73

The Howes—the Way-Howes, I wanted to call them—were home when we got back, unpacking suitcases and boxes from a spotless blue BMW X3. After I helped Mrs. B. inside, I ran next door and called out “Hi” to Abigail.

“Can I help?” I asked as her mom struggled with a box marked Storage.

“Oh, you’re an angel,” she said as I took the box, which weighed a ton.

“Mom, this is Briggs,” Abigail said, walking past me with a duffel bag. “He’s a catch.”

“Seriously?” I said as Abigail laughed a little, and her mom raised one eyebrow into a sharp point over her left eye, directing a seriously penetrating stare at her daughter.

“Briggs, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Elizabeth Howe. Follow me. I’ll show you where that goes.”

It went in the basement, which was bigger than our old shoebox. Probably cost more too, with that home theater system and built-in bar.

Elizabeth Howe talked the whole way to the basement and the whole way back. They had been in Chicago for a few days, helping her son pack. He just graduated from Northwestern. He was going to U of M law school in the fall.

“I’m going—” I began.

“And, of course,” Mrs. Howe said, “he has an internship this summer and no time to pack, so we’re all pitching in, and aren’t you a dear to help. Vesna said she was having someone new, and I can tell you’re just perfect for her. I don’t suppose you’d mind grabbing that one too.” She pointed to another box. “You can put it right next to the other one.”

I carried four boxes and two suitcases to the basement and refused the twenty Mrs. Howe tried to give me. She introduced me to Abigail’s dad, Matt, who looked like he still probably got carded at bars.

Abigail called to me from the kitchen. A huge space with white cabinets, gray walls, and dark wood floors. She stood at the island eating almond butter—Wheatly Farms Organic Almond Butter, it said on the label—out of the jar with a spoon.

“This house is incredible,” I said.

“Thanks,” Abigail said. “Dad designed it.”

“He’s an architect?”

“He’s a lawyer who took a bunch of drafting classes in undergrad. Mom’s a lawyer too.”

I nodded, slowly, like Oh, yeah, I get it, I totally get it, as I surveyed the kitchen a second time.

“Wuh?” Abigail asked with a huge glob of almond butter in her mouth. She pressed her fingers to her lips and hurried to finish the bite when she realized that sounded kind of funny.

“What was that look for?” she asked.

“What look?”

“That look just now? When I said my parents are lawyers.”

“Nothing. It just—” I shrugged.

“Let’s hear it.”

“It just . . . figures.”

“It figures?”

“Come on,” I said. “Lawyers are always rich.”

“A, stereotype much? And B, my mom was a legal aid attorney. They’re not exactly in it for the big bucks.”

“Was?”

“She’s on a leave of absence right now. We’ll all be happy when she goes back.” She tipped the jar of almond butter toward me and asked, “Want some?”

“Seriously?” I asked, curling my lip a little.

“No, this is my jar,” she said, turning it toward me so that I could see her name on a piece of masking tape across the front. She pulled a second jar from the cupboard behind her. “Everyone else uses this one.”

“You have your own jar of almond butter?”

“Peanut butter and cashew butter too,” she said, and licked the spoon, which was kind of sexy and kind of gross too.

“No, thanks,” I said. “But, hey, thanks for the blanket the other night. I’m assuming it was you.”

“I’d have stayed out there, but you were snoring.”

“Oh, man,” I laughed. “Sorry about that.”

“No, it’s okay. You can’t always control what your body does, right?”

“Right,” I said, trying not to laugh at my popcorn-popper fart from Dorothy D. Webb’s funeral.

She ate another huge bite of almond butter. Took her a while to finish it. I just stared until she asked, again, “What?”

“You really like almond butter,” I said.

“She likes almond butter on these,” her mom said, dropping a bag of Oreo cookies on the counter. “You left them in the car.”

“Thank you,” Abigail said, and promptly smeared almond butter on a cookie.

“Want one?” she asked.

“Give it a try,” her dad said, slapping me on the back as he walked in. “Some of her concoctions aren’t half-bad.”

He swiped the cookie from her. She protested with a playful “Hey,” but it was too late, and he popped the whole thing into his mouth.

“Those have my germs on them, you know,” she said, and her dad grabbed his throat with both hands and pretended to choke.

“I’m not calling 911 for you,” Abigail said as she prepared another cookie.

“Your mother will save me with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” her dad said with his mouth full.

“Not until you brush your teeth,” Mrs. Howe said as her husband flashed her a cookie-crumb smile. Abigail did the same before quickly covering her mouth with both hands and laughing into them.

Mrs. Howe arched that eyebrow at both of them—she could probably stop traffic with that thing—before snagging a cookie, taking a bite, and joining the slightly gross fun. Black spotted teeth all around.

I took a cookie, said good-bye, and thought, on my way back to Mrs. B.’s, everything’s better with Oreos.