Tansy
It turns out that I’m really, really good at pretending to not hear things.
It’s probably how I managed to be with Jody for so long. Why it took seeing her bouncing up and down on a barely legal caterer’s penis to break the spell. I can be practically delusional when I want to be.
And, oh, do I want to be.
I smile at my mom across the same dining room table that we’ve eaten at for my whole life. Nanna Ethel is next to her, plowing through a plate of fried pork chops covered in mushroom gravy. With the way she eats, she ought to be more than ninety pounds. Justin sits next to me, and my dad is at the head of the table. Cai is at the foot.
Cai, who five hours ago said that she loved me.
The dining room chairs are padded across the seat and the back, but my butt still hurts a little bit. Not a lot. Just enough that I feel a sting when I reach for the butter. I hold back my whine.
“You okay?” Justin asks, then takes a bite of Mom’s roast chicken.
I could smack the food right out of his mouth. “What? Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
His eyebrows lift, and he talks around food tucked in his cheek. His manners have always been appalling. “The horseback ride you took with Beth this morning?”
“Yeah, I can’t imagine you’ve been doing much riding where you live now,” Dad says at practically the same time Cai says, “With Beth?”
I cringe. There are two distinct trains of thought going in my head. On one side, I can’t handle the jealousy that’s about to come my way. I should have mentioned it earlier. It’s always easier to diffuse a situation by getting out ahead of it rather than letting Jody—or whoever—get angry and then trying to deal with it.
But at the very same time, this is Cai. She is not Jody. She’s not going to freak out because that’s just not her way. It spins my brain to have two so different certainties at the same time. I ignore the clench in my stomach and choose the good.
“We went for a trail ride,” I say to Cai, before I look back at Dad and try to redirect the conversation. “You’re right. There’s no room for boarding a horse when you’re living in an apartment above a garage.”
He shakes his head. He doesn’t like where I’m staying now, and he’s made no secret of it. “Over a garage. What kind of silliness is that? You should have let your mom and me come out and move you into a real place.”
He has absolutely zero concept of how much a “real” place according to his definition costs in my commuting area. And zero concept of what my place is actually like, decorated a la Lowenstein. I hide my smile behind a forkful of homemade macaroni and cheese casserole. “Sorry, Dad. I didn’t want to wait.”
Mom’s got that look on again—the one that’s somewhere between annoyed and worried. Two furrows cross her forehead. I have that same expression when I worry. Someday my face is going to be her face in a way that I can’t comprehend now.
“You know how I feel about that whole situation,” she says, which is pretty restrained for her.
I’m chastised. My smile drops away. I glance at Justin, who’s got the same rounded shoulders he’d get when Mom got onto me about my grades at the dinner table, back in my sophomore year. “I know, Mom.”
I should have had her there, at the wedding. There wouldn’t have been any wait involved then, because they could have gotten my stuff out of the apartment the same day. I might not have ended up trapped on that couch. Though I haven’t told Mom about that, I feel like she knows. I’ve damaged a little bit of her mom-ness by denying her the chance to keep me safe.
Letting Jody manipulate me into not protesting when they declined the invitation is one of my biggest regrets of my life. I push macaroni around on the white plate, all the way up to the pink roses around the border.
Cai pats my knee, then squeezes it. I look up at her and realize that in the space between memories and my imagination, I’d turned her surprise over the mention of Beth into upset with me. But it’s not actually there on her face.
She’s wearing a baseball-style T-shirt, much more casual than anything she’s worn on our dates over the last two months. Her hair is parted down the middle and pulled into a pony tail at the top of her neck. She doesn’t actually look that out of place in front of the china cabinet filled with big-eyed porcelain dolls.
And then I remember that she said she loves me.
My stomach clenches hard around the dinner I’ve managed to eat. I pretend I’m not panicking like mad and smile at Justin instead. “How’d the interview this morning go?”
“Fine.” He shrugs. “I start on Monday.”
“Justin!” Mom half comes out of her chair with happiness. “You didn’t tell us.”
“He told me,” Nanna says. She beams at Justin. “He killed it at the interview.”
“Wasn’t much of a challenge. North Traffic takes pretty much anyone who applies.” He directs his next words at Cai. “They used to make packaging for CDs. Switched over about a decade ago to these random cell phone accessories. One of our biggest industries in town.”
“Be good to get in with them,” Cai says.
“Yeah,” Justin agrees. “Unfortunately, means I can’t take you hunting on Monday.”
“Oh man,” I say as I put the pieces together. “That sucks. Can we go on Sunday?”
“Beth could take you,” Mom pipes up. She’s got her mouth shaped into a smile that couldn’t melt butter. Dad shoots her a what the hell look that mirrors how I feel.
“I’m sure we’ll be fine.” I had a great time with her on the ride this morning, but that had been Mom’s idea too. And it had also been Mom who invited Beth to my homecoming party.
She’d never been against me dating Beth, but she’d never been this keen on her before either.
Nanna’s weathered cheeks fold around a smile. “I should take you. Wouldn’t that be a gas?”
“Mom, be serious.” Mom doesn’t find Nanna Ethel nearly as funny as I usually do. “Beth’s got her hunting license. Goes all the time. I’m sure she’s got plenty of extra equipment.”
“They can still use my gear,” Justin pipes up. “And my four-wheeler. Tansy’s been hunting plenty of times. They’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure,” Mom agrees. She shrugs. That’s a dangerous shrug, one that usually accompanies telling Dad that sure, he can go play poker with the boys even though he left the garage a mess, that’s fine. “I was just trying to help.”
I narrow my eyes at her and decide not to kick her under the table. I have no idea what she’s up to, but I don’t like it. Nanna catches my gaze, but when I lift my brows in question, she only has a shrug in return.
“It might be a good idea,” Cai pipes up.
My jaw drops. “What?”
“I mean, I know you’ve been hunting plenty of times, but hasn’t it been a while?”
“Almost ten years,” I have to admit. “Since I last lived here.”
She puts a hand out, palm up. A few lines of ink escape the cuff of her T-shirt, curling around her wrist in a colorful streak. “So it might be safer. To have someone who’s really up-to-date.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Mom says with a smug nod. “I’m only looking out for you.”
I just bet she is. But I don’t see a way out of this corner. I look at Dad, who’s kind of confused, but Justin is oblivious as he shovels down the last of his pork.
“Anyone mind if I grab the last one?” He uses his fork to point at it.
“Go ahead, dear,” Mom says. “Should I call Beth for you tomorrow?”
“I can take care of it.”
“Of course you can, dear,” Mom says in a tone that echoes the way she told Justin that he could have more pork. Maybe it’s just her and the way she is, and I’m the one making something out of nothing. Justin hadn’t thought anything of the tone.
If I hadn’t gone away, if I hadn’t let Jody take apart the pieces of my life, maybe I wouldn’t feel like there’s anything weird going on. This would just be part of the fabric of our lives. Mom butting in wherever she liked in a really mom-like way.
I look down at my plate and push my food around a little more. Cai, Justin, and Dad start talking about the upcoming football season. Dad roots for the Packers since there’s no Idaho team. Justin naturally followed his lead to the Pack. They give Cai hell for her allegiance to the Raiders—even through their move to Las Vegas.
“I don’t care where they play.” She pokes the tabletop in emphasis. “They’ll always be the LA Raiders. You can’t change that.”
“Sure you can,” Justin says with a grin. He scrubs a hand over his jaw, where he’s scruffy. “It says ‘Las Vegas’ all over their merchandise now. On their website. I’d bet it’s on their checks, even.”
“You’ll never know, will you, Justin?” I tease. I pick up the platter that held the potatoes and stand up. “Are we all done? I’ll clean up.”
“Well. Yes, I guess.” Dad puts his napkin next to his plate and pushes away from the table. “I’ll help you.”
“Certainly not,” Cai says, grabbing the mac and cheese bowl. “I’ll do it.”
“You’re our guest,” Dad protests.
“I can do it all myself!” I snatch the bowl away from Cai and stomp toward the kitchen.
Mom always cleans as she cooks, so the gray Formica countertops are already bare. I drop the bowls I’m carrying on one and open the cabinet where the Tupperware used to be kept. Instead of a motley assortment of re-used margarine containers, I stare at a line of pint glasses.
“You okay?” Cai asks quietly from behind me.
I blink away the tears that are burning my eyes. “Yeah. Sure. I don’t even know how mom’s kitchen is set up, so I’m just peachy.”
She holds my shoulders. Her grip is warm and her thumbs rub under my short-sleeved T-shirt. My skin prickles with the good kind of goose bumps.
When she tells me what to do, the whole world goes away. I wish I knew how to take that feeling and bring it out of the bedroom. Even now, I can feel Jody standing between us. I can practically smell her expensive perfume even though I want desperately for her to go away.
“It’s not a big kitchen. We’ll find it.”
She’s right. The kitchen is small and the maple cabinets limited. I shrug away from her hold and start tossing them open one by one. Cai stares at me as I move around the square kitchen. I pretend I don’t notice, just like I’m pretending that I didn’t hear her earlier. I don’t find any plastic ware, but eventually I find a stack of glass storage bowls with snap-on lids. I grab a couple and start loading up leftovers.
Cai clears the table and brings things in from the dining room. She scrapes food into the disposal and quietly loads the dishwasher.
We’re done too soon. I use a dishrag and wipe down the counters just so I can put off the inevitable. Until I can’t anymore. I drape the rag over the edge of the sink, carefully lining up the corners. “Want to go for a walk?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Whether you plan on ever talking to me again.”
I make my gaze meet hers as if my insides aren’t shaking apart. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Where did I screw up?” She takes my hand, then leads me out of the kitchen and through the back door.
The air is crisp. We probably should have grabbed our jackets. Her arms find my shoulders and my waist and pull me near. I keep upright for a minute, then two, but nevertheless, she persists. With one last tremble, I let free the breath I’d been holding and rest my head against her shoulder.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper.
The cold night snatches my words and throws them to the mountains. Above our head, a quilt of stars stretches. Cai pets my head. I like the weight of her hand across the back of my skull. Everything is so quiet that I can hear the near-silent rub of my coarse strands against each other.
“I’ll be honest,” Cai finally answers. “I don’t know how to either.”