“I’ll help. Sorry. Give me . . . one second.” I’ve already tapped into my text chain with Anderson.
RED ALERT RED ALERT My mom’s friend Ellen? IS MATT’S MOM
AND HE’S COMING OVER
COKE-AD MATT
IS COMING OVER
TONIGHT
“Kate! Can you get water on the table? And where’s your brother?”
I set my phone down. “Ice or no ice?”
The doorbell rings.
“Goddammit,” Mom says. She heads straight to the door, still in her apron, still flour-faced, and by the time I catch up, she’s hugging Ellen in the doorway.
Ellen, for what it’s worth, is like a clone of my mom. They even look alike—brown hair, big brown eyes, and they both have those hyperanimated, expressive faces. Ellen gasps when she sees me. “Is that Kate? Oh, honey. You look just like your Facebook pictures.”
“Oh. Uh. Thank you?”
“Look at those gorgeous cheeks. My God, Maggie. Your girl. And this is my son, Matthew. Matthew, Kate’s a junior—”
“We’ve met.” He smiles. “Hey, Kate.”
His voice. Saying my name.
The moms, the house, the soufflés, everything. All of it evaporates.
I am officially a puddle on the floor.
Scene 12
Mom keeps the mini soufflés and the hand-breaded chicken tenders and ditches all the other recipes—but she adds a veggie platter and a frozen pizza to the mix. It’s an absurdly un-kosher Shabbat dinner. The kitchen’s a disaster zone, with the exception of the gleaming, freshly mopped floor. And for once, the mop in question wasn’t Camilla’s tongue. Garfield family hospitality at its finest.
Mom pops open a wine bottle Ellen brought and digs out the candles, and we’re just about to light them when the front door creaks open.
“Helloooo?”
“That must be the escort I hired,” Mom says, she and Ellen just start cackling.
I catch Ryan’s eyes for the barest split second. “Mom, stop,” he says flatly.
Whereas I’m just sitting here loving the fact that Mom said “escort.” In front of Matt. You know what’s really awesome? Your mom and your crush’s mom talking about escorts.
Anyway, it’s not an escort. It’s Anderson.
“Heeeyyy.” He peers into the dining room. “Am I too late?”
“Oh, of course you’re not too late, sweetie. Ellen, this is Anderson Walker from next door. He’s Kate’s best friend. Look at you, boychick. I love that little bow tie.”
Anderson, you absolute thirst machine. This boy literally changed into a fresh button-down and bow tie and straight up waltzed in here for dinner.
“Got your text,” Andy says, eyeing me slyly.
“I can see that.”
And okay. I’m glad he’s here and everything, but can we just take a moment to recognize that he’s ditching Rapunzel and Flynn for Matt? Because he definitely wasn’t planning to ditch Rapunzel and Flynn for me. And, like, I get it. It’s just insulting.
“So nice to meet you, Anderson,” Ellen says. “I feel like I’m in the presence of Maggie and Ellen, the next generation.”
I almost choke on my water.
Back up a minute. Andy and I aren’t the next Mom and Ellen. Mom and Ellen are the opposite of friendship goals. They didn’t even talk to each other for two decades. More than two decades. I’m sorry, but the thought of meeting Andy’s kid for the first time as a teenager makes me want to curl into a ball and cry. And if I ever tell Anderson’s kids they look just like their Facebook pictures, just go ahead and kill me.
We add an extra place setting for Andy at the head of the table, and Matt’s directly to his right. So now they’re giggling together over something that happened in Senior D this morning. Apparently Noah Kaplan had to pretend to be a mime. I don’t really get what’s funny about it, but Matt and Andy seem to think it’s the height of comedy. Guess it’s one of those things where you had to be there. Of course, Ryan doesn’t even bother feigning interest—he’s just scrolling through his phone.
Meanwhile, Ellen and Mom are basically just complaining about Matt’s dad. “He wanted to get him a BB gun. Can you believe it? Matthew was six. I said, ‘Absolutely not. Not in my house.’”
“Oh my God. Yes. No, of course. It just makes me so angry. And those hyperrealistic toy weapons. Hate them. Oh, and paintball!” Mom’s in full rant mode now, about the eighth-grade paintball trip the athletic association sponsors every February. “It’s so dangerous. I always tell Ryan and Kate no. Absolutely never. Not at home. Not at camp—”
“Oh, that’s right!” Ellen turns toward me in her chair. “Matthew tells me you guys all worked together at camp this summer. What a neat coincidence!”
“I know.” I smile, but my eyes flick back to the boys. Anderson’s telling some story, tapping his fingertip to his palm. Ryan’s staring into space. But Matt’s hanging on every word.
“Well your mom and I loved doing the plays at camp. And you know, we grew up together around here, too. Different schools, but we were in a few shows together at the rec center.”
Out of nowhere, Andy and Matt burst out laughing. So fantastic. So glad they’re having such a fantastic fucking time together.
But oof. I don’t like this feeling. I don’t know where that little voice in my head is coming from. It doesn’t even make sense for me to be jealous—I’m the one who invited Anderson. This morning! Literally today! And in what universe would I ever prefer his absence to his presence? I mean, it’s Anderson. So maybe I should stop beaming stink eye down the table with my mind and step up to the plate.
“Hey, do you guys want to—”
A burst of laughter from Andy and Matt. My words disappear.
“You don’t even know.” Anderson shakes his head. “And he had this whole thing with Lansing. You should have seen his face when Kate thought Detroit was the capital—”
“Wait.” I lean in. “Are you talking about Alexander from camp—”
“Remember how you couldn’t call him Alex? Had to be Alexander,” Andy says.
“Oh, but I liked that,” I say. “It was sweet.”
“He was insanely hot, though,” Andy says. “I’d wife that, for sure.”
And there it is—that tiny indentation in Andy’s cheeks. The Dimple of Self-Consciousness. I know this moment. It took me a few years to recognize it in the wild, but this is Andy coming out. He glances sideways, and I can almost feel him holding his breath, waiting for Matt to react.
“I mean, you’d have to move to Lansing if you wifed that,” Matt says. “No question.”
Andy grins. “I hear Lansing’s pretty amazing.”
“According to Alexander,” I say.
“We both know you googled the shit out of that town,” Andy says. He turns to Matt. “For the record, Kate had just as big of a crush on that dude as I did.”
And of course—of course—Andy’s words land smack-dab in the center of one of those random conversational pauses.
Mom turns to Andy, openly delighted. “Kate had a crush?”