I nodded. "Sure."
As we walked down the hallway to the kitchen, I was dimly aware that we were being watched. Sure that it was Kristy, glaring, or Monica, staring, I turned my head and was surprised to see my mother, standing by the buffet, her eyes following me as I passed. Jason glanced over and, seeing her, lifted his hand and waved. She nodded, smiling slightly, but kept her eyes on me, steady, until I rounded the corner and couldn't see her anymore.
Once in the kitchen, I saw the back door was open. In all the commotion, I'd hadn't even noticed the rain stopping. As we stepped outside, everything was dripping and kind of cool, but the sky had cleared. A few people were outside smoking, others clumped in groups talking, their voices rising and falling. Jason and I found a spot on the stairs, away from everyone, and I leaned back, feeling the dampness of the rail against my legs.
"So," Jason said, glancing around. "This is quite a party."
"You have no idea," I told him. "It's been crazy." Over his head, I could see into the kitchen, where Delia was sliding another pan of crab cakes into the oven. Monica was leaning against the island, examining a split end, with her trademark bored expression.
"Crazy?" Jason said. "How?"
I took a breath, thinking I would try to explain, then stopped myself. Too much to tell, I thought. "Just a lot of disasters," I said finally. "But it's all okay now."
My sister stepped through the door to the deck. She was talking loudly, and a group of people were trailing along behind her, clutching drinks and canapes in their hands. "… represents a real dichotomy of art and salvage," she was saying in her Art History Major voice as she passed us on the stairs. "These pieces are really compelling. Now, as you'll see in this first one, the angel is symbolic of the accessibility and limits of religion."
Jason and I stepped back as her group followed along behind her, nodding and murmuring as their lesson began. When they disappeared around the side of the house, he said, "Did she make those or something?"
I smiled. "No," I said. "She's just a big fan."
He leaned back, peering around the house at the angel, which Caroline and her people were now encircling. "They are interesting," he said, "but I don't know about symbolic. They just seem like yard art to me."
"Well, they are," I said. "Sort of. But they also have meaning, in their own way. At least Caroline thinks so."
He looked at the angel again. "I don't think the medium works well for the message," he said. "It's sort of distracting, actually. I mean, regardless of the loftiness of the vision, in the end it's just junk, right?"
I just looked at him, not sure what to say to this. "Well," I said. "It guess it depends on how you look at it."
He smiled at me. "Macy," he said, in a tone that for some reason made something prick at the back of my neck, "junk is junk."
I felt myself take a breath. He doesn't know, I told myself. He has no idea, he's just making conversation. "So," I said, "you wanted to talk about something?"
"Oh. Right. Yes, I did."
I stood there, waiting. Inside, the kitchen was empty now except for Bert, who was traying up a pan of meatballs, popping the occasional one in his mouth. He looked up, saw me watching him, and smiled, sort of embarrassed. I smiled back, and Jason turned his head, looking behind him.
"Sorry," I said. "You were saying?"
He looked down at his hands. "I just," he began, then stopped, as if he'd thought of another, better way to phrase this thought. "I know I handled things badly at the beginning of the summer, suggesting that break. But I'd really like for us to begin a conversation about our relationship and what, if we do decide to continue it, each of us would like to see it evolve into in the coming year."
I was listening. I really was. But even so, my mind kept picking up other things: the laughter from inside, the damp coolness of the air on the back of my neck, my sister's voice still talking about form and function and contrast.
"Well," I said. "I don't know, really."
"That's okay," Jason replied, nodding, as if this conversation was going exactly how he'd expected it to. "I'm not entirely sure either. But I think that's where this dialogue should begin, really. With how we each feel, and what limits we feel need to be put in place before we make another commitment."
"… a real sense of perspective," Caroline was saying, "with the artist making a clear commentary on the events that happen within the frame, and how the frame affects them."
"What I was thinking," Jason continued, apparently not as distracted by this as I was, "was that we could each draw up a list of what we really want in a relationship. What we expect, what's important. And then, at a predetermined time, we'll sit down and go through them, seeing what corresponds."