Chapter 32
After a long week of work, I’m ready to be done.
Kelly called my stepmom, Linda, who was more than delighted to hear Kelly’s suggestion to get the family together for a meal.
The last time Kelly and I went to my parents’ was Easter.
Camden couldn’t make it because he had a game in Canada, and Alexis was absent because she had the flu.
Cars are already stacked in the brick driveway when we arrive at my parents’ river bluff home; it’s a welcoming sight with warm-cedar shakes and round dormer windows.
Alexis and Camden and Jordan have already arrived.
Hailey probably isn’t too far behind. Odin whines in the back seat when Chicken Salad bounds out of the front door.
They’re best friends after spending the weekend together while we were in Bozeman.
Kelly turns her head to speak to the beast in the back seat. “Looks like your girlfriend is excited to see you, Odie.”
Jordan steps onto the front porch and waves at us. As soon as we open the door in the back seat of my truck, Odin is bounding out, and then the two big dogs run off into the trees that sit on each side of the house.
“Use protection!” Jordan calls after them.
“Crazy kids,” Kelly adds.
I’ve always been an introvert, but socializing, or at least being in the company of my family, is something I’ve always enjoyed.
Growing up, I lost my mom early. Signing is the piece of her I still carry with me.
I know what she looks like from photos, but the only memories I have left are of her hands.
I will always remember them. I’ve drawn them several times from memory.
She had fingers like an artist, wrinkled and knobby but beautiful.
Losing our moms at a young age is something Kelly and I always had in common.
I was an only child like her until my dad, Bruce, met Linda who was a single mother of three coming from an abusive relationship.
Suddenly I found myself with a new mom and three new stepsiblings.
Clyde, on the other hand, never remarried.
His first wife was his one and only, so after that, Kelly and art were all he needed to feel complete.
“Hey, Mom . . .” I duck my head and peer into the fridge. “Do you have any fresh mozzarella?”
I’ve called Linda Mom since I was probably ten or so. It’s just easier. Besides, any sentence starting with Hey, Stepmom automatically sounds like amateur porn.
“Bottom drawer on the left. Might be toward the back. I’m going downstairs to get a couple bottles of wine. Any requests? Reds? Whites?”
“Beer,” Dad says.
I grab the cheese located precisely where she said it would be.
Being in the kitchen puts me in the center of the family’s madness without having to participate as much.
I find comfort in watching my family interact with one another.
Camden, Hailey, and Alexis have always had each other.
When our families merged, it wasn’t like we immediately became the Brady Bunch.
I’ve always been the black sheep, but they never treated me like it.
They accepted and respected that I was quiet and kept to myself more often; they respected it but never let it stop them from making me feel included.
A few years ago, Camden married Jordan, making her a Teller, so she’s basically another sister. And now we have Kelly too.
It helps that the Teller love language consists of giving each other shit; it comes from the heart. I generally sit back and observe the chaos, but cooking allows me to focus on a task and still catch up on everyone’s lives . . . and I enjoy it.
“Your mom wants to make this salad with mandarins or something,” my dad says, shuffling around in their pantry, picking up cans and setting them back down. “I can’t find the . . . the . . .”
“Okay, Sometimers,” Hailey says with a chuckle.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“It’s the, uh, what’s that soup? You know, the square soup . . .”
Alexis blinks at me from the barstool across the island. “The fuck is he talking about?”
I smile and shrug, selecting a knife from the wooden block near the stove. The blade is dull as can be.
“I can hear you!” Dad says, still searching the pantry. “You know, the soup! It’s beige and curly . . .”
“First you said it was square, now it’s curly?” I ask. “Keep your story straight, man.”
A few of us exchange glances. We all know it’s ramen, but this is more entertaining. Also, for whatever reason my dad has always pronounced it “ray-men” instead of “rah-men,” and it’s something we’ll never forgive him for.
“What are you talking about?” Hailey asks.
More boxes and cans get pushed around on the shelves. “They used to sell ’em for like a dime apiece . . .”
“Is it a new thing? Maybe we haven’t had it before?” Kelly asks.
“No! Yes! Everybody has eaten this.”
“I don’t think I’ve had it,” Kelly adds, winking at me. She fits in so effortlessly with my family.
“It comes in an orange packet. They have flavors!”
Alexis scrunches her face up. “Flavors?”
Dad groans. “Yeah, like beef, shrimp, chicken, Oriental—”
“Whoa, whoa!” we all shout in unison.
“Dad, you can’t say that!” Hailey whispers loudly.
I shake my head at him while working the sharpening stone across the blade of my knife.
“No! It’s not—it’s a flavor! It’s on the package!”
“The package of what?” Jordan asks.
Kelly hides her face in her hands to keep from laughing.
“The—the thing! I can’t remember the fucking name!”
“Language,” Camden reminds him, which gives an added layer of humor because he’s usually the one Mom chews out for swearing.
I wash the knife in the sink before gliding it through the fresh mozzarella, dividing the white log into round discs. When we arrived, I noticed a bowl of fresh tomatoes Mom picked from her garden, and a basil plant in the window. Everybody likes caprese, and it’s easy to throw together.
Dad’s face looks like a tomato the more frustrated he becomes.
Camden leans back in his chair, threading his fingers behind his head. “Not ringing any bells, Bruce.”
Dad sticks his head out of the walk-in pantry and mutters, “I know you little shits are messing with me.”
Mom walks into the room. “What is happening?”
“Linda.” He stands in front of her and cups her face in his hands, his eyes pleading. The man is desperate at this point. “What is that stuff we put on top of the salad with the oranges?”
“Ramen?” Linda asks.
“Raymen!” he shouts, raising his hands toward the heavens, as if he just won nine hundred bucks at bingo.
“Way to ruin Christmas,” Alexis whines.
“I can’t find the ramen,” he says. Sure enough, Mom goes into the pantry and exits with it less than a second later.
The smell of summer fills my nostrils as I cut into the plump red and orange tomatoes. I stack them onto the mozzarella rounds and arrange them on a platter, then sprinkle chopped basil and drizzle balsamic vinegar over top.
Everybody swipes up the snacks, and I get started on a new plate of them. They’ll be gone by the time I’m finished, and then I’ll begin on the Mediterranean pasta for dinner.
Kelly comes around to my side of the island and reaches across to steal a tomato, but I snatch up her wrist and pull her into me, then wipe my palms on the towel draped over my shoulder and slide a clean hand up her spine to squeeze the back of her neck a few times.
She rises on her tiptoes like she’s about to whisper something to me and I kiss her.
In front of everybody, not giving a single fuck.
“Holy shit . . . Did I win?” Camden asks, a huge smile across his face.
Kelly’s brows furrow, and she drops back down onto the heels of her feet. “Win?”
I roll my eyes. “Apparently, they had a bet going for when we got together.” Kelly laughs and circles her arms around my waist.
“Wait, who had June?” Mom asks, looking around at the various family members patiently waiting. Camden clutches his phone, I assume pulling up the details of this whole betting pool they had organized.
“Linda!” Kelly laughs harder.
“Alexis!” Cam announces, pointing at her.
She jumps out of her chair. “Pay up, you bastards!”
“Damn, we should have gone in on it and stolen the pot.” She takes the knife from me and cuts a couple narrow slices of mozzarella, then rotates and sneaks them to Chicken Salad and Odin while Alexis walks around and collects cash from everybody.
“About damn time,” Dad says.
After dinner, Camden and I grab a six-pack and take the tram elevator from the outside deck down to the boathouse near the river’s edge.
We descend the bluff under the dark canopy of trees and are soon met by gleaming blue water as it flows on a gentle current.
The late-day sun feels like a warm blanket when we emerge from the shady wooded slope.
We step off the platform, our footfalls hollow on the wooden boards.
“So . . . You and Kelly.” He gives me a big shit-eating grin. “And how’s that going?”
I shrug, trying not to smile.
“You’ve been after that girl for years, and now it’s—” He lifts his shoulders to mimic me. “Bullshit.”
We cross the wooden wraparound deck of the boathouse, then prop our forearms on the railing to overlook the water and watch some of the boats pass by. I twist the top off one of the beers and bring it to my lips.
“She’s a dream,” I say, taking a swig. I need some advice. “But I was hoping I could ask you about something.”
“Shoot.” He pops off his bottle cap and pockets it.
“When you and Jordan first got together, she was having problems with her ex . . . I think we might be dealing with something similar.”
“Fuck.” He sighs. “What’s going on?”
I give him the rundown of everything, from the weird messages on Instagram to the paper note left on the windshield in Bozeman.
“Who is it?” he asks. “Didn’t you help facilitate the breakup with her ex?”
“It was inevitable, I just sped up the process.”
“Good for you,” he says. “So, you think he’s stalking her?”