20. Abbot #2
“Huh, she must not feel well,” Ned says as the call cuts off abruptly. “I hope she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she will be.” Abbot pockets his phone. “Baxter too.”
“He better be.” Ned rubs a hand over his face. “You don’t have to pay for it. I will.”
“I’m happy to.”
“I’ve got it. I do still have a job.”
“I know, I only—”
“And he’s my dog.”
Abbot straightens, hurt.
He must not hide it quickly enough, because Ned mutters, “Sorry.”
“Whatever you’d like to do.” Baxter is his dog. Of course he is.
“I am sorry,” Ned says. “I just—everything. Adams, Newbury, you moving, all of it. It’s gotten stressful as hell.”
“Ned, it’ll be okay.”
“You keep just saying that, but we didn’t exactly set out to be presumed to be engaged.”
“It’s just Chris.”
“And now Beverly, and probably Sandy.” Ned rubs his face. “People are different when it comes to anything to do with marriage. Everyone makes a huge deal about it. Trust me.”
Yes. Ned would know. Far better than Abbot would. Which stings.
“Abbot, I didn’t mean—”
“We shouldn’t keep Sandy waiting. We can sort this out after the appointment.”
“Okay,” Ned says softly, and when Abbot turns, Ned follows.
Sandy’s in a brightly lit kitchen of white counters and cabinets, and Abbot finds quite a bit of interest in the pendant lights.
It’s nothing. Just that Ned has been married before, and Abbot had a years-long relationship with a man who refused to even entertain the thought.
So what if Ned has situational context Abbot is lacking?
It likely isn’t even applicable here, that being Ned’s first marriage, and to a woman, too.
Too many variables are different, and Abbot opens a drawer, finds neatly placed silverware, and shuts it again.
“Thank you so much for your patience,” Ned tells Sandy, and at least he can be cheerful. “Great place. Isn’t it?”
“Oh, no problem at all,” Sandy says. “And it really is. I was just saying to Henry that this house has everything on your wish list.”
“How great.” Ned sounds enthusiastic. Or maybe just convincingly so.
Before Abbot can wonder how much of an act it might be, he feels his phone buzz yet again. “I’m so sorry, let me just…”
It’s Liesl video calling, and unless he’s teaching or in a meeting, as a rule he tries to always answer her. “Hello,” he says and tips the phone so she can see beside him. “Ned’s here.”
“Give me to Ned,” she demands.
“Hi to you too,” he says without handing the phone over. She’s in her bedroom, lamps lighting up the space against the darkness outside her windows, such a contrast to midday here.
“Ned!” she calls out, as if Ned can’t hear her. “I’m flying over tomorrow!”
“I know.” Ned leans into Abbot’s shoulder to wave. “Can’t wait to see you.”
“So?” Liesl asks.
“So what?” Ned asks.
“So,” she says, drawing out the word. “Hey, where are you?”
“At, ah. A house,” Abbot says.
“Whose house?”
Sandy smiles at them.
“A house we’re looking at,” Abbot says.
“To move into? Where’s my room? I want to see it.”
“We’re in the kitchen,” Abbot says.
“Yeah, obviously. When are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?” About the house, does she mean?
She sounds piqued again, her enthusiasm in shouting for Ned turning to vexation with Abbot.
“Tell me,” she says, an emphasis on the words like he’s being particularly obtuse.
“Will you bring more Sprüngli chocolates tomorrow?” he asks. “And I told Ned you’d like to make caramelkopfli with Peggy while you’re here.”
“Here? In that house?”
“No, we’re just looking at this house,” Abbot says.
“To buy though, right?”
Ned backs away, examining the stove very closely.
“I’m hopefully moving to Boston,” Abbot says, which he was going to tell her in person. Is that what she was waiting for?
She doesn’t react with the surprise and delight he expected, just says, “Yeah, I know.”
“You do?”
“Yes, becaaaaauuuse…” She looks at him with a long pause.
“Because?” he finally has to ask.
“Come on.”
“The chocolates,” he says. “They’re for Pat.”
“But really.”
“Really what?”
“You’re getting married!” she yells.
He stares at her in his phone. She’s grinning. His ears ring with her shriek. Dimly, he feels Ned looking at him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demands. “Dad talked to Chris, and Chris told him, and then Dad told me, and you didn’t even say anything.”
Ah. Something might be going wrong with Chris’s assumptions. Abbot realizes this like a fact that’s far away.
Hurtling closer though, via the volume of Liesl’s voice, too loud through the phone.
“Liesl…” he starts.
Ned looks at him, eyes wide. Minutely, he shakes his head.
Oh. Yes. Abbot can’t correct her. Not in front of Sandy, at least.
And not—not elsewhere, either. Not later, when he can talk to her in person, not at all, not ever. Because she will then tell their father they’re not truly engaged, not at this point at least, and through him or Chris that news will reach Beverly and—
And Ned just came from his job talk. Newbury is so very, very close, for both of them.
Perhaps Ned has a point that this is turning out less than ideal. That Chris’s machinations in their lives aren’t just amusing. One mention of marriage and everything will apparently spiral from there.
“I…” he flounders. Help, he wants to ask Ned, but Ned’s leaning against the counter like it’s holding him up. “You’re coming tomorrow.”
“Oooh, you were going to surprise me,” she says, sounding delighted before her tone switches again, accusing now. “But Daddy told me before you could.”
“Yes,” Abbot gets out. “He apparently did.”
“He’s coming with me too.”
Abbot straightens “What?”
“To celebrate. He wants to come, so he got a ticket.”
“No, thank you.” Abbot’s mouth feels stiff. The words too. His entire body.
“So when is it?” she asks. “When’s the wedding?”
“He’s coming with you,” Abbot repeats. His father.
Flying over here. Abbot just suffered through a visit to Switzerland and thought he’d be spared another until the summer.
Liesl is old enough to travel on her own.
Their father will drop her off at the airport and Abbot will pick her up from the nonstop flight.
The most she needs to do is not lose her passport on the way.
This suddenly feels very, very important, like if he can just convey that detail, the rest of this knot will untangle itself, and take with it the specter of his father arriving.
“Do you know what kind of cake you’ll have?”
“Your dad is coming?” Ned asks softly and Abbot closes his eyes.
“Can we try some while I’m there?” Liesl asks. “Will Baxter be in the wedding?”
“Liesl,” Abbot starts.
“Don’t try to make the cake yourself, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Liesl says. “You’re not that good at baking. And Baxter could wear a bowtie. I saw it in a video. And he can carry the rings in a basket. I could train him to do it.”
“Fuck,” Ned whispers.
Sandy, Abbot quickly mouths, and Ned squeezes his eyes shut, mouthing Fuck again, at least with his back to her this time.
“I’ll bring him some treats, but I don’t know if I should just get him some when I get there,” Liesl goes on. “You can take me to a pet store, or Daddy can, and we’ll get a basket, too.”
Baxter’s not well, Abbot needs to tell her. And he really doesn’t need his father here.
“Ned has plenty of treats,” he manages.
“Let’s make him some this weekend anyway,” she says. “We need peanut butter.”
Make them for Baxter or for Ned? Abbot might have joked under other circumstances, but he absolutely can’t manage it now.
“Yes, what a good idea,” he says.
They can bake dog treats and he’ll explain that he intended the visit to be just her, and also that Baxter might be sick.
Sick like Mom? she’ll ask.
Nausea climbs his throat.
“I’m so sorry. I have to go,” Abbot says.
“Are you getting married here in Switzerland or in Boston?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Or in Maine?”
“Goodbye.” Abbot hangs up.
Ned’s mouth is pressed in a thin line, his eyes on Abbot.
And then, with all of his charm, he turns to Sandy.