“I can’t believe I let you talk me into getting you that information,” my brother-in-law Cam hissed as soon as I walked in the back door of my parents’ house. It led right into the kitchen, and apparently, tonight, acted as an equally valid portal to confrontation.
“Sure you can,” I told him, pulling off my jacket, tossing it on the hook by the door, and moseying toward the stools at the island. “We’re family. My shit is your shit.”
My nonchalance did nothing to calm him down. If anything, his stance got more aggressive.
“No, no, that’s not true. I never want your shit to be my shit. I’m a cop. Your shit should actually never be my shit.” Unfortunately for Cam, he was also notorious for losing all semblance of volume control when his patience started to drain.
“You got involved with his shit?!” my sister said at a near shriek as she rounded the corner, already nine-tenths involved in the conversation and our huddle before even fully entering the room. But to be fair, that was mostly her stomach’s fault.
“Can people stop saying shit?” my dad called from the recliner in the living room. “I missed my morning constitutional, and I’m feeling inadequate.”
I smiled, but my sister was too wrapped up in her husband’s dirty dealings to reflect on our dad’s sense of humor.
“Cam!” she railed. “You know better than to do anything my brother ever says. Jesus. We had this talk the night we started dating!”
I raised my eyebrows, impressed. “I was a first-date topic? Geez, sis. I’ve never felt so loved.”
“Shut up, Reed.”
I didn’t do what she said. Shocking, I know.
“Don’t worry, Laura, it was no big deal.”
“Yeah, right. You’re such a bullshitter. I’m amazed anything clean ever comes out of your mouth with all of the dirty lies you’re always spewing.”
“Laura,” Cameron started, his voice a consoling version of its normal deep timbre in an effort to head off the green-eyed monster, but she was already on a bender.
See, my sister Laura was the hysterical kind of woman. Pure energy and pure heart, she was always trying to bring the rest of us derelicts up to her level. Unfortunately for her, some of us just weren’t meant to live life on the highest road, and as a result, she’d never reach the goal she so valiantly strove for.
“What’d you do, Cam? I swear to all that’s holy it better not be anything that’s gonna make me tell this baby its father is a no-good criminal.”
That was the other thing about Laura. She was already a tornado, but this embarrassingly pregnant version of her was hell on wheels. Just a few months from her due date, and I was convinced that given the right angle, her baby could eat my soul.
“The little bambino is going to be fine. All he did was get me an address.”
“Reed!” Cam yelled at the same time Laura shrieked, “On the police database?”
I waved at them both, like maybe cooling them down physically would aid in their emotional response. “He only did it because he didn’t want you to know that he had an incident with a transvestite prostitute in Amsterdam.”
“Fucking shit, Reed!” Cam yelled. I glanced to my dad, but with his eyes now glued to the TV, he didn’t even flinch.
“I’m doing you a favor,” I explained, but at the same time, Laura leveled him with a look so hostile I wondered if I was lying. At this point, even I didn’t know.
“What incident?” Laura gritted out as Cam talked himself out of taking out his gun and shooting me on the spot. The flexed jaw and wild eyes were dead giveaways that he was treading water right on the edge.
“Nothing even happened,” I told her casually, picking up a carrot and dipping it into the bowl of ranch dressing before popping it in my mouth. “She tried to pick him up. I honestly don’t know why he’s been so hell-bent on keeping it a secret all of these years.”
My sister’s icy exterior started to thaw, but Cam wasn’t having any of it.
“Maybe because it’s fucking embarrassing.”
I waved him off. “It’s not. It’s natural and funny, and now I can’t ever force you to do anything you don’t want by holding it over your head.”
The deep cloud of his anger dissipated like the San Francisco fog as what I said rang true. Still, just like my momma always said, it kind of seemed like his face froze like that.
“See,” I said. “I did you a favor.”
He didn’t look like he thought so.
But he didn’t look like a man in the throes of a murder either, so beggars can’t be choosers.
“Uh-oh,” my mom muttered as she swept into the room with a freshly washed stack of dish towels. “What did Reed do now?”
I smiled at her frankness. My family as a whole was traditional in almost every sense of the word, but my mom was the kind of woman who didn’t pull any punches. Actually, my sister was almost a perfect reflection of her—if she were constantly hopped up on sugar and heroin.
“Same shit, different day,” Cameron muttered, pulling my dad’s attention from the other room again.
“I told you it isn’t the same shit. I haven’t been able to force a raft into the river for goddamn anything today.”
“Turn off the game and come in here, Jimmy,” my mom called, completely unfazed by my father’s TMI, as I laughed and Laura and Cam cracked smiles.
My dad was the kind of guy who embarrassed you when you were younger by coming out to meet your friends in his tighty-whitey underwear and farting during the school Christmas pageant. He did the same kind of stuff now that we were adults, but it was a whole hell of a lot easier to appreciate it for its comedic value. Though, if I’m honest, I always appreciated it—but I never cared what anyone else thought.
Laura had a slightly harder time tuning out everyone else’s opinions.
The squeal of the footrest retracting on my dad’s chair indicated his compliance, so I shoved a couple more carrots into my mouth while we waited for him to appear.
My mother smacked my hand. “Stop eating so many carrots. You’ll ruin your dinner.”
I barked a chuckle. “I’m sorry, but isn’t the point of putting out appetizers to eat them before consuming an equally delicious meal?”
I looked to Cam and Laura for validation, but the two of them knew better than to get involved. Cowards.
“Those are there for everyone, and you’ve had more than your share.”
“I’m a growing boy,” I argued. After all, maybe Lola liked muscle. I’d need my vegetables to grow it.
“Some parts of you are still a boy,” my father grumbled as he shuffled into the kitchen, cutting off my Lola daydream.
I didn’t think he’d ever stop telling me to grow up, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever care. Something about him telling me just made it feel like he still cared—wanted what was best for me. I didn’t happen to agree about what that was, but it really was the thought that counted. I smiled.
“Jesus, Jimmy!” my mom scoffed, catching sight of my dad for the first time that night. “Are you wearing swim trunks?”
He glanced down to check.
“I told you to dress nice for dinner.”
“They cover everything,” my dad argued. “We’re not at a five-star restaurant, we’re in our goddamn house. What’s the difference what kind of pants I have on?”
“Just be glad he’s wearing pants at all,” Laura muttered, and I smiled as I reached for another carrot. My mom’s warning eyes met mine, but the trajectory of my hand never slowed.
She just shook her head and went back to her business at the sink. My father was still trying to convince me to change. She put on a show with the initial reprimand, but overall, she was resigned to the man I was—and secretly liked him.
I guess she and Lola have that in common, I thought musingly.
“Everyone sit down at the table,” my mom commanded. “The lasagna is about done, and you’re all in my way.”
I rounded the island and placed a kiss on her cheek before reaching into the silverware drawer to get what I needed to set the table. We had family dinner nearly every Sunday, and I loved it—looked forward to it, actually. But I knew one day the frequency would dwindle, and things would change. My parents were getting older, and my sister and brother-in-law were about to have a baby. It was the way of the world, and I was okay with that. I just intended to soak up every moment I could now.
Laura saw me in the drawer and stepped up to the plate—somewhat literally. “I’ll get the napkins and plates.”
My mom didn’t say thank you, but she didn’t have to. We could see it shining in her eyes, and she didn’t owe us one anyway—it was the other way around.
Laura and I made quick work of the setup, working around my dad, who’d already taken his seat at the head of the table, while Cam hung out in the kitchen and waited to carry things in for my mother.
The garlic bread came out just as we were taking our seats, and I immediately reached into the basket to do what I always did. I pulled a piece out and tossed it to my dad, who caught it deftly before moving it to a secure location below the table. Laura clapped her hands like a quarterback, and I tossed a piece in her direction where she quickly executed a similar maneuver to my father.
It was then that my mother entered the room behind a lasagna-carrying Cam to find my hand once again in the basket.
“Reed Luca!”
I pretended to be surprised.
“Why am I always having to tell you to wait?”
I shrugged.
“For Pete’s sake!”
“Sorry, Mom. I guess I just never learn,” I apologized contritely. I wasn’t planning to learn in the future either, but that wasn’t the point.
The point was to get away with the con, and my mom soaked up butter like a roll.
Laura and my dad stared at their plates and chewed discreetly. This was how it always worked, and I’d never even considered ratting them out.
Though, I did find it funny how they never reprimanded me for lying for their sake, but all of my other lies were derived directly from the devil.
“I guess that’s just going to have to be the only piece you get,” my mom decreed. I shot eyes to Laura, and she promised telepathically she’d do me a solid and secure me another piece.
I looked back to my mom with my sweetest smile. “Okay, Mom.”
She huffed her satisfaction at my easy compliance.
Cam did his best to break the ice. “So, uh, Reed. Where are you working now?”
It was actually comical how much of a staple this very conversation had become of our family dinners. I changed jobs often, and at some point over the years, the discussion had finally morphed from When are you going to settle on something? to Tell us about what you’re doing now.
“Well, actually, I just got done with that three-week stint on the Golden Gate Bridge. It was absolutely incredible. The views from the top are unlike anything I have ever seen. The fog doesn’t even seem real.”
Their faces all said cool, but their silence said they couldn’t relate. And I truly got it. I’d imagined what it would be like so many times over the years, but even that hadn’t ever come close to what it was actually like.
“So what are you doing now?” my dad asked as he shoveled the first bite of steaming lasagna into his mouth. My mom still stood, scooping out pieces onto each of our plates individually. I was pretty sure it wasn’t as much about serving us as making sure I only took my share.
“I’m going to be writing a column for the San Fran Journal.”
“Seriously?” Cam asked at the same time Laura exclaimed, “How cool!”
Of course. The column in the paper got their attention, but working at the very top of one of the tallest bridges in the country was no big deal. I nearly shook my head.
“What’s the column about?” my mom asked, the patient one of the group.
“Dating, relationships, and sex.”
My dad choked, sputtering and coughing and banging on his own chest.
“Oh, my God! Jimmy!” my mom yelled, panicked.
Cam jumped to his feet, the first-responder instinct strong within him. He moved around the table swiftly and wrapped his arms around my dad, prepared to Heimlich, but my dad swatted him away.
“I’m fine, I’m fine! Jesus.”
“Well, don’t scare us like that!” my mom reprimanded, like he’d choked on purpose just to garner some attention.
My dad ignored her. “What in the Sam Hill do you know about dating and relationships?”
“Pretty sure he doesn’t know about sex either,” Cam muttered under his breath, obviously still distressed by my earlier betrayal.
“Honestly, I only know my own experience and my observation of the world around me,” I admitted, and feelings of being in over my head washed over me. I really didn’t know what I was doing. All I knew was that reading Lola’s column was easy, and refuting it was even easier. Something about the two of us together, even when we were on rival teams, seemed right.
“Then why the hell did they give you the job?” my dad asked.
“Actually, it’s an opposing column to one that already exists at the Times.”
“Sex Says,” Laura shouted. “Oh my God, I love that column.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course she did.
“I’d never heard of it until a few weeks ago,” I admitted. “Anyway, I made a video about it, and apparently, a lot of people caught wind.”
I shrugged. Done with my explanation, I went back to my lasagna, but I looked up again when I heard no sounds. No talking and not the reverberations of a family scarfing down their meal.
When my eyes finally met Laura’s, she glanced to my dad and my mom before stating, “We’re going to need to see that video.”
I rolled my eyes. “Laura—”
“We’re just gonna watch it when you leave if we don’t watch it now,” my dad said. “I don’t know much about finding videos on the internet—”
My mom scoffed, and a mental image of my dad surfing for porn jumped unwelcome into my mind.
“Fine,” I interjected, before my brain could fully develop the idea of my dad one-handing it at the dinner table.
“I have my laptop with me!” Laura shouted as she jumped up from the table and ran, well, wobbled at a quick pace, for the other room.
She came back with it nearly instantly and shoved my plate to the side before I could even lay my fork down. “Here.”
I reached around her to put my fork on the plate and pulled up the browser to head to YouTube. The rest of the family pushed back in their chairs and rounded the table to stand behind me.
“It’s going to be out of context if you don’t read her column first,” I warned.
“I read it,” Laura said. “I read all of them.”
Of course she did.
“And we can look it up after if we need to,” Cam added.
I found my page and clicked play on the video. Immediately, my mom’s eyes went to the laundry. “What’s all over your shirt?”
“I’d just gotten done working down at the wharf.”
“Gross,” Laura mumbled and I chuckled.
“Seventeen million views?” Cam exclaimed. “Holy fuck!”
Laura reached over and pinched his nipple, and Cam tried to squirm away.
My mom smacked my head as I picked up a cigarette and lit it in the video. “Still smoking and doing it in your apartment! What’s wrong with you?”
“I enjoy it, and I do what I like in my own apartment. I don’t do it in yours,” I explained patiently.
“I’m your mother!”
“Hush, Linda,” my dad ordered. “I can’t hear the goddamn video.”
As I spoke, I heard the words I was addressing like a song in my mind. Lola’s voice and fervor as I imagined her saying them—and the way she reacted to mine.
The rest of their commentary faded out as the woman who inspired the video took up every corner of space in my mind and chest. Her quick wit and quirky smile and the way she’d been wound up as I left her apartment to head here—but mostly, what I was going to do to make sure I saw her again.
And soon.