil lurked in Troy’s heart, this sealed it. Maybe he was the key to this thing, after all. There was only one way to find out.

I scurried back to Dennis and Marcy. “Let’s move!” I commanded.