Chapter 46
ELLIOTT
Chaos
What kind of cookies do you like?
Your cookies
Weirdo
My great aunt and uncle’s cabin sits on a slight incline, overlooking the lake.
Now, I use the term “cabin” in the loosest sense of the word considering the wood-clad monstrosity boasts eight bedrooms and more glass than any one of the high-rises downtown.
It wasn’t always like this. Back when I was little, the cabin was a cottage made of stone, with an A-frame roof and a bunch of single-beds in a loft.
Then my uncle bought a winning lottery ticket, and the old cabin was replaced with this one.
A rhododendron-lined drive snakes down toward the lake’s dark-blue water.
Brick paths and patios lead to brick stairs, all the way to the lapping shore.
Colorful sailboats bob lazily on the horizon, skirted by the occasional motorboat blaring music and leaving a trail of white-capped waves in its wake.
The smell of meat on the grill fills the air.
Towering oaks block out most of the sun, shading the mossy grass below.
Loren and I arrive twenty minutes late, which means we’re stuck parking right next to the bushes.
I offer to let Loren out before I park, but she insists she’s okay with climbing over the center console and getting out through my door.
With that little white sundress she’s wearing, the whole process is quite entertaining.
When I catch a flash of the lacy white thong she has on underneath, I seriously consider hopping right back into the truck and driving home.
The dinner is a potluck, and she baked a bunch of sugar cookies so soft your teeth sink right into the gooey vanilla goodness. I may or may not have already consumed three. Since she moved in, I’ve eaten like a king. If I don’t stop, I’m not going to be able to see my toes come Christmas.
The moment Loren’s strappy sandals hit the pavement, her eyes go wide as saucers. “Holy crap, that’s a lot of kids.”
Holy crap is right because there are children everywhere.
We’re talking in between the bushes, hanging out on the balcony, screaming through the lawn, splashing in the water, and passed out on loungers next to the picnic tables.
My mother is the only one of her five sisters and two brothers to have one child. August is one of six. My aunt Verna had ten children. Ten. Like, do they not have a television in their house or what? To make things even more insane, each of their children have at least three kids.
The yard looks like a damn day care center.
A woman in one of those shapeless dresses that looks like a pillowcase waddles up to us, smiling and waving with a tiny shovel in her hand. “Hey, Elliott. Long time, no see.”
Would you look at that? My cousin Kelly is pregnant…again. “Hey, Kelly. Is that number three or four?” I ask, nodding at her swollen stomach.
Her belly shakes when she laughs, just like I imagine Santa’s is supposed to. “Five, actually.” Her eyes track to Loren, and she gestures at her with that shovel. “Who is this?”
I throw an arm around Loren’s stiff shoulders, pulling her closer. “This is my girlfriend, Loren Piper.”
Kelly’s grin stretches even wider. “He must really love you to subject you to this madhouse.”
Loren’s smile tightens. Shit. She’s uncomfortable already. This was a bad idea. As soon as Kelly moves on, I’ll ask Loren if she wants to leave.
As if on cue, a little kid who looks like Kelly’s carbon copy starts screaming down by the slide.
Kelly whirls, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Oh, sugar. That’s little Kelsey.”
“Oh, sugar?”
“Yeah, well, we figured it was time to stop cursing when our youngest told his pre-school teacher she was a fucking disaster. I’ll talk to you in a bit. Sign-up sheet is on the door. Nice to meet you, Loren.”
“You too,” Loren says, then turns to me to add, “She seems fun.”
“She used to be.” We all used to sneak away from the mayhem and smoke weed up in the rhododendrons. Now she has her own fucking basketball team. I step in front of Loren, waiting for her to look up. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Positive. But first, explain this sign-up sheet.”
It’s hard to tell if she’s saying that because she wants to be here or if she’s only being nice out of respect for me. Either way, I’m not going to push her. The second she looks like she wants to bolt, we’re gone.
“All the adults take turns playing lifeguard. You sign up for a thirty-minute slot and have to watch the water to make sure the kids don’t accidentally drown.
” I gesture to the homemade lifeguard’s chair, painted hot pink, sitting smack-dab in the middle of the lowest patio, right at the edge of the water.
The lake must be freezing right now, but the kids don’t seem to mind.
“That’s really smart.”
“Yeah, well, when there are this many people, you learn to mitigate the mayhem.” After a close call when we were kids, we had to step up our game.
As long as one person is on duty, everyone else can relax.
We all take the responsibility very seriously.
No distractions, no phones allowed, that sort of thing.
Loren and I make our way down the brick path to where someone has taped a piece of paper onto the screen door. Names fill each of the lines, but there’s a gap around noon.
I sign us up for that slot, figuring we’ll both need a break from my family by then. Plus, most of the kids will be out of the water eating burgers and hot dogs, so it won’t be as hectic.
Inside the house, it’s like an airport gate, with people running this way and that.
Except, instead of suitcases, they’re hauling colorful beach towels or condiments or sand toys.
I take Loren’s cookies and set them beside the pies and cakes and weird cool-whipped concoctions our grandmother and her sisters make.
Inside the kitchen is a scene straight out of the 1950’s, with women bustling around in printed aprons while men stand outside on the deck talking shit.
Three of my cousins with tiny babies sit in a circle in the living room, all breastfeeding their kids.
I feel like an outsider, so I can only imagine how awkward Loren must feel. A few people nod to me, but I’m saved from having to engage in conversation until Loren leaves me for the bathroom.
That’s when everyone descends, asking about business. Who the girl I’m with is. Where I’m living now. How I’ve been.
Coming from big families, they’re all used to this sort of mayhem, but most of my life it was just me, my mom, and my dad, so it’s hard to cope with all the commotion and conversations taking place at the same time.
The noise at the bar rarely gets to me because it’s not directed at me.
Today, I can’t get away from it.
Speaking of my parents, where are they?
From across the room, Uncle Arnie makes a beeline for me.
He brews his own beer and has been trying for years to convince me to stock it at the bar.
I’ve tried explaining about the laws regarding that sort of stuff, and that he would need to obtain a license and pass safety inspections and all that, but he doesn’t seem to get it.
I glance back down the hallway where Loren disappeared.
I hate to leave her but cannot handle a conversation with Uncle Arnie unless I’ve had at least three or four drinks, so I head outside and sink onto one of the Adirondack chairs near the grill.
Arnie’s head swings right and left, no doubt searching for me, but I keep my head down until he’s out of sight.
Loren steps out onto the deck, her gaze finding mine like a homing beacon. The scalloped hem of her sundress sways along her tanned legs as she crosses over to me. I jolt to my feet, offering an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I was hiding from someone.”
“Hopefully, not from me.”
“Never.”
My dad climbs the stairs, beer in one hand and a plate of hot wings in the other. When he sees me, he comes straight over.
This is it. One of the two moments I’ve been dreading.
Not that I don’t want Loren to meet him.
More like I’m afraid of what he’s going to say or do when he does meet her.
I still remember when Alice and I were getting prom pictures taken and he came out of his room wearing Mom’s fuzzy robe and hot-pink shower cap.
At least he’s wearing clothes today. “Loren, this is my dad, Ernest Grant. Dad, this is my girlfriend, Loren.”
Dad’s brow furrows as he looks Loren up and down, his sauce-stained lips pressing flat with disapproval. “You never told us you had a girlfriend.”
Loren’s head falls, her cheeks flaming pink. “That’s because he’s ashamed of me.”
Hold on. She thinks I’m what? “I am not ashamed of you.” I’m proud to call her mine. Have I not made that clear?
Dad sets his beer on the railing and swirls one of his wings through the blue cheese dressing glob on the side of his paper plate. “We raised him better than that, I assure you, Lily.”
Of all the scenarios I worried about, my dad acting like an asshole was not one of them. Doesn’t he know that’s mom’s job? “Her name is Loren, Dad. Loren.”
Loren’s shoulders start to shake. Great. He made her cry. I’m never going to forgive him for this. I step in front of my dad, blocking his view. “I’m sorry, Loren. Please don’t cry. We can go home right now.” Screw everyone here.
Her head lifts, and while there are tears in her eyes, she’s also smiling. Laughter bursts from her lips, and she starts cackling. Behind me, my dad sputters, his deep chuckle even more confusing.
Loren runs a finger under her eyes, still laughing. “You should see your face right now.”
“What is happening?”
Dad steps around me, offering Loren his plate. “Do you want to tell him, sweetheart, or should I?”
Loren steals one of his wings, gives it a little dip into the sauce, and takes a bite. “I had the pleasure of meeting your dad when I asked him where the bathroom was.”
So what she’s saying is that they colluded to pull one over on me. Loren really should know better after what we did to August. But if she wants to make me her enemy, then so be it. I will make her pay in the most delicious ways.
Dad hip-checks me. “You have yourself a keeper.”
I think so too. I grab them some napkins held in place beneath a concrete frog. One down, one to go. “Where’s Mom?”
Dad swings a wing toward the water. “Guarding lives down by the lake.”
One of my great-uncles calls my dad’s name, lifting two fishing poles over his head. Dad launches his plate of bones into the trash bag tied to one of the balustrades. “It was lovely to meet you, Loren. Hopefully, my son won’t be too ashamed to bring you by the house sometime.”
She beams. “One can only hope.”
I fold my arms across my chest, waiting for her to finish cleaning her fingers. The longer she takes, the redder her cheeks get. When she finally looks up at me, her eyes sparkle with sunlight and happiness.
“You were gone for five minutes.”
She shrugs. “What can I say? People like me.”
People do like her—and for good reason. She is the sunniest, warmest, and most welcoming woman I’ve ever met. “Because you’re amazing.”
“You say this as if I don’t already know.”
August waves when he sees us and carefully extricates himself from the grandma table where he’s probably been hiding since he arrived.
He shoves his lime-green sunglasses onto his forehead.
Between those and the salmon-colored polo shirt, he looks like a frat bro from the nineties. “Hey. You’re late.”
“Traffic.”
“Liar,” he snorts, opening his arms for a hug. Not from me, that’d be weird. But Loren steps right up and hugs him back. “You’re a brave woman, Loren Piper.”
She draws away, catching her hair and throwing it over her shoulders. “I don’t see what the two of you were so worried about. Everyone has been lovely.”
August’s brows rise as he shoots a glance my way. “Has she met your mother yet?”
“Not yet.”
“You’ll get it soon enough,” he says to her before nodding at me. “Did you see Kelly?”
“Sure did.”
“Knocked up again. You may want to avoid the punch, Loren. I hear it’s catching.”
She laughs into her glass, not realizing that for once, August isn’t joking. Couples do have a habit of getting pregnant after the family reunion, but I think that has more to do with how much they drink, not what’s in the punch.
Then again, my grandma refuses to tell anyone her secret recipe, so maybe there is some truth to it.
Turning his head slightly, August talks out of the corner of his mouth like a creep. “So, weird question, but is that our cousin over there in the green bikini?” He tilts his chin at a woman with dark hair braided down her back.
She looks familiar, but it isn’t until I see the woman with gray threaded through her hair sitting on a lawn chair next to her that I realize why. “I’m pretty sure that’s Leah Norton’s daughter.”
“Damn.”
“Why?”
“No reason.” His throat bobs with his gulp of beer.
Hold on… “Tell me you’re not scoping out women at our family fucking reunion. That’s incest, August.”
Loren chokes on her drink; red drops spill down her chin that she quickly swipes away before they can stain her dress.
August tilts his beer at me. “It’s not incest if they’re someone’s stepdaughter or related to us by marriage, now, is it?”
“You’re disgusting.”
“It’s this fucking place, man. Seeing all these pregnant women messes with your mind. Drives your testosterone through the roof. My dick is like: Must. Make. Babies. Fucking Nolan genes,” he mutters with a shake of his head.
Fucking Nolan genes is right.
Although I laugh into my beer, I take a good, long look at Loren, wondering if she’s ever thought about having kids. Probably not the sort of conversation to have after only dating for a month, but still…I wonder.
I immediately stop wondering the moment I see my mother climbing those brick stairs, her hair perfect as ever. She zeroes in on me and smiles. Then her head swings toward Loren and her eyes narrow.
This is it. The moment I’ve been dreading.
I’m not ashamed of Loren. I just need to get to my mom before she gets to my girlfriend. Lay a few ground rules.
“Hey, August.” I clap him on the shoulder. “Do you mind showing Loren the treehouse we used to play in? I’ll just be a second.”
He seems to realize the situation I’m trying to avoid and casually steers Loren up the hill. “Come on, Loren.” Quieter, he adds, “If anyone asks, pretend you’re my girlfriend, okay?”
“Not a fucking chance, dickhead,” I bark.
He grins over his shoulder at me. “Hey, it was worth a shot.”
Time to face the most terrifying woman I know.
Mom comes to a stop by a hollowed-out stump that my aunt has turned into a flowerpot, but she’s too busy watching August rescue Loren to spare me a glance.
When she looks back at me, the only thing that gives away her irritation is the slight twitch in her right eye.
“Elliott. So good of you to finally show up.”
Would you look at that? It didn’t even take her a minute to throw in a subtle dig. This is going to be fun. “Nice to see you too, Mom.”