Page 31 of Our Sadie
“On the following conditions.” An edge of sternness enters her tone. “No pranking me, no tripping me, and no abandoning me.”
Damn. What kind of cold-hearted bastards has she been with?
“I promise.”
“And if I say stop, you have to stop.”
“That’s a given.”
Chin high, she sends me an assessing stare for a couple of beats. “All right. Go ahead.”
First, I remove the scarf I’m wearing from around my neck, a lightweight cashmere in a pale green. “Close your eyes,” I instruct her. Then, with firm but gentle touches, I place the material over her shut lids. “See anything?”
I wave my hand in front of her.
She shakes her head. “Not a thing.”
“Take my hand.”
Guiding her down that lowest staircase winds up being more of an adventure than I’d thought. Unlike the main stairs, this one doesn’t have carpet on it, so if she took a tumble, the results could be catastrophic. I basically treat her like an already cracked eggshell every step of the way.
Once there—after blowing out a private sigh of relief—I whip off the scarf with a flourish. Showmanship has to count for something, am I right?
Also, I’m not gonna lie. I’m borrowing this from a film I did a few years ago that took place in a fake winery and ended in a free-for-all orgy over some wine barrels. I’d played one of the connoisseurs taking a tour. What went down might’ve been filthy, but the set itself had a certain classiness to it, one I’m trying to recreate.
“Have a seat.” I gesture toward the patio set I brought in here from outside specifically for this. Sadie may consider borrowing this table and chairs to be borderline forbidden since I left the building to retrieve them, but I’m rolling with it. “Here’s a selection of cheeses and oyster crackers to cleanse your palette. And I thought I’d start us off with these.”
I’ve chosen five bottles of wine to begin with. No sense wheeling out the whole kit and kaboodle if she doesn’t like this.
I monitor every move she makes, hoping for signs of approval. She selects a couple cubes of cheddar and a handful of the small round crackers. I next place before her the handwritten list I created for her reactions—a rating of one through five with five being the best—and hand over a sharpened pencil I found in a drawer upstairs.
I open the fifth bottle since it’ll need to breathe, then circle back to the first, pouring her a small portion. Engaging all my skills at reading people, I attempt to determine how she’s feeling, but I’m sorely disappointed.
Not only does her expression not change as she tastes each variety—and that’s with them flowing from a sweet white to a dry red—she doesn’t say or write anything, either.
Yet, I’m not about to throw in the towel this early. Instead, I prompt her.
“Care to rate them?”
“Not unless you partake.”
I didn’t foresee that, though maybe I should’ve.
“I maintain a two-drink maximum, but I suppose a few sips of these shouldn’t hurt.”
“Why do you have a two-drink max? Don’t most people party with a two-drink minimum?”
“Many do, yes.”
“But not you?”
I weigh how much would be wise to tell her. My family’s dirty laundry isn’t something I like to parade around, but if I have to, I have to.
“Rather not tempt fate since my gene pool consists of a druggie mom who left right after I was born and an alcoholic dad. That’s why I keep myself locked down and never, ever guzzle enough hooch to get myself fucked up.”
Sadie stares at me without blinking for a full minute. I stare back. And not to be rude or aggressive about anything, but because I don’t apologize for my choices. Or for my family. I love my dad. He did his best as a single father, working all day and keeping his drunkenness confined to the evenings. If I had homework questions, I knew to ask them as soon as he got home if I wanted answers that were coherent.
My mother now... that’s another story. I grew up without knowing why she left or where she might be. Hell, I don’t even know if she’s still among the living.