Chapter 17
Whack.
To my surprise, using a butcher knife can be quite cathartic.
It’s Thanksgiving Day, and I haven’t heard from Harlan since Sunday. His tired, seemingly apologetic voice filled my voicemail with dull, confusing words about not knowing if he could come to Thanksgiving until the last minute.
Why is he dragging out the slow fade of our relationship when he could sever it with a few words?
“Why do boys have to be so stupid, Aunt Meredith?” My niece, Hannah, rests her hip against the counter and turns to me while I butcher a cauliflower. “I’m serious. Why are they so stupid?”
“You’re stupid.” Her ten-year-old brother, Taylor, ambles to the sink, apparently clueless that his comment just endangered his life.
Whack. Whack. I am really starting to like this butcher knife. “What happened, Hannah Banana?” I ask.
“I’m sure Jackson figured out she’s boring.” My nephew has put his life on the chopping block. Again.
I lean over and elbow him in admonishment.
Hannah rolls her eyes with such exaggeration, I worry they’ll stick behind her eyelids. “I went to homecoming with him. We had fun. He said he’d call, but he didn’t.”
Whack whack whack. Does she play her dance with Jackson on a torturous looping movie reel the way I play mine with Harlan? “Big jerk,” I say to the vegetable in front of me, otherwise known as Harlan’s cruciferous head.
“Whoa there, Wolverine.” Molly’s hands cover mine, and she eases the butcher knife out of my grip. “Let’s get you a smaller blade.”
“Sure.” I angle to the block down the counter and pick a substantially smaller chef’s knife. This will do just fine.
Chop. Harlan’s lanky carrot figure gets a haircut.
“Anyway, I know football season, especially the playoffs, is super busy.” Hannah’s fingers make dramatic quotation marks around the words super busy.
“But he’s not too busy”—repeated air quotes, this time with bug eyes—“to hang out with Candace Briggs for study group. Where, I might add, he was seen hugging her afterwards.” She throws her arms out in an I-rest-my-case sort of way.
Chop. Chop. Chop. Her story’s a little too close to mine for my liking.
“Rebecca says I need to ask him what’s going on. Like maybe his parents grounded him from his phone or something. She thinks Candace threw herself at him.” Hannah leans in closer to my salad. “Whatever.”
Chop chop chop chop chop. “Whatever.” I grind my teeth with the forced word.
Molly steps between us. “What is wrong with you?” Her question comes out the side of her mouth while she removes the newest knife from my hand.
I wipe my brow. “Nothing.” Nothing at all.
“Boys are stupid.” Hannah folds her arms over her chest, glaring at her mother.
“Boys are stupid.” I imitate my niece and glare at her mother.
“I think these vegetables have endured enough violence for today. Let’s see if you have more gentle ways with the ambrosia salad.” Molly takes my elbow and turns me toward the topping and canned fruit. “There’s no need to use your aggression. The Cool Whip comes already whipped.”
That’s unfortunate. Because I am seething.
I’ve been a simmering pot. Waiting, waiting, waiting, tiny combustible bubbles of emotion on the fringe of the water. Until today.
Today someone turned up the heat, and my feelings are roiling.
This morning my family participated in the Turkey Trot.
A three-mile race around downtown Dallas in the most charming display of Thanksgiving pride.
When I say charming, I mean 22,000 of our closest friends joined us in the walk.
And for 15,840 feet, I listened to Hannah’s boy woes.
She excelled in fueling the fire under my pot.
Roil, boil, roil, boil. Stupid Jackson, stupid Harlan. Stupid Jackson, stupid Harlan.
Clank.
“How could he do that to me?” Hannah, expending too much energy on her crisis to help with Thanksgiving preparations, shakes her long-haired head and waits for my answer.
Clank clank clank clank. Molly misjudged this task. The metal spoon striking the Pyrex glass is quite therapeutic.
I put the bowl on the granite island, turn to Hannah, and take hold of her shoulders. “I don’t know, Hannah. How could he do that to you? He said he would call.” My exclamation is punctuated with a gentle shake, and I draw her into me for an overzealous hug.
Are her raging pheromones contagious?
Molly moves behind her daughter and mouths to me, What is going on?
Solidarity, I mouth back.
“Girls are dumb.” Taylor strolls by and takes a swipe of Cool Whip out of my bowl. “I’m going to watch football.”
“Shut up, Taylor.” Hannah clutches me tighter. “You don’t understand anything. Gah.”
“Anything.” I stick my tongue out at innocent-bystander Taylor. No one understands anything.
I’ve gone to the Bad Place.
“I just want to throw my cell phone away.” Hannah muffles my fantasy into my shoulder.
Yes. Let’s throw all cell phones away. Because if I check mine one more time without having any new messages, I’m going to scream. I’m stuck in Teenager-Waiting-for-a-Call Land, and it is worse than I remembered.
“Come on, Banana. Let’s do it.” I dig into the back pocket of my jeans and pull out my phone, hating myself when I glance at the screen one last time. Opening the trash can drawer, I drop it on top of the vegetable rejects.
Hannah freezes, her mouth gaping. “Um, Aunt Meredith, I can’t throw mine away. I was going to invite him to Thanksgiving if he called.” She stares wistfully at her phone. “Maybe you should call my phone and see if it’s working.”
Maybe I should never tell anyone that this morning I called my phone from her phone to see if mine was working. I look at the ceiling. “Whatever.” Gah.
Leaning into the waste bin to retrieve the bane of my existence, I think I hear something. “Was that the doorbell? Mom and Dad can’t be back from their ice run so soon.”
Molly scoots past me and rinses a long-handled spoon in the sink. “It could be Stanley.”
Her words register as I wipe my phone with a dish towel. I whirl my head in her direction. “What?”
“I invited him to join us for Thanksgiving.” She opens the dishwasher and places a silicone spoonula in the top rack. “But he was kind of weird about it. I don’t know if he’s coming or not.” Molly shuts the dishwasher and snaps it closed with her hip. “Taylor, grab the door, please.”
I drop my head in my hands. This is it. I’m going to kill my sister. And my only defense is fake teenage hormones.
Muffled voices float to the kitchen. Taylor yells something in our direction, but I don’t catch the words because I’m in a panic to appear busy.
I snag the bowl of Cool Whip and vigorously fold the canned fruit into the creamy substance.
Clank, scoop, clank, scoop. This will be the most thoroughly mixed ambrosia salad in the history of Thanksgiving.
“Aunt Meredith.” Taylor’s voice is closing in on us, and my heart beats faster. “Did you hear what I said? Harlan Holcombe is at our door. Hercules is here.”
Clank, clank, thud.
“What did he say?” I have no idea if I whispered the question because alarms are going off in my head. Piercing, clanging, find-an-exit, stop-drop-and-roll, save-yourself, what-is-happening alarms.
“He said he’s an idiot.” Hannah picks up my spoon, shoves it in her mouth, and turns on her heel to leave the room. “I’ll go see who it is.”
“Molly.” My voice croaks. “I think I need to tell you something.”
I’m paralyzed. All my body can do is stand frozen. Waiting. Watching.
The screech Hannah produces has the potential to shatter the crystal goblets I set out for the meal.
Molly takes a step forward. “What’s going on?”
A puff of air escapes my lips. “I might have invited a friend to Thanksgiving.”
Hannah’s burst into the room causes me to jump. She bounces, her face lit up, eyes darting between her mother and me. “This is sooooo much better than Jackson coming over for Thanksgiving,” she breathes.
Before I can explain, react, feel, or hide, Harlan Holcombe saunters into the room.
Harlan.
Holcombe.
In my kitchen.
Not just Harlan Holcombe. Harlan Holcombe and his smile are in my kitchen.
He might be wearing irresistibly attractive faded jeans with boots and a wrinkled button-down chambray shirt.
But man. His smile has superpowers, and my bitter teenage angst melts like ice cream on a summer Texas sidewalk.
That smile can’t silence my doubts from the last few weeks, but it sure can quiet them down to a dull roar.
For now.
He raises his eyebrows. “Happy Thanksgiving?”
I shake my head, trying to clear my brain, and can’t really help the smile on my face. “Yes.” My legs wobble as I move forward. “Yes. Happy Thanksgiving.”
Once I’m in range, he pulls me to him, wrapping one arm around my shoulders and one around my waist in everything that a hug is supposed to be.
“Hi.” His deep voice rumbles in my ear, and something zings through me. “Hope it’s okay that I surprised you.”
Was my moan audible? As I release him, I step back to Molly.
“Okay. Okay. Sure. Everyone, this is Harlan.” My open palm gestures in his direction, as if they don’t know who I’m talking about.
Get a grip, Meredith. “Harlan, this is my sister, Molly, her two kids, Taylor and Hannah, and somewhere is her husband, Michael. He’ll be in soon to pull the turkey from the oven. Mom and Dad ran to the store for ice.”
Harlan leans forward to grasp Molly’s hand.
She stares at him, eyes squinting, forehead scrunched as if she’s trying to work out a complicated math problem in her head.
Hannah giggles through her own handshake with him, but she’s holding herself together well for someone who truly is infested with the plague of adolescence.
Taylor gives him a “hey man” type of greeting, and both guys turn to observe the room of giddy girls.
Not taking her eyes off Harlan, Molly grabs my forearm and tugs me to her. “You weren’t drunk that night at the Broadmoor. You totally danced with Harlan Holcombe.”