Cecily Von Ziegesar (14 page)

“Is this Tom's house?” Eliza pressed her face against the window. “Do you think those are his parents?”

“Yes,” Shipley said, barely breathing. The house was bigger and more authentic somehow than her own. She imagined the whole family played doubles tennis together, and Tom's dad had probably taught the boys to swim. Tom's mother was probably passionate about her flowers, and everyone pitched in to rake the leaves. Shipley's mother employed a gardening service staffed by migrant Mexican workers. Her family never did anything together except go on an annual Caribbean beach vacation, during which they would sit in separate locations on the sand, depending on their tolerance to the sun, reading books.

Eliza put her window down and stuck out her arm to wave.

“What are you doing?” Shipley hissed. To her horror, the entire family stood up and descended the porch steps, pie plates balanced in their hands. As they approached, Shipley recognized Tom's features in all of them. He had his mother's blue eyes, her thick brown hair, and her determined chin, but he was built like his father. His father even walked in the same floppy-footed style, like he'd never quite grown into his feet. Tom's older brother, Matt, was blond and stocky, but with the same blue eyes and chin.

“What do we say?” Shipley whispered.

Eliza was never at a loss for words. “Hi there,” she called. “We're friends of Tom's. He asked us to stop by and apologize for him not coming home for Thanksgiving.”

“How nice of him to send you as envoys,” Mrs. Ferguson quipped. “Would you like a slice of pecan pie? It's my great-grandmother's recipe.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and lowered her voice. “Highly alcoholic.”

Eliza laughed and glanced at Shipley, whose face and neck were flushed pink. “Sorry, but we can't. We're actually sort of late for our own Thanksgiving.” She jabbed her thumb at Shipley. “We're having it at her house, in Greenwich. This is Tom's girlfriend, by the way. This is Shipley.”

“Hi,” Shipley croaked.

Matt chuckled. “So you're Shipley. I've heard a lot about you. We all have. Apparently you're the love of his life. He's going to marry you one day.”

“Well, we'll see.” Shipley giggled and gripped the steering wheel to steady herself.

Mr. Ferguson leaned against the car and ducked his head into Eliza's open window. He smelled like freshly laundered sheets with a hint of candied nuts and bourbon. “Are you sure you don't want some pie?”

Shipley's foot hovered over the gas pedal. She was obviously dying of embarrassment. “Thanks so much, but we're actually both allergic to nuts,” Eliza fibbed.

Deep, worried creases appeared on Mr. Ferguson's forehead. “Tom's all right, isn't he? He hasn't even called today.”

Eliza could have told him what she truly thought of Tom, but she wasn't an asshole. Not really. “Tom's great,” she said. “He's really into this art class he's taking. And he's acting in a play.”

Mr. Ferguson nodded. “He mentioned that. Any idea when they're putting it on? We were thinking about making the trip
up to see it.”

“It's next weekend. Saturday night. You should come! And the Portraiture open studio is totally the same weekend. I would know because I'm sort of the star of the show.” Eliza winked at him. “You'll see what I mean when you see it. Anyway, we won't tell. You know, in case you want to surprise him.”

Mr. Ferguson grinned. “Good idea.” He stepped away from the car and pushed his hands into his khaki pants pockets. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“Tell Tom he missed a kick-ass turkey,” Matt called.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” Mrs. Ferguson waved as Shipley leaned on the accelerator and sped away.

Shipley didn't say anything on the way home. Tom's parents were nice and his house was idyllic. It was just as she'd thought. Tom was the perfect boyfriend. When she got back to Dexter, she'd have to work very hard to fix what she'd very nearly ruined. She would make it clear to Adam that kissing him had been a mistake, and while she was happy to be friends, it must never happen again. She would try to be more understanding of Tom's art. Artists took drugs and behaved strangely sometimes. The work required it. Besides, Tom was only experimenting. Pretty soon he'd figure out that art and ecstasy really weren't his thing. Deep down he was still her Tom. Even more so now that she'd met his parents. She could imagine planning the flowers for their wedding with Mrs. Ferguson in her sunny kitchen. She could hear Tom's brother giving a witty best man toast.
“Tom had only been at college for a week when he called me and said, ‘I've just met the girl I'm going to marry….' Of course I didn't believe him, especially not after I met the girl. She was way too pretty for him.”

 

D
inner was already laid out on platters on the dining room table. Mrs. Gilbert was seated at one end, drinking wine. “I didn't actually cook,” she admitted. “I got it at Good Enough to Eat. Everything there is so fresh.”

Eliza took a seat, her new coat zipped up to her chin, and helped herself to a piece of turkey breast with blood orange and pine nut stuffing.

There were only three places set. “Wait,” Shipley said as she settled into her chair. “Where's Dad?” She hadn't seen her father since she'd arrived, but that wasn't unusual. Mr. Gilbert never appeared until dinnertime.

Mrs. Gilbert took a sip of wine. Then she took another. She looked like she wanted to disappear into the glass. “Your father doesn't live here anymore.”

Eliza was sorry she was present to witness this, but she was also sort of thrilled. She waited for the shit to hit the fan. She expected Shipley's hair to stand on end and for her to leap on top of the curtain rod, a major gymnastic feat in ironed underwear and flawlessly creased jeans.

Shipley trimmed the skin off her presliced turkey and took a bite. Her father wasn't the type to run off with his secretary. He worked hard and read a lot and ran in marathons and skied. He liked old movies.

“What happened?” she asked. She supposed she wasn't all that surprised.

“I meant to tell you, but you never call home,” Mrs. Gilbert explained. “After you left for college, he and I just agreed that we didn't have anything to say to each other. We'd had that feeling for a while, or at least I had. Your father suggested marriage counseling, but I just couldn't see the point. He's renting an apartment in the city, near his office, and he's just bought
some sort of surf shack in Hawaii. I suppose the real estate out there was a steal after the hurricane.”

“Hawaii?” Shipley repeated. She was still processing the information that her parents were no longer together. Tom's father would never leave Tom's mother. They were still in love, even after all these years.

Mrs. Gilbert poured herself some more wine. “Yes, Hawaii. He said he's going to fly you out there for Christmas. He said there's even a place out there where you can ski. Some volcano. Imagine.”

Shipley cut off another strip of turkey. “Patrick would like that.”

“Yes, well,” her mother responded with a shrug of her shoulders.

Eliza just sat there, stuffing her face. She felt sorry for Shipley. She felt sorry for Shipley's mom. But it was still better than TV.

Shipley reached across the table and poured herself a glass of wine. She got up and retrieved a pack of cigarettes from her bag out in the hall, lighting one before she sat down.

“I didn't know you smoked,” her mother said. “I didn't even know you liked wine.” She watched the smoke trail into the air. “Maybe I should start smoking.”

Shipley stuffed the pack of cigarettes into her back pocket, annoyed that her mother wasn't more horrified. “It's bad for you,” she said, taking another puff.

Eliza waited for one of them to raise her voice, make accusations, demand an explanation, but it never happened. The silence was infuriating. She couldn't help but wonder what Shipley's mom did all day, alone in that big house. Iron her underwear? Or maybe she was secretly addicted to Nintendo or porn. Maybe she was a coke fiend. Maybe she was learning Russian or Mandarin or sign language. Maybe she had a huge dildo collection
and hosted orgies or key parties or whatever kind of parties Greenwich housewives hosted.

“You know what my family usually does for Thanksgiving?” Eliza asked. “Mom always makes two different flavors of Jell-O with those little mini marshmallows mixed in, and Dad makes turkey meat loaf with Wonder bread and catsup because neither one of them really likes whole turkeys with drumsticks and skin and everything. And sometimes I make root beer floats. It's always just whatever we feel like eating. One year we had nachos.” Her voice trailed off. Her mom said they weren't even having a Thanksgiving this year without her there. They were going to a casino to watch a floor show and play the slots.

“Would you like some wine?” Mrs. Gilbert offered her the bottle. She sounded a little sloshed.

“No thanks, but would you mind if I nuked the potatoes again, with some butter maybe?” Eliza asked. “They're a little cold.”

Shipley yawned her way through the meal, her mind back on Tom. Did he miss her? Was he painting her right now? She was glad she'd taken her clothes off in the end, although she sort of regretted the Macy's bag.

“I thought we could stay up and watch
It's a Wonderful Life,
” Shipley's mother said. “It's on tonight. Shipley and her father used to watch it every year,” she explained to Eliza. “I've never even seen it.”

“Sorry, Mom.” Shipley yawned again and pushed back her chair. “I can't keep my eyes open.”

Eliza followed her upstairs. On the way down the hall she spotted something that made her stop in her tracks. “Wait a second. Come here.”

Shipley sighed and retraced her steps. “What?”

“Who is that?” Eliza pointed at a framed photograph on the wall.

It was the family, the four of them, on the beach in St. Croix during Shipley's seventh-grade spring break. Patrick wore a heavy black windbreaker even though it was ninety-five degrees. His face was ruddy and marked with blond stubble. His long blond hair was wild and windblown.

“Oh, that's just Patrick, my older brother.” Shipley yawned. “He's a little strange.”

Eliza put her face up close to the picture. “When's the last time you saw him?”

Shipley shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know. He went to Dexter, but then he left. None of us have seen him since. I guess the last time was when we dropped him off for his orientation—a little over four years ago?”

Eliza nodded. “Well, you're wrong about him leaving Dexter. He's still there.”

N
ick lost his zen the hard way. It was taken from him. He flew into New York's LaGuardia airport from Portland, Maine, the night before Thanksgiving. Holiday backlog delayed his flight for nearly three hours. Then he couldn't get a cab. By the time he arrived home, the apartment was dark and his mother and his sister were fast asleep.

All the way home Nick had been thinking about how good his bed would feel when he finally crashed on it. For the past week and a half he'd been sleeping on the plank floor of his yurt. Tom, the asshole, had basically locked him out, insisting that he couldn't “work” when anyone was in the room. Home at last, Nick fumbled his way through the dark to his room and turned on the light. His bed was gone, replaced by a futon. A large black filing cabinet stood beside his desk, and on his desk was a Macintosh computer that was very definitely not his. The futon had been made up with fresh sheets and an old blanket. On top of the blanket was a note from his mom.
Welcome home, babe. Sweet dreams.

I'll explain everything in the morning. xxoo Mom.

Thanksgiving morning he awoke to the pungent smell of frying bacon and the sound of opera. A man was singing loud, obnoxious arias and laughing his head off. Nick got up and put on his cords and his Dexter sweatshirt. He opened his door.

“Mom?” he called, rubbing his eyes. “Mom?”

“We're in the kitchen, babe!” his mother called back. “Come and meet Morty!”

Nick went to the bathroom first. He suspected that Morty was not a kitten or a puppy or a goldfish; the pair of muddy running shoes in the bathtub confirmed it.

“Hi.” Nick stood in the kitchen doorway scratching his head. His mom looked beautiful in her indigo-colored caftan, her blond curls spiraling down to her waist. His sister Dee Dee was in her lap, eating bacon—real bacon. A man in sweaty running clothes was at the stove, frying up more bacon. He wiped his hands on his T-shirt and strode over to Nick.

“Hello there.” He held out his hand for Nick to shake. “Welcome back. Happy Thanksgiving. Have a seat. I've got more bacon coming up.”

Nick stared at Morty's hand and offered his own limp-wristed one. “I don't eat meat.”

“I do,” Dee Dee said, stuffing bacon into her mouth. “I love it.”

Morty was still holding Nick's hand. Nick pulled it out of his grasp. “So are you, like, living here?” he asked rudely.

“Morty and I have known each other since college.” His mom pushed Dee Dee off her lap and breezed toward him, arms wide, the deep V in her caftan spilling open. Nick averted his eyes. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him toward her. Nick had always allowed her to kiss him all over, nuzzle his hair, press his face into her bosom. He liked it. But this time he arched his back, trying not to get too close.

“There's my hug,” she said, squeezing him even tighter.

“Hi, Mom.”

She ran her hands over his chest and felt his arms. “Wow, babe. You feel all
muscular
.”

“Mom,” Nick protested.

“I knew you were still growing! And don't worry,” she murmured into his ear. “I'm making your Thanksgiving tofu.”

Dee Dee ran over, a piece of bacon flapping from her lips, and wrapped her arms around their thighs. This would have been cute if Morty wasn't looking on with a smug, paternal smile.

He ruffled Dee Dee's curly blond hair. “This kid kills me,” he told Nick. “I have another daughter out in California. Grows artichokes. She was never as cute as this one.”

“I like artichokes,” Nick said, trying to remain positive.
Another daughter?

“There's no future in artichokes, especially not those organic ones with worms all over them,” Morty insisted.

He was bald, Nick realized. He'd grown out the curly fringe around the base of his skull to give the illusion of hair. He looked like he was wearing one of those rubber clown masks—big nose, crab apple cheeks, and a ring of hair around a bald rubber pate.

“Morty's an accountant,” Nick's mother explained. “Freelance. He's using your bedroom as an office.”

That was only part of the story. His mom had left out the crucial elements, for instance where Morty had come from in the first place, where he was sleeping, and how long he planned to stay. Dee Dee still liked to get in bed with their mom in the middle of the night. Did she crawl in between Mom and Morty now?

A small white TV that hadn't been there before showed the preparations for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Huge
balloons hung in the air over the trees of Central Park. Clifford the Big Red Dog. Babar the Elephant. The Pink Panther. Goofy. Nick's family had always pooh-poohed the parade. It was too commercial, too crowded, too bridge-and-tunnel—not genuinely New York.

Dee Dee spun around and grabbed a piece of toast off her plate. She was five years old, but small enough to pass for three. “I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait!” she sang.

“Well, hurry up then,” Morty said. “Get your coat on.” He turned to Nick. “We're going to the parade. You coming?”

In the movie version of this Nick and Morty would bond over losing Dee Dee in the parade and then finding her again. Or Morty would choke on a parade-side pretzel and Nick would give him the Heimlich maneuver, indebting Morty to him for life. Nick would ask Morty to leave his mother alone, and in an effort to win him over Morty would get Nick tickets to Paul Simon's sold-out concert, or courtside seats at a Knicks game. Eventually Nick would embrace him as the father he never had. But this wasn't a movie.

“Mom, are you going?” Nick asked.

“I'm staying here to cook,” his mother said. “But you should go. I could use the peace and quiet.”

Nick bit his lip. “I think I'd rather just grab a bagel and walk around for a while. I'll give you a hand when I get back.”

He walked around the corner to H&H on Broadway and bought a still-warm poppy seed bagel and a cup of black coffee. Avoiding the mayhem of the parade near Central Park, he headed over to Riverside Park and down to the Boat Basin, wondering for the millionth time what it would be like to sleep on a houseboat docked in Manhattan. Probably not the same as sleeping in a yurt in the woods in Maine. He'd wanted to tell his mom all about the yurt. He'd even brought pictures.

That's my babe,
he'd imagined her saying.
You're the coolest
.

He didn't even know why he'd built the yurt anymore. He didn't like camping out. It hurt his back, it was cold, and there were noises—bats and raccoons and hunter's gunshots before dawn. There wasn't enough light to study by, there was no heat or toilet or running water. It was unpleasant.

Come to think of it, maybe he shouldn't have gone to Dexter at all. He could've gone to NYU or Columbia or even City College. That way he could've lived at home and kept his bed and prevented his mother from sharing hers with Morty.

He thought about calling his friends from Berkshire. Dewey and Bassett both lived in New York, and they were both big potheads. Dewey had gone to UC San Diego and Bassett was at UNH. Seeing them could go two ways: he'd either get majorly bummed out about how much things had changed, or they'd cheer him up. But his mood was far too gloomy for that even to be possible.

“Don't say anything about the election,” his mother warned him when he got back. Morty and Dee Dee were still at the parade. She handed him a colander full of potatoes and a peeler. “Morty's a Republican.”

“Jesus.” Nick sat down and hacked at one of the potatoes. He sneezed violently. “Is there anything good about him?”

His mother looked up from the plate of tofu she was marinating. “I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.”

Nick's shoulders sagged. He picked up another potato and sneezed again.

“It would help if you could be nice. Morty might well be Dee Dee's father.”

Nick put down the potato. “Jesus,” he said again. He'd always known he and Dee Dee had different dads. Dee Dee knew it too. “I'm a free spirit,” his mom would say with an easy laugh. It oc
curred to him now why she'd been so keen on his going to boarding school. She'd said it was because boarding schools had better sports, but Nick had never been very athletic. The truth was she'd wanted him out of the house so she could have men over and not feel awkward. His grandparents paid for it, and off he went.

“What?” his mom said. “Don't you think it's sort of nice that I've found someone?”

Nick peeled the potato very slowly. Peels fell on the tabletop like dead skin. Underneath, the potato was wet and slippery and rank. “I don't know,” he mumbled, and kept on peeling.

When Morty and Dee Dee returned from the parade, Morty came up behind Nick's mom at the sink and put his arms around her waist. “You would have loved the new Goofy float,” he told her. “It has great karma.” He lifted up her hair and kissed the back of her neck. As if he knew anything about karma.

At dinner Nick learned that Morty had yearned for his mother ever since he'd laid eyes on her at U Maryland, their alma mater. “Corinne used to wear flowers in her hair every day. Drove me wild,” he told Nick. “But she always had a boyfriend. I never even came close. Plus we had different lifestyles. Sure, I smoked dope, but your mother. Whoa.”

Nick wondered if he should get out the gigantic red bong his mom kept stashed in her closet. He could have really done with a great big bong hit just then.

“We ran into each other about six years ago in a taxi of all places,” Nick's mother said. “I was getting in and he was getting out. I didn't remember him, but Morty remembered me.” She smiled at Morty, who responded by putting his hand over his heart. “It was nice.”

“Your mother invited me back here for some wine. You were at a sleepover,” he told Nick. “Of course within five minutes
she's offering me—” He glanced at Dee Dee. She was busy making a hole in her mashed potatoes for gravy. Morty pinched his thumb and forefinger together and put them up to his lips.

“Morty!” Nick's mother exclaimed.

Nick pushed the tofu around on his plate. There was an unspoken rule between him and his mom that they did not talk about pot, they just smoked it, separately. He was pretty sure she knew he stole from her stash whenever he was home, but she didn't say anything about it, and he never mentioned it when the apartment reeked of the stuff. Now the secret was out, even though it wasn't a secret.

“Then one thing led to another and well—” Morty cleared his throat. “Your mom was pregnant with your sister. I wasn't in any sort of shape to be a dad just then. I'd already tried it and screwed it up. And your mom is such a great mom. I knew she could handle it.”

“After you left for college and Dee Dee started kindergarten, I got kind of lonely.” Nick's mom picked up the story. “I called Morty and he came by and cooked us dinner.” She reached across the table and grasped Morty's hand. “And I just fell in love with him. I couldn't let him leave. And Dee Dee adores him, don't you, Dee Dee?”

Dee Dee picked up her caveman-sized drumstick and gnawed on it. “He's pretty cool,” she said. Morty poked her in the ribs and she giggled. “Okay, okay. He's the best!”

Morty laughed. “And now of course I'm, you know—” He put his thumb and forefinger up to his lips again. “Every day.” He rubbed his relatively flat stomach. “As long as I keep jogging and keep away from the donuts.” He winked at Nick.

“Excuse me.” Nick stood up and made a beeline for his mom's bedroom. Her closet had been rearranged to accommodate Morty's clothes. He retrieved the giant red bong, and an enor
mous Ziploc bag full of pot from her sock drawer, and took them to his room, where he stuffed them into his duffel bag. Back in high school he'd pinch only negligible amounts, enough for maybe two or three joints. But what could she do if he took her whole stash? He proceeded to troll his room for any books or personal belongings he'd be sorry to leave behind, sneezing over and over as he pillaged the dusty shelves. His
MAD
magazine collection went in the bag.
The Three Pillars of Zen
stayed on the shelf. His signed and framed Simon and Garfunkel poster was too big. He'd have to send for it later. Because after this weekend, he wasn't coming back.

“Thanks for cooking,” he told his mom when he returned to the table. He sneezed again, making sure to aim it right at Morty's plate. Then he smiled with his mouth, not with his eyes, and raised his water glass, which was half-empty. “Happy Thanksgiving.”