If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now (18 page)

“You have a dog?” I asked Andrew as Eleanor Roosevelt nudged his hand hard and then fell onto her back, inviting him to rub
her tummy, which he did, although he had to lean way over in his chair to reach it.

“I wish. God, I wish. But Gracie’s allergic.”

“Get rid of her.”

He gave a short laugh. “I would for one like this.” He thumped Eleanor’s chest with his hand and she wagged her tail enthusiastically
in response.

“You just like her because she’s pretty,” I said with mock disgust.

“What are you talking about? Look at those eyes—you can tell she’s profound.”

“She’s just a big
stomach
,” I said. “With some cute fluff on the outside to make us put up with the fact that she steals our food and chews our shoes
and poops all over the yard.”

“Typical female.”

“Excuse me,” I said with great dignity. “I haven’t pooped on the lawn in years. Well, months at least.”

Melanie and Mom came over to the table. Melanie said, “We were wondering… Andrew, would you do our family the honor of joining
us for Thanksgiving dinner?”

So that’s what they were whispering about.

He sat upright. “That’s so nice of you.” He sounded a little uncomfortable. Eleanor Roosevelt waited for a moment on her back,
then, realizing he was done patting her, righted herself and rose to her feet and looked around to see who else might pay
her some attention. “I hope I didn’t sound like I was hinting for an invitation.”

“Not at all,” Mel said. “It’s just that we’d like to have you.”

“We really would,” my mother said. “Thanksgiving’s going to be smaller this year than it’s been in the past.” She glanced
at Melanie, who flushed.

“It’s so nice of you,” Andrew said again. “But I feel like I’m imposing.”

“You’d be doing us a favor.”

“I’m honored,” he said. “And touched.” He looked at me. “You’re awfully quiet. What do
you
think?”

“That if you come, I want to be on your team for the football game.”

He perked up at that. “You guys play football on Thanksgiving?”

“Only when the Kennedys visit.”

“I’d like to see you playing football,” he said. He glanced at Mom and Mel. “All of you.” But he had meant me.

“I’ve never played in my life,” I said. “But I will if you come.”

“That may be an offer I can’t refuse.”

It must have been: a few more minutes of coaxing and he agreed to come.

A
fter Andrew left, Melanie said, “I was thinking of going to Floyd’s today to get my hair cut. You want to come, Rickie?”

I was already reaching for my computer again. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Really? Because your hair looks like it could use—”

I cut her off. “I know how it looks.”

“Come on,” she said. “Please, Rickie. Just get the color evened out and maybe a trim. I’ll pay for it.” She flicked at my
multicolored ponytail. “Please?”

Normally I would just say no to something like that. I hated when she and Mom tried to pretty me up. But I was starting to
resent my reflection in the mirror. Looking pretty didn’t seem as wrong as it had a year or two ago when for some reason it
had been important to me to look hard and dirty and angry and anything but maternal.

She seized on my hesitation. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll ask Mom to watch Noah. Maybe we can sneak in a little clothes shopping
too—have a fun girly day.”

“Have you
met
me?” I asked.

“Be nice to me. I hate these weekends without the kids. They’re endless.”

She knew how to get to me. “Fine. Let me just go tell Noah I’m leaving.” I went upstairs to my parents’ bedroom, where Noah
was curled up on the bed watching TV. My father was lying next to him companionably, his laptop resting on his thighs. He
looked up and nodded to me when I entered.

“Our patient seems to be improving,” he said.

I bent down toward Noah, who immediately moved his head to the side so he could still see the TV screen. “How’re you doing?”
I asked.

“Fine. Can you turn the TV up?”

“The remote is right here,” I said. It was lying on the bed two inches from his hand. I picked it up anyway and turned up
the volume. He was watching
MythBusters
, which was one of his favorite shows. It was still TV and I probably shouldn’t have let him watch it as much as I did, but
I figured I should just be grateful he preferred that particular show to Disney dreck. “I’m going out, Noah. Grandma and Grandpa
will be here if you need them. That okay, Dad?”

My father was peering intently at his computer screen. “Sure, fine,” he said absently.

“He can watch TV the whole time if he wants.”

“That’s probably what he’ll do, then.”

As I left the room, I took one last glance back at them. They were both completely absorbed in their separate screens, their
mouths slack, their eyes glazed.

The haircutter I got at Floyd’s, a girl inexplicably named Harlan, had even more tattoos than I did, including one of Tinker
Bell (copyright infringement and all) on her upper arm. More piercings too. I found all that reassuring. “So what are we doing?”
she asked as she undid my ponytail and fluffed the
hair out around my shoulders. Man, it had gotten long. It fell halfway down my back.

Melanie had followed us over to the chair without being invited. She said, “It should be prettier and softer. And she needs
the color evened out.”

“Excuse my mother,” I said to the haircutter. “She likes to butt in.”

“Wow, this is your mother?” Harlan said. “You look great,” she said seriously to Melanie.

I cracked up.

“I’m her sister, not her mother,” Melanie said. “Shut up, Rickie.”

“The point is don’t listen to her,” I said. “I don’t want to go all soft and pretty and housewifey. Know what I mean?”

Harlan reassured me that she didn’t do “housewife” cuts. “I like a little edge myself.” She flicked at the ends of my hair.
“How short do you want to go?”

“What do you suggest?” Mel asked.

“Well, she’s pretty small.” Harlan took a step back to get a good look at me from the side. “And she’s got good bone structure.”

“Thank you.”

She nodded, circling around me. “You could actually go short, if you wanted to. Really short. Like cropped short.”

Melanie immediately shook her head. “Just a nice shoulder-length layered cut is what I was thinking.”

“That would be great,” I said. “And then I could dye my hair honey blond, and look like every other mother at Fenwick.”

“Don’t go blond,” said Harlan, who apparently didn’t recognize sarcasm. “Too much maintenance with your base color. Actually,
if you go short you won’t have to re-dye your hair at all—unless you want to just for fun.”

“Don’t cut it short,” Melanie said.

I grinned wickedly at her reflection in the mirror, and I saw her eyes widen with the realization that she had just said the
one thing that was likely to make me cut all my hair off.

I kept running my hand over the top of my head afterwards, trying to get used to the way it felt. Harlan had used some kind
of pomade to rough up the hair and make it look piecey. It felt rough and foreign to my fingertips and my head felt way too
light.

Melanie had gotten her usual prettily layered cut and had her hair blown dry. She joined me at the cash register and, without
even asking, rubbed her fingertips up the nape of my neck.

“Well?” I said as she handed them her charge card.

“It suits you,” she admitted reluctantly. “I wouldn’t do it in a million years, but your features are so delicate. It’s better
than I thought it would be.”

“I think you look fantastic,” said the cashier. “Like a young Winona Ryder—you know, back before she got sticky fingers.”

“I think it’s very Natalie Portman,” said a male haircutter who was coming up with a client and pay slip. “Not everyone can
pull that off but you’re rocking it, honey.”

“No one said anything nice about
my
haircut,” Melanie complained as we walked out.

“What were they going to say? ‘You look like you did when you came in, only with slightly shorter hair’?”

She checked out her reflection in the window as we walked past the shop toward our car. “Next to you, I always feel like a
boring old drudge.”

“What are you talking about, nutball? You’re beautiful.”

“I look exactly like the kind of dull housewife you’re always so terrified of becoming.” She sighed. “You should be grateful
to me, Rickie, because no matter what, you’ll always be cooler than me, even when we’re both old and living in some assisted-living
home together.”

“I’m going to get a lot more piercings when I’m old,” I said. “My skin will be all loose by then, so it’ll be easy to find
extra folds to pierce.”

“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh, I think I could top it. Shall I try?”

“God, no.” She took my arm and steered me toward the car. “We’re going to the Promenade and I am going to make you buy a whole
new wardrobe to go with this haircut. It’s one thing to slob around in old jeans when you’re wearing a ponytail, but now you
have
to be chic.”

“It’s just a haircut,” I said.

“No. It’s a whole new look.”

At H&M and then Urban Outfitters, Melanie pulled out tons of clothes for me to try on, and in the dressing-room mirror, wearing
tight new jeans and even tighter sweaters, my eyes bigger with no hair hiding them, my cheekbones suddenly prominent in a
way they hadn’t been before, I actually
did
see someone who had a “look,” not just a kid hiding behind weird hair and loose clothing, but a woman who might draw a second
glance from someone passing by.

I came out of my cubicle to consult Melanie about an outfit.

She stared at me. “You really do look great, Rickie. You were right to get that cut.”

“I only did it to annoy you.”

“I know. That’s why it’s so maddening you look so great. I hate you.”

“What about these?” I plucked at the pants and top I had on.

“Fabulous. Get them both. I’m paying.”

“You don’t need to pay for my clothes.”

“I know. But since you’re not earning any money, anything you spend comes from Dad and Laurel. And anything I spend still
comes from Gabriel. I figure he owes me. Whereas I owe Dad and Laurel for taking me in. You see what I mean?”

“Not really. Whatever.” But as I went into the dressing room to take off the clothes, I felt vaguely uncomfortable with Melanie’s
saying “anything you spend comes from Dad and Laurel.” She was right, of course: I had no money of my own, just a charge card
that was billed to my mother. It was slightly shameful and I was slightly ashamed.

Mom, Dad, and Noah were all in the kitchen when we got back. Dad was eating a sandwich even though it was the middle of the
afternoon, and Noah was nibbling on a piece of GF toast. Mom was mixing something at the counter.

“Hey!” Noah said when we came in and dropped the bags we were carrying on the floor. “I don’t feel sick any—” He stopped mid-word.
He stared, his mouth open and noticeably filled with half-chewed bread. “Mom?”

“Ta-da,” Melanie said.

My mother turned. Her eyes widened. “Oh, my god,” she said, coming closer. She tapped my father on the shoulder. “Look at
Rickie.”

He looked up from the journal he was reading. It had crumbs and bits of tuna all over the pages. “What?” He squinted at me.
“Something’s different.”

“Of course something’s different,” Mom said impatiently. “She cut all her hair off. All of it.”

“There’s a
little
left,” Noah said.

My father said, “Lovely, Rickie. You look like Audrey Hepburn.”

“You think? The woman at the barbershop said I looked like Winona Ryder.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know her. But you’re pretty the way Audrey Hepburn was pretty—those big eyes and long neck and all.”

“Did you have to cut it
all
off?” my mother asked. I shifted under her gaze. How many times had she studied me like that? How many times had she sighed
and then turned away, her disappointment plain to see? Sure enough, she sighed and moved back toward the counter. “At least
all that awful color is gone,” she muttered.

“I’m thinking about putting in some streaks.” I hadn’t been until that moment. I mean, there was a period when I was doing
crazy stuff to my hair but I’d stopped a while ago and didn’t really want to do it again.

“Don’t,” she said.

Which of course instantly made me want to paint my hair all sorts of bright colors and make myself look like something out
of a punk rocker’s wet dream.

Maybe I was getting older, though, because as soon as I had that thought I also thought,
But then I’ll look like an idiot.

At some point I had to stop doing things to annoy my mother.

No, wait—I had to stop doing things to annoy my mother that I didn’t
want
to do. No reason to stop doing the ones I enjoyed.

“What do you think, Noey?” I asked, turning to him.

“You don’t look like you,” he said thoughtfully. “But you look kind of cool.”

“I like that,” I said. “I like looking cool.”

“We got lots of new clothes for her too,” Melanie said.

“Oh, thank god,” said my mother. I glared at her, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

Melanie and I had to report back to the Event Hospitality Committee about the caterers we’d called and met with over the previous
couple of weeks—or, more accurately, the caterers
she’d
called and met with and then told me about. But I figured I had done my part by listening to her go on about it all.

To my amazement, the next meeting was scheduled to take place at Marley Addison’s house.

“Really?” I said to Melanie when she told me. “Really? She’s never come to a single meeting but she’s hosting one?”

“I can’t wait to see her house, can you?” Her eyes were bright with excitement.

“Where is it?”

“On Maple Drive, one of those huge mansions with the gates that you need security clearance just to drive by.” Her face fell.
“Actually, Gabriel said Sherri just bought a house on that same street. A smaller one—she’s not as successful as Marley.”