That was unlikely.
“Why do you think they even want me to come? I mean lunch today, sure, get to know the new hire. We’ve chatted on the phone a few times. I helped out with the travel stuff. But tomorrow, too?”
He looked down at his hands. “I couldn’t say for sure. But they’re typically outgoing. It’s not unusual for them to invite guests to holiday events. We always had an open house on Christmas Eve growing up.”
Okay. That made sense. I was just a guest and they were being generous.
Or maybe they were taking pity on me. Was it odd that Jackie hadn’t asked if my own parents were coming for the holidays first? Then a gut stab hit me.
“Did you tell them?”
“About?”
“Me. You said you mentioned me twice. What did you tell them?”
He lifted his head. “That I had a new hire. That her name was Anna Flowers. That yes, that was in fact a real person’s name. That you were proving to be invaluable.”
“And that’s it,” I pressed him.
“I might have said something about your M&M machine. I think I talked to Rebecca after you bought it.”
It wasn’t a pity invite. Still, if I did go, there would probably be more questions. Questions about my family. Who they were, where they were. Why they weren’t here, why I wasn’t with them.
It was inevitable.
“What are you worried about?” E.G. asked.
“I don’t want them to know about me…you know. All of it.”
I didn’t have to elaborate.
“Why? Do you think they would judge you for that? For something that was entirely out of your control?”
“Sometimes people can’t help what they think.”
“Flowers, if that’s the reason you don’t go, I’ll be pissed. My family can ask any question they like, that doesn’t mean youhave to answer. But if you did answer, you have to trust me, they would not judge you because of how you grew up.”
I shook my head. “It’s not growing up in a state home,” I said. “It’s the homeless thing. They’ll have to ask themselves…questions. What I did while I was on the streets.”
People assumed things about the homeless. That they did drugs, sold drugs.
That they hooked.
I hadn’t, but only because I’d never reached that level of desperation. Because I’d done other things…
He stood up from his desk then and came around to stand in front of me. He took my hands, which were in a knot near my mouth as I was trying to bite all the nails off my fingers, and held them away from my teeth.
“They won’t ask. And they won’t judge. I promise.”
I was totally stuck. If I didn’t go, I just had this gut feeling I would be disappointing them. Having never had parents, disappointing people wasn’t really an emotion that ever bothered me before. Only it did now.
If I did go, they might find out everything.
It shouldn’t matter. The Allens’ opinion of me shouldn’t concern me even a little bit.
Except, of course, it did.
“Flowers,” E.G. said, squeezing my hands. “Stop chewing on your lip. It’s turkey and stuffing, not a global peace summit.”
