XVI

Dinner is served just after six o’clock, not twenty minutes after I had to have a lengthy conversation with Mom on the phone about where I am, with whom, and I am in fact going to the gala and no, I wasn’t going to ask if she could come for dinner to meet the Rutherfords, because that’s actually rude and I rather spend my evening without her. I don’t tell her that last bit but the thought does cross my mind to mention as a good reason to not have her here.

Mrs. Rutherford sits across the dining room table at the head. She’s a hearty lady with graying caramel brown hair that reaches the bottoms of her ears. She laughs deeply at jokes Blake and Mr. Rutherford make, and she welcomes me with open arms that closed around me in a warm hug. Mr. Rutherford isn’t as boysterious and parental as his wife but he’s a fine man with a thin wrap of hair around the crown of his head.

He offers me lots of different food from the end of the table and when I decline he sends a nice smile and tells me to ask if I change my mind. His wife tells him that he’s turning me off the food when he keeps offering and I have to inist, that no, I’m just happy with the pasta bake that’s on my plate for now.

“So how do you know Blake?” Rosemary’s mother asks me after she has a bit of her peas and corn.

Thinking not much of the question, I respond. “My sister dated his brother for many years.”

She makes a noise of confusion, her eyes looking between me and Blake. “Avaline dated Noah. Did I know that?” she turns to her daughter as if for reassurance, that yes, she did know my sister (mind you by her unmentioned full name) dated Blake’s (also unmentioned by name) older brother.

I turn to Rosemary too. I’ve trapped her into honesty or at least with the knowledge that I am completely aware of her secrecy regarding my sister. Had I meant it to be here, now, with everyone watching? No, of course not, I was just planning on asking her about it later when maybe she’s had a chance to warm up to me; and I her so I don’t lose my temper with her. That being said, I much prefer it this way.

“I told you many times,” Rosemary says, disregarding my stare.

Mrs. Rutherford smiles. “Ah, yes, I was thinking that one time she came up to our place. She and him had broken up. Sorry for the confusion, Charlotte.”

I’m speechless so when I open my mouth and distort it like I’m going to speak, I find my mind blank and I can do is give her a tight smile that she doesn’t know means thank you but based on the tension Rosemary’s exhibiting, Rosemary knows.

“I didn’t know my sister was close with your family,” I say before taking a bite of my dinner. It’s much better than Mom or Dad could ever make.

“Her and Rose were quite close.”

Thank you, Mrs. Rutherford. “Were you friends or just on a first name basis?” I ask Rosemary jokingly but she knows I want a serious answer.

She delivers just what I silently asked. “Friends, I’d say. She’d come up to our condo quite a bit over the years.”

Right, good. I laugh but it’s not funny. In a soft tone, I jest, “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me about your family.”

“I bet she was meaning to,” supplies Rosemary eyeing her mother. Stay quiet, her eyes say but her posture says nothing so imperative. She’s defeated, and on her own ground too.

“Yeah,” I say.

Maybe it would have been easier if I didn’t know that all those weekends she’d up and leave for, she ended up spending in a condo with a family much better than our own, with a girl my age much better as a sister than I ever was. And with a life much nicer.

Maybe it would have been easier to just enjoy dinner and not make a fool of Rosemary to Blake.

Maybe it would have been easier if I never met Rosemary.

But this, finding Ava, would have been a lot harder. So I’ll take some minor heartbreak over the revelation that Ava hated her life with us so much she’s spent time at a near stranger’s house. With Rosemary’s willing, or more likely unwilling help.

Dinner resumes and I don’t pick anymore at their lives, knowing that I was close to overstepping a line earlier and now that the line is clearly in pace, there's a part of me that wants to cross it just to see what Rosemary would say or do to me.

Blake talks about his day and some assignment he got in his psychology class while Mr. Rutherford talks of word and business; his wife laughs along with the jokes he makes and doesn’t input much herself. Rosemary and I, however, keep quiet.

Blake offers to bring our plates to the kitchen so Rosemary and I can get a head start on looking for a dress for the gala. Then and only then do I slightly regret my manipulation of her and her mother earlier.

Rosemary closes her bedroom door behind me and says, “You didn’t have to do that, you know. I would have told you anything you wanted to know.”

My heart sinks further and I sigh. “It worked, didn’t it?” I say as if it’s some real excuse.

“Asking would have worked too.”

If there’s one reason I don’t like undermining people who treat me poorly⸺namely Mom and Ava and now Rosemary⸺is because they always make me feel bad for it even if I think it’s meritted.

I can’t tell if it’s the just the guilt or genuine self-reflection that makes me wonder if Rosemary didn’t actually merit how I treated her because what has she really done to hurt me? Lie about knowing my sister, objectively I don’t blame her for that because of two reasons: she knew I’d respond the way I did, and because it was Avaline.

“Do you still want me to stay?” I ask, finally working up the never to look into her eyes.

She exhales softy and lifts up her hand for me to take it. I do.

What I don’t expect is for her to pull me away from the door and towards her walk-in closet. Her grip isn’t rough and I could get out if I wished but right now I’m just grateful she hasn’t given up on me yet. I let her guide me wherever she wishes too because in this moment, thinking back to her first words to me after dinner, I know I can hurt her.

That means I mean something to someone who valued my sister more than me for a long time. She’s the only of that kind to value both Waters sisters. I don’t want to lose it.

“Why do you have so many formal gowns?” I ask seeing the rack of a dozen or so gowns lining the walls in their protective garment bags.

“Very occasions like these,” she says as we reach a white ottoman. She sits me down on it and takes a few steps away. “Mom used to travel for her work with Canadian Airlines. They’d have award ceremonies and fancy meetings across the country. I always liked to go because I got to dress up.”

Her first answer would have sufficed to sate my question but she’s genuinely trying to connect with me so she shared more. I try to return the favour when I say, “You have a very eclectic taste for someone whose nails are always done the same colour.”

She pauses her rustling through the dresses to look at her nails. “What’s wrong with blood red nails?”

I smile. “Nothing,” I say standing up and approaching her. “It’s just you have blue gowns, and white⸺which make me want to ask about a potential wedding you’ve had⸺and I don’t even think I’ve seen you wear blue.”

She pulls out the dress I was referring to and holds it so we can both see it. “First of all, I have one blue gown, the rest are aquamarine, and second, I knew you’d like this dress.”

“You’re just saying that,” I insist though I do like the baby blue gown with the floral embroidery on the bodice.

Rosemary puts the gown down on the ottoman she wanted me to stay seated on and walks across the gray wooden floor to a large, vanilla painted cabinet. It’s shelves are lined with hats and a mix of casual and formal shoes. However, she doesn’t reach for the shelves, instead she opens the top drawer and pull a small, plastic bag out of the drawer.

She tosses it to me and I turn it around to see the black permanent marker on the front. It says Lola: Blue Gown Jewellery. And as it’s labelled, the bag contains a pair of earrings and a few rings and bracelets.

“I made a few others up for dresses I want to see you try but that was my first guess,” Rosemary says holding three other bags labelled similarly. She wants me to try a royal blue gown, an aquamarine one, and even one of the white ones.

“We should get started then,” I say placing the bag on top of its matching dress. “Show me the white one.”

Through the late hours of the evening and the earliest hours of the morning, Rosemary and I just talk, drink a very nice concoction of club soda and assorted other juices⸺Rosemary’s favourite is cranberry and club soda. I prefer orange juice and club soda⸺while we find the best dress for me. One of the benefits of taking Rosemary up on her offer, though I couldn’t with Amelia because she didn’t have anything to offer, was that the only thing separating our size of clothing was her height. Each dress she owns has been perfectly tailored to her height so when I put them on, fabric pools in the front and the back.

The train that forms isn’t so bad but it’s the front I really do worry about, so when Rosemary hands me a pair of silver stilettos near five inches in height, I thank her because even if I’m not used to high heels, I can traverse my time in the dress better if I’m not tripping over the dress itself. Only my own feet.

“Did you tell Ethan you’re going?”

“No,” I sigh as I sit on the ottoman in what I hope is the last dress because I’m starting to really want to go to bed.

“Why? Are you upset he didn’t ask you?” she asks as she cleans up one of the other gowns and returns it to its garment bag.

I laugh dryly. “He did ask me. Kind of.”

Rosemary’s movements halt and she turns to look at me slowly. “Pardon me? He asked you and you said you weren’t going and now you are so the only reason you two couldn’t go together has been resolved. By me, mind you.”

“Yeah,” I say because what else am I supposed to? “Yeah, pretty much.”

She looks at me for a second, truly looks at me. Not like how in the past hours she avoided looking me in the eye or really at my face at all. No, now, her eyes are solely focused on mine.

I go red under her stare.

Then, all of a sudden in the quiet of the jazz music she has her closet hooked up to play, she laughs at me. Like a genuine laugh that makes me blush even harder. “You want it to be a surprise,” she declares.

“I don’t even know if he’s going,” I insist.

Rosemary laughs again. “So? Your hope that he’s going is bigger than your worry he’s not.”

So that’s how we spend the latter part of our time awake together: arguing about whether or not Ethan would prefer this dress or this accessory⸺even though I insist I’m picking for myself because I am, knowing that Ethan doesn’t care what I’m wearing⸺this make-up or this hair style.

It isn’t until I fess up and tell Rosemary that I do want me being at the gala, so done up, to be a surprise for Ethan if he’s there.

She lets us go to bed after that, and as I walk to the guest room down the hall, I really do let myself worry how I’ll spend tomorrow evening if Ethan’s not there for me to hang out with.