Page 58 of Cookout Carnage
‘Baby girl, I knew you got too skinny.’ Her mom squeezed tighter, as if confirming the measurements. ‘I brought biscuits. And pie.’
Sherilyn disengaged and looked between the two massive suitcases and her father. He shrugged. ‘I told her they had food in Chicago. But she told me it ain’t—’
‘The same,’ her mom finished. ‘It ain’t, honey, and you know it. A mama wants the best for—’
‘Come here, shortstuff. Give your old man a hug,’ her father interrupted. He squeezed her even tighter than her mother had, and she smelled more memories of home that made her throat tighten.
Then she remembered Tristan.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked.
‘For you, baby girl. We don’t want you alone on your birthday,’ replied her mother.
‘How long are you staying?’
Her father barked a laugh. ‘Trying to get rid of us already? We not good enough for you now that you’re a big-city girl?’
‘Sorry, Pa, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—’
Her mother smacked her father’s arm. ‘Sherri-Lynne honey, we know how busy you are and can work around you. We’re staying six days, so we’ve got the weekend as well. You can meet us on your lunch hour, then we can spend the evenings together. We’re booked in a Motel 6, just around the corner from your apartment, so I can make you a cooked breakfast every morning, just like at home.’
‘But—’
‘Don’t worry about us the rest of the time,’ her mother continued. ‘Your pa’s going to the auto show, and I’ll take myself to a fancy museum.’
‘Fancy, schmancy.’
‘Stop with that,’ her mother chided her father. ‘Next time I’m comin’ with Axle. He appreciates art and all that high class stuff.’
‘“High” is the right word for that boy.’
‘Now then, honey, I’m sure the fire drill is over, so we’ll come back with you. We want to meet all your friends at work.’
‘I don’t,’ her father muttered.
Sherilyn clenched her fists tightly in the pockets of her coat, willing the anguished wail inside to stay down. She could not see Tristan today and take the risk he would meet her parents and judge them or her. Memories of Chad scratched at her heart, opening up old wounds. He was the perfect boyfriend from college, the only boy she had ever brought home. They’d been in their final year, and she was certain he was going to ask Pa for her hand in marriage, then propose. But Chad failed to hide his contempt for her family and dumped her as soon as they got back, dropping her mom’s parcel of biscuits in the trash outside her dorm room.
Tristan was well-to-do, well-spoken and well-mannered. He looked like a Burberry model dressed by Savile Row. He worevests,for chrissake. He was the poshest man she’d ever met, and to top it all, he was an upper-class Brit. If Mona had been cruel in her dismissal of her parents, she could only imagine what Tristan would think. She knew he would be polite on the outside, but inside, he would be appalled. As Sherilyn Boden, she believed she had a chance with him. However, Tristan Fawcett-Underwood of Devon would never in his right mind choose to be with Sherri-Lynne Bodean of Kentucky.
‘You don’t wanna do that, Mama. I’m sure it’s been a long journey and you wanna rest up? Why don’t we get you settled into the motel first?’
‘I second that, shortstuff,’ said her father, grabbing the suitcases. ‘Lynnie, honey, you’ve been outvoted. And I need to get out of the good jeans before I asphyxiate myself.’
After her parents checked in, they made their way to her apartment. Her mother‘s chatter normally made her feel warm and content, but in Chicago it was out of context and grated on her nerves. Tristan would still be in the air, and she hadn’t worked out what she would say about changing all her carefully laid plans. She’d known him for nearly a year. Eleven months of falling in love with a man she had only ever seen on a computer screen. Could she keep her parents away from the office? See if what she had with Tristan was real? Then break it to him that she was just a country girl who knew how to fix herself up? Yeah, right. A country girl who can skin a rabbit and has a brother in jail. But Tristan was so nice. Sweet, kind, caring. Could he overlook her background?
By the time they reached her apartment building, the internal argument had reached no conclusion. Her mind was bouncing back and forth like a ball in an endless tennis match. One side of the net was filled with elated hope, the other with crushing disappointment. As they exited the elevator on her floor, her jaw tightened.Oh god, no.Coming out the door opposite hers was Damien. The charming British manwhore she’d mistakenly slept with when she first arrived and regretted ever since. She saw his eyebrows lift and the corner of his mouth twitch as he took in her parents. Her mother, still wafting the top of her dress to bring in cooler air, and her father, now in a pair of Carhartt overalls, looked like a grumpy car mechanic. Which of course he was.
‘Well, hello, Sherilyn,’ Damien purred as they approached. ‘How are you, this fine February day?’
‘Fine, thanks,’ she mumbled, head lowered, pretending to look in her purse for her key.
Damien extended a hand to her mother. ‘You must be Sherilyn’s sister. I’m Damien, her neighbour.’
Her mother laughed aloud, as the colour in her cheeks deepened. ‘Oh my, ain’t you a charmer!’
Her father scowled.
‘Here we go!’ Sherilyn said loudly, brandishing her key as if she’d found the Holy Grail. She slammed it in the door and pushed it open.
