"That night, I told my family about Pete Zabriski. Of course, they greeted the news of this impending date with deep satisfaction. They liked nothing better than an opportunity to exercise their mob wit on the innocent and undeserving.
"You are gonna straighten your hair?" James asked me at dinner that night. He'd been chewing real slowly, kind of staring at me, leaning his cheek in one hand. It was not the kind of remark I felt bound to answer.
Charlie, thoughtful as always, warned me, "He might want to kiss you." My mother has never allowed us to say "shut up" at the dinner table. I smiled at Charlie and batted my eyes.
"Leave her alone, you guys," my dad said. "Yupi'll get her nervous, and then she'll sweat, and then she'll never get married."
"I can't believe you said that." I glared at him. My own father.
He smiled at me sweetly. "I'm just concerned about your future, honey," he said.
"All right," my mother said. "Knock it off. How often does the girl go out that you should embarrass her like this." My mother too.
"You are envious," I said, "because someone handsome and good-looking-- unusual traits around here thanks to our genetic drawbacks--wants the benefit of my company. A young man who is cultured, no less." I held up a hand, silencing James, who was-no doubt- about to ask if we were talking salmonella or streptococcus. "He plays the French horn."
Charlie raised his eyebrows. "He must-" he said, leaning forward over the table and looking very sober"-have great lips."
This was, of course, considered just incredibly humorous. I considered turning the table over on all of them. I settled for pointed silence.
"I can see up your nostrils," James said.
Charming, and so appropriate at dinner.
"As it happens," I said primly, shaking out my napkin and placing it carefully onto my lap, "I haven't even told him, yet, that I would go." I looked up, daring anybody to say anything. Evidently, I was looking a little dangerous. I smiled. "It's so nice to have the family altogether," I said."
-The Only Alien On The Planet by Kristen D. Randle
I LOVE it heh heh...
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