Isabelle, because I am absolutely not ready for her.
“Hello!”
She stands there, a bottle of wine in one hand and a white box with a pretty pink ribbon in the other.
“I know I’m early,” she says, biting her bottom lip daintily. She looks stunning in her white coat and light blue woolen dress—even the snow crystals scattered throughout her thick blonde hair look magical, like she’s just glided over from the set of Frozen. Now I’m really nervous. I wish Luis was home but he chose this very day to help his dad trim a tree that was in the way of the TV aerial. When I pointed out there was a lot to prepare for this evening, he insisted—conveniently, I thought—that it had to be today. He won’t be back for a while, maybe even another hour. And I’ve already drunk half a bottle of wine, which was possibly a mistake.
“I slightly underestimated how far you live. Is that okay? I could wait in the car if you prefer and come back later. I was going to do that but I then I thought the wine should be in the refrigerator, so I here I am. And this is pecan caramel cheesecake, by the way. And I didn’t make it, in case you’re wondering.”
I take the box from her. “I wasn’t,” I say, recognizing Mario’s Patisserie’s sticker on the cake box, thinking I wish she’d told me, I wouldn’t have made the brownies if I’d known, but then I tell myself it’s sweet and that it’s going to be a long night if I’m already over-thinking things, so I should just stop right now.
“Hello,” Carla says.
“Sweetheart, this is a friend of mine, Isabelle.”
Carla tilts her head at me as if to say, Friend? Don’t be silly! You don’t have any friends.
“She’s a friend of Daddy’s too,” I say. A very good friend of Daddy’s.
“It’s nice to meet you, Carla. You look just like your mom. How old are you?”
“Fourteen,” Carla says, pulling her sleeves over her hands and standing with one socked foot over the other.
“Fourteen is a great age, isn’t it, Anna?” And I’m thinking, Is it? Not where I came from.
“Very. Come in, Isabelle. I’ve only just started cooking but you can sit and fill me in on what you’ve been up to since, well, since you were born, I guess.” I laugh. Carla stares at me sideways, trying to understand why I’m being weird. Isabelle is too polite to do so.
I take her coat and immediately scan her throat for the necklace, but her dress has a collar and I can’t see it. I consider saying something like, Oh wait, you have a leaf stuck there, let me get it for you, just so I can tug at it, but I don’t.
I touch my hair self-consciously as I lead her through to the kitchen. She looks so fresh and well put together, whereas I look like the local drug dealer with my messy hair and my gaunt, unmade face. Maybe once Luis finally gets home I could sneak upstairs and slap gallons of whatever is in that contouring kit on my face.
“I’d better finish dinner!” I laugh for no reason whatsoever. “Would you like something to drink, Isabelle?”
“Yes, how about this?” She brandishes the bottle of Chardonnay and I wonder if she caught me looking at it greedily moments earlier.
I pull out a glass for her, which makes me think of the elegant tall stem glasses in Luis’s studio, which makes my hand twitch and I spill some of the wine on the table. I tear off a paper towel, laugh again, this time in a way that threatens to reach maniacal proportions, and wipe it off. It really is going to be a very long night. I check on the venison to steady myself, then finally I ask, “Where do you live, Isabelle?”
She takes an olive and drops the stone into her palm. I quickly put a small plate in front of her.
“Ohio City,” she says.
“Oh, that’s nice. I go running there sometimes.”
I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I just seem to blurt out things for no reason whatsoever. Now of course she says, predictably, “Oh, that’s so funny! So do I! We should go running together sometimes!”
“Well, that’s a coincidence!” I say, one hand on my hip. I smile, sort of: it’s hard to smile when your whole face is so tense it feels like rigor mortis setting in. But I’m just pleased