Chapter 27
Stevie
Adam crashed my date last night. It’s only fair that I get to crash his dinner with my parents, right? Yes. Definitely. There’s no way that dinner is happening without me. It stings that my mom didn’t include me, and it’s also telling.
What is she up to? She’s plotting something. Should members of the Committee to Determine the Outcome of Bigfoot Versus Boyfriend have private dinners? Is that unethical? Am I desperately grasping at straws because I feel excluded and butthurt?
No. I’m not.
I’ve washed the leftover stink of fried food out of my hair from my short shift at the diner, and it’s almost go time.
I frown into the mirror, twisting a curling iron through the last strand of my straight hair when my phone buzzes on the counter.
I swipe it open with my free hand while my hair cooks.
CRISPIN:
What’s your schedule like on Saturday night? Are you up for some more Squatch Watching?
I unwind the curling iron out of my hair, debating how to respond. I’ve shown him everything I can in the area where I had my sighting, but I’m not one to turn down easy money. And I need to spend as much time as possible in the woods. This one’s a no brainer.
ME:
I’m up for it, but I’m not sure I can show you anything you haven’t already seen.
He responds with a string of laughing emojis, then:
CRISPIN:
I like how you always catch me off guard.
CRISPIN:
Meet me at that little diner in town at 5:30? We can grab a quick bite before we leave
I shoot out a quick “works for me,” then spray a coat of hairspray over my curls while they cool. I can’t think about Bigfoot hunting right now. I have a dinner to crash.
Adam said my mom told him to be at my parents’ house at six. I’ll pop in a few minutes early so she can grieve the failure of her plan (i.e., rip me a new one) without an audience, but not so early that she’ll cancel the whole thing. Calculating? Maybe. I learned it from her.
I swipe on a layer of peach lip gloss, shove my feet into my sandals, and, after a short drive, walk into my parents’ foyer.
“Ma?” I call through the house.
“Stevie!” My mother’s beaming face pops around the corner from the kitchen. “Right when I expected you.”
“What?”
“If I had invited you to dinner with Adam, you’d’ve said no because no man is ever good enough for you.
” She rolls her eyes. “But if you overheard me inviting Adam to a dinner that you weren’t invited to?
” She waves her saucy spoon in the air like a magic wand, and she’s the fairy godmother of stubborn women and comfort food.
She’s right, dang it. But only because she doesn’t know about Adam and me—and she can’t.
I sniff the air. “Did you make shepherd’s pie?” I recognize the homey smell of my mom’s best dish. It’s also her butt-kissing dinner. She makes it whenever she and my dad have an argument. I’m guessing she made it to grease my wheels—or Adam’s. I still haven’t figured out what my mom is up to.
“Your dad requested it.” She turns for the kitchen and I follow her. “And I had some potatoes to get through.”
My mom has set the table the way she usually does for company: simple yellow cloth napkins, tall glasses of ice water, candles, and a ceramic pitcher of fresh-cut lupines in the center of the table.
Adam will love those. I smirk at the controversial flower arrangement.
I love being home, as crazy as my mom is.
She might have a hidden agenda, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love her.
Usually, she has some unseen benevolent purpose—like when she started taking me to work with her at the York’s place when I was a little girl.
At first I hated being dragged along. It was summer, and I wanted to run around the woods with my brothers.
I had no interest in bumming around the mansion of some snobby old people and their awkwardly shy granddaughter.
But one day my mom made us eat lunch together, and Diana and I became fast friends.
My mom saw a girl who was isolated and lonely because of the life she was born into, and her only daughter needed an influence other than her rough-and-tumble brothers.
My mom's fluffernutters and penny-ante machination worked.
Tonight her weapon of choice is shepherd's pie, and the stakes are higher. I need to stay sharp, or she’ll figure out that all of her work has already been done. I’m done for. Gone. Completely lost in Adam. And as a member of the committee, she can’t know that.
“What can I help with, Mom?” Did that sound blasé or breathless because I know a heart-stopping man is about to show up?
I look around the combined kitchen and dining area. She already has the main dish on the sideboard, drinks poured, and a tray of warm focaccia waiting. She brought out the big guns with the focaccia.
My mom doesn’t look up from where she’s tossing a salad. “Why don’t you light the candles?”
She always has taper candles on the table, even when it’s just pizza night. She loves the ambience, but I suspect in this case they’re better to lure potential boyfriends with, my dear.
I do as she says, though. I’m holding the long lighter over the white tapers in their buffed brass candlesticks when there’s a knock at the door.
“I’ll get that,” my dad calls, emerging from the hallway.
My mom wags her eyebrows, dropping the tongs in the salad bowl with a clatter. She titters—Inger Sullivan, mother of four and president of our church’s women’s organization—giggles like a teenager. Then she bounces after my dad into the foyer.
I fumble my parents’ lighter back into the junk drawer and smooth my hands down my jeans. Should I go out there or wait for them to come back? Can I really act like I don’t know how it feels when Adam kisses the tender spot under my earlobe?
My face is hot. I’m experiencing one of my dreaded full-body blushes. Curse my fair skin.
Don’t think about kissing Adam, I remind myself, like it’s that easy. For all my parents know, he’s just an acquaintance with whom I’ve done minor cottontail rabbit research—which is how I found out the man makes a mean daisy crown, and how warm his hugs are, and how his arms—
“Gah!” I snatch two oven mitts from the drawer, frantically fanning my hot face, my neck, my chest, then my armpits, tipping my face to the ceiling fan over the dining table.
“Stevie, Adam is—” My mom stops herself with a sigh of defeat. “Here. Everything okay, hon?” she asks sweetly.
My strangled laugh sounds deranged. I wave the oven mitts with emphasis, demonstrating the fanning effect like an idiot. “I got hot.”
My dad is already moving for the thermostat. “I’ll turn up the air before this guy takes off his shirt,” he teases, giving Adam a hearty clap on the shoulder and heading down the hall.
I’d like to be buried in the backyard next to my old parakeet, Mr. Lucky.
Of course my dad won’t go easy on Adam tonight. He’s been my gatekeeper since day one—something I’ve appreciated until this moment.
And Adam. He’s already uncomfortable in social situations. I’m sure it took a lot for him to even be here. The man has made concession after concession this week. He’s stretched himself far beyond his comfort zone, thanks to me, and he’s being taunted in return.
“Dad!” I call after him.
The air conditioner kicks on, and he comes back quickly. “What?” he asks, all innocence.
My mom pins him with a familiar glare, and he takes his place at the end of the table.
“Have a seat, Shirtless Adam.” My dad gestures to the dining chairs. “Or do you prefer Shirtless?” he teases again with a wink at me like we’re coconspirators.
Normally, I’d go along with this. Of course, it’s not the first time my mom has gathered an unsuspecting young man to her table.
My dad and I have always joined forces to fend them off.
This time it’s different, though. I don’t want my dad to shoo this one away.
I want his stamp of approval, I realize. But how do I communicate that to him?
Dad, stop! I try to indicate with my eyes. We’re going to be nice to this one.
My dad looks confused.
“Just Adam is fine,” he answers patiently, with a smile for my dad. He sits in Conor’s old chair.
I sit across from him in my usual spot, as jittery as a bird.
Only now do I notice the familiar white paper bag Adam must’ve given my mom.
The sticker from Marlow’s Diner tells me he remembered the whoopie pies, and my lips curl into a small smile.
It reminds me of Ike and August. It’s something they would do—not flashy or over the top.
He remembered something small, and that’s actually huge. My heart skips at the thought.
Meanwhile my mom trades the dessert for a water pitcher, setting it on the table with a warning clank aimed at my dad. She takes her place on his other side. “Bless the food, Brian.”
I can’t tell if my mom feels validated or terrified. She asked for this, though.
My dad and Adam have been talking about endangered animals and invasive plants since we served the shepherd's pie—literally, through the entire meal. It started with my mom’s choice of centerpiece.
My dad brought it up, but he got Adam’s attention.
Now they’re like a couple of teenage girls who’ve discovered their shared obsession with the same college football player, only they’re talking about Japanese knotweed instead of Sam Hartman.
They’ve covered everything from New England cottontail rabbits to wild turkeys, and my mom has unsuccessfully attempted to change the subject throughout dinner.
This conversation makes it easy to hide the fact that we’re secretly seeing each other and that Adam has been resting his leg against mine throughout the meal.
They can talk about the forests of Maine all they want.
I’m content right here, listening to my dad and Adam talk shop. I could not be happier, in fact.
On my mom’s most recent attempt to change the subject, Adam has pity on her.
“Adam, how did you get into this line of work? Is your family very outdoorsy?” she asks, with a look to my dad that begs him to shut his yapper once and for all.
My dad grins.
“No, ma’am.” Adam smiles while he seems to consider how to answer.
“My sister, Ruth, is my only sibling. She doesn’t like bugs or being uncomfortable.
She’s more of a books-and-movies person.
When I was a kid she used to tell me my parents adopted me after they found me on the beach being raised by an aggregation of manatees—”
“Aggregation,” my dad repeats. “That’s a good word.” Then he steals Adam’s attention away again. “Did you know that a group of rabbits is called a fluffle?”
Adam nods. “Yes, sir.”
I sneak a look at my mom. Her jaw is fixed and her cheeks are flushed. “Brian. Can you help me serve dessert, please?” She scrapes her chair away from the table. “Stevie, you can clear the table.”
I stand, gathering empty plates and cutlery, and Adam joins me.
“You don’t have to help,” I whisper. “You’re a guest.”
My parents are half whispering, half arguing in the kitchen. This is our halftime huddle, I guess.
Adam ignores me. “I’m not going to sit while you clean up.” He takes the plates in my hands, adding his to the bottom.
I blow out the candles and trail after him into the kitchen area. My parents fall silent.
Adam takes the dishes to the sink and starts the process of rinsing them.
“Please don’t.” My mom waves him off. “We’ll get to it later.”
He ignores her, too.
If any other man ignored my mom’s instructions, I would add it to my list. But when Adam rolls the sleeves up his bronzed forearms and he’s up to his elbows in the sink, all I can do is observe with appreciation.
My mom gloats silently to my dad, then to me, while Adam loads the dishes into the dishwasher. The satisfied shimmy of her shoulders while she serves fat, thickly frosted whoopie pies onto plates says she thinks she’s winning this round.
When Adam closes the dishwasher, he joins me on the other side of the counter. “Did I get the right flavors?” he asks with a nod to the pies.
“There’s not a wrong flavor,” my mom says with bright eyes for Adam. She gathers a stack of paper napkins. “Everyone grab a plate. Let’s take these in the living room, and we can turn on a show.”
My mother is determined to get what she wants, and she wants to absorb Adam into the Sullivan family. She might’ve been outvoted at the town meeting, but she’s making this happen one way or another. She’s like a boa constrictor, slowly wrapping our family around him until it’s too late for Adam.
And it’s working.
He doesn’t know what she’s doing. He doesn’t put up a fight.
He takes a place on the loveseat, balancing his dessert plate on his knee.
My parents take their usual spots on the couch.
My only seating option in our small living room is the place next to Adam, and my mom’s conniving, boa constrictor grin says everything is going according to her plan.