Page 74 of Mr. Big Shot

My nephew, Jack, already dashed past me and beat her to the downstairs one.

Then, from the kitchen, I hear my niece Annabelle ask Scarlett, “Who are you?” Then, “Do you have any makeup?”

Scarlett should have listened to me when I warned her about this. I hop up to save her, but it’s too late. She opened Pandora’s box the second she agreed to check her purse. She’s lucky she only had a tube of lip gloss and some powder because they both belong to Annabelle now.

My sister is absolutely mortified when she makes it down from the restroom. My family is probably under strict orders to impress Scarlett by any means necessary. I can imagine my mom running everyone through drills: “He’s finally brought a woman home! Places! Places, everyone!”

Instead of being the perfect family with perfect manners, we’re five minutes in and Annabelle’s already rooting around in Scarlett’s bag.

Corinne tries apologizing, but Scarlett laughs it off. “Truly, had I known, I would have brought more.”

Annabelle’s eyes light up. Her newly pink glossy lips split into a smile. “There’s more?!”

Corinne sighs and tries to shoo her out of the kitchen. “Annabelle, go. Be a kid. Find a stick or something.”

“Later, Mom.” My six-year-old niece refuses to leave the barstool next to Scarlett. She’s looking my date over with a shrewd eye. “What kind of eyeshadow palette did you use this morning?”

She’s inspecting Scarlett’s makeup carefully, getting right up close to her face. Too close. Kids have no concept of personal space.

Scarlett has to think for a second. “Oh. It’s just one I picked up at Sephora. I can’t even remember the brand. You like it?”

Annabelle scrunches her nose and tips her hand back and forth like, Ehh. “I think you should go with more of a matte finish for everyday.”

Scarlett, immediately trusting the judgment of a first grader, pulls out her phone. “Okay. Which one should I buy?”

I have no frame of reference for whether this is all normal or not, the way Scarlett just assimilates into our family as if she’s always been a part of our gatherings. She helps my mom with lunch, insisting she’d rather be put to work than waited on hand and foot. My mom puts her on drink duty and Scarlett asks if there are any oranges or lemons. My mom has both, and Scarlett whips up a citrus-infused ice tea that blows my mom’s socks off.

We sit around the table at lunch, and Scarlett voluntarily puts herself within firing range of my youngest niece, Wren. At one point, Wren reaches out and gets a good chunk of Scarlett’s hair in her hands, really making sure to rub her sticky chicken salad fingers onto every strand.

My mom almost has an aneurysm. “Scarlett! Oh no, I’m so sorry. Here, come over to the sink and let me help you rinse that out.”

Scarlett smiles and rolls with the punches, gently untangling her hair from Wren’s grip and replacing it with her pinky finger instead. Wren is just as satisfied, kicking her feet and smiling a big gummy smile that Scarlett returns.

“I grew up with three older brothers,” she explains to everyone. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had chicken salad in my hair at the dinner table.”

“Three older brothers?!” Corinne sounds horrified by the concept. “Hudson was bad enough on his own.”

Naturally, this turns the conversation toward our childhood. Scarlett is desperate for stories of my adolescence (likely for blackmail purposes), and my sister delivers.

“Oh he used to love playing with Barbies. Yeah, he’d get really into it—”

“As most anyone would!” my mom cuts in, defending my honor and trying to ensure that nothing my sister says will change Scarlett’s good opinion of me. Little does she know there’s no good opinion left. Corinne can talk away.

“He went through a phase where his favorite color was purple. He was obsessed. He’d wear this purple shirt of mine that said ‘Girl Power!’ across the front until he had his first growth spurt and…” She has to pause here to laugh. “He couldn’t even fit his little head through the hole. Oh my god, do you remember that day? You cried and made Mom take you shopping to find another purple shirt.”

“No, no, I don’t remember that,” my mom chides, shooting Corinne harsh glares and miming her pointer finger slashing across her throat.

Scarlett just laughs, looking over at me, likely trying to reconcile the man she knows now with the child who cried over a purple t-shirt. I shrug and go back to eating.

“He was such a good little boy,” my mother adds, derailing the fun conversation with a list of qualities she thinks will win Scarlett over. “Very respectful and smart. So smart! Tell her, Hudson. Tell her how you were always on the honor roll in school.”

Corinne cracks up. “Mom! She knows Hudson is smart. They work together.”

“Oh fine. Can’t a mom brag on her son a little bit?”

I stand up and slap my hands down on the table, drawing the attention of my nieces and nephew. “Who wants cake?”

I’m surprised the responding ear-splitting squeals don’t shatter the windows.

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