Chapter 34
The kitchen was very empty without Tom.
Cherry stayed up late the night before Thanksgiving, making all their usual recipes by herself.
This was her first Thanksgiving without him.
Even last year, when the connection between them was stretched and strange and ready to snap, Tom had flown home for Thanksgiving
and then again for Christmas.
Tom had always spent holidays with Cherry’s family. His family didn’t get into them.
Cherry’s family did holidays to the max. They took them way too seriously—they went overboard. And Cherry, famously among
them, went the most overboard. With Tom’s help, she went way, way too far.
Their first Thanksgiving together, Tom had helped Cherry make cheese straws, Sicilian meat pies, squash casserole, and cupcakes
that looked like turkeys.
They both liked to cook, and they didn’t have kids, and—that first year, especially—they were high on what they could accomplish
together, two artists with lots of free time and a limited budget.
Their whole life was a project back then. They’d filled Cherry’s apartment with secondhand furniture. Tom had built bookshelves
for her and a TV stand. They cooked dinner together most nights and brought the leftovers to work for lunch the next day.
Everything they touched was beautiful. They were living charmed nights and Chelsea mornings.
Their holiday cooking had only gotten more elaborate over the years. Her whole family teased them about it—but also expected it. There were several dishes that Cherry and Tom brought every year . . .
It all took twice as long without Tom’s help. Cherry didn’t have enough hands, and she was weighed down by déjà vu. The first
batch of cheese straws was brittle and too salty.
Russ had been frank with Cherry about Thanksgiving: He wasn’t ready for her to meet Liam. He wouldn’t be ready for her to
meet Liam “until we’re past all the chicken exits.”
So Russ was going to have Thanksgiving lunch with his parents and his siblings—“Who you can meet anytime; tomorrow if you want”—and Liam, and then he was going to come over to Honny’s house later that day to meet Cherry’s entire nosy family.
On Thursday afternoon, Cherry loaded the back of her Subaru Forester with pans and platters. She put the broken-glass Jell-O
ring on the passenger seat, where she could hold on to it. This was a Tom special, and Cherry didn’t want to give anyone in
her family a chance to miss it. It had taken hours to make all the different colors of gelatin for the “shards” and then to suspend them in the creamy white base. It had come
out perfect.
Honny’s split-level house in the suburbs was only a little bigger than Cherry’s. Hope’s house was bigger. Honny got to host
Thanksgiving because she was the bossiest—and because she owned the most card tables and folding chairs. When Cherry walked
into the house, everyone in the living room—her sisters’ husbands and kids—called out her name.
“Is that Cherry?” Joy rushed into the living room from the kitchen. Her face fell. “Where is he?”
“He’s coming later,” Cherry said. “Take this plate.”
“Aunt Cherry”—one of her nieces took the plate of cookies—“it’s okay if you didn’t bring the Jell-O with the beautiful jewels
in it. We understand.”
“Mallory, honey, I brought it. It’s out in the car.”
Mallory was eleven. She was Faith’s oldest and sweetest kid. “You did? Did you also bring the pastieri?”
“They’re in the car, too. Put your shoes on and help me.”
Joy had her hands on her hips. Of all Cherry’s sisters, Joy looked the most like their dad. Olive skin. Dimples. Dramatic
eyebrows. “How’d you manage all that? Were you up all night?”
“It’s just Jell-O.” Cherry had only slept from four a.m. to eight. She was wearing concealer under her eyes, and fake eyelashes.
“Where is he?” Honny walked out of the kitchen, already making a suspicious face.
“Aw.” Faith—the shortest and roundest of them—was right behind her. “Did he back out?”
“He’s coming later,” Cherry said.
Her mom walked out of the kitchen, looking elated and holding a big spoon. “Tom’s coming?”
“No,” Joy said. “Her new boyfriend.”
Cherry’s mom was crestfallen. “Oh.”
“Look—” Honny stepped closer to Cherry. “Be careful how you talk about this guy in front of the kids. I don’t want them to
know you’re having an extramarital affair.”
“I’m not.”
Honny waved her off. “Don’t start an argument you can’t win. Just call him your friend, okay?”
“Mom, I can’t mash the potatoes and baste the turkey.” Hope was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. It was still jarring to see her.
Hope was half her old size. Her face was different, her posture was different. She was wearing a beautiful tailored shirt tucked into waisted
pants. She looked great—she looked thin. She looked ten years older.
She didn’t really look like Hope at all.
“Oh, hey, Cherry,” she said. “I thought you were bringing your boyfriend?”
Honny frowned. “They’re just friends.”
“He’s coming later,” Cherry said. She looked at her niece. “You ready to help?”
It took the two of them two more trips to empty Cherry’s hatchback.
“Aunt Cherry,” Mallory said, “I know you might need some help setting the table . . .” Cherry and Tom usually decorated the
tables and arranged everything just so. Tom always took extra care with the kids’ table. “I can help you.”
Mallory had clearly been briefed on the Tom situation. They’d probably all been briefed. Cherry had the only broken marriage
in the family; she was a parable now. “I’d love your help,” she said.
There were too many people in their family to sit together at one table for holiday dinners. The nieces and nephews—some of
whom were six feet tall now—sat at folding tables in the living room. Honny used card tables to extend her dining room table,
and the adults crammed in there, elbow to elbow.
It was Cherry and Tom’s job to make everything look festive. They’d bring over a big box of tablecloths and cloth napkins
and vintage napkin rings. Tom would cover the kids’ table with kraft paper and draw an entire holiday scene, using the kids
themselves as characters.
They loved it.
Honny always tried to save Tom’s holiday drawings, even though they’d be torn and covered in gravy by the end of the meal . . .
Cherry was tired.
She was having a hard time staying in the present.
Fortunately there was twice as much work as usual to keep her busy. And fortunately there were too many people buzzing around
for anyone to home in too closely on Cherry.
Her family was loud—well, her sisters were loud. And their kids were loud. Their husbands tended to be mild-mannered, quiet
guys who didn’t get too fussed about anything. They sat in the living room, not saying much to each other. Or they ran out
to the car (or down to the basement, or out to the garage) to fetch things.
It had been a joke between her and Tom—that Cherry’s sisters had a type. Cherry’s sisters were a type. They were variations on a theme.
Cherry was the quietest, but she wasn’t quiet. She was the most ambitious, but they were all ambitious in their own ways.
They all looked enough alike that Cherry’s teachers would look at her on the first day of class and say, “Another Bonacci.”
Growing up, they’d looked like matryoshka dolls. One round girl after another, with pretty long hair and pretty pink cheeks.
Everything about them overlapped.
The table was set. Cherry had remembered the box of Thanksgiving decorations. She was just fiddling with an antique cornucopia.
(Tom loved a cornucopia . . .)
Faith brought a pitcher of water out to the table. “Should we wait for your friend to start dinner?”
“No,” Cherry said. “I don’t know when he’ll get here. And he’s having a late lunch.”
“He’s not going to eat?” Joy was bringing out the gravy boat. She looked shattered. “I made an extra pumpkin pie!”
Cherry took the gravy boat. “You made an extra pie for one person?”
“I didn’t want to not have enough.”
Honny set some rolls on the table. “It’s the same number of people, Joy. Minus Tom, plus this guy. No net gain.”
“Tom doesn’t like my pie.”
“He just doesn’t like pumpkin,” Cherry said. “It’s not personal.”
“Who doesn’t like pumpkin?” Honny made a face. “Good riddance.”
“Don’t talk about Tom like that,” Faith said.
They started dinner without Russ—and without Tom—though everyone made sure there was an empty seat next to Cherry.
The food was all good, and there was way too much of it. Every holiday meal with Cherry’s family was one long lament about
how sad it was that you could only really have one bite of everything before you got too full.
Hope sat on the other side of the empty seat, and Cherry couldn’t stop herself from noticing what Hope put on her plate and how little of it she ate.
Cherry should mind her own business . . . (Her sisters would break down every bite Hope took on the group chat anyway.) But
the point of holidays—the point of family—was to mind everyone’s business.
The conversation around the table got louder as the meal went on. Everyone talked over each other. They raced each other to
punchlines. They laughed at the top of their voices.
By dessert, Cherry was laughing so much, she thought she might be crying off one of her eyelashes.
She had a mouth full of Joy’s pumpkin pie when she saw Russ standing at the end of the table.
His mouth was hanging open. He looked a little dazzled. Tharn.
Well . . . here it was, the final reveal.
It was one thing to see Cherry on her own . . . a singular fat lady.
It was another to see her at a table full of fat people. In a house full of fat people. All of them eating pie and acting
jolly.
Cherry’s mom was there to show Russ what Cherry would look like in thirty years. And her sisters were there to show him what
she’d look like after she had kids.
Cherry wasn’t just fat; she was from the land of fat, in the kingdom of fat. Her ancestors had been fat even before video games and high-fructose corn syrup and sedentary lifestyles. There was
a black-and-white photo of Cherry’s grandmother and her sisters at a holiday party in the ’50s—they were all hips and heavy
bosoms. Cherry could fit in their dresses.
“You must be Cherry’s friend,” Honny said.
Russ snapped out of it. He smiled. “I am.”
Cherry was already up, squeezing past one of her brothers-in-law. “This is Russ. Russ, this is . . . Well, they can introduce
themselves. Are you hungry?”
“Absolutely,” Russ said, like someone whose job it was to win hearts and minds.
Cherry’s mom was up, too. “I’ll make you a plate, honey. You sit down.”
“This is my mom,” Cherry said. “Nancy.”
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Russ said, holding out his hand.
Cherry took his coat. She was so nervous, her heart was in her mouth. “Do you want a Coke?” she asked. “There’s Coke. And
sparkling cider. Water.”
“A Coke’s fine.”
“I’ll get it,” Faith said. “You sit down.”
They sat down. Everyone at the table looked a little dazzled now. Russ was dazzling. He was different. He was a little too
dressed up—he always was. His hair looked like it took some effort. He was one of the only men she knew who was always clean-shaven.
He was thin. “Handsome” still wasn’t the right word for him . . . But he looked like the kind of guy movie stars dated when
they were experimenting with normies.
“Did you find the house okay?” Cherry asked him.
“I did. I brought a pie, but a small child took it from me.”
“Scallywags,” she said. “It’s a real problem in this neighborhood.”
“I’m Hope.” Hope was smiling at him. “I’m the oldest. And this is my husband, Dan.” Hope introduced the whole table.
“Cherry’s the middle child,” Faith said.
“That’s why she’s so agreeable and retiring,” Honny said.
“Here you go, sweetie.” Cherry’s mom was back with a heaping plate of food.
“Oh . . .” Russ said, looking slightly alarmed. “Thank you.”
“I gave you a little of everything.”
“Just a little,” Cherry said.
Russ turned to Cherry. “Did you make any of this?”
“She made the best things,” Hope said.
He smiled at Cherry. “Really?”
“Hasn’t Cherry cooked for you?” Faith asked.
“Are you sure she even likes you?” Joy asked.
“I thought I was,” Russ said.
“Cherry always makes the Sicilian meat pies and the squash casserole,” Faith’s husband said. Kevin was a straight-talker who got tired of all the high jinks. “And the tiramisu.”
“I love tiramisu,” Russ said.
He very gamely tried to get through his plate while Cherry’s sisters took turns asking him questions and making fun of him.
(They eventually went back to making fun of each other.) When it was time to play cards, he helped clear the table.