Chapter 18
The first time Mr. Korgy calls me, Frannie’s dad is in the middle of Thanksgiving prayer.
He’s already blessed the day and the family and everyone’s good health and is now on to the meal, taking his sweet time to call out each dish on the table individually, as if his blessing is an acceptance speech and each dish contributed to him winning the award.
“Thank you for this cranberry sauce,” he says, then takes a moment to clear his throat. “These mashed potatoes, my personal favorite: the stuffing…”
My phone buzzes with a text. Then another. By the time Mr. Hickle gets to the yam casserole, I sneak a glance. The first text: It’s Mr. Korgy. The second: Are you free?
I excuse myself and rush through the Martha Stewart living room, past the immaculately decorated fireplace with its holiday knickknacks and fresh balsam garland. I duck into the bathroom at the end of the hall and text him back: Yes. He calls immediately.
“Just wanted to check in,” Mr. Korgy says. “You got someplace nice to spend the holiday?”
I tell him my mom’s with her boyfriend so I’m with my friend’s family, and that it’s nice to have a home-cooked meal and be in a house where the toilets work, but that I don’t really feel much of a connection with anyone here so I’m left with that funny feeling that happens when you spend a supposedly intimate occasion with people you don’t feel any genuine intimacy with.
That strange, gnawing feeling, equal parts hollow and lonely and wistful, with a tinge of irritability underneath.
Craving something more. But accepting that this is it.
He asks when I feel the most connected in my life and I think “right now” but I say “when I’m writing” because I assume that’s what he wants to hear. He seems pleased. I feel proud.
I ask him when he feels the most connected in his life and he says when he’s writing, too, although he hasn’t in so long.
The last time he tried was a couple years back when he was cleaning the attic and stumbled on his half-finished dystopian-future novel, tucked in the back of a drawer, dusty and dog-eared and paper-clipped with notes he never got around to.
He tried to make some changes the next few days, but life got the better of him.
“Errands and logistics took precedence,” he says. “Pipe dreams fall by the wayside once you’ve got responsibilities.”
He chuckles, trying to downplay it, but I can tell that the novel still means something to him, that he calls it a pipe dream as a way to try to distance himself from it.
Feel power over it. Feel above it. When really the disappointment of it still stings.
I don’t know why people prefer to grow bitter than to acknowledge disappointment. Maybe someday I will.
“Well I’d love to read it,” I say, then I tell him that he should start it up again, set aside an hour a day to finish it. He says he appreciates the encouragement, but that he won’t make any promises because he doesn’t make promises he can’t keep.
We talk about our favorite Thanksgivings.
I tell him about the time Mom kept complaining the chicken was taking forever to cook and then realized the oven was broken.
She called the landlord over and over again but he wasn’t answering, then he finally did and said with the holiday he couldn’t come out for a couple days.
And suddenly Mom was quiet. Calm even. Serene.
She knew there was no chance we were having that roast chicken so there was no use trying.
In that moment, she made giving up look like a good thing.
We made a sheet fort and ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches until our stomachs ached. It was a great night.
Mr. Korgy tells me about the time his family went camping, and how they made s’mores and went swimming in the lake and how he went to take a leak and got lost in the woods for an hour. He says he didn’t feel panicked at all. Ten years old and felt comfortable with being lost.
“I wish I felt that comfortable with being lost now,” he says with a subtle slur to his words. I ask him what he means by that and he says it must just be the whiskey talking, that he’s had one too many, and he apologizes.
I ask him what he’s doing on Thanksgiving alone and he tells me he doesn’t usually do holidays with Gwen. That there’s tension with her family. That her mom doesn’t like him. A protective anger swells in my chest. I want to call her a stupid cunt.
“Gwen was with a real catch before me,” he says.
“A finance guy. Kinda guy who dresses sharp and has a sharp haircut. Just sharp all around. Angular. And Gwen’s mom loved him.
Sobbed after their breakup. Still calls him on holidays.
Gwen begs her mom not to call him. She’s so embarrassed.
But she can’t stop her. Meanwhile, the lady snarls at me whenever I have to see her for five minutes.
Told me once, to my face, ‘My daughter deserves better.’ ”
“She sounds unstable.”
“She is. Doesn’t make it hurt any less.”
And then it comes. The lull that signifies that we’ve arrived at the end of the conversation and it’s time to wrap up.
I hear the Hickles group-laugh at something in the other room as if on cue, reminding me that they’re what’s waiting for me on the other end of this.
Them, some mind-numbing board games, and a room-temp yam casserole.
“Well hey,” I blurt out, “if you want company while Gwen’s outta town, we could meet up. Go on a walk or something…”
The offer hangs in the air for a second, the kind of second where a full four-course meal of emotions is devoured within it.
Regret, then nervousness, then anticipation, then dread.
All chewed and swallowed and partially digested, mixed with saliva and swirling around, just waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
“Shoot, Waldo,” he says, and I already start rotting, “you know what, I should probably be responsible. I’ve got a lot on my plate with Gwen out of the house. Chores and work and whatever else. But it’s been great talking with you.”
The wall is undeniable. A wall that wasn’t there seconds before. A wall that I caused. By pushing too far. By asking for too much.
“Sure,” I say. And we exchange goodbyes and he hangs up and I go dead inside.
I wash my hands to buy time to compose myself, to steady the sting of rejection. The water gets scalding and the soapsuds fill up the sink. I pump another soap glob into my hand. Malin+Goetz. In this house, even soap is a status symbol.
“Sorry about that. My mom,” I say, sitting back down at the dinner table.
“Oh no worries, sweetie, glad she called,” Mrs. Hickle says. “And perfect timing actually. We were just going around the table saying what we’re grateful for. Your turn.”