If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now (21 page)

“Let
me
tell the story,” I said. “It’ll save us all a lot of time. Mom undercooked the turkey and no one could eat it, so now she
always overcooks it. End of story.”

“You can be a real jerk sometimes, Rickie,” my mother said.

“What? That’s the whole story, isn’t it?”

Andrew was still in a crouch. “Um,” he said uncomfortably. “So where should I put this?”

“Right on top of the stove,” Mom said. “Thank you.”

He stood up carefully and set the pan down. The turkey’s skin was too dark and all shriveled, but Andrew said again how great
it looked. “You want me to carve it?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Mom said. “It needs to rest awhile.”

“So we still have time to go out and play a game?”

“At least half an hour.”

I drained the rest of my wine. “Guess I’m ready,” I said. “Or will be once the alcohol hits.”

“Do you always need to get drunk before engaging in any physical activity?” Andrew asked. “I’m not judging, I’m just curious.”

“Before
some
physical activities,” I said and then realized how much that sounded like innuendo. But it was unintentional. I think.

“Huh,” he said. “Just so you know, I was lying when I said I wasn’t judging.” He touched my arm. “Come on, let’s go.” We left
my mother poking a meat thermometer repeatedly into the turkey and staring at the dial while muttering to herself.

N
oah and I were a team. We weren’t very good at passing or catching, so Andrew could easily have stolen the ball from us any
time he wanted to, but he let us make a touchdown or two. He made more, though, even with no one to pass to. Noah would frequently
try to tackle him. Once Andrew’s foot slipped just as Noah grabbed at him, and they both fell down on the grass. Neither was
hurt, but Andrew’s nice white shirt got covered with dirt and grass stains, while Noah’s tee went from Slightly Paint Stained
to Very Grass Stained.

The sun was setting, and the heat of the afternoon gave way quickly to a comfortably cool temperature, which was on the verge
of turning
too
cold for someone wearing a tank top, when Melanie came to the back door and shouted for us to come in for dinner.

“Light’s fading anyway,” Andrew said. As we all turned back toward the house, he tossed the ball to Noah and managed to land
it right in Noah’s curved arms.

“What was the final score?” Noah asked, hugging the filthy ball to his chest.

Andrew tilted his head thoughtfully. “Let me think. Three… plus seven… and then there was the safety… and of course that last
touchdown… I’m pretty sure it was zero to zero.”

“We suck,” Noah said cheerfully as we all fell into step, side by side.

“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I rule at this.”

“Really?” Andrew nudged my shoulder with his. “So you meant to do all that ball dropping?”

“Didn’t want to embarrass you amateurs by looking too good.”

“Hey.” He stopped in midstride and surveyed me. “How come you’re not all covered in dirt like the rest of us?”

“Yeah,” Noah said. “How’d you stay all clean, Mom?”

I said airily, “When you’re as good at this game as I am, you can play for hours without getting filthy like you two losers.”

Andrew caught Noah’s arm and whispered in his ear. Noah nodded and carefully laid the football down on the grass.

“I don’t like this,” I said. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” Andrew said. He and Noah started walking on both sides of me again, both of them affecting casual attitudes by
ostentatiously sticking their hands in their pockets and whistling. Then Andrew said, “Now!” and he grabbed one of my arms
and Noah grabbed the other and with a sharp tug, they (well, Andrew mostly) managed to pull me off my feet and down onto my
butt.

“There,” Andrew said, standing over me and dusting off his hands in a “job well done” sort of way. “
Now
you look like you’ve played ball.”

“I hate you both,” I said. “Help me up.” I held out my hands and they each took one and hauled me to my feet.

“You’re heavy,” Noah complained.

“Yeah,” Andrew said. “You must weigh—what? Ninety whole pounds?”

“Whoa,” said Noah, who weighed less than fifty.

“What’s going on out here?” Melanie asked, appearing once again at the back door. “I could have sworn I just saw them tackle
you, Rickie.”

“You did,” I said, swiping at the seat of my pants. “And now my butt is dirty and it hurts.”

“She deserved it,” Andrew said to Melanie. “I swear I only
do that to people who deserve it. Although”—he turned to Noah—“your aunt looks a little too clean, don’t you think?”

Melanie shrieked and ran for the house. “Come in now or Laurel will freak!” she called over her shoulder. “Everything’s ready.”

I limped exaggeratedly toward the house.

“You okay?” Andrew said. “We didn’t mean to actually injure you.”

“Just know this,” I said solemnly. “I may forgive but I never forget. You better start watching your back, Fulton.”

“You couldn’t take me down if you tried. I’m bigger than two of you put together.”

“That’s what you think. One day, when you least expect it…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m shaking in my boots.” He opened the door and held it for me and Noah. As I went past him he said, “That was
fun. Thanks for playing.”

“Yeah,” I said. Noah ran off toward the kitchen. I nodded after him. “Somehow you get him doing things that no one else—What’s
that sound?”

“My cell,” Andrew said, sheepishly snaking a phone out of his pants pocket. “It’s my ring tone. I liked
Star Trek
when I was a kid.”

“God, you’re a nerd.”

He nodded amiably and squinted at the screen.

“Gracie?” I asked.

“Yeah. She must be at a port.”

“You can answer it if you want.”

“No, that’s okay.” He pressed the button to ignore. “We’ll talk later.”

“You sorry you didn’t go with her?” I asked as we moved toward the dining room. “I mean, I’ve seen that photo of her in a
bikini…”

“You did? Oh, the one in my office.” He laughed. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t take that into account when I said I’d skip the cruise.
But, no, I’m not sorry—I’ve met her parents. Anyway, I’m very happy to be here. I’m having fun.”

“Let’s go eat,” I said abruptly.

Noah seemed to be enjoying being the only kid. It wasn’t a bad gig. Most of dinner was taken up by his recounting, blow by
blow and play by play, the entire football game. It made me realize how seldom he and I played outside like that. Most of
our free time was spent hunched over computers or watching TV or reading or doing something else that was quiet and indoors
and solitary. His cheeks were glowing, and his hair was sticking up in clumps from all the sweat and dirt, and he kept chattering
away about how I had thrown the ball to him and then Andrew had grabbed it and then it was his turn to throw to me and it
almost
made it all the way to me but then Andrew got it again, and so on. My father plied him with questions, showing an interest
that was either sincere or the world’s most incredible deadpan. I could never tell with him.

Andrew supplied some additional color commentary, most of it about how well Noah had played. He was pleasant and convivial
around my parents and Melanie, but I kept thinking about how, when we had been alone, he had started teasing me in that mildly
cruel and edgy way you tease someone you’ve become comfortable with.

Or are flirting with.

That was the other possibility. There was something flirtatious in his air with me that day. I could have sworn it.

The thing was, I was liking it. I was liking him. That badly timed phone call from Gracie was probably the best thing for
me because I had stupidly been forgetting about her, forgetting
that the cute guy eating Thanksgiving dinner with us already had a girlfriend—a very beautiful, tall, and successful girlfriend—and
if things had worked out the way he wanted them to, he would have been spending the holiday with her.

So I tried to stop thinking about how much fun I’d had outside and focus on eating Thanksgiving dinner with my beloved family,
although the food wasn’t exactly helping to keep my attention focused. It was decent, not great. My mother was a decent, not
great, cook, and both Melanie and I followed in her footsteps. The gluten-free stuffing wasn’t as good as real stuffing and
we didn’t have biscuits, but otherwise it was your basic Thanksgiving meal. The turkey was dried out and barely warm, but
once you piled on the gravy, extremely sweet sweet potatoes (my mother loaded on the marshmallows, to Noah’s delight), and
cranberry sauce, you couldn’t really taste it much anyway.

The wine, though… the wine was
good.
Dad was an oenophile (a word he had taught me to say and spell when I was seven years old) and spent a fair amount of his
free time researching and tasting wines from all over the world. He liked to discover good obscure wines from different countries,
and he often prowled around some of the dustier little wine stores in LA, buying bottles that the owners and managers recommended
and keeping careful track of which ones he did or didn’t like. He had a whole computer spreadsheet for the cataloguing of
wines we’d tried.

For Thanksgiving he had pulled out several different bottles, announcing early in the meal that we were going to decide once
and for all whether a light red or a complex white went better with turkey. He encouraged the adults to try them all, and
he didn’t need to urge any of us twice: Melanie was drowning her sorrows, I was slightly on edge because of Andrew’s presence,
Mom was harried from all the cooking and ready to relax, and Andrew—well, I don’t know if anything was bugging him or not,
but he managed to keep up with the rest of us.

So everyone except for Noah was a little tipsy by the time we’d finished up the meal. And those of us who’d started drinking
before dinner were probably tipsier than the rest.

“Should we have dessert right away or take a break?” my mother asked as she surveyed the wreckage of the meal.

Melanie’s cell phone rang before anyone could answer. She always left it right next to her plate during dinner when she was
apart from her kids. “It’s Nicole,” she said after checking. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead,” Mom said. “We’ll wait on dessert.”

Melanie jumped up and, putting the phone to her ear, left the room.

“Can I watch a little TV?” Noah asked. “Just until dessert?” He looked at my mother, not me, aware that she was in charge
of the day’s activities.

“I guess so,” she said with a little sigh, and he quickly slid to his feet and darted out of the dining room before she could
change her mind.

The rest of us started to help clear, but Mom said, “Rickie, do me a favor and take Eleanor Roosevelt for a quick walk, would
you? I’m exhausted but she hasn’t had any exercise today.”

“A walk sounds good,” Andrew said. “I’ll go with you.”

I got Eleanor Roosevelt all leashed up and we headed out into the now decidedly cool night air. It felt good, though, after
all that wine.

Eleanor Roosevelt strained at her leash, trotting wildly, ecstatic just to be outside.

“Want me to take her?” Andrew asked as she practically hauled me down the street.

“She’ll calm down soon,” I said. “She’s not as young as she used to be.” I felt a bit floaty from all the wine, so the dog’s
tugging didn’t even bother me. I just kind of gave in to it, let her pull me along.

“This is a nice neighborhood,” he said, looking around. “Nice and quiet.”

“I guess. I’m kind of sick of it, though. I thought I’d be far away from here by this point in my life.”

“So what happened?”

“Noah happened.”

“No, I know, but how did—” He stopped. Then he said, “Is it rude of me to ask about this?”

“It’s just such a stupid story,” I said. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Everyone takes risks, you know. Especially when you’re a teenager. No matter how many films they show you in human development…”
His voice trailed off.

It took me a second to realize what he meant. Probably because of the wine. Then I laughed. “Oh, it wasn’t
that
. You’ve met my mother, right? I mean, she’s on the board of Planned Parenthood
and
NARAL. When I was twelve, she told me there would always be a box of condoms in the bathroom cabinet and I could just help
myself whenever I felt I needed to, no questions asked.”

“Wow. That’s pretty cool.”

“No, it isn’t. It was awful. I was so embarrassed by the whole idea, by the way she always talked about that stuff.” I shrugged.
“But I guess it achieved its purpose. I mean, I knew everything I needed to know about not having an unplanned pregnancy.”
It occurred to me I could never have had this conversation if it hadn’t been so dark and I hadn’t been fairly drunk and the
dog hadn’t been dancing around on the edge of the leash. This was not a daylight conversation. But somehow
it was okay at night. Or at least this particular night. “The crazy thing about Noah is that he
was
planned.”

“Oh.” A pause while he digested that. “How old were you when you had him?”

“Eighteen,” I said. “Almost nineteen. It was the summer after my freshman year of college. Oh, Eleanor Roosevelt, do you have
to do that
now
?” The dog was squatting right there, in the middle of the sidewalk. She gave me an affronted look, with some justification:
she was only doing her job. I sighed and pulled a plastic bag out of the holder on her leash. “Excuse us,” I said to Andrew.
“Feel free to look away.”

“I’m not that delicate. Want me to hold the leash while you get that?”

“Please.” I handed him the leash and, using the bag as a glove, picked up the still warm poop then pulled the bag so it was
inverted and the poop was inside. I tied a knot at the top and looked around. “Oh, good, the Casters have already put their
garbage out.” I ran over, looked around to make sure no one was watching, and quickly lifted the can lid and dropped the bag
inside.

“You look like you’re getting rid of criminal evidence,” Andrew said when I came back.