by Lola West
Lua’s father came out next. She shifted from Joe to him. He was a big barrel of a man, bearded, but he didn’t look like Santa Claus or like a biker dude. He was more lumberjack. He was clean cut, a collared shirt under an Irish-looking wool sweater. He crushed her into his arms and spoke closely into her hair so that I couldn’t hear him, but there was the kind of love there that I had never known.
I stood awkwardly in front of my car, holding her duffel. Joe turned and headed toward me, arms thrown open, and with the same vigor and joy he’d shown Lua, he hollered, “Asshole! I have been dying to meet you.”
Then he hugged me. A big pat you on the back, crash into your chest bro hug. For a second I was startled, but it wasn’t a slight. He was warm and genuine, like Lua. I dropped her duffel and hugged him back. “The feeling is mutual, my man.”
This time I surprised him. He leaned back, smiled wider if that was possible, and hugged me again. Then he leaned over, picked up the duffel, and locked elbows with me, dragging me toward the doorway.
Singsong, and with the full knowledge that he would irritate Lua, Joe said, “Guess who’s coming to dinner, Cakes?”
38
Lua
Drew’s eyes bulged as soon as the words came out of Joe’s mouth. He started shaking his head and his feet got heavy so that Joe was literally dragging him toward my door. He didn’t know it was one hundred percent useless to try to stop Joe once he was scheming. So, before Drew could even get the words out to protest, I succumbed and huffed, “Just forget it, Drew. He always gets his way.”
Behind me my father’s deep voice radiated with welcome. “As he should. The table is already set. No one drives my girl home and leaves without a thank you.”
If I had thought about it, I would have known that Drew was going to be sitting across from me. Really, hardly anyone visits the thrive without staying for a meal, but also there was no way my dad was going to forgo generosity to someone who was kind to me. No way, no how. What I should have done was let Drew drop me on the side of the road. But it was too late for that. My father made lasagna.
Joe was giddy as a whole gaggle of kids on Christmas morning. He was literally skipping from place setting to place setting, filling glasses with wine. There was nothing Joe loved more than malarkey. And that’s what this was, Drew sitting at our dinner table when he and I hadn’t had a real conversation in over three months—Joe Malarkey, plain and simple.
My father was at the head of the table, with me on his left and Drew on his right. Joe sat across from him, because where else would the master of ceremonies sit? To my surprise Joe didn’t launch into a cringeworthy conversation starter as soon as he sat down. Instead, he took a giant bite of lasagna and smiled stupidly at all of us while he chewed. Fool. Sweet, silly, stupid fool. God, I missed him so much.
The rest of us followed suit, digging into our own plates filled with warm gooey, cheesy, saucy comfort on a plate. For a second there was just the sounds of clanging silverware, and then I heard a low moan, one I was intimately familiar with, and felt in places that I was certainly not sharing with current company.
“Jesus Christ,” Drew groaned around the food in his mouth. “This is delicious.” He took another huge bite and ecstasy contorted his features again. When he swallowed, he asked, “What is this made with? Crack?” He was shoveling his fork full again. “My God.”
“Thank you,” my father responded. “It’s my recipe, but seeing as these two are unfazed.” He nodded in Joe’s and my directions. “I think the heaven you’re experiencing is homegrown vegetables. The basil and the tomatoes are fresh from the vine; we grow them in the greenhouse in the winter. You should taste the summer ones. Those are the true crack,” he joked.
To my surprise Drew blushed a little. I wasn’t sure why.
He spoke to my father directly; with a certain formality I’d never seen on him before. “Sorry for the crack reference.” Then he smiled. “Never actually had crack. Don’t think it’s in my future plans. So, summer tomatoes will be as close as I get, sir.”
It suddenly dawned on me that he wanted my father to like him. He was nervous.
“Call me, Jack, son. We are not too formal around here.”
Drew nodded.
“Tell me, Drew, are you and my daughter close?”
Not expecting that question, I choked on my food and started coughing.
“You okay there, Cakes?” Joe smiled. He was loving this, just loving it.
I thought Drew would look at me, for some signal of how he should answer, or that he’d say something like we work together, but he didn’t do either of those things. Instead, he addressed my father one hundred percent.
“Well, Jack, I’m trying this new thing for the last few months, where I tell the truth, not a version of the truth or a piece of the truth, but like the whole truth, and the truthful answer to your question is Lua and I are complicated.”
“Hmm…” My father swallowed his food and then asked, “How so?” Then he took another bite and leaned back a touch like he was settling in to listen to the whole torrid tale.
This was a nightmare.
Strangely, Drew didn’t seem tortured. He moved his tongue around in his mouth like he was cleaning or picking his teeth with it, and then he said, “Well, I haven’t always done the right thing when it comes to your daughter.”
Legit terrible. A totally terrible moment for me.
Drew continued. “So, rightfully, Lua doesn’t hold me in the highest regard these days. I accept that. Deserve it even.” He paused. Waiting to see if my father would respond, but my father is a patient man, and it was clear Drew wasn’t finished. “I’m not making excuses for myself. I hurt Lua. I carry that burden. Period. But since knowing Lua, I’ve realized that I don’t come from very much. My people are broken people.” He stopped again, clearly thinking this time, then took a bite of food and chewed.
We all stayed quiet. Joe wasn’t smiling anymore. Drew was saying a lot to my dad, who was a stranger. The tone of the room had shifted. We all felt the weight of his confession. But he was still light, serious, but chipper and pleasant like he was just telling us a story, not admitting all his ugly out loud.
After a sip of wine, he continued. “I don’t have examples for how you treat people you care about. The people who were supposed to care about me struggle. All in different ways but still all struggling and there’s not a lot of care. So, I’m still learning how to care for other people. But the thing is, Lua’s my person, ya know, so I feel close to her even when we’re really not talking.”
My father startled at that tidbit. “I’m sorry, you’re not really talking?”
“No, not really.” Drew faltered a little, worried about throwing me under the bus. “She’s not really being stubborn. I mean I know she can be, but this time she’s protecting herself. It’s good. I mean, she should.”
What did he mean, I can be stubborn? I’m not stubborn, am I?
My father looked at me, smiling and shaking his head. “And you just drove her home three hours in a snowstorm?”
“Yes, but like I said, it’s complicated.” For the first time since he started talking, Drew looked at me. “But I don’t think it’ll always be.”
My father looked at him, just kind of stared. We all did.
Drew took another bite of lasagna and then nodded toward his plate. “This really is delicious.”
I almost spoke, but Joe beat me to it. “Why not?”
Even though I wanted to ask that exact question. I felt like kicking Joe under the table for being too nosy.
“Why won’t it always be complicated?” Drew clarified, looking at Joe now.
Joe nodded.
“Because Lua is Lua. She had people, ya know? I mean, when Lua looks at a homeless person, she thinks how can I help him, not how do I avoid making the mistakes that this guy made. Lua is kind and caring and gentle, and one day she’ll see that she changed me.” He said these words with utter clarity, very matter-o
f-fact, and then he took another bite of his freaking lasagna and mouth full of food, he silly smiled at Joe.
Joe took Drew’s folly as ammunition. “So let me get this straight. Drew Scott, rogue, conservative bad boy is gone? Replaced by a truth-telling, lasagna-eating mage who is going to like drift through the world doing good deeds until the fair queen Lua deems him worthy?”
Drew scraped his plate with his fork. “Still very much the rogue, I think. What do you think, Lu, have I un-rogued myself?”
Joe laughed.
I couldn’t help myself, I smiled.
39
Drew
After dinner, Jack insisted I stay. The snow had gotten worse, and I was asking about a motel, and the next thing I knew I was standing alone in a little guest bedroom, holding a towel and a brand-new toothbrush and a bar of soap. I thought my mother was the only person on the planet who kept spare toothbrushes for unexpected guests but apparently conservatives and liberals have more in common than they realize.
Lua didn’t seem fazed that I was staying overnight. Much like staying for dinner, she seemed resigned to the idea that she had no control over the situation. It was like it was literally impossible for her family to send another person out into the world uncared for or unprepared. They were just naturally generous. And while my mother would definitely have a toothbrush and a washcloth, she would also much rather send a guest to a hotel than welcome them into her home. Guests were pressure. Caring for others was work for her. It made her anxious. For Jack, Joe and Lua guests were company, kindness, and entertainment.
That said, I didn’t want to make Lua feel like I forced her to let me into her life. So I was planning on making myself scarce. I’d sleep, get up early, maybe have a cup of coffee, and head out. She’d barely have to see me. There was only one bathroom in the house so trying to be as invisible as possible, I decided it was best to shower in the morning. That way Lua could get settled tonight without having to hear me muck about. But of course, I realized I still needed to brush my teeth and pee.
Still in my clothes, I left the towel and the soap on the end of the bed, then turned and opened the door. The door across the hall, Lua’s bedroom, opened at the same time, of course. Lua was already wearing pajamas, sweet ones, pink flannel sprinkled with little ice cream cones, and she was also holding a toothbrush. Even though I’d just seen her, sat across the table from her for an hour, it took my breath away to be so close to her, to think I was going to sleep just a few strides from her.
“You and I have got to stop meeting like this,” she said, referencing our hotel rooms in New York. I was reminded of that too.
In response I went with cocky as usual. “If you would just quit following me around.” I punctuated my quip with an exaggerated eye roll.
She smiled at me. She hadn’t smiled at me in months, and that was the second time in a few hours.
“All great minds need clean teeth. Am I right?” she questioned and nodded her head in the direction of the bathroom as if to say come on, let’s go.
And then we were standing in the bathroom in Lua’s house, facing the mirror, and she was handing me the toothpaste. We didn’t talk. We just stood there waxing our toothbrushes back and forth and watching our mouths get foamy. It was regular. So regular, standing next to the woman I loved, brushing teeth. Only for us it wasn’t regular, and it made me feel like a sad sack, like I fucked up so hard that we might never get regular. I literally had to breathe threw my nose to keep from breaking down. I stopped brushing. And just stood there, brush and mouth still loaded with minty foam.
Lua rinsed and spat. Then she handed me her cup of water and turned to leave. She stopped in the doorframe and without turning said, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe one day it won’t be so complicated.”
My plans to get up and get out were thwarted. I set an alarm on my phone for six a.m., but before it went off there was a symphony of knocking on the door to the guest room, followed by a singsong wake-up call. “Cock-a-doodle, Drew! Cock-a-doodle, Drew! Time for coffee and hard work, you soft-bellied son of a…”
Then a groggy, angry Lua spat, “What the hell, Joe?”
Suddenly wide awake, I pushed out of the bed and crossed to open the guest room door. Lua was standing in the doorframe of her room, her hair mussed from sleep, her eyes still groggy. Joe was in the hall between her room and the guest room I slept in, holding a pile of clothes.
He gripped the clothes with one hand and ruffled Lua’s hair with the other. “Just waking your sweetheart, here. You know life on a commune, up with the cock and what not.”
Lua turned to me to say something, but I’m not sure what she was going to say because when her eyes landed on me, she smiled, and a tiny smidge of pink brushed across the apple of her cheeks, reminding me that I was wearing nothing but my briefs.
Joe turned to look at me, laughed, handed me the clothes, and said, “Okay, lover boy, stop dumbfounding the locals and get dressed. We gots chores, kiddo.”
I looked to Lua. She didn’t seem opposed, but she was tired, and after the tiny bit of headway I made the night before, I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. So I said, “I’m happy to help, Joe. But I wasn’t planning on staying today.”
He laughed. Neither Lua nor I laughed with him. When he stopped laughing, he looked to Lua and then me, and then Lua and then me again, all very melodramatically. “Snowed in,” he said. “Not going anywhere, buddy.”
Lua rolled her eyes, grumbled, “I’m going back to bed,” and started to shut her bedroom door.
I went to apologize and reached for her door, even with arms full of the clothes Joe had handed me “Lua, I’m…”
Joe interrupted me. “So not your fault, dude. Just let her pout. She’ll get over it.” He actually physically stopped me from following her, turning my body back toward the guest room. “Dress and get ready for a world of pain. Jack and I will be waiting in the kitchen.” He turned and started down the hall, hollering, “There’s coffee and breakfast too.”
40
Lua
I couldn’t go back to sleep. The sun was funneling through my blinds and I couldn’t stop thinking about Drew standing in the doorway of my guestroom in nothing but his underwear. In a matter of seconds my mind took like a thousand snapshots. His strong hand gripping the doorframe, the cut of his jaw, scruffy and shadowed from days unshaven, the pink of his lips, the roll of his bicep, the flex of his triceps, his shoulders, his pecs, the ripple of his abs, and the V of his hips descending into the elastic of his… holy fuck. Who could rest with all that man running around in their mind?
But still, I really wasn’t ready to socialize. Part of me felt like an idiot that I was being so stubborn, and another part of me was sure I would be a fool to let Drew back into my life, but I just couldn’t seem to shake him. No matter what I did, he just popped back into my world. After last night at the dinner table, I was already ready to believe in him again. Did that make me a chump? Was I just seeing what I wanted to because he’d infected my heart? I mean he called me his person. And he seemed different, like he’d decided that he was not a pawn in his father’s life. And that was our problem, wasn’t it? Argh.
I waited until my dad, Joe, and Drew were out doing whatever chores Joe and my dad had conjured up for Drew. I mean there were always things to do at the thrive, especially after a snowstorm, but thrivers had a tendency to sort of haze visitors. I wouldn’t have called it hazing a year ago, but really, that’s sort of what it was. Visitors were treated to a day of exceptionally hard work. When in actuality we rotated the really grueling jobs. We all did do them, but it wasn’t like everyone got up at five a.m. every day. That was the luxury of farming or caring for a commune; there were people to share the work with.
Once I was sure they were gone. I ventured out into the main part of the house. It felt good to be home. I poured myself a cup of coffee, put Fleetwood Mac on my dad’s old record player, and danced in the kitchen, scrambling eggs from chickens whose nam
es I knew. Then I ate at the kitchen counter still in my pajamas with the music turned up loud. On a whim I decided to whip up a batch of my dad’s favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and then full and happy, I grabbed one of my favorite guilty pleasure romance novels and curled up on the couch. Nothing like a full belly and good book on a snowy day.
A few hours later, I awoke to the clamor of my dad coming inside. He wasn’t shaking off snow, so the weather had clearly improved, but he was stomping his feet and just being generally noisy. I sat up a little higher on the couch and said, “Hey, Papa.”
He didn’t realize I was there, so he was a bit startled. “Oh… Hey, dollface.”
I was admittedly curious about his morning but didn’t want to seem that way. “You guys have a good time tormenting, Drew?”
“Oh, come on, tormenting is a little harsh,” he replied, giving me nothing, not a single detail about how Drew handled himself out there.
“Fine, if not tormenting, then what about… teasing?” I was trying to come off silly, but I sounded a little whiny.
“Teasing sounds better. I’ll take teasing.” Still nothing. Not one detail.
“So…” I let my words fall off, hoping he’d start talking.
“Yes?” my father asked, smiling at me knowingly.
“Dad! How was the morning?”
He laughed. “Good, kiddo.” He turned and hung his coat on the hook by the door. I was about to get totally frustrated when he said, “He handled himself well. Honestly, better than both Joe and I expected.” I was surprised how happy that made me feel. I hadn’t realized that I wanted my dad and Joe to like Drew, but I did want that, like totally wanted that.
