>The Unexpected Guest

I was enjoying a lazy morning with the kids yesterday when the doorbell rang.

I answered the door and saw a young teenage girl standing outside. Oh great, I thought to myself. Another school fundraiser. Lately, we’ve been getting kids at the door a couple of times a weekend. I always feel sort of obligated to buy something because they’re inevitably neighbor kids and I feel sorry for them, but really, how many more scented soaps and microwave food covers and boxes of Girl Scout cookies do I need?

“Hi,” I said warily, opening the door a little.

“I’m Julie,” the girl said.

I did a doubletake. Julie? Julie, who might be coming over to spend the night with my younger stepdaughter tonight, after my stepdaughter has gotten dressed and cleaned her room and called her on the phone and made actual plans and not just Maybe-we-should-do-something-on-Saturday plans? Julie, who comes from the World’s Most Perfect Family and lives in the World’s Most Perfect House? I gulped.

“Come on in!” I said brightly. I turned and noticed Bruiser’s socks and a tupperware he’d been playing with on the dining room floor, Punky’s toy horses all over the foyer, a bag of trash on the kitchen table that I’d put there so that Bruiser wouldn’t get into it, dirty breakfast dishes all over the counter, spilled coffee grounds beside the trash can, clutter everywhere! The horror!

“I’ll get 14,” I said, smiling at Julie.

“14!” I called into the playroom, where she was playing a Playstation game in her pajamas with Punky. “Julie’s here!”

There was a long pause. “Julie?” 14 said in disbelief.

“Yes, Julie!” I answered. “She’s downstairs waiting on you!”

14 came tumbling down. “Uh, hi! I just woke up!”

“Hi,” Julie replied.

“Um, let me go upstairs and get my glasses,” 14 muttered. Within a few minutes, both teens were safely ensconced in the playroom for a movie marathon and I was left to try and get the house in order and hope she hadn’t noticed too much on first glance to report later to her mom.

I called Hubs at work to tell him that Julie was here and he stopped by the grocery for a Sunday morning breakfast suitable for overnight guests. We ordered pizza. We cleaned 14’s bathroom so that our guest wouldn’t run screaming in terror when she tried to brush her teeth before bed. The day passed and we saw the girls only when they took a break between films for dinner.

At about ten last night, Hubs, my older stepdaughter and I were watching a basketball game on television when Julie came down.

“I have to go,” she said. “My dad’s waiting outside. Thanks for having me!”

“Any time!” I said.

And just like that, Julie was gone.

“So that’s who that was,” my 17-year-old mused. “I went outside to get something and someone was just sitting in a car outside our house. So I just stood there for a minute, staring, and then I went back inside.”

“Oh great,” I said. “So her dad brought her over and saw me staring at her, thinking she was trying to sell me something, and he comes to pick her up and you go out and stare for a while and then come back inside!” We laughed. We like Julie and we like her family. When good girls with parents who care about them want to hang out with your teenagers, you’ll jump through just about any hoop you have to in order to make their stay a pleasant one.

I just hope she doesn’t mention the trash bag on the table to her mama.

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.