Page 6 of Batty About You
Fortunately, her big smile switches to a smirk. “Kelly, you look like you have a secret you’re dying to spill. Is it about the ball?”
“Yes. My... My boyfriend lives in New Jersey. He’s coming up tonight. I think it’s going to be... I think it’s going to be such a special weekend.” I hurriedly roll a spoon, fork, and knife into a cylinder of soft green, then reach for more cutlery. I blush and keep my face tilted down so Cathy can’t read the excitement in my eyes and ask too many questions.
I’m meeting a man I know inside and out—but I’ve never even seen more than a blurry group photo of him while he’s got an oboe in his mouth. I think he wants to propose. I’m going tosay yes. I think it’s going to be a weekend of firsts; first date, first kiss, first time, and first—and last—proposal. It doesn’t feel rushed to me. It feels like I’ve carefully stored each of those special moments up in our seven-year relationship, waiting to unpack them and share them with Boggie. If we’d lived closer together, they would have been all spread out, but they weren’t. Even given that, if we hadn’t been broke kids in big families with overbearing parents,someof these moments would have happened already, and tonight would just be the culmination.
I can justify anything and everything with Bogdan, but I’m pretty sure anyone else I tell about this will caution me that meeting a “stranger” on Halloween night is going to end up as a true crime podcast.
Cathy clears her throat. “What are you wearing?”
“Oh, just a pretty dress I have. My old prom dress.” I wanted to wear it with Bogdan. I wanted him to come to my senior prom with me, but I knew my parents would have grilled him like a pork chop, and I chickened out and didn’t ask him. Instead, I’d gone with my stand partner, Tommy, who spent the whole night trying to work up the courage to ask the girl he actually liked to dance. “I found a mask to go with it—one of those pretty masquerade types? It’s white and lavender with rhinestones and feathers over one eye. I prefer pretty things to spooky or scary things.”
“Same. The ball is pretty tame.” Cathy sighs over her stack of cutlery and napkins. “I wish I’d gone to my prom—not that my old dress would fit,” she pats her generous hips.
“We should wear the clothes that fit us, not worry about making our bodies fit the clothes,” I tell her sternly. “In my father’s town in Mexico, you would have the men following you home. They like usrellenita,” I say with a playful wiggle of my own smaller hips.
“I take it that means fat?” Cathy laughs and rolls her eyes.
“It means well-padded, and the more padding on the hips, the more men you would have following you home,” I giggle.
“Ooh, well. If I don’t meet someone soon, then I might have to have your family pack me next time you go for a visit. Do you have a date for tonight?”
“Mmhm. Bogdan.”
“Bogdan? I’ve never heard that name before.”
“He’s Romanian-American. I think it’s traditional,” I say casually, even though I know it’s traditional. I even know the meaning is “Gift of God.” I looked it up when I was in tenth grade, and I thought it was a sign. The lonely Catholic girl, the oldest daughter who has to be the little mother, who wears hand-me-downs and studies for fun, who will become a nun or die an old virgin, suddenly gets the sweetest, funniest pen pal in the world? Yeah, he was a gift. Still is. “He’s my best friend and my boyfriend,” I whisper, mostly to myself.
“Oooh, girl! You never even told me you were dating.”
“He doesn’t come around much. I didn’t want people thinking I just made him up.”
“There speaks the voice of someone bullied in high school. Well, you show them tonight. Dance the night away with Bogdan, and I’ll make sure you two get big slices of cake with extra frosting. Trust me, this is the good frosting. The kind you could eat off a spoon. Or you know... a boyfriend.”
“Cathy!” I screech, and then cover my mouth, nearly stabbing myself in the nose with a fork.
“Okay, you two.” Chef Ferguson comes striding in, ice blonde bob looking extra severe, and high cheekbones and elegant lips looking even more fierce in a mixture of burnt pumpkin eyeshadow and thick black eyeliner. “This place is closing down at four. I want you both out of here now. You have to get ready for tonight.”
“That’s right, I need to stop and pick up some candy for trick-or-treaters.” Thoughts of finally meeting Bogdan and all that we might share this weekend have knocked the shortened schedule and early closing out of my head.
“Trick-or-treating is over by dark, hon. The schools are closed for a reason. In Pine Ridge, Halloween day is for families. Parades, trick-or-treating, face painting, all that stuff. Tonight is more for...lovers.” Chef’s eyes wander to Mr. Ferguson, the co-owner, manager, and savior of the restaurant, who runs the front of house.
“Will you be at the party, too?” I ask, trying not to blush and stare at the heated gaze the normally cool, self-possessed chef is sending towards her husband.
“Not for a hundred grand. Tonight, I get Mr. Ferguson all to myself without any orders to expedite, no steaks to temp, and no doorbells ringing. I’m unplugging the television, turning the phones on silent, locking the door, and pulling out a pumpkin soufflé and a chocolate lava cake.” She practically pounces on Mr. Ferguson as he turns towards us.
Cathy takes my arm and pulls me towards the staff lockers by the back exit. “We should go.Now.”
Setting the mood, setting the mood. Candles. Clean sheets.
“That’s it? That’s all I have?” I zip up my dress with a wriggle and suck in my breath to make sure my strapless bra holds.
It’s times like these that I miss my roommate and even her parrot. At least it would always talk back.
She would tell me I need condoms. Fancy lingerie. My roommate, not the parrot.
Hell, knowing tonight is Halloween, she’d have said I need a slutty witch’s costume with a skirt that barely covers my butt and stiletto heels.
I don’t need any of that.Wedon’t need any of that. All we need isus.
