The next day. Happy Thanksgiving 2003!
“It’s just for one night,” said my father, drying dishes while I washed, my mother having been put to bed an hour ago. “This potential client was in a pretty bad accident—”
“Who has a meeting the day after Thanksgiving?” I asked. “And who stays overnight with that client?”
“I told you,” he said, opening a cabinet and putting away a serving tray. “The family lives in Kankakee, and it’s a long drive—”
“Bullshit.”
He turned to me. “What did you say to me, young man?”
“I said bullshit. You’re still seeing her, aren’t you? You promised me you wouldn’t, but—you are, aren’t you? You’re still with... Lauren.” Her name felt like poison on my tongue.
“Simon—”
“Yes or no, Dad?”
“Keep your—” He looked up at the ceiling. “Keep your voice down.”
“I found the champagne bottle and the two glasses on the back patio,”I said, spitting out the words in a hushed whisper. “I guess you forgot to toss the evidence.”
He seized up, remembering, scolding himself. It wasn’t hard to figure. The recycling bin’s in the alley. On a cold night, sometimes we just put recycling out on the back porch and walk it to the alley the next morning. Or we forget, like apparently my father had done.
“So what, Dad—she’s coming to ourhouse? She’s sneaking in here after Mom’s asleep and I’m downtown late at school? What else are you and Lauren doing in this house, under Mom’s bedroom, for Christ’s sake, while she’s—”
“Listen to me, son—”
“Yes or no?” My voice rising. I caught myself, even as my father shushed me with a hand motion. I didn’t want Mom to hear. I couldn’t let Mom hear.
—
Three minutes to seven. Three minutes until lights-out in Grace Village.
Christian slows as he approaches Lauren’s house in his Grim Reaper costume. A rope is tied around his waist several times. A rope? That doesn’t come with the costume. Why a rope?
His costume fits him better than mine fits me. Mine, currently resting inside the pillowcase I’m carrying, nearly touches the ground when I wear it. But Christian is taller. The bottom of his robe only reaches the top of his boots. His Paul Roy Peak Explorer boots.
You and Vicky came up with a nice plan to pin this on me, Christian. But here’s the problem. As a wise man once said, If you’re gonna set someone up, it better be a surprise.
Christian turns up the walkway and disappears into the canopied front porch, a little brick cocoon that will blanket him in privacy when he rings the doorbell, and Lauren answers.
Don’t be long now, Christian.
—
The Thanksgiving dishes washed and dried, my father sat in our family room, elbows on his knees, staring at a glass of bourbon. Easier than making eye contact with me, standing by the fireplace.
“There are things that... a young man like you might not be able to appreciate,” he said. “Your mother and I, our relationship—I still love your mother and I always will, Simon. I always will—”
“But Lauren fucks you.”
“Hey, listen.”
I raised my eyebrows. I’d never spoken to my father that way in my life, but he had surrendered the high ground. “Okay, I’m listening. But that’s what this is, right? Mom’s in a wheelchair, and that doesn’t work for you, does it? You’ve got all this money now, you’ve dropped twenty pounds, you even have a new hairstyle. The New Slimmed-Down, Swingin’ Single Ted Dobias. And Mom doesn’t really fit into your plans anymore. You want some fun. And Lauren’sfun, all right.”
He raised a hand to his face. “You’ve always known how to paint me in the worst light.”
“Oh, it’s not that hard, Dad. Believe me.” I stood up. “This has to end right now. You and Lauren end right now.”