Page 71 of His Sound
I bop her on the nose, and she scrunches her face up.
“Ew. Since when do you talk like some sleazy dude from the fifties?”
I laugh as the elevator dings and we climb inside. The truth is that my parents don’t even know I have Molly with me. I didn’t know how well they’d take the announcement, and the house will be packed with my siblings and their significant—or insignificant—others anyway. It just seemed easier to tell them I was crashing with a friend and cut down the amount of time we’ll all have to spend together.
Without even discussing it, the first thing Molly and I do when I open the hotel room door is drop our bags and belly flop onto the bed.
“Oh my god,” Molly moans. “It’s so comfy.”
“Like a cloud,” I agree, “only less...damp.”
She rolls over and wraps herself around me, laughing at my expense. “Great comparison.”
I start to rub her lower back, and she hums against my neck. We haven’t even taken our jackets off yet. I slide my hand underneath her pea coat and then start to inch her shirt up. Her spine arches when I trace it with my thumb.
“Don’t get me going,” she warns. “We have to leave.”
“Do wehaveto?” I ask, making myself sound whiny. “We could just stay here, order a pizza...”
She groans. “Stop making that sound so good. I’m going to make a bad impression if we ditch family dinner tonight.”
We’re going to my parents’ place for a late supper. I tried to get out of it, but they insisted, saying it was the only time we’d have the whole family together, other than at the gala tomorrow. I’m sure my dad is probably just using tonight as a chance to make a speech about how important the gala is and how we need to ‘represent the family well.’ Back when I still regularly got invited to these things, he would make the same speech every year.
Molly sits up, laughing as she pries my hands off her waist when I try to pull her back down. She gets off the bed and starts digging around in her bag.
“Do you guys dress fancy for dinner? I only brought one fancy outfit, and I wanted to save it for the gala.”
“Wear whatever you like,” I tell her. “You always lookravissant.”
“Flirt,” she teases. I see her blushing, though.
She grabs some things out of her bag and heads into the bathroom to get fixed up. I eventually find the will to get up off the not-damp-cloud bed and pull a fresh shirt out of my duffel. My pill bottles rattle as I’m digging around for it, and I make sure they’re pushed down out of sight.
Molly comes back out wearing black pants and a peach-coloured shirt that has this little flouncy thing at the neck. She looks sweet and fresh, like a bit of springtime. The only thing in the air tonight is winter, though.
I get us an Uber to my parent’s house. It’s the same house I grew up in: a big two-storey building with stone walls and a brown tiled roof, on a quiet little cul-de-sac down by the Rivère Saint-Maurice.
“It’s so cute!” Molly babbles, as we pull up to the driveway. “It’s like a cottage.”
Yeah, on steroids. The fleet of expensive cars lined up outside kind of kills any chance the place has at being ‘quaint.’
I texted my mom to say I’d be bringing a friend with me, but the shock on her face when she pulls the door open tells me she wasn’t expecting my friend to be a girl. She pats my arm—she’s more of an arm-patter than a hugger—and we kiss each other’s cheeks.
“And you brought a friend, Jean-Paul!” she exclaims in French. “Who is this young lady?”
“This is Molly,” I answer in English. “She’s still working on her French.”
Molly offers her hand and stutters a quiet, “Bonsoir, Madame.”
Mamantakes it and goes in for a cheek kiss. Molly starts to pull away after, butMamanis going for the whole double kiss thing, and they end up bumping their faces together. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so nervous. I flex my fingers aroundmon trucin my pocket.
“Entrez, entrez,”Mamanurges, shooing us in the door. “So, Molly, you will meet most of JP’s brothers and sisters tonight. Everyone is waiting for you in thesalon.”
The living room is full of people balancing plates of appetizers on their knees while a fire roars in the woodstove. The first thing I notice is that my dad isn’t in the room.
“Jean-Paulest ici!”Mamanannounces.
Everyone turns to look and wave, eyeing Molly like she’s some kind of exotic pet I’ve brought along.
