But it feels so foreign to anything I’ve ever experienced. I vaguely wonder if I’ll make a fool of myself by using the wrong fork.
I finger the silverware delicately, and Scott interrupts my worries. “Tell me what you’re thinking.” It’s not a question but an order, but his voice is soft, more curious than forceful.
“I don’t want to embarrass you with all of this.” My eyes cut around the room. “Thank you for sending the dress. The best thing I own would’ve looked like a rag in this place.” I run my hands down the satin again, smoothing invisible wrinkles.
“You are the most beautiful woman here, dress or no dress. It’s not the clothing that makes the woman, but I did want you to feel at ease. Keep it and wear it for me again. If it survives the night.”
I hear the promise in his voice and secretly wish for him to tear this fancy dress that costs more than my car from my body. I wish for him to need me that desperately. Feeling foolish and knowing that I will lovingly hang this dress in my closet as a souvenir of the night, I try to regroup.
“Really?” I ask, taking a sip of my wine. “You don’t mind that this place is so far out of my league, that you are out of my league?”
Scott smirks. “Madison, if anyone is out of their depths here, it’s me. You don’t hold to the rules of polite society, don’t give a fuck about how I want things to happen, and you couldn’t care less about the things I’m used to folks talking to me about.”
I cringe a bit, hearing only bad things in his laundry list of my faults. But he continues, “And that is why I’m here with you tonight. I brought you here because you make me try things, and I wanted to give you the chance to try new things too. At the same time, I’m not trying to change you. I want to know who you are, right now, because I suspect I’ll like that woman very much.”
I beam under his words, feeling much more at ease, even if I still don’t know which fork to use. Fuck it. As long as I don’t eat with my hands, I’m calling it good. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” he breathes. “Tell me all about Madison, day one to present.”
“Well, I grew up with my aunt . . . sheesh, that could be a whole novel,” I say, shaking my head. “I mean, I told you that Aunt May was a bit of a party girl when I was dropped on her doorstep, but she stepped right up and got herself straightened out for me.”
“Right, but I don’t quite know what that means,” Scott says. “What did she do?”
“A little of this and a bit of that. She’s not exactly corporate ladder material, you know? I mean, she runs her animal rescue now, but that was later. When I was a kid . . . well, it’s a little embarrassing.”
“It’s okay. Tell me,” Scott asks, and seeing the honest interest in his eyes, I’m driven to respond.
“Well, here you go. Her longest-running job was at 7-Eleven. I learned to read in the stockroom,” I confide. “May took a job there because it was close enough to the house that we didn’t need to fill up on gas . . . and because at the end of the shift when they had to clean out the hot dog machine, she was allowed to take all of the dogs that were past prime time home with her. We basically lived on those free hotdogs and expired packages of donuts destined for the dumpster.”
“You . . . but how?” Scott asks, shocked. “I mean, isn’t that against the law?”
“Not if no one told,” I say with a shrug. “I learned to read from the boxes and expired newspapers. I learned math counting back change when she let me help at the register for a change of scenery.”
Scott swallows, shaking his head. “I . . . well, let’s just say it was a little easier. I had a nanny who read Dr. Seuss with me.”
“Oh, I had Seuss too . . . and People, tabloids, and more. I got to read and color lots of the daily comics. I’d eat old chili dogs and play with a ball that May bought me until we went home. We lived in an old single-wide