What does it say about my life that my weekends are worse than my work days? That I actually look forward to my work week? After the disaster that was last night’s “beers with friends,” I want to stay curled up in bed all day. But no, I have to get up and make knots, excuse me, extra knots, for my cousin Parker. Because the family dinner is tonight. Fuck my life.

It’s past noon by the time Ben emerges from his room. I think he was waiting until I had my hands wrist-deep in dough.

“Zack, I’m so sorry.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder, which I promptly shrug off. We both know I’d leave the room if I could, but I still have four minutes of kneading time left. My knots will turn out crappy if I stop, and then I won’t have any way to show up Parker tonight. Ben’s got me trapped, the cunning bastard.

“I had no idea we’d run into him, and I promise I didn’t tell anyone else. Well, you could see that. Dave mentioned him to you like you’d never even heard of him. No one else knew. It literally was a two-second conversation between Craig and me that we never discussed again.”

“That was an incorrect use of the word literally. And you’re a college graduate,” I scoff.

“I didn’t study to become part of the grammar police, like some people.” He shuffles over to the coffee pot and polishes it off, using a cup that looks more like a bowl.

“No, just a teacher, so it’s even worse. You’d better make more,” I say, even though he’s already started cleaning and refilling the filter with fresh grounds. God, I’m acting like a teenager with my passive-aggressive bullshit, but I’m still so angry. No, I’m actually still embarrassed, but that would make me vulnerable, so I manifest it outwardly as anger. Apparently I studied to be the grammar police and an amateur psychologist in college, but whatever.

“He was a total dick. For no reason. Why would he be a dick if you hadn’t talked about it?” Right? Who does that? Makes fun of someone they don’t know? A dick, that’s who.

“Zach, look at me.” Ben sits on the bar stool across from me and I have no choice. “We only talked about you the day you brought me my lunch. He thought we were boyfriends. I corrected him and said no, we’re roommates. He then floated this crazy theory that the reason you seemed so nervous was because you had a crush on me. And that’s the extent of it. We never said one word about you again until last night.”

My jaw drops and it takes me a few seconds to realize my hands have gone still.

“Crap!” I glance at the timer to see thirty seconds still flashing at me and get my hands kneading again. “And you didn’t bother to correct him? About us? Or at least me?”

Ben just shrugs and blows into his mug. “Dude, you’re getting shrill. I tried. But after looking at him, I guessed, correctly I might add, that he made you go stupid. And I figured that explanation would be way worse to share with him. ‘Sorry about my roommate. Stuttering and blushing is like his mating call.’ Although personally, I think he likes you.”

“You’re crazy. The man is straight.”

“How do you know?”

“Umm, the girl he was on a date with last night?” I toss the dough back into the bowl a little too forcefully and oil splatters everywhere. Damn it, that’s a bitch to clean up.

“Narrow-minded much?” Ben reaches out to flick a dot of oil off my glasses, but ends up smearing it instead.

“Fine, I’ll give you that one,” I say, turning around to scrub my hands clean of the dough and oil. “But I’m still baffled as to why you let him continue thinking I have a crush on you.”

“So you’d rather have him think that you’re always that much of a social leper for no reason at all? Although after the way you ran off last night, that’s probably already his opinion.”

“Not helping,” I growl, shifting from half-blind to fully blind while I try to remove the oily smudge from my glasses. It takes forever to get everything clean of oil before I cover the bowl with wrap and stick it on top of the fridge.

I pour myself another cup of coffee and take the stool next to him.

“Why am I such a spaz?” I gently bang my head onto the counter until Ben slips a hand underneath.

“Because I need someone who makes me look good in comparison. It’s actually really thoughtful of you.”

“Oh my god, I hate you so much.”

I shove Ben off his stool, but he drags me down with him and starts giving me noogies.

“How old are you?” I try to slap him away, without effect.

“Twelve. Say you love me.”

“No!”

“I’m not stopping until you admit you love me!”

“Never!”

* * *

Rushing up the steps of my family’s perfectly manicured lawn, I once again curse Ben in my head. Really, it’s not his fault that he tried a Lord of the Rings marathon to get me over my funk, and I forgot that just getting through the first movie would take up my whole afternoon. But what are best friends for, if not shouldering all the blame?

As a result, I’m fifteen minutes late getting to my parents’ house in Greeley. It doesn’t sound like much, except I know from experience that Parker and Shelby will have arrived early so they can “help.” I mentally use air quotes, because my mother would never dream of asking them to do anything, and they are fully aware of this. Hence the requisite song and dance.

Greeley is roughly halfway between Fort Collins and Denver. There’s a college here that my mom pushed like crazy for me to attend. I could stay at home, she said. Continue going to church with all the people who love me, she said. I didn’t think twice about going to CSU. My sanity still thanks me for it.

Mom slings the door open before I’ve even made it to the porch.

“Zachariah, where have you been? I need help getting the potatoes mashed. That’s all that’s left and we’ve been waiting on you.”

The word help in my case doesn’t need air quotes, because it’s demanded, not giggled and batted away. I roll my eyes as soon as she turns around – it’s the last time in the next four hours that I’ll be able to. Mom drops everything and leaves the rest of dinner to me, just as I knew she would.

“How’s work going?” Dad asks. Mom leaving the kitchen means that it’s safe now for Dad to retreat here.

“Good,” I say, waiting to start the hand mixer for the potatoes because it will be too loud to talk. “One of the business plans I wrote for a client won a contest and they are going to receive full funding.”

Dad’s an accountant, so although we don’t talk shop often, at least he understands what I’m saying when I talk about my work.

“Impressive,” he says with a nod. He’s not the most demonstrative of parents, but I can still tell he’s proud.

“Do you need something to do?” I ask, because if he’s caught in here chatting with me, Mom will find a task for him. Sometimes he’ll come in while I’m working on dinner, and I’ll give him some busywork just to keep her off his back.

“I’ve already been tasked with filling the water glasses,” he says, and I pull out a tray from under the counter so that it’s easier for him to carry. He’d try to juggle them in his hands, and then Mom would get exasperated when something inevitably spilled.

Once the potatoes are mashed and seasoned to perfection, I carry the bowl to the dining room where everyone waits, already seated. Shelby waves me over to bestow fake air kisses around me, and Parker gives me a firm handshake. I wonder if the two of them saw Leave It to Beaver and other 1950’s-era shows as how-to guides instead of fictitious farces.

Dad keeps quiet throughout dinner except to compliment my mother on the meal. Shelby ignores my existence and focuses her attention on garnering compliments from my mother for Parker.

“Did you know that Parker met with a colonel at Peterson last week?”

“Did Parker tell you that he’s working on a presentation for the National Engineer’s Association? They specifically requested him to speak at their annual conference.”

“Did I tell you about the humongous dump Parker took last night?”

So I may have made that last one up. But seriously. Each comment gets praise from my mother, along with promises to call his mother to brag on him some more. Meanwhile, Parker stuffs his face with chicken parmesan with such singular focus you’d think he hasn’t heard a word Shelby or my Mom have said.

I feel like I’m watching all this from outside a museum glass, where I’m the only one who realizes that the behavior exhibited is a strange, plastic facsimile of cultural norms, and not normal at all. Still, I eat my chicken, and give myself extra helpings of mashed potatoes and knots because I’ve earned them, and chuckle to myself when I ask Shelby if she thinks Parker will share any of his extra knots with her.

“Of course, because he loves me,” Shelby says and glares at me for daring to insinuate otherwise.

Dinner has just been cleared away when Shelby taps on her water glass and giggles, and I remind my eyeballs that they are not allowed to retreat back into my head right now.

“Parker and I have an announcement,” she says as she looks around the table. Parker is beaming, my dad has a look that he probably thinks conveys interest but actually looks like he’s trying to hold in a shit, and Mom’s practically drooling while hanging off Shelby’s every word.

“We’re pregnant!”

Mom squeals – no exaggeration – and rushes to hug Shelby. My dad raises his water glass and congratulates Parker. I’m sitting there wondering when the phrase “we’re pregnant” became popular. Sure, he helped, but is Parker going to be carrying a fetus around in his stomach? I don’t think that’s the way it works.

“I knew you’d be thrilled, Bonnie,” Shelby says to my mom. “Knowing that someone is carrying on your family name.”

Oh, the claws are out now. See, Shelby is really the devil wrapped inside the packaging of a Sunday school teacher. I may be ambivalent toward Parker, despite the family history, but Shelby has always been, and always will be, a Grade-A bitch.

“You know, given that our moms are sisters, it isn’t their name that’s being carried on.”

Shelby glares at me over Mom’s shoulder and Mom spins around and pins me with a look.

“That’s not the point, and you know it. The family line will be carried on, and I think it’s just wonderful, Shelby. Don’t you have something to say to them, Zachariah?”

“I could carry on the family line.” Yeah, not falling for it. If I open my mouth to say something directly to Shelby, it will be “Hope you don’t get too fat.”

Shelby wrinkles her nose at the idea. “Not naturally, you couldn’t.”

I repeat, Grade-A bitch.

Parker clears his throat and stands. “Aunt Bonnie, I heard you made me an apple pie, and if we don’t get to it, I may have to go in search of it myself.”

“Of course, dear, we need to keep the new parents happy! Zachariah, come help.”

Shelby fluffs her hair and straightens her skirt before sitting back down like she’s the queen of the table. With the triumphant look she shoots me, she probably damn well is.