Mute | A New Beginning

Chapter 7

A familiar sense of déjà vu ran through both Scarlett and Arlo, both feeling exactly the way they did earlier this week. For Scarlett, this felt like the longest week in existence, but for little Arlo, it seemed as though only a few hours had passed. However, at the prospect of being able to play in a pool, she wasn't as apprehensive as she was before. Although she wouldn't deny that the idea of going to someone's house was quite daunting.

Scarlett had spent her time, since Wednesday evening, extensively preparing for Friday. Frantically, she cleaned places she hadn't cleaned in a long while, places that probably didn't even need cleaning, as they were almost spotless already, but she felt that it was necessary in case they decided that she was no longer fit to adopt a child, which she had to admit, had quickly become her biggest fear as of late. In all honesty, she was quite anxious about the fact that she only had one full day to get ready, but the way that she was running around like a headless chicken made up for the shortage of time.

Once the cleaning was finally considered acceptable, Scarlett got to work on planning what foods she was going to make. She was pretty certain that you couldn't have a pool 'party' without having watermelon present. It was kind of like an unspoken rule where, if broken, bad luck would rain down on all the attendees. One problem that she faced was that she had no idea what either Mrs Moore or Arlo liked to eat, and above this, she didn't even know if they had any dietary requirements or allergies. This was quite a key piece of information that she was missing however, and so she wasted no time in sending Mrs Moore an email, wishing that she had thought of this earlier so that she wouldn't have to wait idly for a reply.

This however, was not the case as within 10 minutes she had her reply which told her that neither of the two had any restrictions, although she did mention that Arlo was not a fan of seafood whatsoever, unless of course you were talking about the widely loved, highly processed products, like fishsticks. Basically, any type of seafood that was fresh, the girl had a problem with it. With this in mind, Scarlett planned that she would make a plain pasta salad type of dish, which would be relatively easy, and then also cook up some steaks, to add a bit of variety. Whilst she was meal planning, Scarlett thought this was a perfect opportunity to prove herself to Mrs Moore that she was capable enough to create foods that were suitable for the four-year-old.

Often, when making these plans, Scarlett had to remind herself that it was only the three of them that she was hosting, not a whole function with friends and family, and so she had to dial down her ideas several times, and after all of this was mapped out, Scarlett took a quick trip down to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients she didn't already have at home. Thankfully, she was only going to be in and out, as she wasn't buying a large quantity of things and because she had a list, making it harder to dawdle around aisles, browsing all the available products for something she might like to eat that week.

She truly was elated that little Arlo was going to be coming over to her house. It really made Scarlett feel like things were finally falling into place, and that she actually had a chance at fulfilling her dream. She was almost becoming over excited, and she was starting to get worried that she might scare off the poor child, which would truly be devastating for her.

Thankfully, she was able to prepare some of the food for the 'party' the night before, leaving her more time in the morning before her guests arrived. All she had to do this morning, was get herself ready, blow up the pool floats and retrieve the few toys she owned, and then cook the steaks. Mrs Moore and Arlo were supposed to be arriving just before noon, allowing them to have lunch pretty soon after arriving, and then they would have the rest of the day to hang around. This meant that Scarlett didn't need to miss any of the fun, that was meant for building the relationship, whilst cooking and setting everything out.