The Life and Times of Lorna T. Elliot

Chapter 2, in which Lorna goes to her boyfriend's for a meet the family dinner.

"Ellen I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this," I said to my best friend as she applied my make-up to my eyes in a way that made me look about 24 instead of 14. I was getting ready to go to my boyfriend's place for a meet the family dinner, of course I already knew his parents but they had never met me in this capacity. Yes, that is right the capacity that is their sons girlfriend.

"Sweetie, you already know his family this is just a formality," Ellen said completely misunderstanding my comment. She thought I meant the dinner, how silly. Then again I suppose she gets to be sill as she wanted to become Christian's girlfriend just as much as I did. However I always win at these things as I did the battle for Christian. So here we sit getting ready for the meet the family dinner.

"Oh Ellen, you are ridiculous. I didn't mean the dinner I meant this skirt, it is a little bit tight and I haven't even eaten yet," of course I wasn't really worried about the skirt either, I was mostly worried that his parents would think I was a complete well, let's not utter such a dirty word.

"You look great; don't worry for a second that anyone is going to say otherwise!" Ellen said brightly. That was what made it so unbelievable; Ellen was rarely bright and sincere at the same time. Ellen was a serious pessimist which in contrast to my cheery disposition made us the perfect duo. However it also made it incredibly difficult to accept a compliment from her.

DING DONG. "Oh My God, he's here!" I screamed try to get up.

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, no way am I letting you get the door. I get the door; you count to three and then walk down the stairs. Like a fairytale, only in fairytales the prince isn't thinking about what Christian will be," My best friend wisely advised and humored me the latter by letting me think about Christian in such a way.

"Oh alright," I sighed daydreaming about the heartthrob that had become my boyfriend over the last few weeks.

CLICK. That was the door opening; I guess it's time to count to three. One, two, three, walk. I sauntered down the stairs and Christians jaw fell open. "Wow," was the only thing he could muster.

"Yeah?" I asked, wondering if he was just doing this to make me feel good.

"Yeeaaahhh," he proclaimed, wide eyed obviously not just saying this to make me feel good.

We drove to his place in near complete silence with just the occasional, "how's it going," uttered back and forth. On the other hand his eyes were very busy between trying to watch the road and looking over at me in amazement. When we arrived he opened my door like the gentleman he is and took my hand as we walked towards his mansion of a house. I hate to admit it but I'm almost certain it was even bigger than mine which in a town like ours was a pretty large feat to accomplish!

When we walked in we were greeted not by a made as you would have been in my house but by his mother. "Well hello Lorna," she exclaimed genuinely pleased to see me "I certainly haven't seen you in a while, tell me, how are your parents? I was out of town during the last PTA meeting and Howard is simply unreliable when it comes to recounting the events of an evening." I was surprised at how real Christians mom seemed compared to my own cold, distant, 99 plasticized mother.

"Well," I began, "My mother has joined a horticulture club to try to get in touch with the environment and my father is once again away on business," I said trying to exclude the rest of my parent's life as all of that is incredibly embarrassing!

"Where has your father gone this time?" questioned Christian's mom.

"He's in Japan trying to make a business deal that could bring more affordably cars to the united states, you know my dad, always trying to help the people who aren't lucky enough to have money like us," I repeated in the exact way my mother had phrased it last night when we were having dinner with the mayor.

"How interesting," stated Liza (Christians mom), "Well come in through here, I made us Cornish game hen, doesn't that sound delicious?" asked Liza fishing for a compliment before the meal had even started. I guess that was to be expected as they were much newer money then my family and hadn't yet adopted the class normally associated with society. Of course that didn't stop Christian from being the number one guy on every girl at Brantford Junior High's mind!

"Sounds wonderful," I figured I would humor her, even though everyone who was anyone knew that Cornish game hen were best in the fall, not in the dead of winter.

The rest of the evening went similarly. Now earlier when I said Christian's mom seemed real I did mean in comparison to my own, not he rest of the world. You see rich woman are like dolls they sit there and look pretty, but they don't normally do anything unless prompted by a child.

When I arrived home I immediately called Ellen and told her all about my evening and how the whole evening Christian's hand had been intertwined with mine in plain view of his parents. When she asked why this meant so much seeing as Christian and I had held hands many times before I had a simple answer, "Because he did it in front of his parents, that means he either thinks they approve or doesn't care if they don't," this was and elegant way of phrasing cause it means that it doesn't matter to him what his parents think!