Fifteen
Everyone pitches in to help decorate, and I relish how normal it feels.
Dad and I have been quieter than usual around each other since our argument a few weeks ago, but we’ve settled into an uneasy truce, agreeing not to talk about college.
We’ve become two off-key instruments playing in the same space, neither of us willing to stop and adjust our pitch.
The air around us feels uncomfortable, charged with the conflict we refuse to address.
Business picks up around the holidays with tourists from downstate doing Christmas shopping, so I work extra shifts at the shop. We take on two estate sales during this time, and four separate elderly women complain about the disappearance of our Precious Moments products.
I continue composing music, and Mr. Campbell has the band perform one of my carol arrangements at our winter concert.
A couple of kids in the digital animation club create a short film and ask me to write the soundtrack, so I pour myself into that project, creating a whimsical, percussive theme I’m proud of.
At school, Garrett remains popular, surrounded by close friends and medium friends and vague acquaintances: Tyler and the football guys, Ryan and the cross-country team, and somehow a quirky group of junior theater kids.
At home, the two of us spend more and more time together.
He wanders into my bedroom to complain that my classical NPR station is too loud, and I wander into his room to ask for help on calculus homework, each visit extending longer than the last until I eventually find that I’ve gotten to know him: his life, his interests, his personality.
He loves cerebral sci-fi movies and raunchy comedies and knows way too much about the Marvel universe.
He gets hangry and unreasonable when he goes too long without eating.
He’s messy and impulsive and blunt, but also considerate, quick-thinking, and funny.
He remembers everything I tell him.
I meet his brother Charlie on a video call the evening before winter break begins. I’m heading to my room with Emma’s Christmas present—copies of the first novels in three different fantasy series I think she’ll like—when I hear a voice drifting through Garrett’s open door.
“We missed you at Thanksgiving, Gare,” the voice says. It sounds almost like Garrett, warm and brassy, but with a slightly stronger accent, as if its owner leans into the charm of his twangy vowel sounds. “Mom and Dad said the placement is going well, though?”
“Yeah, it’s good,” Garrett says. “What else did they say?”
His brother chuckles. “You know Dad. Had your season stats memorized. Had lots of opinions about them. What can I say, bro? We’ll never be Justin.”
I draw level with the door to Garrett’s room in time to see him trying to hide an expression of disappointment, but then he notices me and waves me into the room. “Enz, come over here and meet my brother Charlie.”
“His favorite brother,” Charlie amends as I slide onto the edge of the bed, squeezing into the video frame.
Charlie is in his mid-twenties and looks like he’s sitting in some sort of home office.
Garrett once mentioned that Charlie is a real estate agent in Savannah, and he looks the part: clean-cut, dressed in a polo under a sports jacket, his auburn hair trending closer to blond than Garrett’s.
“Be honest, Enzo,” Charlie says, with the same characteristic openness as Garrett, as if the two of us are already friends. “Is Garrett behaving himself? Is he remembering his manners? Is he cleaning up after himself?”
“Manners, yes,” I say. Then I glance around at the eternal mess of his bedroom. “The cleaning, not so much.”
Charlie unleashes a one-third grin identical to his younger brother’s. “I like this guy already,” he tells Garrett. Then to me: “Don’t be afraid to give Garrett shit about it since I’m not around to.”
“Great,” Garrett says, unabashed. “Now I have a real brother and a host brother to dog me about my cleaning habits.”
“Speaking of dogging you,” Charlie says, “Mom and Dad said that if I talk to you, I should remind you that Ellison’s early-decision deadline is coming up.
Apparently, Dad talked to the director of admissions at church the other week and casually mentioned that you’re second in your class up there but that he expects you to be first by the end of the year. ”
Garrett closes his eyes. “I’m trying to get my physics grade up, but—”
“Bro,” Charlie interrupts, “I don’t care.
Don’t shoot the messenger. Plus, considering how much money Dad donates to that school, I doubt you need to worry.
You want my advice? Go crazy during this weird-ass exchange program.
That’s why you stuck with it when Florence didn’t work out, right?
So you could have a chill year away from Mom and Dad?
So roll with it. Meet some girls, have some fun, and take it easy this year, because Ellison’s pre-law program is going to kick your ass in nine months. Trust me.”
Garrett laughs, but it feels strained, slightly out of tune. My brain tries to puzzle out why Charlie thinks Garrett chose to come to Irontown when Garrett told me that his parents gave him no choice. Charlie continues before I can figure out which of them is wrong.
“I gotta cut this short,” he says. “I’m having drinks with a potential client.”
“Wait,” Garrett says, his eyes flicking to me, and I can tell he wants privacy. I need to figure out a way to excuse myself, but there isn’t a chance to before he asks, “Did Mom and Dad mention Christmas?”
“Sounds like they’ll be in the Virgin Islands.
” Charlie gives a sympathetic shrug. “Sorry, Gare. I know you were thinking of coming home for a bit. But I’m sure if you asked, they’d be happy to fly you out to whatever resort they’ll be at.
You know I’ll be with Alicia’s family for Christmas—otherwise I’d join y’all. ”
“Yeah,” Garrett says. “It could be fun. I’ll think about it.”
“If you go, enjoy the beach for me,” Charlie says. “Enzo, it was nice meeting you. Keep my baby bro in check. Merry Christmas, you two.”
“Merry Christmas,” Garrett says, then hangs up.
“Was he serious?” I ask. “About your parents flying you to the Virgin Islands … this week?”
Garrett stares at the empty screen vacated by his brother. “My parents would fly Justin or Charlie to the Virgin Islands to be together for Christmas.” He glances at me, a sad, ironic twist at the corner of his lips. “I’m an exchange student, remember?”
On Christmas Eve, the first snow arrives along with my entire extended family.
Dad has three sisters, ranging from slightly Italian Catholic—Aunt Liz—to very Italian Catholic—Aunt Julia—and every year they come from out of town to spend Christmas at our house. Dad shuts down the shop, and the bedrooms on the second floor—usually used to house merchandise—become guest rooms.
Aunt Julia’s family arrives first, and it doesn’t take Garrett long to start a snowball fight with her three kids. They rush around the front yard, scraping wet handfuls of snow off the grass and hurling them at one another.
Over the next few hours, our house fills with people, everyone settling into the familiar routine of being together at the holidays.
A rotating cast of adults toils away in the kitchen over pans of lasagna, piles of cured meats, stacks of flaky pizzelle.
Aunt Liz starts a puzzle in the living room with Emma and a couple of cousins.
Kids chase one another through the house, playing an elaborate version of hide-and-seek that I taught them a few years ago.
All of this takes place under the warm glow of thousands of white Christmas lights.
Garrett blends into this chaos admirably, and I almost forget his disappointment during his call with Charlie about not going home.
At one point, I see him arguing football with Aunt Anna’s husband.
At another, he cuddles up with Remy, Aunt Julia’s four-year-old, to read a picture book.
He glances up, catches my eye, and flashes a smile.
“He seems nice,” my cousin Gloria tells me, watching me watching Garrett.
Gloria and I are seated next to each other at the puzzle, alone because everyone else got bored and moved on to other activities.
She’s always been my favorite cousin, two years older than me and ten times cooler.
She buzzed her head when she went off to college at Illinois State and now looks like a badass punk rocker who happens to be majoring in environmental studies.
“He’s pretty cool,” I say, focusing on finding a missing edge piece.
“And do the two of you do this a lot?”
“Do what?”
“Eye-bang each other across the room when you think no one is looking.”
I knock an entire grove of snow-covered trees onto the floor, pieces crumbling apart and scattering under the table. “We’re not—” I splutter. “He’s not—”
“He’s not … what?” she asks innocently. “Into you? Because you both seem pretty intent on undressing each other with your eyes.”
“It’s really not like that,” I say, ducking under the table to grab the pieces I dropped.
I resurface to find her watching me and not the puzzle. “Is it ‘really not like that’ because you aren’t into that fine-ass gentleman sitting over there adorably reading a book to your cousin? Or because you haven’t made a move?”
I steal a glance at Garrett. He does look amazing, wearing a white cable-knit sweater that, despite its bulk, hugs his frame perfectly. He reminds me of someone out of an ad for expensive cologne. And his scent would definitely be a cologne.
Unfortunately, Gloria catches me. “He’s not going to quench you, thirsty boy,” she says, “unless you take a drink.”
I tell her. I tell her about him coming out to me in the Caving Grounds, about the way he looks at me sometimes, about him grabbing my wrist and almost kissing me and then acting like he didn’t remember it.
“So,” I conclude, “I thought he might be into me, too, but he clearly isn’t. Or at least he doesn’t want anything to happen.”