“Oh,” his mom (she told me to call her Jackie) said. “That’s interesting. Did you drop out?”
“Like Grant did,” his father (he told me to call him Evan) added. “Foolishly.”
E.G. took a sip of the red wine he’d ordered. We had taken two Ubers to the restaurant, so he probably felt comfortable not having to drive me back to the office.
“It kind of worked out for me, Dad.”
“You got lucky,” his father said, pointing a finger at E.G.
E.G.’s face tightened in a way I knew he was annoyed. No doubt it was an old argument between them. Rather than stir up any internal family drama, I attempted to cut it off at the pass.
“I didn’t drop out. I didn’t have an opportunity to go to college. Really needed to start making money, you know?”
That drew their attention.
“Oh,” Rebecca said, her head tilting in a quizzical manner. “And Grant hired you? Without a degree? Interesting.”
“Well, it was sort of an accident,” I admitted. “Funny story, actually. I was applying for a receptionist job in a different office in the building, but I got the suite numbers mixed up. E.G. was scaring the crap out of all of the fancy MBA grads, until it was down to me. When he described my responsibilities, I have to say I’m pretty glad I didn’t waste good money on college. Just to be his go-to-girl.”
“Woman,” Rebecca corrected me. “You’re not a girl, you’re a woman.”
“Yep. Power to the sisterhood. I’m down with that,” I said.
Our food came and I started with the french fries. They came with their own garlic ranch dipping sauce that rocked.
“You must have seen some potential in Anna, though. Right, son?” his father suggested, as he cut into his massive prime rib.
“She wasn’t afraid of me. Which was a novelty,” E.G admitted. “But yes, she has shown a great deal of potential. She has very good interpersonal skills.”
“He means I’m nice to people,” I said. “Something he sometimes struggles with.”
There was some collective chuckling around the table, which told me they weren’t unfamiliar with E.G.’s surly attitude.
Note to self: teasing E.G. worked to win over his family and was way more comfortable than answering questions about me.
“Now, you’re obviously not heading home to New Jersey for Thanksgiving, so what are your plans for tomorrow?” Jackie asked me.
I paused. Just a second. This felt like things could go off the rails pretty quickly, but it’s not like I could lie to E.G.’s parents about where I came from. They were probably already wondering why I hadn’t gone home to New Jersey for the holidays.
E.G. must have sensed my hesitancy, so he answered for me.
“Flowers here is doing the noble thing. She’s volunteering at a soup kitchen.”
“Homeless shelter,” I corrected him.
Why did I correct him? It was basically the same thing. Maybe he didn’t want to say homeless shelter. Hell, I didn’t want to say homeless shelter. I definitely didn’t want to say that, last year, at this time, I wasinthe homeless shelter. I’m pretty sure that would freak them out. The idea of their son working with someone who had actually been homeless.
Stupid mistake, but I didn’t dare look at E.G. Instead, I took a bite of my French Dip, which was both messy and delicious. Thankfully, my napkin had still managed to cling to my lap.
“What time?” Jackie asked.
I suppose I was too worried about what the next question might be, that her actual question didn’t register.
“I’m sorry?”
“What time are you volunteering? Is it an all day, all night, thing?”
“Uh, no. My shift is twelve to four.”
