“Sophia....” Claudia reached for Livvie across her boyfriend’s chest. Livvie smiled.
“No, it’s okay. I don’t mean to cry. It’s just… this year, I have two of the greatest friends a girl could ask for, an apartment of my own—in Spain! And I…” She looked toward me, and damn it I could feel myself getting caught up in her emotions. “I have you. I have a place to belong. I have a family that loves me. I’m deeply grateful for that. I don’t know where I’d be without it.” She wiped at her cheek and shook herself. “Eww, sorry to get all emo. I just love you fuckers, that’s all. Someone else go now.”
I sat perfectly still in my seat, trying to process exactly what I was feeling. Livvie had included me on her list. She was thankful for me. She’d found a place to belong with me. I felt exactly the same way, but I could never be so casual with expressing my emotions. Perhaps if we were alone, perhaps if we were in the dark, or imaginably naked, then I could tell her. But everyone was looking at me. Livvie was smiling sweetly, encouragingly. Claudia’s stare was much more invasive and practically tried to intimidate me into speaking. Rubio simply waited. He was a patient sort. I cleared my throat and smiled.
“Well, it’s difficult to top that, but I’ll try to offer something.” I looked toward Livvie. “I know we haven’t known each other long. We’ve only been seeing each other a month and a half.” She smiled at me with narrowed eyes. “However, I can honestly say… these have been the best six weeks I’ve ever had. I’m thankful for the time we’ve been given so far, and I hope that by next year—” I looked toward everyone else, “I’ll love all you fuckers as well.”
Claudia and Rubio laughed. I returned my gaze to Livvie. She was staring at me with an expression I hadn’t quite seen before. I liked it.
“I’m thankful for good food, great friends, and love. May God bless this food and our friendships,” Rubio said quickly and succinctly. I looked away from Livvie reluctantly and smiled. Claudia pulled Rubio toward her mouth roughly and kissed him much more passionately than was perhaps appropriate at the dinner table. Young love. That’s what I wanted.
Claudia whispered to him in Spanish, “I’m thankful for you, my love.” To the rest of the table, she said, “I’m thankful for my family, my friends, and all this food. Now please, let’s eat it!” Everyone laughed and agreed it was time to eat. I picked up my fork and dove into the turkey and stuffing. It was my first Thanksgiving and I immediately decided we would celebrate it every year.
Over dinner, I listened to Livvie discuss classes with her friends and the movies they were watching. They had been watching Stanley Kubrick’s work and discussing it in class. Claudia and Rubio were fans, but Livvie felt a lot of his work lacked in its ability to communicate a clear message to its audience.
“All this talk about A Clockwork Orange, like it’s the greatest movie ever or something,” Livvie said around the turkey in her mouth. “I’d say two-thirds of the people who saw that movie didn’t fucking get it. It’s the emperor who has no clothes. Enough people called it brilliant that the idiots who didn’t get it pretended to understand it just so they wouldn’t be called idiots—which makes them cowardly idiots. The movie could have been better. It could have delivered the message of the movie in a much clearer fashion and inspired some real dialogue about human nature, society, and psychology as a treatment. Instead, all anyone can remember is the rape scene. It’s stupid.”
“I have to disagree,” said Rubio. “I think it’s very clearly a movie about how society doesn’t care about its own ruination. Society does not care about the disease—it only wants to treat the symptoms. It does not care that Alex is violent or what happened to make him such a sociopath. It only wants him punished and ‘rehabilitated’. But there is no such thing as behavior control. It has to be a choice, a person has to choose to be a better person, and the only reason they choose to be better is if there is a reason. Alex was forcibly rehabilitated with aversion therapy, but once he went back out into the world and encountered all the violence that was still out there he became violent again. It’s the nature of human beings. Kubrick did an incredible job.”