Page 114 of Autumn on My Mind

I turn my eyes to my own plate, and my rumbling stomach makes a different sound—the sound a confused dog makes when it tilts its head and lifts its little doggy eyebrows.

Leaning closer to the plate, I frown. My food is…

Well, it’s not presently identifiable.

There’s crusty bread that looks amazing, but it’s spread with something tannish brown I’ve never seen before.

I pick up one of the pieces of bread and give the whole thing a few sniffs. A possibility flits into my mind, one I am loath to accept, but one that solidifies when I glance up to see Dom watching me.

The list of French foods I know I wouldn’t recognize on sight runs through my brain. It is short, because I don’t know much about French dining, but it does contain a strong possibility.

“So,” I say to Dom. “This is—” Giving my crusty bread another sniff and catching whiff of something faintly…meaty…my eyes widen, my heart sinking. “This is not escargot. So…foie gras?”

“Fatty goose liver?” Dom says pleasantly, his voice amused. “Why yes. Yes, it is.”

I groan and put the bread back on my plate. The crust is just hard enough to clink against the porcelain dish, which says very promising things about how soft the fluffy inside probably is, but I’m not going to get to taste it.

I do not eat meat in spreadable form. It is a rule I didn’t know I had, but I have learned, right this very moment, that it is a solid no.

I might even prefer Alvina’s offering of dry turkey.

“I did wonder when you ordered,” Dom says, still far too conversational about my food.

“I pointed without looking,” I say miserably. Then I glare at him. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because it’s not my job to stop you or weigh in on your restaurant order, Berkeley.”

Ah. Back to Berkeley, I see.

“Besides,” he goes on after a pause, “you seemed so confident when you jabbed randomly at the menu.”

“Was it expensive?” I say, looking around the table, but of course the menus are already gone. “Who’s paying for this?”

“I am,” he says with a smile. Then he slides his plate to the middle of the table and begins dishing a few veggies onto my own, without hesitation and without awkwardness. I stare at him as something painful but wonderful rises in my chest, a familiar sensation that’s been trying to appear more and more recently.

“Thank you,” I say. “I⁠—”

But I break off at a sound from the other side of the column, and Dominic’s hands stop with a carrot halfway to my plate. Our heads turn at the same time, and I nod in affirmation when Dom raises his brows at me in question.

That’s Alvina; I can hear her for the first time. And she sounds upset. I recognize the tone, even if the words themselves are too garbled to understand.

I motion at Dominic to stay quiet before standing up and inching closer to the column separating our space from our parents’. Dom scoots his chair out and joins me, and I’m glad not to see anyone watching us when I look around, because we’re acting very weird. I scoot around to the back of the column, as far as I can go before I no longer fit in the space between the marble and the wall; the heat of Dom’s body is at my back, his hand low on my spine as though to hold me up. I ignore the jump of my pulse, the way it pounds in my ears, and focus my attention on Alvina and Daryl instead.

For a moment there’s only a low murmur of voices, deep and soothing, which must be Daryl. I recognize when Alvina speaks, because it’s snappish and accompanied by the emphatic clink of silverware. This is followed by the first words I can actually make out:

“I need the ladies’ room. I’ll be back,” my mother says stiffly.

“Vee—” Daryl begins, his voice louder too, but it’s followed by more clinking silverware.

Dom and I both startle at their words, our heads whipping as one toward the Restrooms sign hanging opposite our table.

She’s going to see us. If Alvina gets up to go to the bathroom, she’ll pass right by our table.

“Hide,” I say automatically—as though there’s anywhere to go or anything to do. We’re squashed against the wall as it is. “Hide!”

Dominic points out the obvious immediately. “Where am I supposed to⁠—”

“She’s going to see!”