“Ho ho ho,” the voice on the phone informed her with a dry, sarcastic edge. “Merry Christmas, Miss Television Star.”
“Hey!” she said. “Dennis, hi, Merry Christmas!” No one in New York ever allowed themselves this degree of unabashed enthusiasm and she sounded idiotic to herself, but it had been a long time since she’d heard from any of her old friends, who, since high school, had drifted irrevocably apart. Parents she couldn’t talk to, siblings who thought she was weird, old friends who didn’t stay in touch, new friends who came and went too quickly: The past few months she had gone on some major crying jags. But here was Dennis, calling her on the phone. It was fantastic. “I heard you were in town, my brother bumped into your sister at the mall this morning,” he informed her. “Gotta love Cincinnati. Two million people, but everybody still bumps into each other at the mall.”
“Which sister?” she asked.
“Who can remember; don’t you have like thirty?”
“Four girls, four boys, it’s very symmetrical.”
“Whatever, there are too many of you. I had it all written down on a cheat sheet in high school but I don’t know where it is anymore. How long are you here for?”
“You know, a while,” she admitted. “Like almost two weeks.”
“Jesus, why?”
“Show business,” she sighed. She ducked out into the hallway, pulling the phone cord as far as it would go, which was just inside the doorway of the tiny bedroom around the corner from the kitchen. It was exactly the same routine she had perfected in high school, plopping on the floor and trying to get the door to close even though it never would, because of that stupid cord. Why Mom and Dad didn’t break down and buy a portable phone was beyond her. “Everything shuts for two whole weeks around Christmas and New Year’s. All the people with money and power go to Aspen or Hawaii, so nobody else has anything to do.”
“There’s nothing to do in New York City over the holidays? I find that hard to believe.”
“No, there’s things to do, of course, I just wanted to come home. Let my mom feed me for a little while. Free food.” She said it lightly, like a joke, which in fact it was because there was free food everywhere here in Cincinnati but she wasn’t allowed to eat it. Nevertheless, there was no reason to hang out in New York, which was truly a cold and dreary place if you had no money and no friends and nothing to do. Plus she had to ask her parents for money. That might actually take the whole two weeks to figure out.
“Well, it’s good news for me because I’m seriously bored as shit. I’m quitting my job, I don’t give a fuck how good the health insurance is, I am not working for Procter and Gamble for the rest of my life, or even till I’m thirty. Fuck this fucking bullshit. My dad went to Paris with Felicia and I’m house-sitting, so I’m having a party tonight,” he informed her, switching subjects on a dime. “I want to see you, you have to come.”
“Oh, a party!”
“Yes, everyone you know will be there.”
“I don’t actually know anybody in Cincinnati anymore, except for my family. That’s what it feels like.”
“Well, that’s fine because I’m not talking about anybody, I’m talking about Kyle.” Dennis tossed this off with the devilish bonhomie which was, in truth, his specialty.
“Kyle and I are done done done, as you well know.”
“You and Kyle have been done done done so many times, Alison, I’ve lost track.”
“You don’t need to keep track. This time he went and got married.”
“So you’ll come and say hello and get it over with. Seriously, Alison, both of you are being totally fucking ridiculous,” Dennis told her, finally plunging into the heart of the matter. “When was the last time you talked to him?”
“Who cares?”
“It was a year ago August. You haven’t spoken to him in eighteen months! He’s married, you’ve moved on, you’re a big fucking TV star, so fuck him.”
“I was on one television show.”
“You were and you looked fantastic and I loved it when the guy threw you across the desk, it was fucking awe-inspiring.”
“Is she going to be there?”
“Yes, she is, and she is not going to like you one bit and you are going to hate her. You still have to come and just get it over with.”
“You said she was nice. When I asked you last year, you said she was really nice.”
“What was I going to say? She’s a cunt?”
“Is she?”
“Is she a cunt? Absolutely.”
In high school everybody’s parents loved Dennis because he always knew how to charm them, but, honestly, behind their backs he had the filthiest mouth. He also drank way too much every chance he got; plus he was a total hound. But the charm was quite real and not specifically reserved for parents. Calling Kyle’s new wife a “cunt” had a very friendly ring to it.
“Come on, you’ve got nothing else to do, I can hear it in your voice,” he informed her. “You’re going to be stuck at home with all those millions of brothers and sisters you never liked and what, seven hundred nieces and nephews?”