“Not a turkey?” Elliot says.
It is unseasonably warm, too warm for all the sweaters he packed, so he is wearing an old golf shirt of his father’s, a kelly green clingy thing. He feels ridiculous.
“What are you wearing?” his mother says, holding a lobster in the air.
“All I want to know is why we’re not having turkey,” Elliot insists. “And cranberries and mashed potatoes.” He doesn’t mention the yams topped with marshmallows that she usually makes just for him.
“Well,” she says slowly, like she’s talking to a stupid person, “Mindy and Randi are having Thanksgiving with their mother in Katonah, and we thought that we’d make something else so they wouldn’t have to force down two entire turkey dinners.”
Those yams had brown sugar and molasses on them too. They had them every Thanksgiving Elliot can remember.
His mother has started to slam things on the counter—New Zealand mussels and jumbo shrimp and oysters still in their shells. “If you can’t enjoy bouillabaisse with us, then maybe you should have Thanksgiving with your father.”
“He’s eating at a restaurant,” he tells her.
“Well,” she says, staring at him from under her bangs, “there you have it.”
“Bouillabaisse,” Elliot mutters, and stomps out, into the mudroom where an array of outdoorwear hangs on chunky hooks. No one ever got their own winter coat or ski jacket. Instead, his mother bought half a dozen in different colors and they grabbed whatever they needed. The same with rain boots and aqua socks and hiking shoes. They stood, orphans, in a neat row beneath the bench in the mudroom.
Today Elliot grabs a red down vest that is a little snug under the armpits and heads outside into the bright sun. Al Roker had promised balmy weather and he was right. Elliot cuts across the Rickeys’ backyard, all overgrown and swampy from clogged gutters. Those Russian parties used to be held out here, he remembered. Mrs. Rickey used to serve the vodka in frozen blocks. Once, a few years ago, his mother had told him—cattily, Elliot decides now—that it wasn’t such a big deal. “She fills an empty milk carton with water, sticks the bottle inside, and freezes the whole thing. Then she cuts away the milk carton and acts like she’s done something monumental.” Elliot pauses near the sliding glass doors that lead into the Rickeys’ kitchen. Was his mother already fucking him back then?
The Rickeys’ kitchen looks like someone still lives there. There is a vase of dried flowers on the table; a digital clock on the stove glows the correct time in red; and when Elliot presses his ear to the glass, he thinks he hears the clunky hum of the refrigerator, like an airplane about to take off. Theirs used to do that too. When they kicked it, it quieted, until eventually it broke down completely.
He wants nothing more than to go inside the Rickeys’ house and poke around. Maybe he would find a pair of his mother’s white cotton underpants under the bed, or a smudge of her pink lipstick somewhere private. Elliot jiggles the door until it opens, and steps inside. The first thing he does is kick the refrigerator and, after a gush of water drops from the ice-maker part, it shuts up. It smells a little rancid, like old fruit, and he sees that the dried flowers are actually just dead, not some Martha Stewart centerpiece idea. A card propped against the vase says, Happy Anniversary, Babushka! Love, Fran. He puts the card in the pocket of his jeans and wanders through other rooms.
Unlike Elliot’s house, the Rickeys’ sprawls like a wide yawn, all on one floor with little steps here and there. Elliot has to step down into the living room, up into the dining room. It’s a house where people would fall a lot, he decides, stumbling. The den has, standing almost as tall as Elliot, one of those Russian dolls with the other dolls inside. When he gets closer, he recognizes that it’s Gorbachev. It takes two hands to untwist and remove Gorbachev’s head, and when he finally does, the next doll is Bush. To the Rickeys, this was probably very funny. Elliot wanders out of the den, past two closed doors, and into the master bedroom, still holding Gorbachev’s head.
The bed is stripped, the bureau tops are dusty, and the drawers and closets gape open, empty except for crumpled tissues, pennies, and twisted coat hangers. He sets Gorbachev’s head on the tall chest of drawers and stretches out on the bed. He’s surprised when he picks up the phone and gets a dial tone. The only number he can think to call is his old buddy Rhett, who has dropped out or flunked out of six colleges in two years.
Rhett is happy to hear from him. “Are you back?” he asks.
“Remember Mindy and Randi Rickey?” Elliot whispers. “I’m at their house. Next door to mine.”
“I thought that family moved or something,” Rhett says.
“The house is abandoned except for some former world leaders.”
“Like, empty?” Rhett says.