Never Been Kissed

- SIX -

                                                                         -•SIX•-

When dad came home that night, I was setting out plates at the dining table for dinner.

“Daddy!” Opal screamed, running down the staircase.

“Opal Iris Montgomery!” mom skirted across the landing behind her. “Get back here!”

Opal giggled, and the white towel mom had securely wrapped around her little chest began to slide. She ran around dad’s legs hollering “Daddy! Daddy!” at the top of her five year old lungs. It was strange how much she reminded me of a terrier.

Somewhere in Opal’s excitement, the towel that had once been wrapped so securely around her, dropped, leaving a semi-naked (she was wearing underwear, thank God) little girl running around the house, squealing at the very tippy-top of her lungs.

Geez, she might as well join the opera.

Dad laughed as mom tore down the stairs, almost tripping over a wayward Kelly doll, red in the face and puffing like a dragon as she struggled to capture my sister. I had to admit, Opal was smart for her tiny frame. She expertly bobbed and weaved out of mom’s grasping hands each time, and her tiny little eyes were calculating the exact moment mom’s hands would reach for her. I guess reading Beginning Physics books to Opal as she slept in her crib as a baby had paid off.

I’d turned her into a little monster.

Opal dodged mom’s hands for the umpteenth time, and with a giggle too wicked for anyone her age, she raced into the living room, with our mother hot on her heels.

“OPAL!” mom yelled—another wicked giggle ensued.

“Well, good evening,” Dad told me with a wide grin and an amused chuckle.

“Hi,” I nodded.

He shook his head as he chucked his keys into the bowl in the entryway and took off his shoes. “Nothing beats coming home to a naughty child, a heckling mother and the smell of food in the air. What’s that, carbonara?” he asked, sniffing slightly, a hungry look spreading across his face.

I nodded.

Nothing beat my Grandma’s carbonara recipe. It was just so delicious, after one bite, you wouldn’t be able to forget it. And my dad knew the smell by heart.

“Good,” he slapped his hands together and rubbed. “Because I’m starved.”

“Gotcha’!” mom yelled and Opal simultaneously made a noise of disapproval.

Mom walked out of the adjoining study, with Opal secured tightly in her arms and swaddled in a towel, a triumphant look on her face as she clutched the five year old to her chest. Opal squirmed and wriggled, but realized that it was a loss and resorted to frowning at space. A little ‘v’ appeared between her tiny eyebrows and it was pretty hilarious to witness.

“…Really Opal, I don’t know where you’re getting this behaviour from,” mom trailed, as if she had been speaking to Opal before emerging from the room. “Lovely young ladies don’t run around the house naked…” my mom marched up the stairs, her voice fading as she took each step.

Dad chuckled. “My girls.”

I laughed and ventured back into the kitchen to check on the carbonara. The sauce had long bubbled into a thick, spicy substance and the combined fragrance of the parmesan, parsley and spiced meat wafted into the air. I turned off the gas and took the cover off the pot of fettuccine that sat on the other burner.  After I’d done that, I fetched a wooden spoon and poured the steaming hot carbonara into the pot of cooling pasta, and stirred so that everything was evenly coated, like my Grandma had shown me when I was little; when they used to live in the States.