“Ah, no such thing, my love.” He looks at me and raises his hand in a waving motion. “Come on over. We were just about to dig into dessert.”
I glance at Connie, who’s rolling her eyes, and then at Eric, who puffs out his cheeks and blows a slow breath. He sidles up near me and whispers: “I forgot to tell you—I hate Christmas, too.”
When we’re all seated on the metal folding chairs, Deborah dishes out slices of apple pie onto paper plates. The dog sits at my feet like a statue, looking up at me with his big puppy eyes.
“This is delicious, Eric,” says Deborah, patting her mouth with a napkin.
“Connie brought it.”
“Oh,” she says, turning to her daughter. “What are these apples—Pink Ladies?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Connie says, brightening.
“Next time, try Honeycrisp or Granny Smith. They really are the best for baking.”
“Ah. Noted,” Connie says, shooting Eric a look. He chuckles.
“Can I go to my room now?” Aja asks. My eyes widen at his empty plate. I’m still on my first bite.
“No.” Eric says. “Grandma and Grandpa are only here for the afternoon. They haven’t seen you in months.”
“They’re not my grandparents,” Aja says evenly. “And Iggy got the new King’s Quest, too. He’s waiting on me to play it.”
“Oh, it’s fine, Eric,” Deborah says. “Let him go. It’s Christmas!”
Eric sighs for a third time. “Fine.” Aja jumps up from the table and rushes off. “Does everyone have everything they need?” He glances at me and says in a lower voice: “You good?”
I nod.
“So, Jubilee, I don’t mean to pry, but I’ve never heard of your allergy before,” says Deborah. “You really can’t be touched?”
“Like the Bubble Boy,” Gary declares, a few decibels louder than everyone else at the table. He goes to reach for his glass of scotch and Deborah gently puts her hand on his arm.
The table goes quiet and I feel everyone’s eyes on me. “Um. Not exactly. He had some kind of immune disease or deficiency, so he was really susceptible to germs in the environment and from other people. Mine is just an allergy, like to peanut butter or eggs. It just happens to be to the skin cells of other humans.”
“Fascinating,” Deborah says, taking a sip of her coffee. “So what does it mean exactly?”
“Just what you said, really. I can’t have skin-to-skin contact with anyone.” I glance at Eric. My face is getting hot and I hope he can’t tell. “I get pretty severe rashes, and there’s a risk of anaphylactic shock.”
“Oh my God.” Deborah puts her hand to her chest, and I take a bite of my pie, hoping she won’t ask any more questions. “Your poor mother.”
I inhale at her words and a piece of crust flies into my throat, causing me to cough violently. My eyes water, and I take a sip of coffee.
Eric speaks up. “So, Mom, um . . . Jubilee loves Emily Dickinson. Isn’t she your favorite poet as well?” I look at him, hoping to convey gratitude at the change in subject, weird though it may be.
“Yes, one of them.”
“Mom was an English major at Smith.”
“She’s brilliant, actually,” adds Connie. Then under her breath: “Shame she never did anything with it.”
Deborah cuts her eyes at her daughter. “Well fortunately, a woman can live a fulfilled life in many different ways, Connie.”
I slip the dog a piece of crust under the table.
“Jubilee’s a librarian,” Eric says.
I clear my throat. “Circulation assistant.”
“Marvelous!” says Deborah. “You must love reading as much as I do.”
“You should see her house,” Eric laughs. “You can’t throw a stone without hitting a book.”
“Who are some of your other favorites?” asks Deborah. “I’ve been on a T. S. Eliot kick lately. He was an interesting man.”
“?‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’?” I say, remembering the poem from an 1800s American literature class I took online. The professor lectured passionately on it, clenching his fist to emphasize words. This isn’t a love [clenched fist] poem, but rather a poem about longing [clenched fist]. Eliot wants romantic love, yes. But more than that he wants to connect [clenched fist]. He wants to find meaning [clenched fist] in his stultifying, tea-drinking routine.
“I like that one.”
Deborah tilts her head, studying me. “Yes,” she says, kindness pooling in them. “I do, too.”
The table falls quiet, the only sound forks scraping bits off plates. An ease settles over the room and it occurs to me that this must be what it’s like. Family. Togetherness. Though I’m an intruder, I allow myself an indulgent moment and pretend that they’re mine, looking slowly from face to face to face, until I land on Eric.
Eric.
A booming voice knocks me out of my reverie. “?‘Let us go then, you and I. When the evening is spread against the sky.’?”
Connie looks at her father, bewildered. “Dad?”
“Oh, Gary,” Deborah titters. “Honestly.” She turns to Connie. “He’s just reciting the poem. The Eliot one.”
“We really should head out, though,” Gary says. “Got a long drive ahead of us.”
A fuss is made over clearing the table, who’s going to do what, and then Deborah and Gary have their coats and hats on and are ready to leave.
“Aja!” Eric yells.
“Oh, don’t disturb him,” Deborah says. “We’ll just pop in and say bye.”
When they get back to the front door, Connie announces that she’ll be leaving, too, and a mix-and-match of hugging ensues. I stand back, near the coffee table with no glass, the dog sitting at my heels, so as not to get in anyone’s way. Deborah fills the spaces between the good-byes and Merry Christmases and love-yous with banal chatter, like “Did you hear about that blizzard coming next week?” and “That folding table and chairs set worked perfectly for our little holiday, Eric. So charming!” At that, Connie lets out a sharp laugh and elbows Eric in the side.
Then Deborah walks toward me and holds up her hands. “No hugs this time, I swear,” she says.
I smile.
“It was so lovely to meet you. Perhaps we’ll see each other again?”
“I’d like that,” I say.
WHEN EVERYONE’S GONE, Eric turns to me and shrugs as if to say: Family. What are you gonna do? I just smile, but my insides are tumbling, an ocean wave of unexpected feeling. We’re alone in the room, and though we’ve been alone before, somehow this feels different. Like the air is charged. I wonder if he feels it, too. If so, he doesn’t let on. “Are you still hungry? I’ve got some turkey in there. There’s more pie.”
“Yeah, I actually am,” I say, my stomach rumbling. The pie didn’t do much to fill me up. “Turkey sounds great.”
I follow him into the kitchen, the dog still at my heels, and Eric starts pulling things out of the fridge.
“Your mom seems really nice,” I say as he transfers some turkey onto a plate with two forks.
“Yeah. Don’t tell Connie that, though.”
“They don’t get along?”