Chapter 8 Gobble, Baby
8
Gobble, Baby
I wake up Saturday morning to an iCal alert that makes my heart lurch.
Message from the Future: 75 days to Chile!!
“I got you an Americano,” I tell Adam when I arrive at Sam’s, dropping the drink carrier on the soapstone kitchen island. It’s a lame peace offering, but if we’re stuck together, I don’t want to bicker. We’re packing up this apartment and then parting ways forever. We don’t need to be friends, but we do need to get through this. “I was going to call it a ‘guilt coffee’ since I’m dipping out early today, but since I’m going to a children’s concert at my friend’s elementary school after this, I’m feeling more dread than actual remorse.”
Adam accepts the red Starbucks cup with an approving nod. “How did you know I like Americanos?”
I shrug off my coat and drape it on the rack. “You have big Americano energy. I can tell everyone’s coffee order. It’s my useless superpower.”
He smells the coffee cautiously. “You know, Spyhouse is down the street if you’re looking for an independent coffee shop,” he says, as if I don’t live here.
“Spyhouse doesn’t have my favorite winter beverage.” I take a swig and shimmy my shoulders with my swallow, feeling it tingle in my throat. “Mmm, peppermint mocha.”
“Thanks for this. You didn’t have to go out of your way.” He lifts his red cup, his face contrite.
I have no interest in rehashing how we left things last time—or pinning down my ex’s exact level of apathy toward me for the second week in a row—so I shake my head and let him off the hook. “Wasn’t out of my way.”
He nods, shoulders relaxing, and returns to the corner of the kitchen. Adam unscrews a cabinet door with a tight expression of concentration.
“Did his family ask you to do that?” I ask. Removing cabinet doors doesn’t fit within our limited job description.
“They’re all beat up, and this stain is peeling. It’s easier if I just refinish them.” He seems to think this requires no further explanation. He’s not telling me something, but I don’t care enough to challenge him.
I open Spotify. Music fills the apartment, giving me the energy I need for another day trapped in Adam’s company.
“Why are you playing Christmas music?” His voice wobbles between confusion and distress.
My stomach jerks with the vague feeling I might be in trouble. “Starbucks had Christmas cups.”
“Because Starbucks is evil.”
“Starbucks is a barometer of the people, and the people want Christmas. Wait, do you not celebrate Christmas? I shouldn’t have assumed.”
He shakes his head, rolling up his sleeves to expose the same irritatingly impressive forearms I spotted last week. Part of me was hoping they’d deflated in our time apart like a leaky tire. He leans against the doorless top cabinet. The pose only emphasizes his height. The apartment shrinks when he stands like that. “I celebrate Christmas on Christmas. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet. Let Thanksgiving have its moment.”
“You’re not one of those anti-Christmas psychopaths, are you?”
“Depends. Are you one of those ‘War on Christmas’ fearmongers?”
I shrug. “I love Christmas. And I don’t see why I have to justify it to anyone. If you’d prefer Classic Rock Christmas or Hip-Hop Christmas or Hipster Christmas, Spotify can arrange that.”
“What’s Hipster Christmas?”
“It’s a lot of Zooey Deschanel and that one song by the Pogues over and over again.”
He waits a full minute to respond, but at the sound of his resigned breath passing through his nose, I know I’ve won. “Classic Christmas is good.”
For the rest of the morning, I sit on the floor, emptying the contents of Sam’s entertainment cabinet, soundtracked by Adam’s drill and Classic Christmas. Despite his stoic fa?ade, Adam’s head is bobbing along about one minute into “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” We’re all helpless against the power of a Bruce Springsteen Christmas cover.
Adam gives me little more than the occasional grunt as I narrate my every movement before I eventually get lost in the rhythm of the task, sorting video games, ten-year-old Blu-rays, and several generations of gaming consoles into boxes of “Keep,” “Sell,” or “Trash,” but I never relax. After my morning message from beyond, I jump whenever my phone beeps with a push notification. I dismiss each one, attempting to calm my pulse.
“Why are you acting weird?” he asks the back of my head from his seat on the kitchen countertop.
“What do you mean by ‘weird’?” I’ve been having a one-sided conversation with him on and off for over an hour, and earlier I sang the back cover copy of Olympus Has Fallen to the tune of “Good King Wenceslas” out of sheer boredom, so when it comes to me and “weird,” he’ll have to be more specific.
“You were doing your talking thing—”
“My ‘talking thing’?” I spin around on the wood floor. “You mean my pointless attempts at conversing with you?”
“Then your phone buzzes, and you stop mid-word and do this shaky-twitchy thing. It’s alarming.”
“Stop watching me, then.”
“What am I supposed to look at?”
I gesture out at the downtown skyline real estate porn outside the wall of windows.
“What’s on your phone? It has to be something, or you wouldn’t jump five inches in the air every time it makes a noise.”
My phone chirps. I try, and fail, to keep still.
“Is someone bothering you?”
“It’s nothing,” I answer. He’s silent again, but his stare has a formidable, claustrophobic effect that would be quite useful in a government interrogation. “Fine. It’s…uh, did Sam use to leave reminders in your iCal when you left your phone unlocked?”
He freezes at the question. “You mean his ‘Messages from the Future’?” Adam asks, his voice all faux nonchalance.
“Yeah, exactly. I got one this morning.”
He tilts his head back against the cabinet. “He’s been doing it for years.” His face transforms as his mouth curves into a small but brilliant smile. “He messed with the settings in my phone, so even when I had it on silent, Doc from Back to the Future would yell, ‘Great Scott!’ It always seemed to go off in the middle of work or class or something.” He lets out a light exhalation of air resembling a laugh. “I hated it.”
But he doesn’t sound like he hates it anymore.
“Yeah.” I laugh too, because it’s nice to laugh with someone who knows. “Mine are always stuff I should be doing. That’s what I didn’t like. It pointed out my shortcomings. It still does.”
“But he was our friend, not our accountabili-buddy. Sam never understood caution or responsibilities. It was all so simple to him. You want it? Take it. Maybe it was the trust fund.”
I shake my head in bewilderment. “Sam had a trust fund?”
“Of course. How do you think he paid for all of those trips?”
“But he didn’t care about money.”
“Only rich people don’t care about money.”
“And this condo?”
Adam rubs the back of his neck and shakes his head. “It’s technically his parents’. Sorry. I shouldn’t talk about him like this.”
“Like he was an actual person?” My lips curve into a half smile that’s meant to make him feel less twitchy about tattling on Sam to his Current Girlfriend. “Whatever. Trust fund or not, he was right. There are so many things I should be doing that I’m not.”
“I was always more cautious than he liked.”
Adam looks at me, his hands gripping the sides of the cabinet like he wants to say more but won’t. I pay attention, knowing I’m catching sight of a small, private part of him. I’m not sure how long I’ve been staring at the tiny changes in his expression when I’m interrupted by my phone’s buzz.
“See! That’s what it was.” He gleefully points out whatever strange jolt shimmied up my vertebrae.
I’m just grateful he thinks it’s my phone’s fault.
1:23 PM
Mara:
Sorry. Can’t make it. The Guy’s thirteen-year-old has been lightly bullying MasterChef Junior contestants on TikTok, and it’s becoming a whole thing. Can you find another ride?
“Looks like I need an Uber,” I tell Adam, sending a thumbs-up and closing the group chat. “But at least I’m mostly done with the living room.”
Adam starts taking apart his drill. “What do you need an Uber for?”
“My friend’s holiday concert. Well, her kids’ concert. She’s their teacher.” I pat my pockets before finding my phone still in my hand. “My other friend—my ride—canceled. Why is there surge pricing in the middle of the day?”
“I can drive you.” He hops off the counter and grabs his keys from the kitchen island.
“Are you sure? It’s thirty minutes away.”
“I’ve got nothing better to do.”
I know this to be false, but selfishly, I’m too late and too cheap to question his generosity. “You’re sure?”
“I’m happy to do it, Alison,” he answers, without a hint of insincerity. I stand in front of the door, dumbstruck, until he nudges me out of the way of his big leather boots. He puts on his coat—denim-side out—ending any further debate.
—
When Adam turns the ignition, eighties synthwave blasts from the speakers. It sounds like how robots might score a low-budget horror movie.
“I can’t with this,” I insist, silencing his stereo with the punch of a button.
He starts the noise up again with his forefinger. “At least it’s a seasonally appropriate playlist.”
“It’s terrifying. It’s torture. You win. I will sit in complete silence with you if we can turn this off.”
He doesn’t look at me, but I see his eyes crinkle at the corners. He turns off the stereo, and we ride together wordlessly the rest of the way. Once I settle into the quiet, I don’t find myself needing to fill it. I don’t need to make Adam feel comfortable, since he seems far more at ease when I’m not doing my patented people-pleaser routine.
He turns into the parking lot, and I half expect to have to tuck and roll treacherously from the slow-moving vehicle. Instead, he pulls into a parking space.
“Thanks for the ride. Very quiet driver. Five stars,” I say with a tight nod, but when I climb out of the car, Adam exits too. “Are you coming in?”
“I’m not actually an Uber driver, Alison.” He says it all grumbly, like a sleepy bear.
“It’s an elementary school holiday concert. It’s guaranteed to be terrible.” I feel guilty throwing Chelsea’s students under the bus, but I have to set appropriate expectations.
“I have nothing better to do.” He repeats his argument from the apartment but with a groan for good measure.
“Fine. Hurry up. We’re late.”
Hand-drawn decorations for every holiday from November to New Year’s Day—even Veterans Day—cover the bustling auditorium lobby. A sweet-faced child hands me two programs, and we walk through heavy double doors decked with holly.
“Isn’t it a bit early for a holiday concert?” he asks as we shuffle into a pair of aisle seats.
“This is a science and math magnet school. The primary school has a real holiday concert before the break.”
He accepts the program I pass to him, opening it with a frown. “So this is the first pancake for the concert season?”
“Yes, but with far more enthusiasm and a greater emphasis on animals and conservation.”
Adam surveys the auditorium like he’s scanning for threats. Then he grabs my arm, his voice low and subdued. “Why are children in face paint sitting in the audience? Oh god, they’re going to start in the audience, aren’t they?”
“Probably,” I whisper.
“I hate when they start in the audience. It’s like being trapped in a flash mob. The only good thing about a flash mob is that I can leave the mall food court. They can’t force me to sit in front of Panda Express while Bruno Mars happens to me.”
I flip through the program. “I don’t see any Bruno Mars on the schedule, so I think you’re good. But there’s a turkey number set to ‘Wobble.’ Want to guess what it’s called?” I turn to Adam, who’s performing an ocular pat-down of the crowd.
“Okay, that kid has glitter. Do you have a hood?” Adam leans in to examine my collar, but I swat him away.
“People are looking at us!”
“Suit yourself. You’re on the aisle. You’ll be finding glitter in your hair for days.”
“Let the kids enjoy their holiday show. You’re being such a grinch.”
“I might have a hat in my truck that you can use for cover.”
“Settle down.” I place my hand on his bouncing knee until it stills. But then I just hold it there for longer than socially appropriate. When I yank it away, we both become very interested in the particulars of the oil-change coupon on the back of the concert program—$25 off the synthetic blend!—my stomach somersaulting from mortification. I finally look up when a young girl steps into the spotlight.
Jaunty piano music plays, and the house lights slowly fade up as the girl, in a tiger leotard, sings the first verse of Katy Perry’s “Roar.” The orange-face-painted children in the audience seats gradually join in, and more voices fill the auditorium as the song builds toward the refrain.
All at once, the kids step over audience members in a chaotic attempt to make it to the aisle for a choreographed dance routine. Since they clearly rehearsed the number in an empty auditorium, the children—trapped between audience members—panic when the familiar lyrics start up.
“This one’s stuck.” Adam nudges me, pointing to the lion next to him. The boy’s costume is caught on an armrest, and we watch the poor kid frantically yank at his shirt.
Adam mutters something to the kid, and he nods his head in response. In one swift movement, Adam grabs the boy by his sides, lifts him over the two of us, and gently plops him down in the aisle. “Thank you,” the lion yells before running off to his position in the dance. I feel a tug under my ribs. Is that my heart? Did that just literally tug at my heartstrings?
But this spark of joy is short-lived. I spot plastic baggies poking out of the pockets of children dancing into my personal space, and dread sets in.
“You’re right,” I tell Adam, my voice absorbed by noise. “They’re definitely going to throw glitter on us.”
“Can we leave?”
“Nope.”
He inhales sharply, accepting our shimmery fate. “Their dancing is blocking the exits anyhow.”
I paste on a demented grin. “Just smile at the children and prepare to be glittered.”
As predicted, the key changes and the children triumphantly douse us in sparkly flecks that will certainly be in my hair for the rest of the week. Coughs erupt throughout the audience, and the kids scurry up front to take their bow.
The concert continues with the classes performing holiday hits, animal skits, and “Gobble” set to the tune of “Wobble.”
“Look, they’re giving Thanksgiving its moment. Did they know you were coming?” I whisper-tease. Adam looks to the ceiling as if someone might rappel down and rescue him.
I finally feel like I have the upper hand with him until a group of enthusiastic fifth graders ask for audience suggestions for an improvised holiday scene, and Adam’s breath grazes the shell of my ear. “What kind of school allows children to perform improv in front of people? Kids shouldn’t have this much confidence.”
I stifle a laugh and elbow him back into his seat.
Mercifully, Chelsea and her fellow teachers end the meandering skit on North Pole workplace conditions by pushing the rest of the kids onstage for “Jingle Bells,” and the adorably puzzling catastrophe comes to an end.
Adam is standing with an arm in his coat before the house lights come up. “The parking lot’s going to be a mess. Let’s leave now while the parents are looking for their kids.”
I grab my coat and point myself in the direction of the stage against the current of parents exiting the theater. “I have to say hi to Chelsea before I go, but I can meet you in the lobby.”
“I’m a tall man, Alison. I can’t loom over a crowd of children alone.”
“What do you think dads are doing if not being tall and looming about?” I scan the stage until I spot a blond ponytail. “There she is. Follow me if you’d rather.”
He grouses but trails behind me anyway.
I jump up the stage steps to Chelsea and wrap her in a hug. “Great job, Ms.Olsen.”
“You came!” she shouts into my ear, and I flinch instinctually in preservation of my eardrum. Her eyes are saucers at the sight of a man hovering behind me. “And you brought—”
“This is Adam,” I say before she can reveal anything damning I’ve said about him. “He’s the one I’m helping with the apartment.”
She introduces herself with a demure handshake. “I’m Chelsea, Al’s other other half.”
“Nice to meet you. The show was great.” His flat tone couldn’t be more unconvincing.
Chelsea holds up her arms defensively like a perp on a cop show. “I can only take credit for the educational animal skits.”
“Oh, I liked those. They were a nice reprieve from the singing.”
Chelsea chokes. “You’re a real straight shooter, aren’t you, Adam?”
Adam’s eyes flit to me. “So I’ve been told.”
“The kids did a great job, Chels,” I say pointedly.
“Absolutely.” Adam fastens his jacket, which he flipped to khaki at some point, and light catches the multicolored flecks falling from his wide shoulders.
“We’ll let you get back to work. I’ll see you later,” I tell Chelsea while pivoting Adam toward the exit. Over my shoulder, I catch Chelsea mouthing, Text me . I shake my head as we shuffle out of the auditorium.
At the top of the aisle, we get caught in the musical theater version of a roundabout, children running every which way toward family, classmates, and teachers. Adam grabs my hand to lead me through the chaos.
It’s one of those dreadfully lovely gestures that’s both deeply intimate and horrifically platonic all at once.
His hand is warm and rough in all the best ways and when he finally lets go halfway through the parking lot, I know I’ll be unpacking the significance of the gesture for hours tonight.
“You should know that you’re the worst audience member of all time,” I tell him while hoisting myself into the passenger side of his truck.
“I saved the show. The lion would still be dangling in the middle of the auditorium if it weren’t for me.”
Twisting his torso, he places a hand behind my seat to reverse, assaulting me with a close-up of his chin. His beard is shorter than last week, and this close, I can just make out his chin dimple. I’ve never had a “thing” for chins, but Adam’s is forcing me to reconsider this stance.
He pitches his voice lower to account for the closer proximity. “But I’m sorry I interrupted your experience watching ten-year-olds do improv.”
With his hand still on my headrest, he fixes his eyes on me for a beat—maybe two. I concentrate on each exhalation as our breaths mix and float toward the windshield in icy clouds. A car honks, and without a word, he brings his hand to the gearshift and pulls the car forward out of the lot.
“My sister was in a kids’ improv troupe,” I say to cover the moment—or what I think is a moment.
“No. Oh, god. Was it bad?”
“So bad.” My wince falls into a smile at the memory of my tenacious sister demanding occupations and vacation destinations from an unwilling audience. “They used to do events in town, like hardware store openings and stuff. My mom always made me go, even though I had horrible secondhand embarrassment. Emma wasn’t embarrassed, though. She’s nothing like me. She’s always been so confident.”
“You weren’t? Confident, I mean.” He glances between me and the other cars.
“Ha. No, I was a dreadfully boring kid and always looking for the manual on how I should be. I still am.”
“I don’t think you’re boring.” His sincerity does something to my stomach.
“Well, that’s just a blatant lie.”
“I don’t.”
“My whole ‘talking thing’?”
“It’s certainly not boring.” I catch the beginnings of a smile disobediently leaping up his face. The almost-smile raises the temperature in the truck better than the struggling heater.
His hand rubs along the icy steering wheel.
“Are you cold?” I open the glove compartment, hoping he keeps the obvious items in there. Instead, a plastic container of cookies pops out. “Snacks!” I blurt. “Thin Mints?”
The label credits a bakery in Duluth, but they look almost exactly like my favorite treat.
Pink erupts on Adam’s cheekbones before he huffs a hot breath into his cupped hands, the frozen wheel balanced by his knee. “I got them yesterday on the way home from work. This place makes dupes of gas station junk food like Ho Hos and Sno Balls, but they do a couple of Girl Scout cookies too. It’s dumb. They probably don’t even taste like the real thing.” He fusses with his rearview mirror, like he’s embarrassed to be caught with his own peace offering. My Starbucks gift from this morning looks pitiful by comparison.
I twist toward him in my seat. “This is amazing.” I grin at the box, unable to contain my delight. “Really, this is…nice.”
His mouth relaxes into a smile. “You sound shocked.”
“Did you keep them in the glove box so they’d freeze?”
“Happy accident.” He turns back toward the road, but his jaw works in thought. He opens his mouth as if to say something but then closes it. “I should probably apologize about last week.” He rubs his beard with agitated movements, waiting for my reply.
“Was that the apology or will it come later?” I make him work for it a bit, biting back my grin. I hate a bad apology, and Adam’s fun to tease.
“I shouldn’t have pretended to know anything about you and Sam.” His eyes meet mine when he pulls up to a stop sign, and guilt pinches at my side for giving him a hard time. He knows more about me and Sam than he realizes. “I’m so sorry, Alison. How can I make it right?”
Energy vibrates out of my hand on the bench seat between us, as if interlacing our fingers would be the most natural thing to do. Instead, I press my palm into my lap. “Don’t worry about it. It was a stressful day.”
He clicks on his blinker. “You don’t have to tell me it’s fine to make me feel better. I know I was wrong. It’s just…Sam and I had been growing apart for a while, and his last visit was…off. I’ve somehow been grandfathered into the ‘best friend’ title, and I put my guilt about that on you.”
“You weren’t wrong…about Sam or how he felt about me,” I say, flicking the plastic cookie container with my thumb. “But I want to help his family now, if I can. Sam knows who we all were to him. I think these posthumously awarded titles are more for the people who lost him.”
At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself.
He drums the steering wheel nervously. “Can we forget last week? Pretend it never happened?” He glances at me for a long moment and then returns his eyes to the road.
My heart sputters at his boyish earnestness, and I have to bite into a Thin Mint to contain my goofy grin. “I’d love that. But we have to start from right now. I need to wipe my memory clean of what we just watched.”
“Do you think Chelsea had to buy the rights to do that to ‘Wobble’?” he asks, blinking at me.
I burst into an embarrassing snort-laugh, earning rich, deep-throated laughter from him. My gloved hands mop up my leaky eyes, and I feel something more than awkward acquaintanceship bloom between us. Friendship, maybe? Something approaching friendship, at least.
Because despite all reason, I might like Adam Berg, and that’s a truth I’m still reeling from the whole way home.