"You sure do ask a lot of questions, young lady." She remarks with a smile. She fits right in with the Baker kids, too smart for their own good. Or, at least she would, if either of them were at the dinner table with her.
Lucas has an excuse, outside with the girl's father. Despite Marguerite's insistence that they could take a look at Paul's broken down car after dinner, he just couldn't resist getting his hands dirty as quickly as possible. He'd argued that it would be dark after dinner, but, in her opinion, it would be too late for them to go anywhere by the time they were finished with it, anyway. Best to let them stay the night and fix things up in the morning.
Knife slices through meatloaf, only to be plopped unceremoniously onto Alice's plate. "You're better off asking Zoe. She's the one with the stories."
alice’s nose crinkles slightly at the sight of food on her plate, though it was no fault of her own. the meal looks and smells divine, and even though she has never been much of a carnivore, alice wishes she could properly enjoy it. however, pains had plagued her stomach throughout their trip; for a while she’d been fine, but it was probably the greasy gas station fare which eventually affected her appetite for the worse. maybe that was just one of the many downsides of having delicate sensibilities. she still picks up her fork and knife to be courteous: she’s too used to paul watching her merely push her food around to know she’d be fooled.
the girl looks up meekly towards her smiling hostess, wondering if she can stall a little longer. or maybe it was better manners to wait in the first place? she still isn’t really sure, and her hesitation is plain to see on her bewildered features. maybe she thinks of her as being nosy, or annoying for all her silly questions — alice wants to defensively remark that she’d once perused a book of ghost stories from the south — but then the woman mentions an unfamiliar name, perhaps fondly, and a breathy wisp of air escapes her chest, relieved to have not caused offense.
❝ zoe? does she live here, too? ❞ again with the questions.
