“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jeanie peered at them both. Lucas grimaced at his poor choice of words.
“Not that you look bad, kid,” Mark told her. “It’s just a blast from the past. See, when your dad and I were in high school, we looked like cafeteria gunmen before cafeteria gunmen were cool.”
“Not sure ‘cool’ is the right word,” Lucas murmured, but his oldest friend failed to reel it in.
“Combat boots and trench coats and Vampire: The Masquerade on Friday and Saturday nights.”
“Oh God.” He had all but forgotten about those late-night role-playing sessions in Mark’s parents’ basement. And yet, the moment Mark said it, Lucas recalled those times so vividly he could smell them: the scent of Doritos mingling with melted candle wax.
Jeanie shook her head, not getting it, and Mark gave Lucas a pained look. “Seriously, you haven’t informed this child about the legend of the Masquerade?”
Lucas didn’t need to respond. His expression said it all.
“Ah, well, you see, dear girl . . .” Mark continued. “Your daddy used to dress up like a vampire.” Jeanie’s expression wavered between amused and mortified. “He even had a cape, which he wore when he was feeling particularly mysterious.”
“I did not have a cape,” Lucas protested, continuing to move boxes away from the front door.
Unable to keep a straight face, Jeanie cracked a smile, as though Uncle Mark had let her in on a particularly dark secret. “Does Mom know?” she asked, giving her dad a look.
“Oh, I bet she does,” Mark said beneath his breath, but his trek to the kitchen cut his child-inappropriate thought off at the knees. “Holy Moses. Part the sea and show me free love.” He ogled the pumpkin-orange countertops and laughed. “All you need is a bearskin rug and some framed velvet artwork. Talk about a time warp.”
“Rent is cheap,” Lucas said.
“I bet. I mean, I guess it’s cool in a Jetsons sort of way. Now all you need is Rosie the Robot to wash your socks. Or an Alice. Oh my God, do you remember the mom’s name on The Brady Bunch?”
“Can’t say that I do,” Lucas said.
“Carol. Carol Brady?”
“So?”
“So, Caroline? Living here?”
“Oh. Yeah, great.” Lucas swept his hand across the countertop and inspected his palm for dirt, then looked to see if Jeanie had gone outside to collect another box. She had. “That would be funny if Carrie was planning on making it out here at all.”
Mark’s smile faltered, then faded completely. “What’re you talking about? I thought she was staying behind for work.”
Lucas cleared his throat and shook his head. We aren’t going to talk about this, it said. Not right now. Mark rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly uncomfortable. Both their eyes darted to Jeanie the moment the girl wobbled into the room with a box marked “KITCHEN.”
“Where should I put this?” she asked, peering over the box that was far too big for her to handle. “I picked it up and something made a noise. I don’t think you packed this very well, Dad.” Lucas pushed away from the kitchen counter and took it from her arms. The tinkle of broken glass sounded from inside. “I didn’t do it,” she protested, holding up her hands. Whatever had shattered inside during the cross-country trek, Lucas couldn’t bring himself to care.
The few things he had managed to talk Caroline out of were old, replaceable—stuff she would have gotten rid of whether she and Lucas had split up or not. But a handful of kitchen bric-a-brac hadn’t been nearly enough to cut it. Along with the floor-model mattress, he had bought Jeanie a scratch-and-dent bedroom set off Craigslist. He’d found a glass-top coffee table for fifteen bucks at a neighbor’s garage sale and had splurged on a discontinued sofa at a furniture place a few blocks from the house. The move would have been easier without the extra stuff, but he had decided to drag it across the country all in the name of saving time.
Lucas placed the box against the wall while his daughter sauntered to the fridge and pulled open the door. “Can we get pizza later?” At least she was speaking to him again.
“Sure, but we’re going to Mark and Selma’s for dinner.”
“Selma’s probably planning out what she’s going to feed you even as we speak,” Mark told her. “You tell her someone’s coming over and she goes all Martha Stewart militant.”
Lucas responded with a grin, but the memory of Caroline acting the same way twisted a thorn into the soft flesh of his heart.
God, Caroline had loved entertaining. The holiday season made her smile glow a few watts brighter. She would spend weeks planning elaborate dinners for friends and family. If her parents in Jersey insisted Thanksgiving should be at their place, she would orchestrate an alternate Thanksgiving meal for the weekend after. It didn’t matter how many leftovers were packed into the fridge. Christmas was a production with her annual party. At the height of Lucas’s career, it brought in over two hundred ho-ho-hoing guests sipping hot buttered rum and snacking on spice cake. But then finances got tight. They sold the house in Port Washington, and Caroline’s inner domestic goddess withered like a neglected houseplant. It was just another aspect of their lives Lucas was convinced he had single-handedly ruined.
He liked Mark’s girlfriend; Selma was great. But it would be difficult to watch her flit back and forth between the kitchen and dining room without feeling like he’d killed a piece of his own family’s happiness.