Chapter 26
The party ramps up before it winds down.
As expected, the self-serve bar cart situation gets a little out of hand.
There’s a raucous game of twenty questions, where every answer turns out to be something about Gramps—his name, the city he was born in, lasagna (which is apparently his favorite meal; not sure I’ll ever be brave enough to attempt making it for him).
Then there’s an impromptu round of karaoke, because Lenore just learned that you can pull up an instrumental version of any song from your phone.
This starts strong, with Lenore and Eddy performing a decent Frank Sinatra duet; slips into questionable territory with Ellie belting out an off-key Taylor Swift song; and ends on a major cringe when Dad decides, for reasons best known to himself, to sing “Baby Got Back.”
Around nine, after we’ve cut the cake and the patio is littered with blue-frosting-stained paper napkins, my mom holds up her phone and announces that Maeve has joined the party.
My sister’s grainy face shouts happy birthday from the iPhone screen.
She then holds up the camera to baby Adam, whom Gramps has no interest in trying to speak to over the din of the party.
This offends my mom, who then tries to get everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” again with Maeve on the phone, but only three people actually hear her, and then everything devolves into chaos.
Mom admits defeat and hangs up on her eldest daughter, Ellie and the rest of the cousins say goodbye, claiming that they have another party to go to, and Angela turns up the volume on the music and convinces Gramps to dance with her.
Soon Daniel and I are surrounded by elderly people wiggling their bodies to an MC Hammer song.
Wally has curled up underneath the dessert table.
We sit on a bench near the glowing, kidney-bean-shaped pool.
“You’re still here,” I say.
“Shouldn’t I be?” He spreads his arms across the back of the bench. I sit ramrod-straight.
“You tell me, is this the best offer you got for a Saturday night?”
He considers this for a moment. “Of course, I did have to disappoint an awful lot of folks tonight. What with all the other parties and engagements I was invited to.” He flashes a quick grin and then holds eye contact so long I wonder if I should blink or not.
“But yes, Mallory, this was the best offer.”
“Oh.” I’m so startled by this change in direction—by the stark, heartfelt sound of these words—that I have no idea what to say next.
Daniel seems to sense this and fills the silence with, “Your grandpa can dance.”
“You should see him do the mashed potato.”
I actually consider changing the song to “Mashed Potato Time,” but it might make Gramps think of Lottie. I don’t want to ruin this moment for him, when he’s glowing with sweat and joy and dancing with a beautiful woman.
“He looks happy,” Daniel says, reading my mind.
“So happy. My mom was right to plan this party for him.” Speaking of my mom, we both turn to look at her. She and my dad are loudly cajoling Trish and her husband to join them for a game of chicken in the pool.
“Nobody brought bathing suits,” Trish points out, sipping from a cup of white wine.
“Trish!” Mom’s voice is shrill, and then it changes to a loud stage whisper. “It’s called skinny-dipping.”
Dad laughs so hard at this that his laughs stop making any sound at all other than labored wheezing.
“Oh boy,” I mutter.
“If your parents get naked, I might have to leave. Just out of politeness, you know. Wouldn’t want them to be embarrassed, knowing I’d seen their—you know—the next time I see them. I mean, if there is a next time. Not to say that there would be, necessarily, but I—”
I give Daniel a long, straight-faced look, long enough to make him realize he’s been rambling. It’s cute. Kind of reminds me of me.
“Daniel.” I place a comforting hand on his knee. It’s warm, and I can feel the soft, curly hairs on his thigh. “I’m not going to make you sit here and watch my parents play naked chicken.”
I cross the yard and put an arm around my mom’s shoulders.
“Hey, Trish, what do you say we pour these guys into an Uber back to their hotel?”
“Abso—” Trish hiccups and waves her cup. “—lutely.”
Mom and Dad pay no attention, still giggling with their heads together like a couple of first-graders.
“And what about you? Did you drive here?”
Ron scoffs. “I’ve got her, Mallory. I know my wife and I know when I’m the designated driver for the evening.”
The four of them coordinate, drunkenly gathering their belongings—aside from my uncle Ron, who stands there, feet planted firmly, arms crossed, watching the scene as though curious to see if they can pull themselves together.
Meanwhile, a similar scene unfolds with Gramps, Angela, and the two senior-citizen friends who remain.
Gramps isn’t drunk—he stuck to his usual “cocktail” of seltzer and lime—but he’s loopy from the party atmosphere and from being up past his bedtime. I watch for a moment as he tries to convince everyone to dance to one more song, and then I turn sadly back to Daniel.
“I better get him home.”
Daniel stands and spreads his hands as if to say, You gotta do what you gotta do .
But then Angela calls to me, clutching Gramps’s elbow, her tiny purse slung over her shoulder.
“Mallory, please, don’t worry yourself. I can get the birthday boy home.”
“It’s okay, I mean, I have to bring all of Wally’s stuff, too, and—”
“Mallory.” Angela crooks her bony, manicured finger at me. Frowning, I walk over to her. She whispers in my ear—her breath smells like lipstick. “That young man has been patiently waiting for some time alone with you. I’m only trying to help you out.”
“Huh?” I whisper back.
“Don’t make me spell it out for you, child. That Daniel is a gem. Don’t break his heart, you hear?” She straightens up and raises her voice again. “Now, just show me what all I need to bring for Wally. And help me wrap up that cake to put in Leonard’s freezer. There’s a good gal.”
Daniel dutifully boxes up the leftover cake as I walk Wally and all his accoutrements out to Angela’s car. Before he gets in the passenger seat, Gramps grabs me and smacks a kiss on my forehead.
“Thank you for a wonderful birthday, my girl.”
“Glad you had fun, Gramps. See you back at home.”
I stand in the driveway, waving as they drive away for longer than is strictly normal.
Because, frankly, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do once I turn around and find myself alone with Daniel McKinnon.
My instinct is to assume that he’s about to leave, too, now that the party’s over.
But on some level, I know he’s not planning to leave quite yet.
I lower my arm and hug myself, gazing out at the dark cul-de-sac, palm trees stirring gently in neighbors’ yards. The air is so warm and fragrant, so different from the damp, chilly night air back home.
“I think they’re gone,” whispers a voice in my ear.
I startle and then laugh. “Yeah. They are.” Facing him does not help my dilemma.
What do I do with my arms? They’re itching to twine around his waist, because they’re arms and hence have no brains; that would obviously be an extremely weird thing for me to do right now.
To his credit, Daniel doesn’t seem fazed by the moment’s awkwardness.
He stands, an inch or two away from me, hands in the pockets of his shorts (real shorts tonight, not bike shorts), face turned toward the lone tree in my yard.
In the last week, the buds have bloomed into big, creamy white blossoms.
“Nice magnolia.”
“Is that what it is?”
“Oh yeah. You didn’t know?”
“I know nothing about plants. I was wondering what it was.”
“Southern magnolia,” he says. “Beautiful.”
“Thanks,” I say, as if I can take any credit. “So, um, I would invite you in, but as you know I have no furniture.”
“The backyard was pretty comfortable.”
“Yeah?” My heart flutters annoyingly. “May I offer you another drink? Perhaps some chips?”
“I would love another drink and perhaps some chips.”
I give his arm a playful nudge, and if that sounds like it was just an excuse to touch his rock-hard arm, that’s because it was.
We weave around to the back of the house in silence.
At the bar cart, he scans the wet cans of beer sitting in melting ice and the half-empty bottles of wine and then selects a can of seltzer.
I follow suit and also grab a bag of Lay’s, then lead the way to the side of the pool.
We kick off our shoes and sit on the edge with our feet in the warm water.
“Do you not drink?” I ask, hoping it’s not a rude question.
He crunches on a chip. “I do. Just not often.”
“Ah.” I nod. Usually when guys say something like this, it’s because they had a problem with alcohol, or their dad did, so I don’t ask any follow-up questions.
“Having two brothers and a lot of guy friends, I’ve seen too many guys turn into complete assholes when they drink. It’s like they can’t control themselves. I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be able to control myself. And, you know, not to be an asshole.”
I hold up my can of seltzer to clink against his. “Cheers to that.”
We swish our feet back and forth. Like magic, a pair of fireflies zips over the pool, zapping and blinking. The evening breeze makes a gentle rushing sound in Lottie’s flower bushes.
“This is nice,” Daniel says.
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Whoever gets to live here sure will be lucky.”
I don’t say anything to this.
“Tell me about your house,” I say after a minute.
“Hmm.” He leans back, planting his hands on the cement behind us, and doesn’t apologize when a couple of his fingers land on mine. I straighten up and put my hands in my lap, clutching my cold, sweating drink.
“It’s a condo,” he says, “on the first floor of a three-story building over on Pleasant.”
“On the beach?”