Melanie and Mom came home while they were still outside. “What’s going on out there?” Mom asked, looking out the kitchen window. “Who’s that guy?”
I had finished frosting the cupcakes and was passing the time instant-messaging a couple of friends on my laptop. I wrote a quick “gtg” to them both, closed the computer, and explained how Andrew had come to be at our house. “It was his idea. But Noah may refuse to let him come again.”
“I think you should insist on it,” Mom said. “This is just what he needs. And I’m happy to pay for it.” Her enthusiasm made me wonder how awful an athlete she thought Noah was.
I said, “Actually, Andrew’s not charging us for this. He said just to bake him cupcakes.”
She frowned. “That’s not right. He should be paid for his services.”
“He said he didn’t want us to pay him.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“No, don’t,” I said. “Stay out of it.”
She briefly pressed her lips together, annoyed. “You should have insisted on it right from the start.”
“I did,” I said. “That’s what you don’t understand. I did insist and he said no. So get off my back about it, okay? He’s a grown man. No one’s making him do this.”
My mother made an irritable noise and left the room.
Melanie was looking at me.
“What?” I growled.
“Can’t you be a little more patient with her?”
“Oh, for god’s sake!” I said and reopened my laptop to let her know that the discussion was over.
The boys came in a few minutes later, and I stood up to greet them. “You all done?”
“Water break,” Andrew said. “But we probably won’t go on too much longer.”
“I’m really tired,” Noah said. But he looked happy.
“Anyone want a cupcake?” I asked. “They’re all frosted now.”
“Those look great,” Andrew said. He and Noah each grabbed one.
Melanie had left the kitchen earlier, but now she came running back in to greet Andrew. She welcomed him with an enthusiastic hug.
I wondered if that’s what mothers were supposed to do: give the PE coach a hug when they saw him away from school. That seemed weird to me. I tried to imagine giving Andrew a casual hug and the thought made me squirm. “I wish Nicole and Cameron were here to see you,” Mel told him. “They’d be so excited.”
“You should have them come next time,” he said. “I could use more kids.”
“Really? It wouldn’t be more work for you?”
“It would be great—we could play a lot more games.” He carefully peeled the paper liner off the cupcake. “Actually,” he said to me, “I meant to tell you to invite some of Noah’s friends to join us, for just that reason.”
I checked to make sure Noah wasn’t listening. He had wandered over to the corner of the room, where he was idly leaning against Eleanor Roosevelt’s broad back while eating his cupcake. “Don’t hold your breath,” I said in a low voice to Andrew. “We’re not so strong in the friends department.”
He considered that for a moment, then said, “I noticed he was really hitting it off with Joshua at Austin’s party. They’re very similar kids.”
“Right,” I said. “You can tell because they get beaten up by the same bullies.”
“Stop that. No one’s getting beaten up at our school.”
“I meant metaphorically.”
“What’s a metaphorical beating?”
“You know.”
“Do I?” He bit into the cupcake. “This is good,” he said through a mouthful of cake. “Even better than the other ones were.”
“Can I have another one?” Noah asked, coming back over to us and handing me the paper liner from his first one.
I looked at the frosting smeared around his mouth and said, “You’re covered in—” I stopped and gasped. “Oh, my god, Noah!”
“What?” He stared at me. They all stared at me.
“These aren’t gluten free! I totally forgot! I had to use one of the store mixes last night. It was so late and I couldn’t find a GF one… Did you eat that whole cupcake?”
He nodded. His lip trembled. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I can’t believe I did that. Oh, Noah, I’m so sorry!”
“I don’t feel very well,” he said in a little voice and clutched his stomach.
“And thus endeth the baseball practice,” Andrew said as I re-entered the kitchen fifteen minutes later. “How’s he doing?”
“Much better. Lying down.” I didn’t feel like going into detail about how many times Noah had vomited before feeling better. I slumped into a chair at the kitchen table across from Andrew. Melanie was pouring coffee at the counter. “I suck at being a mother,” I said.
Mel came over with a couple of mugs and put one down in front of each of us. “It’s not your fault.”
“What are you talking about? I baked the cupcakes and served them to him. In what possible universe would that not be my fault?”
“You didn’t mean to do it. It was an accident.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Much as I’ve been tempted at times, I have never deliberately poisoned Noah. I only do it accidentally.”
“He’ll be fine.” Mel poured a mug of coffee for herself and joined us at the table.
“I know. That’s not the point.” I turned to Andrew. “Sorry about all this. I’m guessing this wasn’t exactly the way you wanted the lesson to end.”
“Yeah, I prefer the kids to sprain something. Anyway, I think this is actually my fault. I asked you to make those cupcakes in the first place.”
“You’re right,” I said. “It is all your fault. You’ve had it in for Noah from the start.”
He cocked his head at me. “Just to be sure, you’re joking, right? I mean, you don’t still really think I’m out to get him, do you?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like you’ve ever done anything nice for him, like coach him privately or anything.”
“Rickie isn’t good at expressing gratitude,” Melanie said to Andrew.
“That’s so not true,” I said. “But thanks for pointing it out. See how I did that?”
She ignored that. “Can you believe Thanksgiving is coming up so soon?” she asked, cradling her mug in both hands. “Do you have any special plans, Andrew? Are you going away?”
He shook his head. “Normally I go home, but my parents decided to visit my sister this year. She moved to Canada and had a baby.”
“What a jerk,” I said.
“Exactly. She couldn’t have had a baby in LA? Plenty of people do.”
I gestured to myself and Mel. “We did.”
“Right. So then Gracie said I should join her and her family, but they’re going on a Mexican Riviera cruise for the whole week. I don’t have Monday and Tuesday off, and anyway”—he made a face—“Thanksgiving on a cruise? Doesn’t that sound depressing?”
We were agreeing with him when the garage door banged open and my mother entered the kitchen with Eleanor Roosevelt. “We came back early from our walk,” Mom said as she unhooked the leash. “Someone was more interested in chasing squirrels than walking nicely.”
“I thought we’d cured you of that, Mom,” I said.
“Very funny.”
Andrew held his hand out toward the dog. “Come here, you beauty.” He whistled and Eleanor Roosevelt came bounding over. He caressed her ears and scratched down her back. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you? Yes, you are. Yes, you are.”
“She’s not that good,” I said.
“Oh, yes, she is,” he crooned, tugging gently on her ears. She half-closed her eyes, totally blissed out. “Oh, yes, she is.”
Melanie jumped up suddenly from her seat. “There’s more coffee, Laurel. Here, I’ll help you.” She pulled my mother over to the counter. They started whispering. I wondered what they were conspiring about now.
“You have a dog?” I a
sked Andrew as Eleanor Roosevelt nudged his hand hard and then fell onto her back, inviting him to rub her tummy, which he did, although he had to lean way over in his chair to reach it.
“I wish. God, I wish. But Gracie’s allergic.”
“Get rid of her.”
He gave a short laugh. “I would for one like this.” He thumped Eleanor’s chest with his hand and she wagged her tail enthusiastically in response.
“You just like her because she’s pretty,” I said with mock disgust.
“What are you talking about? Look at those eyes—you can tell she’s profound.”
“She’s just a big stomach,” I said. “With some cute fluff on the outside to make us put up with the fact that she steals our food and chews our shoes and poops all over the yard.”
“Typical female.”
“Excuse me,” I said with great dignity. “I haven’t pooped on the lawn in years. Well, months at least.”
Melanie and Mom came over to the table. Melanie said, “We were wondering… Andrew, would you do our family the honor of joining us for Thanksgiving dinner?”
So that’s what they were whispering about.
He sat upright. “That’s so nice of you.” He sounded a little uncomfortable. Eleanor Roosevelt waited for a moment on her back, then, realizing he was done patting her, righted herself and rose to her feet and looked around to see who else might pay her some attention. “I hope I didn’t sound like I was hinting for an invitation.”
“Not at all,” Mel said. “It’s just that we’d like to have you.”
“We really would,” my mother said. “Thanksgiving’s going to be smaller this year than it’s been in the past.” She glanced at Melanie, who flushed.
“It’s so nice of you,” Andrew said again. “But I feel like I’m imposing.”
“You’d be doing us a favor.”
“I’m honored,” he said. “And touched.” He looked at me. “You’re awfully quiet. What do you think?”
“That if you come, I want to be on your team for the football game.”
He perked up at that. “You guys play football on Thanksgiving?”
“Only when the Kennedys visit.”
“I’d like to see you playing football,” he said. He glanced at Mom and Mel. “All of you.” But he had meant me.
“I’ve never played in my life,” I said. “But I will if you come.”
“That may be an offer I can’t refuse.”
It must have been: a few more minutes of coaxing and he agreed to come.
13.
After Andrew left, Melanie said, “I was thinking of going to Floyd’s today to get my hair cut. You want to come, Rickie?”
I was already reaching for my computer again. “Nah, I’m good.”
“Really? Because your hair looks like it could use—”
I cut her off. “I know how it looks.”
“Come on,” she said. “Please, Rickie. Just get the color evened out and maybe a trim. I’ll pay for it.” She flicked at my multicolored ponytail. “Please?”
Normally I would just say no to something like that. I hated when she and Mom tried to pretty me up. But I was starting to resent my reflection in the mirror. Looking pretty didn’t seem as wrong as it had a year or two ago when for some reason it had been important to me to look hard and dirty and angry and anything but maternal.
She seized on my hesitation. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll ask Mom to watch Noah. Maybe we can sneak in a little clothes shopping too—have a fun girly day.”
“Have you met me?” I asked.
“Be nice to me. I hate these weekends without the kids. They’re endless.”
She knew how to get to me. “Fine. Let me just go tell Noah I’m leaving.” I went upstairs to my parents’ bedroom, where Noah was curled up on the bed watching TV. My father was lying next to him companionably, his laptop resting on his thighs. He looked up and nodded to me when I entered.
“Our patient seems to be improving,” he said.
I bent down toward Noah, who immediately moved his head to the side so he could still see the TV screen. “How’re you doing?” I asked.
“Fine. Can you turn the TV up?”
“The remote is right here,” I said. It was lying on the bed two inches from his hand. I picked it up anyway and turned up the volume. He was watching MythBusters, which was one of his favorite shows. It was still TV and I probably shouldn’t have let him watch it as much as I did, but I figured I should just be grateful he preferred that particular show to Disney dreck. “I’m going out, Noah. Grandma and Grandpa will be here if you need them. That okay, Dad?”
My father was peering intently at his computer screen. “Sure, fine,” he said absently.
“He can watch TV the whole time if he wants.”
“That’s probably what he’ll do, then.”
As I left the room, I took one last glance back at them. They were both completely absorbed in their separate screens, their mouths slack, their eyes glazed.
The haircutter I got at Floyd’s, a girl inexplicably named Harlan, had even more tattoos than I did, including one of Tinker Bell (copyright infringement and all) on her upper arm. More piercings too. I found all that reassuring. “So what are we doing?” she asked as she undid my ponytail and fluffed the hair out around my shoulders. Man, it had gotten long. It fell halfway down my back.
Melanie had followed us over to the chair without being invited. She said, “It should be prettier and softer. And she needs the color evened out.”
“Excuse my mother,” I said to the haircutter. “She likes to butt in.”
“Wow, this is your mother?” Harlan said. “You look great,” she said seriously to Melanie.
I cracked up.
“I’m her sister, not her mother,” Melanie said. “Shut up, Rickie.”
“The point is don’t listen to her,” I said. “I don’t want to go all soft and pretty and housewifey. Know what I mean?”
Harlan reassured me that she didn’t do “housewife” cuts. “I like a little edge myself.” She flicked at the ends of my hair. “How short do you want to go?”
“What do you suggest?” Mel asked.
“Well, she’s pretty small.” Harlan took a step back to get a good look at me from the side. “And she’s got good bone structure.”
“Thank you.”
She nodded, circling around me. “You could actually go short, if you wanted to. Really short. Like cropped short.”
Melanie immediately shook her head. “Just a nice shoulder-length layered cut is what I was thinking.”
“That would be great,” I said. “And then I could dye my hair honey blond, and look like every other mother at Fenwick.”
“Don’t go blond,” said Harlan, who apparently didn’t recognize sarcasm. “Too much maintenance with your base color. Actually, if you go short you won’t have to re-dye your hair at all—unless you want to just for fun.”
“Don’t cut it short,” Melanie said.
I grinned wickedly at her reflection in the mirror, and I saw her eyes widen with the realization that she had just said the one thing that was likely to make me cut all my hair off.
I kept running my hand over the top of my head afterwards, trying to get used to the way it felt. Harlan had used some kind of pomade to rough up the hair and make it look piecey. It felt rough and foreign to my fingertips and my head felt way too light.
Melanie had gotten her usual prettily layered cut and had her hair blown dry. She joined me at the cash register and, without even asking, rubbed her fingertips up the nape of my neck.
“Well?” I said as she handed them her charge card.
“It suits you,” she admitted reluctantly. “I wouldn’t do it in a million years, but your features are so delicate. It’s better than I thought it would be.”
“I think you look fantastic,” said the cashier. “Like a young Winona Ryder—you know, back before she got sticky fingers.”
“I think
it’s very Natalie Portman,” said a male haircutter who was coming up with a client and pay slip. “Not everyone can pull that off but you’re rocking it, honey.”
“No one said anything nice about my haircut,” Melanie complained as we walked out.
“What were they going to say? ‘You look like you did when you came in, only with slightly shorter hair’?”
She checked out her reflection in the window as we walked past the shop toward our car. “Next to you, I always feel like a boring old drudge.”
“What are you talking about, nutball? You’re beautiful.”
“I look exactly like the kind of dull housewife you’re always so terrified of becoming.” She sighed. “You should be grateful to me, Rickie, because no matter what, you’ll always be cooler than me, even when we’re both old and living in some assisted-living home together.”
“I’m going to get a lot more piercings when I’m old,” I said. “My skin will be all loose by then, so it’ll be easy to find extra folds to pierce.”
“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Oh, I think I could top it. Shall I try?”
“God, no.” She took my arm and steered me toward the car. “We’re going to the Promenade and I am going to make you buy a whole new wardrobe to go with this haircut. It’s one thing to slob around in old jeans when you’re wearing a ponytail, but now you have to be chic.”
“It’s just a haircut,” I said.
“No. It’s a whole new look.”
At H&M and then Urban Outfitters, Melanie pulled out tons of clothes for me to try on, and in the dressing-room mirror, wearing tight new jeans and even tighter sweaters, my eyes bigger with no hair hiding them, my cheekbones suddenly prominent in a way they hadn’t been before, I actually did see someone who had a “look,” not just a kid hiding behind weird hair and loose clothing, but a woman who might draw a second glance from someone passing by.
I came out of my cubicle to consult Melanie about an outfit.
She stared at me. “You really do look great, Rickie. You were right to get that cut.”
“I only did it to annoy you.”
“I know. That’s why it’s so maddening you look so great. I hate you.”