Page 33 of Mostly My Boss
As soon as he was gone I got up and went to the bathroom, but no matter how hard I scrubbed it, I couldn’t get his stupid name off my foot.
* * *
New York
Julia
“We’re so excited Ethan decided to bring you home to meet us. We wanted to him to have the real college experience with friends that would really be there for him, do you know what I mean?”
I nodded.
Ethan was right. Mrs. Rachel Moss had been very excited to meet me. She’d been fawning over both of us since we walked through the door. Now we were seated at the table for Christmas dinner and I’d never seen dishes and glasses like this. So fancy I was almost afraid to touch them.
Candles were lit on the table along with a bowl of fresh pine cones arranged as an artful decoration. I was glad I’d brought the only skirt I owned and paired it with my blue sweater. Both Ethan and his father were wearing ties.
It was interesting. His father was handsome in the traditional sense and his mother was also attractive, if a little buttoned up, but I didn’t think Ethan looked like either one of them. No burnished red hair or green eyes to be found.
“So are you two dating?” Mrs. Moss asked, as if she was looking for some gossip from me.
“Mom,” Ethan groaned and I smiled at his obvious discomfort.
“That’s not what they do these days,” his father corrected Rachel. “They don’t date, they hang out. Isn’t that right, Ethan? Are you twohanging out?”
I smiled again because Mr. Moss used rabbit ears around the wordshanging outand Ethan closed his eyes in utter embarrassment.
“No,” I said, letting Ethan off the hook. “We’re not dating or hanging out. We’re just friends.”
“Just friends,” Mrs. Moss repeated. “Well that’s good too. And are you eating Ethan? You don’t look like you’re eating.”
“I’m eating.”
And if he wasn’t, all the food being served at this meal would set him up for the rest of the year.
“And sleeping?” she asked. “Are you sleeping regularly?”
“Do you need a prescription?” his father asked. “I can write you one.”
“No, I’m sleeping fine. Everything is fine,” he said tightly.
Silence settled then but it wasn’t comfortable.
“Tell me, Julie—”
“Julia,” Ethan corrected his father.
“Sorry,” he said, bending his head in his son’s direction. I noticed, though, that his jaw was ticking as if Ethan had annoyed him with the correction. “Tell us why you’re not at home with your family over the holiday?”
I glanced over at Ethan, surprised he hadn’t told them. Was he worried about what they would think? About me or my family? We didn’t have money. It wasn’t something I was thrilled with, but I wasn’t going to be embarrassed by it, either.
“My father died of a heart attack a few years ago. Since then it’s just my mother and brothers running the farm so money is tight. I couldn’t really afford to go home.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Mrs. Moss smiled a little awkwardly, clearly uncomfortable with the discussion of money at the dinner table. “Ethan told us. A farm...in Idaho. Potatoes.”
“Iowa. Corn. But…close.”
Ethan shook his head in disgust and I had to bite my lip.
“But you earned a place at Harvard,” Ethan’s father chimed in. “So that’s all that matters now.”
