Instinct took over as my mother trudged toward the stairs, passing in front of me. I whipped out a hand and gripped her forearm, nearly knocking her off her feet.
“For crying out loud, Lauren.” She swung around, and I had the impulse to duck, even though my mother had never once laid a hand on either of her children. “What is wrong with—”
“There’s something important I need to share with the family tonight.” There, I’d done it. I’d just taken the first step. I was basically Neil Armstrong all over again.
My mother’s eyes held a glimmer of . . . what was that look exactly? Excitement? Hope? “Have you put in for an administrator position yet?”
Much too late, I realized my mistake. “Oh no, Mom. It’s not job-related. I’m really happy teaching first grade at Brighton. I don’t have any plans to leave my classroom.” At least, not long-term. My adoption leave would fall under the umbrella of maternity leave in my school district, but after the benefit of those months ran out, I’d go back to teaching again.
My mother’s gaze chilled to suspicion in record time. “Then what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s something good, actually. Positive.” At least, I would choose to see it that way. “But, um, I would really rather wait till we’re all together before I say anything more. Maybe before we serve dessert—”
“Lauren? Where are you?” Lisa called down the stairs, only this time, her voice held the air of a Disney princess, not an overdramatic sister. “Come up and meet our dinner guest.”
My mother cursed under her breath and shook her head. “When will that girl start minding her own business?”
“Wait, what guest? Lisa invited someone to Thanksgiving?” An eerie premonition soured my gut as my mother tromped on ahead without another word. In that one regard, my parents were quite similar. Silence had always been their weapon of choice.
My baby sister waited at the top of the stairwell, motioning me forward with Oscar-worthy flair. “Hey, Lauren, this is Marcus. You remember him, don’t you?”
Panic pulsed through my head as I followed my sister’s pointer finger to a man wearing a fuzzy, milk-white sweater. He shuffled to stand beside her, his receding hairline glistening an oily sheen as he rotated toward the light. “Hello, Lauren. It’s nice to see you again.”
Without so much as a grunted greeting, my mother pushed past our odd grouping in the foyer on her way in to the kitchen. She didn’t have the social graces for awkward meet-and-greets. I wished I could play the same card.
“Oh, uh . . . hello.” My gaze flicked from my sister to the Gollum-eyed man with the shedding sweater. “We’ve met before?” For the life of me, I couldn’t place him. He didn’t have a look I’d easily forget.
“You remember, don’t you, Lauren? You two met at that cute little farmers’ market in Hillsboro last summer,” Lisa offered unhelpfully. “The one with that goat’s milk booth you loved so much.”
I vaguely remembered choking down a mini sample of the milk and stating it was better than I’d anticipated. A reaction that wouldn’t be considered noteworthy to anybody besides my sister.
I tried to connect the dots back to Marcus, who was picking at a piece of lint on his sleeve. “So you’re a goat’s milk vendor, Marcus?”
“No, actually.” He blinked upward. “I was in the booth next to the goat-milk guy. I farm alpacas.”
And just like that, my well of shallow conversational skills ran dry. I opened my mouth and immediately closed it again. As somewhat of an expert in surface-level niceties, considering all the blind dates my sister had arranged over the years, drawing a complete blank was rare for me. But alpaca farming might take the prize for the oddest occupation I’d encountered from one of my sister’s male acquaintances. And I once endured a two-hour wine tasting event with a taxidermist.
I blinked and tried again. “Alpacas? Wow, that’s . . . really unique.” My only reference for the hairy mammal stemmed from the book Is Your Mama a Llama? But something told me Marcus wouldn’t care for that comparison or my childlike recitation.
“Many people aren’t aware of this, but alpacas are some of the most harmonious creatures living on our planet today. I consider myself lucky to work with them.”
Harmonious creatures? But wasn’t YouTube full of spitting alpaca videos? Or was that llamas? And what was the difference between them anyway? Whatever the answer, this was certainly not the conversation I’d planned on this evening.
Leave it to Lisa to destroy my agenda by making one of her own.
“That’s lovely. I wish you well with all your alpaca farming endeavors.” Because what else could I say, really?
“Dinner’s ready!” Mom bellowed from the kitchen.
I pinned my sister with a look that said, Whatever you’ve done, undo it. Now.
Lisa patted Marcus on the back, and a cloud of microscopic white hairs puffed into the air. “I invited Marcus to join us for Thanksgiving. I figured it would be the most convenient way for the two of you to get to know each other, considering how busy you’ve been lately, Lauren.”
But we both knew this little stunt had nothing to do with convenience. It was punishment, payback for my lack of engagement in Lisa’s primary communication style lately. Unlike normal people who texted in short paragraph form, my sister texted like a woodpecker after too many margaritas. I simply didn’t possess the supernatural ability to respond to every whim and thought she sent off into oblivion.
Sweat gathered under my arms and at the nape of my neck as the herd of my family—and one stray alpaca farmer—migrated toward the dining room. I shot Lisa a glare that would translate in every language and clasped my hand around her skinny arm. No way was she getting out of this that easily. I squeezed, and she jolted to a stop before rising up on her toes to call into the next room over. “We’ll just be a second, Marcus. Find a seat anywhere. Trent! Help Marcus find a seat. And not the one nearest the window, that chair leg is wobbly. Mom needs to fix it.”
“Am I the only one capable of working a screwdriver around here?” Mom grumbled.
I yanked my sister into the alcove between the pantry and the hall closet, planting my hands firmly on my hips so I wouldn’t throttle her. “What do you think you’re doing? Why would you invite a stranger to Thanksgiving dinner to ‘get to know me better’?”
Lisa had the audacity to quirk her microbladed eyebrow into an arch. “I’m helping my big sister out.”
I pinched my lips tight to hold in a string of words I hadn’t used since eleventh grade. “Helping me? No, Lisa. This is not helping me. I’ve told you at least a dozen times: I’m not interested in dating. I’m happy with the single life. I want to be single!”
She actually laughed. “That’s ridiculous, Lauren. You’re not happy, you’re just way too set in your ways. And you’re wasting precious time. You may not know this, but there’s an expiration date on finding a decent man—preferably one without a trunk load of baggage.” She pointed in the direction of the dining room. “Marcus has a lot going for him.” She ticked off her fingers one by one. “He’s in his early forties, he’s never been married, no kids, has a steady career—albeit an unusual one. But still, that package is hard to find at your age.”