“Wait!” Mom shouts, roused from her trance. “We have Indian. Do you like Indian?”
“There’s plenty to go around,” Erik says as he smiles approvingly at Mom.
“Just not rice,” I say. Because it’s important to make that clear. Seriously, what’s wrong with me? Maybe I need an Erik to finesse my social gaffes too.
Erik moves past me gently and takes Kellan by the upper arm. “Do you like naan?”
“I love naan,” Kellan says.
“We have naan!” Erik slaps Kellan on the back. Kellan was ready to bail, twice. Now they’re forcing him to come in. Suddenly I feel like the friendless kid whose parents socially engineer her life so she’s not lonely. My ears begin to burn. Kellan looks back at me and smiles mischievously, like he just got away with something. I decide his staying means nothing, since most guys like to get fed.
The food is cold, but Mom and Erik are warm with wine, more than I realized, and Kellan keeps commenting on how great the food is, and how he’s embarrassed because he’s acting like he hasn’t seen food in days. It feels like a downer to point out that I have experience in that area. Erik peppers Kellan with questions about hockey, which Kellan answers behind a balled-up fist, because he’s shoveling in tikka masala piled on torn corners of naan. Mom can’t follow the hockey talk, but she makes a lot of affirmative noises, too many, and refills her wine glass twice.
I ponder what Liv would make of Kellan MacDougall in my breakfast nook.
Mom folds an arm over her chest and sits back. “So Julia and I were remembering all the good times she had with Alice Mincus last night over dinner. Do you remember Alice, Erik?”
“Of course I remember Alice.” Erik looks to Kellan, as if he needs to explain remembering Alice, and says, “I’ve been around these ladies for a while.”
“What Erik means is, I haven’t hung around with Alice since I was ten,” I say, turning to Mom. “Your parental machinations aren’t really interesting to Kellan. Or Erik, for that matter.”
Erik tosses back his wine. “Anyone ready for dessert? The kheer’s not ready yet, but I brought ice cream.”
“How does the song go? Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other gold,” Mom sings off pitch.
Kellan’s eyebrows climb. Erik stands at the freezer, wedging displaced Boca Burgers back into their packed towers. “How is your father these days?” he calls to Kellan.
Kellan puts down his Coke. “He’s good. Had to stop coaching this year. Things got busy at work,” he says.
If I were him, I’d be wondering if in this household, I’m considered guilty by association. But he’s either stupid or really good at acting blasé.
Mom drags her glass in a circle. “Tell me, does the press pester him?”
“I’d use a different word,” he says.
“Piss him off?” I say.
Mom wrinkles her nose at me. “Julia.”
“The press isn’t exactly making the police look good these days,” I say.
“It’s really just one station.” Kellan swigs his Coke. “Paula Papademetriou is trying to say the police were at fault for what happened to you.” He turns to me. “Is that what you think?”
“I’m still sorting things out,” I answer. Understatement of the Year.
“That’s what I figured,” Kellan says.
“That’s what you figured?”
“You just seem to be someone who thinks through stuff a lot,” Kellan explains.
“As opposed to someone who thinks through things a little? Someone who doesn’t think at all?” I say, when what I really want to say is, As opposed to someone who works things out in the pages of a comp notebook?
“As opposed to someone who just wants to forget,” Kellan says.
Did he read my notebook or not? I fidget in my chair as the black in my gut burrows down.
“No one wants ice cream, really? Just me?” Erik says, head in the freezer.
I stand abruptly. “Can we talk in the dining room?” I ask Kellan.
Mom coughs.
Erik returns with four bowls and an undersized tub of Karamel Sutra.
“I’d like some ice cream,” Kellan says.
“They’ll save you some,” I say.
Erik looks at the tiny tub sadly.
I charge out of the room and position myself behind the back of a dining room chair. Kellan appears in the doorway.
“You have a lot of opinions about me for someone who barely knows me,” I say.
“I said that you seem like a person who thinks.”
“I’m going to ask you straight out: Did you read my notebook?”
“Because when I’m looking for a good read, I think: stats?”
I squint at him.
“You’re hostile considering I recovered said notebook,” Kellan says.
“Maybe I do have a problem with your father for letting Donald Jessup out on the streets.”
“If that was true, I’d say you have a right to be pissed. But it’s obvious that reporter is trying to revive her career. The story might be hot today, but tomorrow, no one will care, and she’ll be on to her next conquest.”
“Kind of like hooking up at a woods party and blowing someone off the next day?” I spit.