Outrunning Villainy

Chapter 3: The Dinner Party

Chapter 3: The Dinner Party





         The invitations were made and the evening arrived for the party of          six was set to arrive at Myrtle’s house at 6:30. Myrtle was a nervous wreck. She didn’t know how much the others knew or what they may have conjectured about what was going on. She’d told Evan some of the things, but not everything and Dora knew some because she’d gone to the PFLAG meetings but she didn’t know much about Dylan either. Engrid would have just made up her own version of things and convinced Andrew of its veracity.


         She stood in her kitchen with Dylan behind her as she stirred a pot of boiling peas and lima beans. The scent of the pot roast wrapped in aluminum foil and nestled against sliced carrots, potatoes, and onions wafted up from the hot oven.


         “Myrtle, I hope this evening goes well.” Dylan cast his eyes at the floor.


         “Me too. I’m worried because these people are my family. I want them to like you.”


         “I hope they will. The age thing might throw them for a bit, but I think they’ll come around. From what you’ve told me, these are actually progressive people.”


         “I don’t know if ‘progressive’ is quite the word, but I guess they’ve had to adapt to a lot of stuff lately. This is just par for the course.”


         Meanwhile, Evan, Andrew, Engrid, and Dora proceeded on foot in a huddle up the street to Myrtle’s house.


         “I wonder what he’ll be like.” Dora said, “There were a lot of different types of people at those meetings.”


         “You’re not supposed to know where she met him,” Evan reminded her.


         “I knew she was going to those meetings. Suddenly she shows up with some mysterious stranger from out of town. It wouldn’t take a lot for me to jump to the conclusion that she met him at one of those meetings.”


         “What are they like?” Andrew asked, “I’ve never been to one myself.”


         “You’ve never been to a PFLAG meeting?” Dora seemed incredulous.


         “They’re for parents and friends, not for gay people themselves.”


         “You don’t have any gay friends?”


         “Well, yes. I do.”


         “Then they’re for you too, ding bat.”


         Andrew laughed, “I guess you’re right.”


         They walked the remainder of the 100 yards in silence.


         Myrtle heard the doorbell ring. Her nerves were jangled enough as it was and now the future hung in the balance. A lot depended on the outcome of the evening.


         She swung her front door open and greeted her visitors graciously yet nervously. Engrid smiled back along with the others. Engrid, Dora, Evan and Andrew stood in a huddle on the front porch looking back at her. Dylan walked up behind Myrtle.


         “Aren’t you going to invite your guests in?” He asked politely.


         “Won’t you come in?” She smiled again, “Where are my manners?”


         The foursome walked single-filed through the door and into the foyer.


         Dylan, a timbre in his voice said, “I would take your coats but it’s not cold enough for that yet.” He laughed nervously and then cleared his throat when no one returned his attempted mirth.


         Dora just stared at the child before her, 58 years her junior. Dylan was in excellent shape, thin to medium build, robust and muscular. His jet black hair was meticulously coiffed and there was plenty of it. His hair was so nice it made Andrew a little jealous.


         “I have to know what kind of styling gel you use.” Andrew stated, hoping he’d aimed for a safe conversational area.


         “American Crew…it’s a light holding gel.”


         “Very nice. I have a tea tree oil one I like. It’s a leave-in conditioner.”


         “That sounds nice. I’ll have to try that one someday.”


         Engrid rolled her eyes and made a conscious effort not to scowl. She was dying to ask Dylan if he was a cheating skuzz-bucket and what on earth he was doing running around with a woman old enough to be his mother. But the mind-numbing conversation about styling gel continued. Myrtle got her wits about her again and invited them into the living room to sit down. She sat down too, next to Dylan. She needed to go check on dinner but she wasn’t about to leave Dylan alone with these four. She suspected there had been long conversations about Dylan and there was probably a plot already in motion when they arrived. They were huddled together on the porch like they had just discussed their team’s next play. She half expected them to say something about a scrimmage as they came through the door.


         Dylan was the first to stand up, “Can I get anyone something to drink? We have wine and other things too.” Myrtle breathed a visible sigh of relief.


         “Wine?” Dora said, “No, no just tea is fine for me.”


         “Tea’s good for me too,” Engrid answered politely.


         Once the drink orders were placed, Dylan left the room headed towards the kitchen. Engrid craned her neck to watch until he was sufficiently out of sight. “So,” she turned to Myrtle, “How are things going?”


         “Things are going very well.”


         “That’s good. Where did you meet him?” She shot a glance at Evan. She’d asked right away so that she could be free to discuss the topic without Myrtle knowing that Evan had ratted her out earlier in the week.


         “Well… it’s a long story.”


         Engrid smiled sweetly, “We’ve got time.” She swept her hands around the room, “We have all the time in the world.”


         Myrtle’s stomach churned, “I met him at a support group meeting.”


         “Okay. What kind of support group?”


         Myrtle explained the whole thing. Once she started talking, it all seemed easier and less like imminent doom was approaching. Engrid and the others sat quietly listening to the bullet-point version of how they met at the PFLAG meeting.


         “So Dora knew about this?” Engrid nodded.


         Dora looked annoyed, “Out of all she said, that’s what you picked up on?”


         “I wanted to be clear.”


         “I knew about the PFLAG meetings but I didn’t know about Dylan until now.”


Dylan reappeared at the door with a serving tray with various beverage options.


“What didn’t you know about Dylan?”


         “Everything,” Dora stated, “Myrtle was filling us in on you two met.”


         “Engrid and Andrew didn’t tell you?”


         “Tell me what?”


         “Why don’t you tell Dora what you discovered the other day?”


         “We didn’t find anything,” Andrew stated firmly.


“At least nothing that relates to you,” Engrid added.


“Nothing you can be sure of is what you mean,” He replied smiling coyly.


Myrtle sat watching the exchange. She wasn’t sure if she should be scared that some shocking truth was about to come out or amused that Engrid and Andrew were about to get their comeuppance for spying on Dylan.


“What does that mean?” Engrid inquired.


“It means I saw you.”


“I’m sure you didn’t see anything.” Andrew wasn’t giving an inch, “You must have seen someone else. I’m sure of it.”


“I’m not stupid. I know what I saw. I saw you following me. I saw you creep up to my house and then run away like your butts were on fire.”


         “But we don’t know anything. It was a fruitless mission.” Andrew stated irritated at being caught red-handed.


         “What about the piece of mail you stole?”


         “You stole something from his house?” Myrtle was surprised at their brazenness.


         “We had to, Myrtle. It was for your own good.” Engrid explained.


         “My own good! This I’ve got to hear. How is mail theft for my own good?”


         The two spies sat quietly. Andrew cast his eyes at the floor, ashamed.


         Engrid spoke first, “Because when a guy like this starts going around with a much older… uh more mature…woman, we need to find out what he’s up to.”


         “What do you mean ‘a guy like this’?”


         “Oh Myrtle, in the looks department, this guy even puts Andrew and Evan to shame.”


         “Hey!” The two boys replied in unison.


         “No offence, I’m just making a point…” she stated, paused then added, “You know what I mean.”


         “Why is it any of your business?” Myrtle brought them back on topic.


         “I care about you and I don’t want to see you to get hurt by running around with a married man.”


         “A married man?”


         “Yes. Well…maybe.”


         “Maybe?”


         She turned to Dylan and spat out the question she’d been dying to ask all evening, “Who is Amanda Riverside?”


         Dylan blanched, “I don’t know.”


         “What do you mean you ‘don’t know’?” Her eyes narrowed.


         “I have never heard of her.”


         “Really? That was the name on the mail we… retrieved from your house.” Engrid said.


         “It’s the same last name as you, so it probably wasn’t a previous occupant.” Andrew added to make sure Dylan knew he’d been caught.


Myrtle looked at him, “Dylan, who is Amanda Riverside?”


         Dylan looked heartsick, “Okay. I was hoping this wouldn’t come up until later… if ever. Amanda Riverside is my daughter.”


         “Why did you deny having a daughter?”


         Dylan looked solemnly at the floor. Myrtle looked at him sympathetically. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel. Having a daughter was nothing to be ashamed of so why did he lie about it?


         “She’s a little different.”


         “Different how?” Myrtle asked.


         “She’s a lesbian.”


Everyone just stared at him.


         “And?” Engrid asked, tilting her head- certain that wasn’t the whole story.


         “And I wasn’t sure how Myrtle would react. I want her to like me as much as I like her.”


         The whole crowd sat in silence for a few moments, not sure where to go with this.


Engrid started talking, “Pardon my ignorance, but you met at a PFLAG meeting. How would this lesbian daughter thing be a big revelation?”


“I’m not comfortable around gay people. In fact, I don’t like them at all. That’s why I went to the meeting where I met Myrtle. I wanted to get over it but when I saw all those gay people, I wanted to throw up. I only went to one or two meetings. I didn’t say anything to Myrtle about it because I thought she might be there for the same reason as me.”


Evan and Andrew looked puzzled. Dora and Engrid looked at each other and scratched their heads.


Engrid cleared her throat and bit her lower lip slightly trying not to let a chuckle escape, “So the big revelation here isn’t that you are married, it’s that you strongly dislike gay people.”


“I can’t believe you thought I was married. I would never cheat on a wife.”


Dora spoke up, “This might be a dangerous question, but how do you deal with your daughter?”


“I don’t. The night she came out to me, I threw her out of the house. That was a couple of months ago. I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”


Everyone except Dylan gasped. “But I want to find her again. I’m worried something might have happened to her.”


“Something traumatic already has. How old is she?”


“15.”


Evan was mad. “You threw your 15-year-old daughter out of the house?”


“Yes.”


“And you don’t know where she is?”


“No. I didn’t want to talk about her because I didn’t want it to make Myrtle not like me.”


“What I want is for you to get out of my house,” Myrtle stated flatly.


“Myrtle, baby, we can work this out.”


She eyed him with a look of fiercest fire. “Get out.”


“Oh, I get it. These four are gay, aren’t they? The two guys and the two old broads. I bet there a couple of queens and Lesbos.”


“Who are you?” Myrtle asked, “This isn’t the same person I’ve spent the last couple of weeks with.”


Dylan turned and stormed out of the house just as the timer on the oven dinged.


“Who wants pot roast?” Myrtle asked, her eyes tearing up.


“I’m so sorry, Mom. I’d hoped to like him.”


“I know, Evan. I know.” She sniffled.


“Are you going to be okay?” Engrid asked.


“I’ll be fine. I’m tough.”


“We should go,” Dora said, patting Myrtle on her knee, “You need some time to think all this through.”


“No, please stay. I don’t want to be alone right now.” Myrtle looked up with eyes of pure heartbreak into Dora’s aged face.


“Then pot-roast it is.” Engrid said, “It smells glorious.”


“Thank you.”


Once seated in the dining room, the eating commenced.


“The conversation of the evening might have been a total, unmitigated disaster, but the food is exquisite.” Dora said.


Myrtle mused, “There were so many scenarios I had worked out in my head of how this evening would go. Some of them it went well, others not so well but I never imagined it being such a…such a… I don’t even know how to describe it.”


Engrid grinned, “I thought I’d catch him and expose him as an adulterer. But it turns out he had a far worse secret to expose.”


“You were hoping he was an adulterer?”


“Well, ‘hoping’ is not the right word. I thought he was. Andrew tried to talk me down about it but my mind was pretty well set that he was a no-good dirty rotten scoundrel.”


“He was a dirty-rotten scoundrel, just for a different reason,” Andrew said.


“But what we need to do now is certain,” Engrid said, tapping her fork on the edge of her plate.


“What’s that?” Evan inquired.


“We’ve got to go find Amanda Riverside. I cannot bear to think of a 14 year-old girl out there fending for herself. She’s out there on the streets with common criminals and doing God only knows what. There’s no end to the trouble she could be in.”


“I agree,” Andrew said, “We should go find her.”


“Okay. But I have no idea where to start.” Myrtle admitted, “Columbia is a big city. Plus she might have hitch hiked or taken a bus somewhere else.”


“But we’ll start in Columbia. It’s the biggest net we can reasonably throw. I wonder if there is an organization that helps teens like her.”


“I’m sure there is but I have no idea how to find them.”


“411? We could call information and ask about where we might look,” Evan suggested.


“Information? Really?” Andrew replied, scrunching his eyebrows.


“Maybe we could go to the police and report her missing.” Myrtle said.


Engrid rejected that saying, “We have no pictures of her and we don’t know what she looks like and we really know nothing about her besides her name and who her father is. We wouldn’t be much help to the police. I think we’re on our own at this point.”


Dora said, “I think we should go to a church in a bad neighborhood. They probably help out kids like her on a regular basis. They may not have seen her, but they could get us in the door to find out who might know something.”


“That’s a brilliant idea, Dora!” Engrid effused. “But church will be closed tonight.”


“You wanted to go tonight?”


“Yes- as soon as we’re finished eating. In fact, we should pack up the rest and take it with us. That way if we find her, we can offer her something decent to eat.”


“Okay. Let’s do that.” Myrtle agreed. “It’s always good to help out people in need.”


“Okay. We’re in,” Evan and Andrew agreed.


“I’m glad something good came out of the wretched evening,” Myrtle stated.


“Me too!”


They quickly finished eating and piled in Engrid’s car because it was the roomiest.