26 Christmas Dinner #2
I flipped my sister the bird and asked where Dad was.
Shannon told me he was on his way, then remarked that I looked a little nervous.
I reminded her that she had been nervous when she’d introduced us to her boyfriend, but she reminded me that I wasn’t pregnant, so the two situations weren’t comparable.
“But then…” she continued, “you always were Dad’s favorite, being the little one and all that, so I can imagine it might be worse for you.
Who knows how he’s going to react when he’s face-to-face with a guy who’s been smashing his daughter. ”
“Smashing?” Mom said. “What is smashing?”
“Just, like, going out,” Shannon said with an innocent smile. “Anyway, I’m on the edge of my seat. Hopefully nobody will make a scene, right?”
“Shannon, could you shut up?” I said. “I’m edgy enough already.”
I returned to the living room, where Spencer and Jack were crushing the twins, and asked whether I could have some time with my boyfriend.
They protested he was having more fun with them, and that Mom and Shannon must have already gotten all their questions out of the way in the car.
I had to threaten to cut the cables to get Spencer to finally agree to save the game and get back to it later, though he was clearly disappointed.
Jack stood and followed me up the stairs. When we were alone, he asked mischievously, “Are you going to show me your bedroom already?”
“Get too frisky and I might show you the door,” I said.
He laughed and shook his head. Actually, I was nervous to show him my room, but I opened the door and let him in first. I couldn’t quite read his expression as he looked around. “Interesting,” he said sarcastically.
“I know, it’s very pink.”
“It’s very you, Jen.” He turned away from the bed to the shelf and said, “Is this the famous record collection?”
When I nodded, he crouched down, and for five minutes he flipped through the albums. Then he snooped through my photos, my closet…
everything! I just sat on the bed, too weirded out by the whole situation to react.
I’d never even let Monty come up there. When we did…
things , it was usually on the sofa when everyone was out.
Showing him my room would have meant revealing a private part of myself. But Jack was different.
I crossed my legs and said, “I hope you’re enjoying yourself.”
“I am,” he responded. “Your family’s nice, too. They’re not the monsters you made them out to be. And they seem to like me, so that’s something.”
“Mom adores you. Almost as much as yours adores me.”
“I will tell you one thing,” he said. “It hurt me to do this, but I let your brothers win a couple of times so I could get in their good graces.”
“I’ve got to be honest,” I told him. “It’s literally impossible for me to imagine your parents sitting downstairs hanging out with all of them. I feel like we’re so…average compared to them. I don’t know if that’s the right word.”
“Jen, I understand being nervous, OK? The whole flight down I was asking myself what I needed to do to make a good impression. But I’m having a blast, and everyone’s behaving, and I think it’s time for you to relax.”
“All right,” I said, and leaned in to kiss him, but then I heard the front door open and close with a bang and I froze in midair.
“What is it?” Jack asked. “Did a serial killer just come through the door?”
“Worse. My dad. Get ready,” I told him, and held his hand, guiding him back down the stairs. Dad heard our steps and turned toward us. Jack was calm, polite, and reached out to shake hands as he walked over and said, “Mr. Brown.”
“Jack,” Dad said in a neutral tone, eyeing him. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Only good things,” I threw in.
“Very good things,” Dad corrected me. He shook hands with Jack, then laid an arm over his shoulder and asked if he’d seen the garage yet. It was easy as that. Sonny and Steve hopped up to join the two men. Jack looked back at me and winked.
Our first activity as a family—minus Mom and Shannon, who hated that kind of thing—was going to the annual Christmas fair.
I rode the Tunnel of Love, tried to avoid the mini roller coaster, played Whac-A-Mole, ate funnel cake and cotton candy.
It was fun, especially because it was nighttime when we got there, and most of the kids were gone.
Jack, with a bemused expression, described the whole thing as interesting.
My three brothers ran off toward the bumper cars, ready to kill each other, leaving Jack and me alone.
I don’t know where Dad had gotten to. I asked Jack what he wanted to do, and he recommended the mini roller coaster, which I hoped he hadn’t seen.
I didn’t want to tell him I was scared of roller coasters, so instead I motioned to its rickety structure and said, “It looks like it’s about to fall into the ground. ”
“OK,” he replied, “how’s your aim then?”
“Better than yours,” I said, provoking him.
So we walked over to the stall with the darts and the balloons.
Jack gave me a mocking look as he handed me my darts.
I bit my lip with concentration. I’d barely ever played darts before, but it couldn’t be that hard, right?
Aim, throw, pop the balloon, try not to hit the wall. Easy, right?
I threw my first one and hit the wall.
“Tough luck,” the guy running the stall said.
Jack smirked, and I told him not to look at me that way.
I still had four darts left. I squinted, staring at the balloons like they were my mortal enemy.
And…I missed three more times. I was terrible.
Worse than I could ever have imagined. As Jack laughed maliciously, I passed him my final dart, warning him, “If you don’t pop one of the balloons, I’ll remind you of it for the rest of your life. ”
He asked the guy what he’d get if he hit one balloon. The guy told him he could have a stuffed unicorn or a bubble blower. “You got a preference?” Jack asked.
“I guess the bubbles…”
Before I could finish my phrase, Jack had popped a balloon.
“I always believed in you,” I told him and giggled. I grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the photo booth. He couldn’t help making a dirty joke and told me he didn’t know I was kinky like that: doing it in public and documenting it?
“Idiot,” I replied. “We don’t have a single photo together.”
“You’re right,” he said.
“So let’s solve that now.”
Before I could open my change purse, he had slipped three dollars into the machine. I tucked the bottle of bubble soap in my bag and hurried in with him, trying to arrange my hair and look at least somewhat pretty as the countdown started.
Jack looked straight at the camera and grinned as I kissed him on the cheek, then we stared into each other’s eyes, then he leaned his head on my shoulders, then I grabbed his collar and kissed him on the lips.
It was cheesy, I know, but it was something I’d always wanted to do with someone, and I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity with him now.
He looked meditatively at our photos while I bought tickets to get on the Ferris wheel. That had always been my favorite ride. The carriage swayed a little as we got in, and then we were set in motion with a creak and clang.
“You do realize you’ve picked the lamest ride in the whole park,” Jack said.
Offended, I replied, “Sorry, I think you mean the best one.”
Rising into the sky, I asked him about my family again, how he liked them, if he felt comfortable around them.
He reminded me we’d already talked about it and asked me what I was afraid of, and I realized I didn’t really know, and that with Jack, I didn’t need to worry.
He was one of those guys everybody just naturally liked.
He told me, “I don’t know what you’re afraid of, Jen, but I like them.
They’re great. Now chill out and enjoy the view. ”
I could feel relaxation spreading through my chest as we reached the top.
I gazed out at the city entranced, as though I’d never seen it before, as though I hadn’t come to this penny-ante fair once a year for as long as I could remember.
I told Jack how when I was little I had been on this same Ferris wheel and my friends had tried to rock the carriage back and forth and I’d been scared we’d fall.
Of course, he started doing the same. I panicked, and he laughed at my terrified expression.
Even people in the other cars looked at us, and we noticed we weren’t alone.
A few feet below us, a teenager was trying to frighten his friends.
I guess the urge to annoy people was like a virus.
“I hate you,” I said.
“Sure you do.” He stopped, and I leaned back and curled up against him when a gust of cold air struck me.
“You know, it feels like an eternity since I was last here,” I murmured.
“Do you miss it?”
“I don’t know. It feels different now. Like everything here happens so slow.
As if time didn’t move at the same speed here, or like it didn’t move at all, maybe.
The places don’t change, the people don’t change, even the dumb jokes don’t change.
I loved it here when I was little, but I don’t think I could spend the rest of my life here anymore.
I’m not sure it was ever really the right place for me, and it definitely isn’t now.
That makes me feel bad for my family, because I know they’re scared of me ever going somewhere else, they’re scared they couldn’t protect me, and they need me and I guess I need them, too, in a way, but…
it’s my life, right? And I need to be able to decide who I want to be, and I could never do that here. ”
“You could just live with me,” he said.
“I already live with you, Jack. I’ve been living with you for three months, in case you didn’t notice. We literally share the same bed.”
“What about your plan to move back to the dorms, though. Is that still a thing?”