Page 79 of Crash and Burn
All I'd wanted the day before was for Grant to text me or call me. His silence had been maddening.
Now it was my turn to ignore his texts and calls. I don't know what had made him go incommunicado but whatever it was seemed to be over because Grant had been blowing up my phone all day.
I didn't respond to a single thing.
So maybe it was passive aggressive of me. So what?
Luckily, I had that night off from the bar so I had time to cool down.
Unluckily, I only asked for the night off because my parents had finally strong-armed me into having dinner with them.
I knew I wasn't in the best state — frazzled hair, rumpled clothes, no make-up whatsoever — but I hadn't expected the wince on my mother's face when she opened her front door.
"Elizabeth, what in the world...?" she trailed off, aghast. "You look like something the cat dragged in."
I stepped through the doorway and glanced at myself in the hallway mirror. Now it was my turn to wince. Yikes. It looked like I'd spent the previous night tossing and turning in bed, with a pale face and bruises under my eyes. It also looked like I'd rolled out of that bed and went straight to family dinner.
I cleared my throat and tried to smooth my tangled hair.
"I've been working long hours," was my explanation.
My mother made a familiar noise in the back of her throat, one of those noises that meant she disapproved and wanted me to know it, but wasn't going to say anything out loud.
Maybe that was where I got my passive aggressive streak.
"Go upstairs and try to make yourself look presentable?" she sighed. "Janice is on her way."
"Janice?" I asked before groaning. "Did you really invite that woman from the paralegal thing?"
"Yes," my mother said primly. “And you need to make a good impression on her." She gave me a pointed look and nodded her chin up the stairs.
I resisted the urge to stomp upstairs like a dramatic teenager. Being in this house always made me feel like I was a kid again.
There wasn't much I could do for my rumbled clothes so I threw one of my mother's nice sweaters over my t-shirt. I also used some of her hair product to tame the gnarl of tangles falling over my shoulders and stole a dab of her under-eye concealer. Good enough.
I made sure to step lightly as I made my way downstairs. I didn't want my parents to hear heavy footsteps and think I was acting like a sulky fifteen year old.
Voices of polite laughter came from the dining room, my mom and dad's along with someone I didn't recognize. Janice must have already arrived. I put on yet another fake smile — I seemed to be doing that a lot these days — and popped my head into the room.
“And there she is,” my dad said. “How are you doing, Elizabeth?”
"I'm good, Dad." I would have been better if this dinner party hadn't been sprung on me but...
I turned to the woman chatting with my mother, tall with purple cat-eye glasses.
"Hi there!" I chirped. "You must be Janice?"
With the tight bun at the back of her neck and no-nonsense expression, she looked every bit the librarian. I half-expected her to tell me to shush.
"Elizabeth, so nice to meet you," Janice said, her eyes uncommonly wide behind her glasses. "Your mother has told me so much about you."
I bet she had.
"You can call me Lizzy," I told the woman.
"Let's get eating," my dad declared.
We each took our places at the small, round dinner table. I didn't have any brothers or sisters so my family's dining room table only ever had to seat three comfortably. Janice sat in the chair across from me.
