He did break that up, but the dinner we had only a little while later was tense. Mrs. Alford made several remarks about herring that Octavia clearly didn’t appreciate and I prepared to step in. But her response was uncharacteristic: she snubbed our neighbor by giving her the silent treatment, and the rest of us were really grateful. Silas spent his time at the table eating plenty but not speaking as much as he usually did, not even when Mrs. Alford made a few snide remarks about his grandmother. The only people who were totally content were Lyra and Boris, who didn’t notice any disagreements as theystuffed themselves, and my dad, who had left his hearing aids off.
Immediately after Octavia put down the fork that had held her last bite of pie, Silas told her that it was time to go. “Let’s put some foil on your casserole because you’re bringing it with you,” he said as he ushered her toward the door. He was putting his skills as a bouncer to good use. “Got it? Got your coat? We don’t want you to forget anything so you have to come back here. Hurry up, your lizard’s probably waiting for his dinner.”
“Actually, adult monitor lizards don’t eat every day, and Grosvenor had a hearty meal on Thanksgiving eve,” she informed him. As he directed her into the driveway, I heard something about frozen rats and fatty liver disease, but I wasn’t interested in the details of that. Mrs. Alford half-heartedly offered to help with the dishes, but I said that her contribution of saltine crackers had been more than enough for the day, and she took back the paper plate she’d brought them on. It was one less thing to clean up, I supposed. Lyra and Boris made plans to play baseball the next day and then the house was empty of our neighbors, too.
“Well, Cammie, that was a delicious meal,” my dad said happily. He started to help but I talked him into sitting down in front of the new TV we’d bought so that he could watch football. It had been a long day for him with the car ride and all the arguments, or what he’d heard of them.
My mom joined me in the kitchen and then Silas did, too. “Octavia wouldn’t leave the driveway,” he explained. “At the club, I would have picked her up and moved her. I didn’t,” heassured me when I looked over quickly, but I heard him mutter, “I wanted to.”
“Camille, what made you invite those particular guests?” my mother asked as he took his place next to mine at the sink.
“The Alfords were Lyra’s choice,” I answered. “I felt sorry for Octavia but there might be a reason that she’s not close to any family and doesn’t have friends to visit, either.”
“’Might be?’” Silas echoed. “It seems like her lizard likes her. That animal has an amazing diet.”
He looked ready to share more about that, but I shook my head and waved my hands, too. “Please, keep it to yourself.”
He laughed. “Give me that bowl and I’ll wash it. The thing weighs more than my sister.” We swapped places and I took the towel off his shoulder.
“You two work so well together,” my mom said, and she sounded very happy. “Lyra is a little joy, too. I’m so glad that Cammie has both of you in her life.”
I looked over at her, feeling the first glimmer of concern.
“We’re glad to have her in ours,” Silas answered, and my mom’s smile grew. I had told her that he and I were housemates, and I had explained that I had moved here to help with his sister. Apparently, she was now extrapolating that relationship into something more and she was going to be disappointed. I had to set her straight and maybe I also needed to let him know that I wasn’t thinking along those lines myself.
But he didn’t seem perturbed, and my mother was off and running on the latest news from home, which she hadn’t wanted to share over the meal because she thought it would bore the other guests. That hadn’t stopped Mrs. Alford from presenting a monologue on different glass cleaners or Boris from giving us all a lesson on the luster of various minerals (which had led some guests to remember diamond simulants).
Now my mom told me about my former teacher, who had been widowed while I was in high school but had recently found love again on a dating app. She was moving to North Carolina to pursue her new relationship. “We’ll miss her, but we’re all so glad. Bless her heart,” she said, her palm over her own chest. “And did I tell you about Cheree from the post office?”
I hadn’t heard, but it was a true love story, almost better than all the movies that had been playing pretty much nonstop lately. The new TV wasn’t only being used for football.
“Oh, I’m so glad for her!” I said. I planned her life in my mind: she and her boyfriend would live in a house with…with an apple orchard where they pressed cider and made fritters that everyone in the neighborhood would love. I didn’t remember Cheree as a big gardener, but she might want to learn. I used the towel I’d been using to dry the dishes to dab my eyes.
“Really?” Silas asked me. He shook his head ruefully, but he was smiling. “You should have seen her at her friend Rashelle’s wedding,” he told my mom. “Tears for days.”
“Cammie is soft at heart,” my mom said fondly. “She always had a romantic streak. Do you remember when you waited below the window—”
“Mom, let’s not get into all the mistakes I made with boys in high school,” I interrupted, and Silas laughed.
“How about you?” my mother asked him.
“Not much of a romantic streak, unless you count the time I got sentimental over my motorcycle when it died for the final time,” he said. “That was sad. No major mistakes with girls in high school, either.” He lowered his voice and told me, “Probably because I wasn’t going to high school.”
“You’ve never married?”
He lost his smile. “Uh, no. I never felt the need, Mrs. Carpenter.”
“Please call me Belle,” she said, and he started humming under his breath. “Well, not everyone has to. But Camille has always dreamed of having a family.”
“Silas and Lyra are already a family,” I pointed out.
“You know what I mean. Children of your own,” she said, and I had understood that.
“That might happen,” I said vaguely. “Someday.” Swiping and clicking may have worked for my former teacher, but my own attempts at finding someone that way had, so far, been less than thrilling. Was it too much to want someone smart, funny, kind, strong, serious, handsome, and hard-working? How about someone who didn’t want to lick your feet, like the one guyI’d matched with, or the other one who explained that he was looking for a sugar mama/cougar and I might have fit the bill? Well then, what if I lowered my standard to only “unlikely to cheat on you with another woman in the closet of a nightclub?”
I’d been weeding through a mountain of single guys in the Detroit area, and none of them had given me any hint of a spark. Rashelle, who had spotted a familiar icon on my phone when we’d ordered lunch, had suggested that I didn’t have to find a stranger. If I was in the market, I could always get together with her cousin.
“The teenage escort?” I’d asked, and she’d shrugged and told me never mind.
