Page 90 of Driftwood Daffodil 3

Carissa. That was her name? Carissa Barone. Sounded like a bitch name to me.

“I’m not egging her on.” I totally was. Fuck that bitch. “I’m simply holding my finance’s hand.”

“Uh huh.” Gio muttered and led me into a beautiful dining room.

The dark wood paneling on the walls was a couple of shades lighter than the hardwood floors, giving the room an elegant and oddly warm atmosphere. While a large crystal chandelier sparkled like diamonds above the largest table I’d ever seen.

Walking in there with all those dressed up people was a new experience for me. To be fair it was the only dining room I’d been in, unless the picnic table in the backroom of Simon’s house counted? He called it a dining room. The one meal I had there was nothing compared to this.

The Mancini’s put the term five course to shame. There was so much food on the table that a village in a third world country could eat for a month. And I recognized none of it. There were a few pasta dishes, some salads, various sauces, chicken and beef, and some kind of bread with what resembled salsa.

We sat next to Gio’s dad, who was at the head of the table. This whole fancy affair stuff was creeping me out. Especially, when Gio pulled my chair out for me. I half expected him to yank it out from under me when I went to sit. But he didn’t. He slid me into place like a gentleman. I didn’t like it.

“Good evening, Novalee.” Cesare nodded at the table full of food. “I hope you like Italian.”

Why was he being polite?

“I’ve never had it.”

Pretty sure frozen pizza didn’t count as Italian food. Everything smelled good, so I wasn’t going to complain. My dress however might. Whoever decided to get me white clearly hadn’t seen me try to eat toast in the morning.

I eyed the various silver platters and serving dishes, then looked down at my place setting.

What the…

Who needed this much silverware to eat?

There were three forks on the left side of my plate, two knives, a funny looking stumpy knife, a spoon, and a tiny as all hell fork on the right side. Above my plate lay another fork and spoon along with a smaller plate and butter knife. And to top it all off, I had three different glasses.

I leaned in closer to Gio and asked, “why do I need so many forks?”

“It’s standard table settings.”

Standard for who? “Our table wobbles and most of our silverware is plastic.”

“Right,” he sighed and pointed at various forks. “This one’s for fish, your entrée, salad, oysters, and dessert.”

There was a fork just for oysters? Really? No wonder they had staff. I wouldn’t want to do all those dishes.

“Yeah, um,” I picked up the middle fork. “I’m gonna use this one for all that.”

Minus the oysters. Those could stay on the other side of the table.

Atlee who was sitting on my right side chuckled, “don’t feel bad, I can never get the forks right either.”

It was nice to know I wasn’t alone.

The blonde on the other side of him held up one of her glasses, “wine please.”

The last thing I expected was for her request to be fulfilled, but it was. A server stepped up with a decanter of red wine and filled her glass. Maw Maw slapped me every time she caught me drinking, and that girl was younger than me.

Speaking of which…

“Atlee, I don’t want to judge who you decided to date. In fact the less I know about your dating life, the better, but that girl is like thirteen.”

He looked at me like I was dumb, “she’s my sister.”

Oh, well in that case…

---