Blue Stew (Second Edition) (11 page)

As he had nothing better to do—also because it would take active work on his part
not
to—he eavesdropped.

“Hello?”

“Oh,
hi
Maddie.”

A slightly longer pause in Nigel’s half of the conversation now passed.

“
Yeah
, that could be fun. Would it be okay if Jamie came?”

“Good—what? Oh, no, actually he’s here. Until he can wrangle up a new car this weekend.”

Another moderate gap in Nigel’s half of the conversation.

“Hm. Yeah, I’ll talk to him. It’s okay—it’s not like he’s
incapable
of keeping it together,” Nigel chuckled awkwardly, as though he knew Walter must be listening.

“Okay, great,” Nigel started again after a handful of seconds. “We’ll see you if we see you.”

Walter, after finishing up his business a minute later, found Nigel in the living room watching TV. He didn’t look up until Walter had sat down on the other end of the couch.

“Maddie just called. They’re having a birthday party for Chelsea Springer tonight, ‘cause she’s gonna be in California over the weekend.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. At Chelsea’s place. Nothing too crazy, because, you know, it’s a weeknight,” Nigel, who had turned back to the TV, was now inattentively flipping channels with the remote.

“Do you guys talk about me behind my back like that a lot?”

“Like you’re a small child and we need to decide if it’d be appropriate to take you along, or if we should call the sitter?” Nigel grinned, never having taken his eyes off the TV.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. Pretty much. Taking you to a party can be like taking a small child to the movies: we never know if you’re gonna freak out and ruin if for everyone.”

Walter laughed. It was an instance of the old cliché: he laughed to keep from crying. He knew the analogy was spot-on.

“It’s true,” Nigel started again with a less playful voice, “but it actually only came up because Maddie had been trying to call your place to invite you personally, and I think she felt obliged to say something, because it was me, because of the whole . . . thing here.”

“Huh.”

“You know she went out of her way to tag along with Chelsea that first night? We didn’t even invite her, originally.”

“Yeah . . . I think she tried to get me to ask her out yesterday.”

“
Really?
” Nigel finally stopped sharing his attention with the TV. He put down the remote and stared eagerly at Walter.

“Yeah, something about dinner . . . and that she hadn’t hung out with me in so long . . .”

“Wow,
okay
. And Jamie and I have been picking up these stray hints, but we weren’t sure if we should believe them. Good for you, buddy! So how’d you play it?”

“I . . . blew her off. Doesn’t she go out partying with, like, Dirk and Corey and Elisa and them?”

“What?
Ew
. I’ve
never
seen her with that crowd. You fucking blew her off, man? What is
wrong
with you?”

Walter now became unsure of himself and defensive—the ugly blotches he had flung over his mental picture of Maddie were evaporating in the glare of reality, “Really? I could’ve sworn she bounced around with those dirt-bags . . .”

“Where the
hell
did you get that from? Dude, Maddie is a beautiful, sweet, class-act all the way.”

Walter shrugged. He stubbornly held to the defensive line—keeping truth at bay—and, after a short mental scramble, he successfully flipped his whole entire angle of denial.

“Okay, so she’s a sweet, innocent thing who craves a bad boy. That’s no better. I’m not gonna play with that disaster.”

“
Walter
,” Nigel laughed, exasperated. “I don’t mean to sound harsh . . . but you are
not
a bad boy. You are a soft pretty-boy who’s lost his bearings.”

Walter laughed, “Thanks for the pep-talk.”

“Shut-up. We are going to this party, and you’re going to make a dinner date with Maddie, or I’m going to kick yer effing ass.” Coming from a wiry programming nerd wearing slacks and a light-green polo, the threat—as intended—came off as laughable. “Maddie is
just
the kind of girl you need: she’s strong, smart, and her family is awesome.”

“Is she my knight in shining armor, come to save me at last?”

“
Yes
.”

•   •   •

Chelsea Springer, another high school friend, lived one town over in the top floor of a newly built duplex. After being greeted with the obligatory happy birthdays, she was preemptively warning everybody at the door to the stairwell about the older woman who lived downstairs, explaining that this woman had already called up three times since she’d moved in to ask her to turn down her “stereo.”

Walter, before he could allow himself to feel any reactionary offense, rightly told himself that Chelsea must be intercepting
every
guest with this same message. Then he followed Chelsea upstairs, with Nigel and Jamie in tow.

The one-bedroom floor had come pre-furnished by an interior decorator who seemed to have been, at the time of conception, in the midst of a love-affair with olive polyester upholstery, glass tables and shelves (and glass any other kind of surface), and fake plants in pots with polished pebbles.

Already there were over a dozen people milling about the living room and the spacious kitchen. They were talking in happy little circles, breaking off only momentarily to reload their paper plates from the trays of assorted snacks, or to grab another can of beer from the cooler.

Walter kept his head down as he loaded his own colorful party plate with pigs-in-blankets and veggies and ranch dip, and then he settled down next to an unfamiliar couple on the olive couch in the living room. He kept his focus on his food as he snacked. Maddie wasn’t there yet, and although he was acquainted with over half of the partygoers, there was no one there he felt obligated to acknowledge.

After a moment, Nigel and Jamie sat down together in the olive loveseat next to Walter, facing the narrow side of the glass coffee table, holding conspicuous cups of water.

“I just got an owl from young Henry Potter,” said Nigel, flipping shut his phone. “He says he and Vanessa
are
going to come. They should be here in a half-hour.”

“Oh, he’s actually bringing Vanessa around? This will be, what, the
third
time we’ve seen her in the past year? Is he embarrassed by us?”

“Is he embarrassed by
us?
” Nigel repeated with a sarcastic elevated eyebrow.

Walter’s face hardened for a second, but then he heaved a relenting sigh. When he spoke it was barely loud enough to be heard over the chatter of the building party, “You know. You’ve been a bit of a dick lately. I guess I have it coming, but . . .”

Nigel’s face sank fast and visibly.

“I . . . I know. I’ve been trying to be more direct with you.” And then, quieter, “Sorry.”

Maddie came through the door twenty minutes later.

Walter, out of a short-lived moment of motivation, made a start to excavate himself from the hole he’d been sinking into in the billowy couch, but just as he pulled his back upright, Maddie was caught up in a tiny embrace by a tiny Asian girl. This was followed by a quick pelting of cheerful hellos from around the room, and she seemed so happy to see all of them, and Walter lost his motivation and sank back down into his rut.

Considering how he’d chosen his current spot on the couch for one kind of comfort—physical comfort—just as much as another—a socially out-of-the-way kind of comfort—it was irksome on two levels when Chelsea decided to arrange a large game of Taboo in the living room, around the coffee table. People carelessly invaded Walter’s physical and social space, jamming themselves onto the couch, pulling up chairs, and crowding onto the floor around the short table.

It was a mixed consolation when Maddie decided to settle down onto the floor directly across from the suddenly cramped Walter.

She said hi and flashed a warm smile, and for much of the game Walter couldn’t keep his eyes off of her, and yet he couldn’t keep his eyes
on
her at the very same time: Her attractiveness seemed to have a glaring quality. It caused Walter actual pain, the way she daintily crossed her legs, flicked her hair out of her face, and laughed. It would’ve been so much
easier
to carry on believing that she was a trashy party-girl, and flatly dismiss her.

Over half of the party partook in the first game, and the people were divided into two large teams, which made it much easier for Walter to play without
really
playing.

Henry and Vanessa showed up around the time the first game was coming to an end. They, along with nearly everyone who had elected not to play the first time around, joined in for a particularly chaotic and—for those in a better mood—hilarious second round.

Chelsea tried to shush the louder players who had taken to shouting out any and every answer that came to mind—same for the accompanying shrieks of laughter—but when no one stood by her, and a few close friends even opposed her—saying how early it was, and that it was her birthday, and that Old Lady Grumpy-Pants can stuff it for one night—she eventually gave up, reluctantly.

With no one keeping anyone in check now, and with two large teams that were well-matched, the massive game of Taboo grew in mock-intensity, to the point where no one could hear the phone in the hallway, ringing helplessly.

It sounded off three separate times over a fifteen minute span, and then Old Lady Grumpy-Pants, miffed, thinking she was purposefully being snubbed, dialed a different number.

Officer Corey was let into the stairwell by the old lady downstairs. He went up on his own and rapped on Chelsea’s door soon after their second game had fallen to disinterest and rampant cheating, with members from each team stridently asserting that they had come out victorious.

Receiving no response, Officer Corey knocked a second time, harder.

Chelsea, this second time, looked up from her place on the couch one man over from a cramped Walter.

“It’s open!”

“Chelsea,” Officer Corey called from behind the door, “its Tom Corey.”

Chelsea sprang to her feet, leaving all facial color behind.

Someone said “
who?
” and someone else—oblivious to why everyone else had gone dead quiet—loudly accused his friend of being a homosexual.

“Shut-up!” Chelsea hissed, “Shut-up, shut-up,
shut-up
!”

They all shut-up. Looks of guilt came over the faces of those who had done particularly poor jobs of heeding Chelsea’s initial warning. Stifled grins came to a handful of other faces as friends caught eyes, and they then had to turn away from Chelsea: they were a little booze-happy, sure, but Chelsea’s mannerisms probably
were
more fitting of someone who had gotten caught robbing a bank, rather than the relatively innocent reality.

Chelsea opened the door and assaulted Officer Corey with her apology, “Oh my god I’m so sorry, Officer Corey, I
told
them—but it’s
my
fault—things just got out of hand—I thought she would’ve called up
here
first—I gave her my number last time . . .”

Officer Corey tried as best he could to soften his permanently hardened face as he said, “She said she
did
call, three times.”