Dinner Party with the Perkins

I open the door to my house quietly, hoping my mom will not notice that I am almost thirty minutes late to her dinner party. I throw a quick wave over my shoulder to Noah who is backing out of my driveway, eyes twinkling with humour as he bites his lip to keep from laughing at me.

There are voices coming from the kitchen as I slip my shoes off of my feet and place them by the door. One of the voices are easily recognizable — the soft, sweet melody that escapes my mother's mouth.

My mom's voice is loud, and she can never whisper because she has so many reasons to shout. But just because she is loud does not mean her voice doesn't soothe me, that it isn't the most peaceful sound to flow through the chilly late-afternoon air.

Now, the other voices are almost completely foreign to me. One comes from a man; low, with an agreeable trace of huskiness and a hint of more power than the frail body would suggest.

The voice does not sound educated by the way he slurs all of his words together and the aggressive laugh that bubbles from the depths of his stomach.

The other voice is a woman. Her voice is quiet, almost inaudible from around the corner. Her voice reminds me of a baby dove attempting to fly between two strong winds. She does not seem like she belongs here, in my house, eating the food my mom cooked.

I tiptoe around the corner and my mom's head immediately snaps up, brown eyes intensely locking to mine. A forced smile flutters across her perfect face as the other two look at me.

"Theresa, honey, you're home!" my mom says excitedly as she stands up quickly, dusting invisible crumbs off of her lime green pencil skirt.

My mom looks near to perfection with her thick blonde hair flowing in waves down her back, her face bare except for the soft glow of blush from her cheeks, and her pencil-thin legs that look elongated from underneath her skirt."Dom, Lucinda, this is my daughter, Tessa. Tessa, Mr. and soon-to-be Mrs. Perkins."

I nod awkwardly at the both of them, "nice to meet you."

"Likewise, Tessa. That's what they call you right? You know my son, don't ya? Oliver?" Mr. Perkins asks. He has an undertone of a country accent that reminds me of warm summers in North Carolina where my grandparents live.

He has brown hair that is slicked back away from his face. His eye are a dull green and he has broad shoulders that bulge from beneath his blue dinner jacket. He looks nothing like Oliver.

"Kind of. We were briefly friends in middle school. I don't know him, not really," I lie, feeling my cheeks flush. He nods before turning to his fiancee. She smiles sweetly at me and when I look at her face, I notice she can not be any older than twenty-five. Something in my stomach churns as I look at Mr. Perkins again. "If you'll excuse me, I am going to go do homework now."

"Wait, Theresa. Be a doll and bring Oliver a plate of food before you go. It is right there on the stove. He is down in the basement. I told him there might be some old video games down there that he could fire up," my mom says from behind me and my blood goes cold.

"The basement?" I whisper, trying to keep myself from running down there. "Of course." I grab the plate wrapped in silver tin foil before booking it for the basement stairs.

I rush down the stairs, feeling my heart beat fast, as it if it trying to break free from my chest. I can not hear anything except for the loud thump of my feet as I run down the stairs into the darkness of the basement.

And there the two of them are.

Jo is sitting on the couch, long legs crossed in front of him and arms hanging loosely on the cushions. He stops talking to Oliver mid-sentence, slowly turning to look at me with dark eyes.

There is something familiar about his eyes; the way the glare in them freeze my bones, like being nude in the middle of a hailstorm, having every chunk of ice take form of a sharp, frosted dagger that cuts into my skin.

Soft wisps of dark hair sweep an inch past his ear and caress the side of his face. Long eyelashes create warm shadows over his rather high cheekbones as he takes a deep breath through his thin, cracked lips.

He is beautiful, but not in a lustful way.

Jo is beautiful like the way a cold drink slips down your throat on a hot day. Beautiful the way a young woman who has died looks in her casket. A too-good-to be real beautiful. So beautiful that it is almost frightening.

Beautiful.

"Hi, Tessa. Welcome home," he whispers into the cold, dark silence that wraps its big, ugly arms around the three of us.

________________
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Leave a vote & comment!! Love you all xx

- JM