Chapter 33
Thanksgiving morning in New York is magic. I can feel the energy of the parade a few blocks away from my apartment but the streets surrounding the building are unusually peaceful and calm. The air is crisp and still, and there’s a sense of hushed anticipation, as if the city itself is holding its breath before the celebrations begin.
Plant Daddy is closed for the holiday so Kai is driving the adaptable van he uses for plant pickups to get to my mother’s house on the other side of the George Washington Bridge. When I get downstairs, Omar and Finn are helping retract the collapsible ramp, and Kai is in the driver’s seat, clearly ready to go. When he sees me he honks the horn and yells out the window, ‘Hurry up! Glory is waiting.’ Then he honks again.
‘Are those your world-famous Rice Krispie treats?’ Omar asks looking at the square of rumbled tinfoil I’m carrying. He thinks they’re revolting, so I know he’s being sarcastic.
‘Don’t make fun,’ I admonish him and turn to Finn who looks more preppy than arty today. He’s wearing a cable-knit sweater that hugs his chest and a tweed newsboy hat. ‘Omar sneers at my low-brow taste in food,’ I say to him, handing the treats to Omar to put in the van.
‘Are those really Rice Krispie treats?’ Finn asks with some surprise in his voice.
‘With peanut butter. That’s my little trick.’ I wink.
‘That is my absolute favorite dessert,’ Finn says, his voice a mix of playful eagerness and sincerity that makes me smile from ear to ear.
‘Thank you for coming today, Finn. It means a lot to my mom. She likes you.’
‘I like her,’ he says. The cold late morning air is making his cheeks redder than usual.
‘Remember, my mom knows I’m going to Florida, but she has no idea that you’re going to be there too. Can we keep it that way? At least for now. I’ll spring it on her just before I leave to minimize the nagging.’
‘I’m not going to lie to her but I promise I won’t bring it up.’
I guess that’s the most I can ask for. Kai honks the horn. ‘Stop gabbing. Glory is expecting us.’ We do as we’re told and hop in. Kai pulls out and we’re on our way.
‘Where’s your mystery date?’ I ask Omar, who is sitting up front and adjusting the orange-and-green striped bow of his flouncy shirt in the vanity mirror above the windshield.
‘He had to take care of something this morning but he’ll be there. I gave him directions.’
I wonder what he’s hiding. We drive through midtown and up the Henry Hudson Parkway. A few pine wreaths and red bows have been put up in store windows and on streetlamps, but the feeling in the city is still autumn. The trees that line Riverside Drive and the Hudson River are at their peak with colors that radiate deep jewel tones of ruby and topaz.
‘I love autumn,’ Finn says. He can’t take his eyes off the trees as we pass. ‘I’ve never lived any place with seasons that change so dramatically. One day all the trees are leafy and green and the next they’re totally different.’
‘The colors are beautiful,’ I say looking out the window with him.
‘But it’s not just that. It’s the change that’s so striking. So dramatic. I look at those massive trees with all those green leaves and it feels like they’ll be that way forever but then suddenly they turn into something new or maybe something they were always meant to be.’
I try to look at the trees and see them as he does. I like trying to understand his perspective because it’s so different from my own.
We hit a pothole on the road and everyone shifts in their seats. Kai says, ‘One of you look back there and make sure the potted palm I’m bringing for Glory is alright. It’s fragile and special.’
Omar twists his head behind him. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Are you sure?’ Kai says keeping his eyes on the road.
‘It’s just a plant,’ I say without thinking.
‘Just a plant? Keep talking that way and you won’t make it over the George Washington Bridge.’
‘Sorry, Kai.’ I forget how protective he is of his plants. And my mother for that matter.
Once we’re over the bridge we take the exit for the town I grew up in avoiding the highway that is currently under construction We are less than thirty minutes from Hell’s Kitchen but the crowded suburb of Leonia, New Jersey, is almost another universe. Kai drives past the public school I attended for most of my teenage years. The parking lot is empty, and the building is silent, but in my memory I can hear the crowded halls filled with students.
I see myself trying to be invisible as I went from class to class, praying that one of the idiots who taunted me wouldn’t be bored and seek me out to make their day more interesting. Trying to be overly involved in school activities since a moving target is harder to aim for. I can feel my body stiffen. It’s an automatic response. I wonder if Finn is having a reaction to seeing the school, but before I can find out, he must sense my discomfort.
‘You okay?’ he asks. I can’t immediately break my gaze from staring at the school and I have to consciously turn toward him.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. That’s the school I went to.’ My words come out flat and emotionless. ‘I know your school years weren’t the best either.’
‘No, but we didn’t just drive by mine,’ he says. I look down, and for a second, I think I see his hand move toward me, but then it stops. Or maybe it was my imagination. I’m not trying to lead him on at all. I don’t want to do that. But a part of me wouldn’t mind if he reached out for me in this moment. I’m sure feeling my hand in his would make the stress melt. I’m about to edge my fingers toward his when Kai slams on the brakes.
‘Sam, which way? You know how I hate driving in the country.’
‘Kai, this is not the country. You can still see the Manhattan skyline. We’re in a suburb. Turn left up ahead by that drug store.’
‘The only person I’d leave Manhattan for is your mother,’ he says accelerating slowly. ‘Everyone be on the lookout for cows or Republicans. Anything that might attack us.’
The van pulls up in front of the house I was born and raised in, a golden-rod yellow, split-level with black shutters. My mother has an assortment of flags, signs, and garden statuary across the front lawn. As a kid, the tackiness of our house embarrassed me. I would beg my mother to have more tasteful curb appeal but then she would find a gnome with a particularly radical look or a lawn sign with a new clever way to say, ‘everyone is welcome here’ and our front lawn would turn into a combination safe haven/zoning violation.
We use the back entrance so Kai can easily enter and as soon as I open the door my mom runs over and gives each of us a kiss on the cheek and one of her famous hugs. I let the rest of the crew get their greeting as I walk into the kitchen. The first thing that hits me is the smell of turkey roasting in the oven with my mother’s unique blend of spices and garlic. Everything still looks exactly the same as it did when I was in school. Across the kitchen counter, she has various side dishes in the weird brightly painted handmade pottery I grew up with. I’m sure she has been working on this meal for the past week.
The dark brown cabinets with dark powder-blue accents haven’t changed. Drawings from elementary school, yellow with age, still hang on the fridge, and there are many pictures of me scattered about. Too many.
‘Is that you?’ Finn asks pointing to a yearbook photo from fifth grade in a wooden frame. I’m wearing a Spice Girls T-shirt and I was at my heaviest that year. I should have arrived early to do a sweep of the place.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I have no idea why she keeps that picture up. We had such an argument over wearing that T-shirt.’ I shake my head.
‘She wanted you to wear something more formal?’ he asks.
‘No, not at all. She wanted me to wear my Destiny’s Child T-shirt.’
Finn laughs and picks up the frame. ‘You look adorable.’ There’s no way he’s being honest.
‘Finn, I’m busting out of that T-shirt, my hair is a frizzled mess, my braces caught the flash of the camera, and my skin looks like the surface of the moon. I do not look adorable.’
‘You had a glow up at some point. There’s no doubt about that,’ he says looking me up and down. ‘But the kid in that picture is adorable.’
I’m thinking about what he said the other day about how I see myself. I felt the opposite of adorable at that age. I wanted to hide from everyone and everything. I barely had any friends beside Patty and I sat in my room, watched old movies and ate Cheetos and chocolate milk, a combination of flavors I still love.
Finn heads out to the van to help Omar carry in even more food and I peek into the dining room where my mother has squeezed just enough chairs around the tiny dining table. In the center of the table is the turkey pineapple that has been a part of my world since I was a kid. Every year, my mother would purchase a pineapple and use it as the body for a turkey head she made out of felt and googly eyes. It has been the centerpiece for as long as I can remember. The house feels trapped in time but it’s comforting. My mom finds me alone in the dining room.
‘I can hear them both, you know,’ she says quietly as she puts her hand on my back.
‘ La Traviata or Carmen ?’ I ask.
‘ La Bohème ,’ she says and closes her eyes, listening to the music only she can hear. My aunt and father loved to sing opera in the kitchen every holiday. I don’t remember my father doing it, I was too young, but my aunt kept the tradition alive, serenading us as we stuffed the turkey or peeled potatoes. She was a horrible singer and it was hard even to figure out the tune but that didn’t stop her. Sometimes my mother joined in but she said she wanted to listen more than she wanted to sing so Aunt Shug would belt out arias and fill the air with music while we cooked and laughed.
‘She’s here today, you know. She wouldn’t miss Thanksgiving. She would love this crowd so much.’ My mom closes her eyes gently.
‘She really would,’ I say thinking about how Kai would like Shug as much as he seems to like my mom. ‘She’d be thrilled to see so many people here squeezed into the dining room.’
‘Thank you, Sam. For bringing everyone here. I had been dreading today, but knowing everyone was coming made me look forward to it.’
‘You invited them,’ I remind her.
‘Maybe, but you’re the hub of the wheel here. You’re the person that helps people connect. You’re like me that way.’
‘I guess I am,’ I say. I was angry when Paul couldn’t make it, but right now, I’m glad he couldn’t. It would have been a very different day for us if he had been here. We texted this morning and he’s planning to stay parked in front of the TV in his room in Atlanta watching football.
‘I thanked Shug for bringing you Finn,’ my mom says interrupting my thoughts. ‘He looks so handsome today, I don’t know how you don’t jump his bones right now.’
‘Mom, stop it. I am not jumping anyone’s bones, and certainly not Finn.’ I look out the window to make sure he’s still on the back deck with Omar setting up chairs.
‘Why not? He’s perfect for you. He checks all the boxes on the list.’
‘ Your list.’ He’s her fantasy of what my boyfriend should be.
She rolls her eyes. ‘Finn is handsome, passionate about his work, about life, and I think he’s really falling for you. He’s what you’re looking for.’
‘No, Mom,’ I say. Finn is not falling for me. We are becoming friends. That’s it. ‘You have no idea what I’m looking for.’ When she finds out I’m moving in with Paul, she won’t take it well, but at least she will finally understand once and for all what I need in a boyfriend, and this entire topic will be closed.
‘You just don’t want to admit you like him because that means admitting I’m right.’ Didn’t Omar claim this theory a few weeks ago? There must be something in the coffee beans at Plant Daddy.
‘That’s outrageous. It’s not true at all. Not even a little bit. No, no, no. No way, Mom.’ I stop my tirade, thinking my protestation might be making a case for the opposite. Luckily, the doorbell rings, so I can temporarily avoid the conversation.
‘Will you get that? I need to check on the turkey,’ my mom says and steps back into the kitchen. I walk through the living room and open the front door to find the last person I thought I would see today.