Chapter 19: Meeting Steve
“Elli can I speak to you for a minute?” Hearing my mother call me I reluctantly make my way into her bedroom. I’m not ready to have her lie to me this morning or vies versa. “You look nice today.”
I’m just wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Now I’m a little bit scared. Why is she buttering me up? She must have some terrible news or something.
“Thanks.” I reply coolly, sitting down on the edge of her bed. She changed her room a lot since my dad died. It’s a whole lot more feminine now, covered in pink roses and yellow linens. I never thought she would change it. I don’t even remember how many years it was after his death that she finally packed away his clothes and other personal items. I still have his old guitar and a big t-shirt I wear to bed every night.
“I just wanted to”uh”just don’t make any plans for tonight.” Hm, did you notice the nervous stuttering? I guess we know who I get that from.
“Why, what’s happening tonight?”
“I just want you to meet someone.” My stomach sinks at her words. You realize what this means don’t you? This someone is the someone she’s been sneaking out to see every night. This is the someone who is going to try to replace my dad. I don’t want to meet this guy.
“I kinda already have plans.” I bite my lip and lower my head.
“What plans?” She asks in a biting tone.
My eyes land on the bottle of cologne sitting on the dresser. I stand and walk over to smell the contents of the bottle. “Guitar lessons.” I reply inhaling the scent. It’s my dads. I can’t believe she still has it. Smiling to myself I sprits a bit on my wrists.
“Guitar lessons?” She echoes, “Since when are you taking guitar lessons?”
“I just started.”
“When were you planning on telling me this?” I shrug my shoulders when I feel tears forming in my throat. She’s about to forbid me to have the lessons. I’ve barely even started and she’s going to make me stop. She gonna say that music is a waste of my time and it won’t take me anywhere. “Let me rephrase that, where you ever going to tell me? How are you paying for these lessons?”
I’m trading sexual favors. I roll my eyes, still running my fingers over the glass bottle. “They’re free. A friend is teaching me.”
“What’s this friend’s name?”
“What’s your friend’s name?” I blurt out with out thinking (obviously).
The cologne is suddenly ripped from my hands and slammed back onto the dresser. I turn to her with my head down. “Do not take that tone with me young lady!”
“I’m sorry.” I mumble.
“I don’t know what has gotten into you lately.” She shakes her head disapprovingly. I could say the same thing to you. “You will be home for dinner, you understand?”
“Yes ma’am.”
The doorbell sounds before another word can be said. My mom pulls me out of her room and quickly down the stairs to the door. I stand behind her, pouting, as she smoothes out her dress and opens the door. Our dinner guest steps in handing my mother a bouquet of wild flowers and pressing a kiss to her blush covered cheek.
“Elli,” My mom smiles widely as if the discussion we had not two minutes ago never happened. “This is Steve. Steve this is my daughter Elli.”
“It’s nice to finally meet you.” Steve smiles, reaching his hand out for me to take. Not so much as cracking a smile I hesitantly take his outstretched hand. “Your mom has told me so much about you.”
I nod in response. I don’t like this Steve character. Sure he looks nice in his dress pants and crisp white collar shirt and his neatly groomed brown hair and seemingly warm green eyes, but I can tell that’s just a façade. That’s probably how he drew my mom in. He’s probably some con-artist who will get my mom to fall in love with him and marry him and then he’ll up and leave with all her money. We’ll end up on America’s Most Wanted!
“Why don’t you two go ahead into the dining room and set the table while I go check on dinner?” I fight the urge to glare at my mother’s stupid suggestion. I instead roll my eyes at the floor and quietly move to the dining room with Steve following closely behind me.
The plates, cups and utensils are sitting at my mom’s place at the table stacked and ready to be distributed. I take the napkins first, folding them diagonally.
“I could show you a really neat way to fold those if you’d like.” Steve says, speaking to me as though I’m ten and he has a neat magic trick to blow my mind with. I rudely ignore him, placing the simply folded napkins at the correct places. “Or folding them like that is fine.”
I roll my eyes again. I move back to grab the silverware to find that Steve-O is already on that task. I roughly grasp the plates and practically smash then onto the table. I can’t believe my mom is making me do this.
“So you’re mom told me you just had a birthday?” He comments obviously expecting me to confirm his dumb observation. He sure sucks at this conversation thing. “February fourteenth right?”
“Mmm-hm,” Is the only reply I offer. February wasn’t just right around the corner like he makes it out to be. I mean that was quite a few months ago considering the school year is almost over.
“That’s interesting to have a birthday on Valentines Day.”
“How do you know my mother?” I blurt out unable to take his small talk any longer. He sighs and scratches the back of his neck nervously and pulls out my dad’s chair and sits down. My jaw cracks and fists clench in anger. This guy needs to get out of my house.
“We”uh”we met at a”uh restaurant.” AKA: a bar. “I bought your mom a drink and we started talking and just hit off.” AKA: I took her back to my place and had sex.
Just as I’m about to ask if Steve is my mom’s boyfriend”ugh”my mom walks in balancing dinner in her hands. Steve, of course, rushes to her side and helps her carry the elaborate meal to the table. Mom never cooks this much. She made a whole turkey for goodness sakes; it looks like Thanksgiving.
“What were you two talking about?” She asks as we all sit at the too large table for only three people. My mom’s at the head of the table and Steve and I are sitting across from one another with me to the right of my mom and him to her left.
“I was just telling Elli about how we met.”
“Oh you were?” She giggles and I have the urge to gag. My mother just giggled like a teenager. Oh gosh, she sounded like Liz when we first met Justin. This is so incredibly bad.
Speaking of Justin, I would give my left and right arm to be with him right now. I’m supposed to be having a guitar lesson right now not listening to my mom and her new boyfriend flirt over dinner.
“Hey mom?” I prompt to get her attention. “I know you said I couldn’t go for my guitar lessons and””
“You play the guitar?” Steve interrupts rudely. If I could play would I be taking lessons? Let’s use that rather large head of yours now Steve. “I used to play all the time.”
“Mom won’t let me take lessons anymore. She says music is a waste of my time and it’ll never take me anywhere.” I reply stabbing at my perfectly cooked green beans.
Mom nearly falls out of her chair. Now Steve might not think she’s as perfect as she says she is. “I didn’t say that Elli.” Yes you did. She turns to address Steve. “I just don’t want the lessons to interfere with her school work.”
“I can understand that.” Steve smiles stupidly, taking a sip of wine. “However music can also help Elli to further her education. Besides…..”
I lost him after that. He’s so…. I don’t even know the word I’m looking for. He’s just a suck up. Can’t he tell he already has my mom eating out of the palm of his hand? If he asks her to jumps she’d ask how high”it’s that bad. And she’s not worried about my school work she’s worried that if I start back with music it’ll remind her too much of my dad. It’s like all she cares about is herself.
“Elli!”
I look up when my mom calls my name. She giving me that mom glare that tells me I’m in trouble. “Yes?”
She shakes her head disapprovingly. “Steve was speaking to you.”
Do I look like I care?
~*~*~*~
So the remainder of dinner was terrible. Steve kept on blabbing all through dinner about…well I wasn’t really paying all that much attention. I would just nod and smile every once and a while to make my mom happy.
As soon as we finished eating Steve volunteered to help my mom clean up the dishes”how nice of him. I can’t just leave them alone in there. They could be making out or something nasty like that”gross. So while my mom giggles like a school girl at yet another of Steve’s stupid jokes, I sit on the floor by the door spying. I know I shouldn’t be but wouldn’t you do the same if you were in my situation?
“Elli wants to go for these guitar lessons tonight but I just don’t know.” I hear my mom say as she hands a dripping wet plate to Steve for him to dry. “I mean I don’t even know this ‘friend’ of hers.”
Don’t you just love how she talks to him about me like he should actually have a say in my upbringing?
“Why don’t I drive Elli over to this kid’s house so I can check him out?” You’ve gotta be kidding me. She won’t go for that. I just met the guy for goodness sakes. There is no way she would force him on me like that. “You can’t be too safe nowadays. I mean who knows what he’s expecting in return for those lessons if he doesn’t want any money.”
What is wrong with this guy?
“You would do that?” Mom asks in a gooey voice. She’s considering this?
“Of course.” He coos sickeningly, setting down the checkered towel he was using for drying. Keep your hands to yourself dude…..He takes my mom’s hands from the soapy water and wraps them around his neck. “I would do anything for you and Elli.”
Oh my gosh!
He leans down and presses his lips to my moms. I turn my head away. This is too much for me to handle.
She’s replaced him. Pretty soon she’ll have me calling him Daddy. Even though I try my hardest to hold back my emotions I feel my bottom lip begin to quiver. I told Justin this was going to happen. He didn’t believe me; he said that I should just accept that my mom just wants to be happy. He said that no one would ever try to replace my dad. Steve is though.
A single tear drops to my lap soaking into my jeans. I hadn’t even realized I was crying.
TBC....
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