For a few minutes, quiet chatter follows and everyone eats. I’m allowed to sit in silence. No one asks me any more questions because I can’t speak. Why have I never thought of this before?
Sylvie brings me a steaming cup of hot lemonade with honey. I sip in grateful silence and eat fish with butter sauce that has salty, little, green things in it that look like tiny peas. At least it’s not vomit-inducing. Neither is the salad with oily dressing, but I pass on some rubbery fried squid. The nervous stomach I’d had since I learned Gavin would be here settles down. Maybe I’m off the hook. The guy is apparently ignoring me as much as I’m trying to ignore him.
And then, right at the moment when I get too comfortable, Gavin stops stuffing his face and speaks.
“So, Rosemary,” he drawls in his backwoods southern accent, “we haven’t heard much from you. I wanna know your story. How did a girl from Idaho end up here?” He wipes his mouth with his napkin and turns to me. His face is expectant, his eyes kind of . . . waiting. He wants to know how I’ll respond to him.
I might have imagined it. I swear I might have made it all up in my head, but when he said my name, I was sure I heard him exaggerate the “r” sound at the beginning, drawing it out so that it was way too long.
Maybe he felt bad about before, but apparently, he’s over that.
I pause, taking time to swallow the mouthful of bread that’s suddenly bone-dry in my throat. Then I pull out my cell phone. Mom always hates when I use it to talk for me, but she isn’t here, is she?
Keeping my face neutral, I type the words:
Not your business. Go home, hillbilly.
I hold the screen so only Gavin can see it, make sure he reads the words, then delete them.
Before Gavin can reply, Valerie pipes up, “Why, what a good idea, using your phone to talk for you when you can’t. I’d never have thought of it.”
She smiles at me and I grin right back at her.
Whah, thank you, I say in a chirpy Southern voice inside my head.
Maybe she’s not as annoying as I first thought. Mom would never agree with that opinion. In Mom’s mind, using anything else to speak for you is a crutch. A weakness to overcome.
“Can I borrow your phone? I didn’t get to answer,” Gavin says. He holds his hand out but I shove my cell into my pocket.
Valerie answers for me. “Of course you can’t, Gav! You haven’t lost your voice. Well, what is her story?” she says.
“My name is Gavin, Valerie,” Pumpkin-head says. I witness the venom-filled glare he shoots at his mom. So does everyone else.
I take another quick sip of my lemonade as I watch the little family drama unfold. Phil mutters something soft but harsh-sounding to his son, while I’m frankly relieved the attention is off me. I didn’t need to type those stupid words! Gavin will be gone for good after dinner. I shouldn’t have let him get to me.
Suddenly, Gavin speaks, loud and clear. “Rosemary didn’t give me much time to read, but I caught something about studying the French language,” he says.
I turn to him, wary. He grins at me, and his eyes gleam with a hint of the same malice he’d aimed at his mother. He winks at me.
“And . . . French kissing.”
I stare at him for a nanosecond, reading a challenge in his brown eyes and amusement all over his face. His full lips twist into a smile. And without thinking, I dump my hot lemonade onto his lap.
He leaps up and swears while everyone else moves at the same time, so there’s a sudden mini-explosion of people in the tiny, blue-tiled kitchen. Somehow I extricate myself from the group and reach the hallway outside the apartment. I lean on the closed door and listen to the raised voices inside. I’m breathing like I ran a marathon. Did I just throw a hot drink onto a guy’s lap and then bail? I blink, digesting this bit of information. I did.
I am so embarrassed.
And then I see what’s in front of me. Walking along the hallway is a tiny, shriveled woman who shuffles by in a housecoat and dirty slippers. She stares at me with a suspicious gaze, like I’m going to try to grab the crumpled paper bag she holds clutched in her wrinkled hands.
I stare back.
Her eyes narrow. Finally, she whips her head around to face forward and heads up the nearby staircase. I glimpse bulging, blue veins on her skinny legs as she ascends and hear voices at my back, growing louder.
They’re coming out.
Telling myself I’m only being polite, because I don’t want to cause the poor Southerners any more discomfort, I inch my way down the hall and creep up the stairs to avoid any more unpleasant interactions. Luckily, the old lady is gone.
The fixture that lights the upper hallway goes on automatically when I reach the top step. There’s a door to my left marked with the number 64, and a plastic potted palm at my right, so close I brush against its dusty fronds. There’s one more door at the end of the long, narrow hall, but it’s not marked.