With him I’m real and tangible. Taste-able. Edible.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LILLY
November 15th
Culver City, CA
I dance nervously from one foot to the other like a kid who has to pee. Michael jiggles his key in the door, his eyes watching me surreptitiously. He doesn’t say a word but I know he wants to. But what would he say? What could he or anyone else in the world do to make this situation better? The waiting is the worst part. Wondering if today will genuinely be okay or is it another day where we pretend it is?
The front door pops open. The painfully familiar scent of home washes over me, nearly knocking me down the stoop.
“We’re here!” Michael calls, stepping inside.
I wait on the porch, out of sight.
Mom comes hurrying out of the kitchen. “You’re early. We weren’t expecting you for another twenty minutes.”
“Lilly got an early start at work so she was able to leave early.”
I hold out a box of assorted bagels to mom. “I made your favorite today. Blueberry.”
She smiles gratefully, taking the box. “Thank you, sweetheart. I’ll have one for breakfast tomorrow.”
“Is it okay if I come in?”
“It’s fine,” she assures me quietly, a gentle hand on my shoulder pulling me inside. “He’ll be happy to see you. He’s been asking when you guys were going to get here. Both of you.”
The tension in my stomach unclenches a little, letting me breathe. Letting me step across the threshold into the house.
I ditch my purse in the entryway on the same hook I’ve hung purses and backpacks since I was tall enough to reach it. The small stucco coated house has been my parent’s home for the last twenty-six years. The carpet is my age, but they still insist we take our shoes off, treating it as delicately as the day they had it installed. I remember being scolded by Mom, tears in her eyes, after I dumped my cup of Kool Aid on it when I was seven. I’ll never forget the disappointment I felt knowing I’d made her cry. She probably doesn’t remember it but I’ll never forget it.
“Is Dad in the living room?” Michael asks.
Mom shakes her head. “He’s out back barbequing. He’s got the little TV set up out there. The game’s about to start.”
Michael and I keep our coats on as we head out back. The house is stuffy and overheated. It’s hottest as we pass through the kitchen and I notice that the oven is on. Mom has been baking. She does that when she’s nervous. We have that in common, along with our eyes, our noses, our chins. The rich hue of our hair.
Put me in a summer dress with my hair piled in high curls on my head and I’m the image of my mother when she was my age.
Michael opens the sliding glass door to the back patio. “Hey, Dad.”
Dad turns, a spatula in his hand, a smile on his face, and an apron over his chest. It’s the one we gave him as a gag gift four birthdays ago. One with the curvaceous body of a half-naked woman printed on the front. The sight makes me laugh out loud.
“You guys are just in time for kickoff,” he tells us excitedly.
“Who’s playing?” Michael asks.
“Kodiaks and Panthers. Should be a good one.”
Michael casts me a playful look, one full of knowledge I should never have equipped him with. “That’ll be fun for Lilly to watch.”
“I doubt that,” Dad chuckles at Michael. He thinks he’s making a joke. Dad knows I don’t care about football.
“Lilly met one of the players,” Michael explains to him.
Dad’s face lights up as he looks at me. “Really? Was it at that party? You did a thing for one of them, right? It was, uh…It was…” he twirls his spatula, his eyes going unfocused as he tries to remember. “Dammit, it’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“It was a coach’s gender reveal,” I help out.
He frowns. “Is that some kind of sexual thing? Like he was a guy and now he’s a girl?”
“No,” I chuckle. “That’s transgender. This was a baby shower kind of thing. They’re having a girl.”
“Oh, congrats to them.” He turns back to the grill, flipping a burger expertly. “Who’d you meet?”
“Colt Avery,” I tell him, the name sounding strange to me. Distant in this context, this situation, like I barely know it. Like I didn’t moan it in a shower filled with steam and man and muscle last night. “A couple others too. Trey, the quarterback.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Michael accuses.
I shrug. “I just met him last night.”
“Where?”
“Rona and I were invited to a party. They were there. She met a guy named Matthews too.”
“Kurtis Matthews?” Dad asks, his eyes bright with interest. Fully engaged and heartbreakingly beautiful.
“I think that’s right, yeah.”