When my parents and I got to Oliver’s house that night, though, his mood was different, like someone had dimmed a switch. “Hey,” he said, opening the door. He was wearing a collared shirt like the one he had worn on the TV interview, but a different color this time.
“Hi, Oliver!” My mom beamed. “Here’s the salad, but it needs to be chilled because otherwise the lettuce will wilt and . . .” She trailed off as Maureen came around the corner. Oliver glanced down and took the bowl from my mom without saying a word, ducking back toward the kitchen as Maureen bustled toward us. Her face was tight, her mouth pursed, and she gave us a smile that wasn’t exactly convincing.
“Hi,” she said. “C’mon, come on in. Sorry, we were just . . . getting ready. You are so sweet to bring the salad! Oliver, can you—?”
“Got it!” he yelled back, and I glanced up at my dad. I could tell from the look on his face that he felt the same way I did: this is going to be a long, long night.
Not quite sure what to do with myself, I followed Oliver into the kitchen while Rick came in with a beer for my dad and our moms disappeared around the corner. “Hey,” I said to his back, since he was making room in the refrigerator for my mom’s (unnecessarily enormous) salad bowl. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” he said, but his face was as smooth as Maureen’s had been pinched. He wasn’t quite looking at me, either, his eyes going over my head or past my arm.
“Hey,” I said again, this time softer, and I reached out to grab his hand. “What’s wrong? You’re being weird.”
“You are,” he said, trying to duck away from the question, but just as I was about to press the subject, the twins came bounding into the room, a hyper duo of wet hair and The Little Mermaid pajamas.
“Emmy! Emmy!” they cried, and I dropped Oliver’s hand just as he turned away. “Emmy! We got a new Barbie!”
“She has brown hair like us!”
“Emmy Emmy Emmy!” Nora pulled at my shirt. “Play Barbies with us, ’kay? You can have the new one.”
“I can’t, twinsies,” I said. “I have to eat dinner and hang out with Oliver. I’m off the clock tonight.”
“You not s’posed to call us ‘twins’ anymore,” Molly informed me, even as she wrapped her skinny arms around my waist and tilted her head back to look up at me. “We’re not twins, Mommy said. We’re invididuals.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Oliver hide a smile, which made me feel a little better. “Oh, really?” I said. “Invididuals, huh? You sure about that?”
“Mommy said,” Nora repeated.
“Nora, Molly.” Maureen came bustling into the kitchen. “Come on now, it’s bedtime.”
A chorus of protests rose up, but Maureen just flapped her hands at them, like they were baby birds in a nest. “No, no, you know the rules.”
“But our friend is visiting!” Nora cried, pointing at me.
“Don’t point,” Maureen said. “It’s rude. And you can see Emmy tomorrow.”
I nodded at them. “Totally. Besides, you two see me all the time. I’m boring.”
Molly and Nora both glared at me as they started to slink away, a betrayer to their cause. “But Oliver has to read the story!” Molly suddenly said, turning around and pointing at him.
“Don’t point!” Maureen cried. “Does anybody listen to anything I say anymore?”
“Kind of hard not to,” Oliver muttered, but Maureen was too far away to hear him.
“Oliver! You do the story tonight!” The twins (excuse me, the “invididuals”) had let go of me and were now hanging on to him, and over their heads, Maureen gave him a pleading, tired look.
“You do the voices!” Nora said to him, and Oliver gave the same look right back to his mother. It startled me a little to see how similar their reactions could be. I don’t think either one of them realized it, though.
“Oliver, do you mind?” Maureen murmured. “Please?”
Oliver looked at me. “Mom, what’s Emmy going to do while I’m up there?” he asked, even as Nora started to climb him like a tree.
“Set the table,” Maureen replied. “See? A solution for everything.”
Oliver sighed and rolled his eyes, then shot me an apologetic look. “Okay, monsters,” he said, and they cheered. “First one upstairs gets to pick the book.” The girls took off, their feet making thunder-like noises on the stairs as they raced to their room.
“You do the voices?” I asked him, not even bothering to hide my smile. “Are you just a big mush?”
Oliver blushed. “This isn’t the sort of detail that I wanted to be made public,” he said.
“I might die of adorableness,” I said. Maureen had followed the girls upstairs, yelling about brushing teeth and washing hands, and now it was just Oliver and me in the kitchen. I tangled my fingers together with his, pulling him a little closer. “Do a voice for me,” I said. “Go on.”
“No way in hell.” He laughed and started to pull away when I leaned in. “Forget it. Nope.”
“Come on!” I teased. “Is it cute? I bet it’s really cute. Do you do Olivia’s voice? Angelina Ballerina’s? Oh my God, you do Angelina?” I said when he blushed. “This is too cute! I’m dying. No, wait. I have to text Caro and then I’ll die.”
“Do not text Caro!” he said, diving for my hand as I reached for my phone. “Come on, Em. I need some dignity. Please.”
“Oli-ver!” one of the twins yelled from upstairs. “We’re waiting!”
“My audience is really demanding,” he said, pulling away from me even as I continued to giggle. “You’re not really going to text Caro, are you? Tell me you’re not.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I promise. Your Angelina Ballerina secrets are safe with me.”
He hesitated just before leaving the kitchen, then ran back to me and kissed me fast. “Hi,” he whispered. “Didn’t have a chance to do that yet.” Then he disappeared, yelling, “I hope you invididuals are happy now!” as he took the stairs two at a time. I pressed my hand to my mouth, waiting for a moment in the now-quiet kitchen, and then went to find some place mats.