IT STARTED OUT SMALL and simple. Me, Dad, Adam, Nancy, Margot, and Xander. But then Dad wanted to invite Grandma, and she wanted to bring a friend, which is odd because I didn’t realize she had friends. Then when Adam and I went to see Margot at the pizzeria, she said her boyfriend would bring his friend along as a blind date for Xander. “He’ll be our gift to her!” Margot said, with a satisfied look at Adam’s wan face. And then she had to say in front of Adam: “Aren’t you going to bring that guy, Zen? What’s his name?”
At which Adam raised his eyebrows and asked, “Is this a hubba-hubba situation?”
“His name’s Paul. And I don’t really know what constitutes a hubba-hubba situation.” I felt myself turning purple, and at first I didn’t want to invite Paul, but then I thought, Why not? What’s stopping me? So I used Adam’s cell phone to get Paul’s number from directory assistance, and talked to him right there while Margot served us each a free slice with red pepper flakes and Parmesan.
“I can’t go,” Paul said, “unless I can bring my cousin along? Would that be okay? She’s cute.”
What could I say? “Sure, bring her!” Once I hung up I said to Adam, “I think Paul is bringing a blind date for you too. His cousin. He says she’s cute.”
Adam slapped his forehead. “So how many are we up to?”
Margot counted under her garlicky breath. “Like a dozen?”
“We can’t sneak that many people into the living room while Xander’s upstairs,” I said.
“Let’s have it at my house, then,” Adam said before taking a disturbingly large bite out of his pizza. Why do guys eat like that?
So we raced back to his house to find Nancy gathering up a box of party decorations. “We’re having the party here, Mom,” Adam said.
“Not without a good scrubbing,” she replied.
So Adam and I spent the whole day vacuuming and dusting and sweeping and mopping, and throwing away old magazines, and organizing his CD collection. Nancy flitted here and there, hanging up streamers and making a huge banner for Xander that said WELCOME TO THE LEGAL VOTING AGE, and blowing up balloons. Dad came in looking freshly shaved, holding a huge sheet cake with sloppy lettering on it that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAYBIRD, and we all sampled a fingerful of white frosting. It was fluffy and too sweet, just like birthday frosting should be.
Margot was supposed to swing by our house at six o’clock and make some excuse to drag Xander over to Adam’s, so at five-thirty we called up the Red Lantern, Xander’s favorite Chinese restaurant, and we ordered enough General Tso’s chicken and Szechuan beef and vegetable lo mein to feed an entire platoon of ninjas. Grandma agreed to pick it up on her way over, under strict instructions from Dad to park in the alley behind Nancy’s house and come in the back door so Xander wouldn’t see her.
Which is what she does, at five forty-five, to find me, Dad, Nancy, and Adam all leaning on the center island, talking.
“Hello!” she calls in her prissy-polite voice she uses in front of nonfamily. “We come bearing fortune cookies!” She marches in playfully, which is weird because she never does anything that is playful.
Behind her is a man with lots of thick white hair, and a huge smile on his face. His blue eyes follow Grandma’s every move. She wipes her feet on Nancy’s welcome mat, and he does too. She puts her bags of food on the counter, so he puts his there. When she starts to take off her pressed navy blazer, he jumps into action and takes it from her, looking for a place to hang it.
“This is Neil,” she says casually to my father, who is staring at the scene with his mouth fully open.
“Put ‘er there, pal!” Neil booms, and shakes Dad’s hand hard enough to break a small bone in his wrist. “Neil Ackerson. Do you know Ackerson Muffler and Lube? That’s me.”
“Oh, yeah, I bought some tires there once.” Dad’s eyes slide over him in utter confusion. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Any son of Felicia’s is a friend of mine,” he says loudly, and slams Dad in the back a couple times with his palm. It’s meant to be a friendly gesture, but it makes Dad shrink away from him. The guy is old, but he’s strong.
“Nice to, uh . . .” Dad says, and trails off, staring at his mother.
“Well,” Grandma declares, “I’m here, though I didn’t get so much as a phone call since Xander’s graduation.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mom,” Dad says. “We’ve just been . . .” He doesn’t finish his sentence, probably because he’s starting to realize that it’s getting a little old, him always playing the grief card.
Grandma’s narrow eyes wander the kitchen, over Nancy, who is giggling with Adam, over the cake, which looks even sloppier now that Grandma is looking at it, over the streamers that messily hang over the doorway, finally to my big turquoise earrings, which represent the sum total of effort I put into my appearance tonight, and she sniffs. Sniffing is Grandma’s way of expressing displeasure. Then, mechanically, she lifts her arms in a hugging gesture, and nods at me as though I’ve been standing here longing to hug her and only waiting for permission to run into her arms.
“Hi, Grandma,” I say, and pat her back, much more gently than Neil patted Dad. The contact forces a small amount of gas to escape from her ass in a musical little note. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, as you can see,” she says coolly. She fluffs the silk scarf at her neck, and Neil leans in to fluff it a little more for her before sliding an arm around her bony back.
“She’s as fine as a spring day!” he booms before kissing her forehead, holding his lips to her wrinkled skin for an uncomfortable amount of time. She pats at the side of his head, laughing, a little coy, a little embarrassed. She farts again, this time loudly, but this goes unnoticed by Neil. I realize he probably talks so loud because he’s hard of hearing.
If he has a weakened sense of smell, it’s a match made in heaven.
Dad watches Grandma cuddling with her date, his face taking on a strange pallor. I imagine that he wishes he could slink back into our basement and hide there until either Neil or Grandma goes into a nursing home. I might join him.
There’s a knock on the back kitchen door, and it opens again. In walks Paul, and on his hip is a baby girl who looks about eighteen months old. Curly blond hair floats over her cherub pink face. Grandma sees her and squeals, “Oh! Who’s the little lover?”
She holds out her hands and the little girl bounces herself in Paul’s arms until he hands her over, his eyes on mine, asking if it’s safe.
“She might not give her back,” I warn.
It’s too late. Grandma’s arms have snaked around the baby and she’s pulled her away from him, bouncing her and cooing in the poor little thing’s face. I couldn’t stand that kind of attention from the Droning Crone, but the kid seems to love it.
“So that’s your cousin?” I ask Paul.
“Mirabelle,” he says, and nods sheepishly.
“Adam!” I call over the din in the kitchen. “Your date’s here!”
Nancy snorts at this.
“So what’s everyone doing in the kitchen?” Paul asks, standing much closer than most people stand next to me. This must be one of the signals Xander was talking about that means he wants to kiss me. It takes a little effort, but I stay where I am, standing close. I can smell the soap on his skin. Nice clean white soap.
“We’re waiting for Margot to bring Xander through the front door,” I tell him, “and then we’re all supposed to rush into the living room yelling ‘Happy birthday.’”
“I won’t let you down, captain!” He salutes.
We smile a little goofily, until Dad comes up to us. “So I see you have tracked down my daughter.”
“‘Tracked down’ might be overstating things. I left a note, she called.”
Dad’s eyes narrow, and he takes a long, speculative sip on his hard cider. “Okay then.”
“This is Paul, Dad,” I say, to force him to be nicer.
“Pleased to meet you properly, Paul,” Dad says, offering him his hand to shake. “Soda?” He points at the fridge.
“Sure!” Paul gets two bottles of ginger ale and opens them both, handing one to me. This seems to soften Dad up, and he saunters away to go talk to Nancy, who is telling Neil a very loud story about the time she hit a BMW while trying to parallel park her junky Civic. She got out of the car only to find she had rear-ended the mayor. Neil roars with laughter. Grandma takes a break from cooing at little Mirabelle to shush him, then Dad yells, “You forgot to tell him your registration had lapsed!”
“What’s going on?”
We all turn to see Xander standing in the kitchen doorway, her arms folded over her braless chest. She’s wearing her flannel pajama bottoms, and her hair is sticking up in a mess of tangles. “I could hear you all the way across the street!”
The entire room shushes, except for Mirabelle, who says, “Ucky?”
We all burst out with, “Happy birthday!!!” and rush at her. She backs into the living room, totally shocked, and that’s when Margot comes in the front door looking confused. Behind her are two guys, both of them wearing jeans and clean T-shirts, which for them, I think, must be the same as dressing up.
“Happy birthday!” Margot cries, jumping up and down, bracing herself on the shoulder of the guy who I guess must be her boyfriend. With his greased black hair and pierced bottom lip, he’s not really what I think of as cute, though I guess he has a kind of animal magnetism. There’s something about his joyless smile that I don’t like.
The other guy is cute, and he steps toward Xander. “I’m Topher. Happy birthday.” His hair is a nice clean strawberry color, and he has lots of freckles on his nose and forehead. As he shakes hands with Xander, I can tell he thinks she’s hot even though it’s clear she hasn’t even showered today.
Xander narrows her eyes at Margot, who tosses her enormous hair. “Happy birthday!” she says again, grabbing Xander’s arm.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Adam take a step forward, his eyes fixed angrily on something. I follow his gaze and realize that he’s looking at Margot’s boyfriend. For a second I don’t understand why, but then it hits me.
It’s Frank. It’s the guy I kicked in the head.
The one who tried to drag Xander into his car. He shaved off his goatee. That’s why I didn’t recognize him at first.
Xander looks at us, unsteady, as she realizes we’ve recognized him. Adam shakes his head, furious, and melts back into the kitchen. Nancy rushes forward to make everyone at ease. As she cries, “Everyone grab a plate and dish up some food!” she puts a casual hand on Frank’s shoulder.
He looks at her with cool dark eyes and smiles.