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The food looks amazing, it’s a roasted chicken leg with vegetables and potatoes. Nothing beats homemade food.
“Thank you,” I mumble and take my seat.
They both watch me like a monkey act at a circus show. Eyes guarded and bodies tense as though waiting for me to fling poop or my dinner at them.
“Would you like to join us in saying grace?” Stanley asks, holding his hand across the table to me.
I put mine under the table on my lap. “I’m not holding your hand.”
He raises them defensively and with a soft tone he implores, “That’s fine. You don’t have to.”
“You don’t believe in God?” Lane asks.
“I don’t believe in anyone,” I mutter, wishing I could just eat and go.
An awkward silence lapses and I know I’ve offended them. It’s something I’m good at.
“Your brows look amazing,” Lane says quietly after a moment, changing the subject. Her lips tilt up with a kind smile. “You’ll have to teach me how you draw them on like that.”
I chew on my lip, trying to even out my breathing. I hate being stared at like this. Not because I’m self-conscious but because it makes me feel like I’m being backed into a corner. “Sure.”
“Eat,” she insists, likely sensing how awkward I feel.
“No,” Stanley states and I place my fork back down having only just grasped it. “Everybody at our table says grace. You may not believe in God but this is a house of God. You will respect that.”
His hard tone isn’t lost on me, I knew it would come eventually. Men like him love throwing their weight around. I don’t much care for it or his tone. He could have told me nicely but then men like him never do.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t say a prayer.” I glare at him. “I said I wouldn’t hold your fucking hand.”
“Oh dear,” Lane mutters, looking away as Stanley’s face turns red with anger.
“You will watch your language in this house too.”
I give him a sardonic salute. “Aye, aye, Captain. Anything else?”
“You do understand we are trying to help you, correct?”
My eyes roll heavenward and he slams his hand down on the table, startling Lane. Here we go with the guilt-tripping. I was waiting for it. It came a lot sooner than I thought it might.
“How do you like your room?” Lane asks as I sip my fruit juice, unbothered by her husband’s anger.
“It’s great, thank you,” I reply honestly. “So great I can’t think of why I left it to begin with.”
I stand so hard the chair almost tips over. The dog gives a yip, startled by my sudden movement.
“Sit down, Mallory,” Stanley seethes, his face redder than before.
“My name is Scandal,” I call over my shoulder.
“I said sit down.” I hear his chair scrape across the tiled floor and hear Lane whisper his name imploringly followed by something I can’t hear. “No…” he argues finitely, “it’s day one and already she’s acting like this?”
I head back up to my temporary lodgings with a bitter twist of my face, a sour taste in my mouth, and a growling force in my belly. Yep, I won’t be here longer than a week.
I’m not sure why I’m here at all.
I don’t know who these people are, what they are to my uncle, why they are offering me a place to stay…
I decide not to dwell on it and instead move to my window and scope out the area.
“Welcome to Haraway, Louisiana,” I mutter to myself, looking over our more private road in the busy, middle-class suburbs.
As my uncle is a senator of the great state of Louisiana, I’ve been all over the state, but this is the first time I’ve gotten close enough to New Orleans to be able to catch a bus or a ride there. A place I’ve always wanted to go and dance, and climb, and just… everything.
I open my window and lean out. I’ve not been scared of heights for years; I free climb everywhere. This house shouldn’t be too hard to scale if needed, I could easily drop down to the ledge of the window beneath mine, sidle along it to the drainpipe on the corner and swing myself around to the low roof above the entranceway.
Returning inside, I blow a loose tendril of hair from my face and reach for my phone that I put on charge by my new bed.
After an hour of scrolling through messages and pleas for my attention, there’s a knock on the door.
I move to it and open it, wondering if it’s Stanley ready to throw more of his weight around. Instead I find a plate on the floor holding the dinner I didn’t eat. I also see Lane walking away.
My stomach gives a happy growl but I read the note first before tucking in.
“Eat it before the dog does and then come down for dessert. I made cake and cookies.”
