Filed to story: The One That Got Away
It’s not that I’m worried Louis will try something with me. I know he won’t, because he doesn’t see me that way. But are people going to expect it? Am I going to have to sneak into his room in the middle of the night so people think we’re doing something? I don’t want to get in trouble on a school trip, but Louis has a way of convincing me to do stuff I don’t want to do.
I grab Chris’s hands. “Will you please come? Please, please!”
She shakes her head. “You know better than that. I don’t do school trips.”
“You have before!”
“Yeah, freshman year. Not any more.”
“But I need you!” Desperately I squeeze her hands and say, “Remember how I covered for you last year when you went to Coachella? I spent the whole weekend sneaking in and out of your house so your mom would think you were at home! Don’t forget the things I’ve done for you, Chris! I need you now!”
Unmoved, Chris plucks her hands away from mine and goes to the mirror and starts examining her skin. “Kavinsky’s not going to pressure you to have sex if you don’t want to. If you minus the fact that he dated the devil, he’s not a total dummy. He’s kind of decent, actually.”
“What do you mean by decent? Decent like he doesn’t care that much about sex?”
“Oh, God, no. He and Vivian were in constant heat for each other. She’s been on the pill longer than I have. Too bad everyone in my family thinks she’s this angel.” Chris pokes at a zit on her chin. “What a fake. I should send an anonymous letter to our grandma… Not that I really would. I’m no rat, unlike her. Remember that time she told our grandma I was going to school drunk?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. When Chris gets going on a Genevivian rant, she is single-minded. “My grandma wanted to use the money she saved for my college for rehab! They had a family meeting about me! I’m so glad you stole Kavinsky from her.”
“I didn’t steal him. They were already broken up!”
Chris snorts. “Sure, keep telling that to yourself. Gen’s going on the ski trip, you know. She’s class president, so she’s basically organizing it. So just beware. Don’t ever ski alone.”
I let out a gasp. “Chris, I’m begging you. Please come.” In a burst of inspiration I say, “If you come, it’ll make Genevivian really mad! She’s organizing this whole thing; it’s her trip. She won’t want you there!”
Chris purses her lips into a smile. “You know how to play me.” She juts her chin at me. “Do you think this zit is ready to pop?”
Thanksgiving day, Daddy cleans out the turkey for me and then leaves to go pick up our Korean grandma, who lives an hour away in a retirement community with a lot of other Korean grandmas. Daddy’s mom, Nana, is spending Thanksgiving with her boyfriend’s family, which is fine by me, because I know she wouldn’t have anything nice to say about the food.
I make up a green-bean dish with orange peel and dill, in an earnest effort to be jazzy and inventive. I nominate Kitty to be my taste tester and she takes a bite of green bean and says it tastes like an orange pickle. “Why can’t we just have green-bean casserole with the fried onion rings that come in the can?” Kitty ponders. She’s cutting out different-coloured feathers for her turkey place mats.
“Because I’m trying to be jazzy and inventive,” I say, dumping a can of gravy into the saucepan.
Doubtfully Kitty says, “Well, are we still having broccoli casserole? People will eat that.”
“Do you see any broccoli anywhere in this kitchen?” I ask. “No, the green in this meal is the green bean.”
“What about mashed potatoes? We’re still having mashed potatoes, right?”
Mashed potatoes. I jump up and check the pantry. I forgot to buy the potatoes. I got the whole milk and the butter and even the chives to put on top like Alice always does. But I forgot the actual potatoes. “Call Daddy and ask him to pick up Yukon gold potatoes on the way home,” I say, closing the pantry door.
“I can’t believe you forgot the potatoes,” Kitty says, with a shake of her head.
I glare at her. “Just focus on your place mats.”
“No, because if I didn’t just ask about the mashed potatoes, the meal would have been ruined, so you should be thanking me.” Kitty gets up to call Daddy, and I yell out, “By the way, those turkeys look more like the NBC peacock logo than actual turkeys, so!”
Kitty is unfazed, and I take another bite of the green beans. They do taste like an orange pickle.
It turns out I have cooked the turkey upside down. Also, Kitty kept hounding me about salmonella because she watched a video on it in science, so I wind up leaving the bird in too long. The mashed potatoes are fine, but there are some crunchy bits here and there because I rushed to boil them.
We are seated around the dining room table, and Kitty’s place mats really do add a certain something.
Grandma is eating a whole pile of green beans, and I shoot Kitty a triumphant look. See? Someone likes them.
There was a minute or two, after Mommy died, when Grandma moved in to help take care of us. There was even talk of her staying. She didn’t think Daddy could manage on his own.
“So, Danny,” Grandma begins. Kitty and I exchange a look across the table, because we know what’s coming. “Are you seeing anyone these days? Going on dates?”
My dad reddens. “Er … not so much. My work keeps me so busy…”
Grandma clucks. “It’s not good for a man to be alone, Danny.”
“I’ve got my girls to keep me company,” my dad says, trying to sound jovial and not tense.
Grandma fixes him with a cold stare. “That’s not what I mean.”
When we’re doing the dishes, Grandma asks me, “Bella, would you mind if your daddy had a girlfriend?”
It’s something Alice and I have discussed at length over the years, most often in the dark, late at night. If Daddy absolutely had to date, what kind of woman would we like to see him with? Someone with a good sense of humour, kind-hearted, all of the usual things. Someone who’d be firm with Kitty but not rein her in so much that it would squash all the special things about her. But also someone who wouldn’t try to be our mother; that’s what Alice is fiercest about. Kitty needs a mom, but we’re old enough to not need mothering, she says.
Of the three of us, Alice would be the most critical. She’s incredibly loyal to Mommy’s memory. Not that I’m not, but there have been times, over the years, where I’ve thought how it would be nice to have someone. Someone older, a lady, who knows about certain things, like the right way to put on blush, or how to flirt to get out of a speeding ticket. Things to know for the future. But then it never happened. Daddy’s been on some dates, but he hasn’t had a steady girlfriend he’s brought around. Which has always been sort of a relief, but now that I’m getting older, I keep thinking about what it will be like when I’m gone and it’s just Kitty and Daddy, and then before long it will just be Daddy. I don’t want him to be alone.
“No,” I say. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”
Grandma gives me an approving look. “Good girl,” she says, and I feel warm and cozy inside, like how I used to feel after a cup of the Night-Night tea Mommy used to make me when I couldn’t fall asleep at night. Daddy’s made it for me a few times since, but it never tasted the same, and I never had the heart to tell him.
The Christmas Cookie Bonanza starts December first. We drag out all of Mommy’s old cookbooks and cooking magazines and we spread them out on the living-room floor and turn on the Charlie Brown Christmas album. No Christmas music is allowed in our house until December first. I don’t remember whose rule this is, but we abide by it. Kitty keeps a list of which cookies we’re definitely doing and which ones we’re maybe doing. There are a few perennials. My dad loves pecan crescents, so those are a must. Sugar cookies, because those are a given. Snickerdoodles for Kitty, molasses cookies for Alice, cowgirl cookies for me. White-chocolate cranberry are Josh’s favourite. I think this year though, we should mix things up and do different cookies. Not entirely, but at least a few new ones.
Louis’s here; he stopped by after school to work on chem, and now it’s hours later and he’s still here. He and Kitty and I are in the living room going through the cookbooks. My dad’s in the kitchen listening to NPR and making tomorrow’s lunches.
“Please no more turkey sandwiches,” I call out.
Louis nudges my sock and mouths, Spoiled, and he points at me and Kitty, shaking his finger at us. “Whatever. Your mom makes your lunches every day, so shut it,” I whisper.