A Package Deal

by Mia Kerick

  A tear trickled down the side of her face but she brushed it away irritably as soon as she’d shed it. “All I need is to know that you guys will always be my family and that no matter where I go I’ll have a home to return to. A home where I know Tristan is safe and happy.” She looked down at where our fingers were entwined on her lap. “I want you guys to love me and welcome me home when I’ve been away and save a place for me at your table.”

  It was becoming quite clear. “But not in our bed?”

  Savannah shook her head slowly but emphatically. “No.”

  “I think I understand.” I leaned forward and hugged her firmly. “The place you want with Tristan and me is in our hearts, and I can promise you that you will always have a home there, Savannah.”

  “Then let’s not talk about this anymore. And we shouldn’t tell Tris about this conversation, at least not until he’s ready to hear about it, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t hold back from Tristan. Just go where your heart takes you.”

  She looked so solemn and earnest that I found myself nodding again.

  “And Robby, I trust you to never hurt him.”

  Chapter 24

  Robby

  SO THERE we sat. Savannah, Tristan, and me. With all of them.

  “Where’s the goddamned cranberry sauce, Martha? You can’t expect me to eat turkey without any goddamned cranberry sauce!” My sputtering father sat at the head of the table.

  “Oh my, I’m so sorry, John. I left it in the refrigerator—it’s not the canned kind, you know. I made it from real cranberries, just the way you like it.” My groveling mother, who had been sitting to his left, started to rise from her chair.

  “Sit back down, Mom. I’ll get it. And take a chill pill, Dad, it’s only cranberry sauce, not the Holy Eucharist.” My sister was really the only one in our family who was allowed to put my father in his place. Which she did quite frequently and with enthusiasm.

  “Did you know that a single serving of cranberries provides you with 25 percent of your daily requirement of Vitamin C?” As expected, my brother-in-law, Brandon, who sat at the opposite end of the table from my father, was trying to distract everyone from this afternoon’s bicker-fest, otherwise known as the Dalton Family Thanksgiving Day Meal.

  “C is for crayon, Grampa.” Madison was not one to be left out of a conversation.

  “Yes, Madison, C is for crayon, and it is also for cranberry sauce, which is still conspicuously absent from this table!” Yes, my father was still waiting impatiently for his condiment.

  Looking across the table to where Tristan and Savannah sat on either side of Lindsey, I expected to see classic “your family is nuts—where is Dr. Phil when you need him?” expressions on their faces. But I actually felt the need to rub my eyes and take a second look, because both of my partners sported equally serene smiles. Catching my eye one by one, they each shrugged at me tolerantly, as if my bickering family at the dining room table was no more irritating than a bunch of play-fighting kittens in a wicker basket. Whatever. If behavior that seemed humiliating to me appeared entertaining, or even endearing, to my partners, who was I to complain? Apparently, they were both still quite pleased to be here.

  Now, the reason Savannah and Tristan were both sitting here in the Daltons’ formal dining room patiently listening to us squabble was because on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I’d received a rather timid phone call from my mother. “Rob? Is that you, Rob?”

  “Uh, you dialed my number, Mom. Who did you expect?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. You’re right.” A self-conscious giggle.

  “So what’s up?”

  “Well, dear, I was just calling you to check in about Thanksgiving. I wanted to invite you over at two o’clock.”

  “Since when have you been so formal, Mom? Of course I’ll be there. At two, like always.”

  “That’s nice, dear.” She stopped talking and I could hear her suck in a deep breath. “And by the way, your friend Mike DeSalvo stopped by last night. It seems you have a young lady friend you’ve neglected to mention to your father and me.”

  Immediately, perspiration broke out on my forehead. I wondered what else Mikey had told her.

  “Rob, you do have a new lady friend, don’t you?”

  Wiping my sleeve across my forehead, I answered curtly, “Well, yeah, but what was Mikey doing over at your house?”

  I could hear the smile in her voice. “Mike’s been stopping by a lot lately with cookies from his mother’s bakery. And they are absolutely to die for! I haven’t been buttoning my pants so easily since he started visiting, come to think of it.” I knew she had stopped talking for a moment to consider her growing waistline. Dad always told her that he wasn’t attracted to fat women, so being a rather large-boned person, she’d always watched what she ate almost obsessively. “That boy is such a sweetheart.”

  “You think?” I wasn’t happy with the news that Mikey had become a regular participant in my parents’ lives. And the part about Mikey being a sweetheart, well, that was definitely debatable.

  “He told us your girl was quite attractive, though he used words that I wouldn’t repeat, being a lady. He said she’s blonde, like all of us.”

  “That’s right, Mom. Savannah’s very pretty.” I was feeling more uncomfortable by the moment. “Did Mikey say anything else?” If he’d said anything twisted about Tristan and me. Well, he better not have, that’s all.

  “Not too much, dear. Except he mentioned that you have not been spending much time with him lately. And I think that’s a shame, Rob. You shouldn’t allow your friendships to slip away just because you met a woman.”

  I really didn’t need to be lectured by my mother about the finer aspects of my friendship with Michael DeSalvo. “Right, Mom.”

  “So anyways, I would like to invite you and your lady friend to our house for dinner on Thursday.”

  The moment of truth had arrived. So naturally, I hesitated. “Uh, Mom, you see, Savannah has this roommate—he seems like a nice enough guy—and he doesn’t have any family in the area and is it alright if he tags along with us to dinner?” So much for my moment of truth.

  “Oh certainly, Rob. There’s always room at our table for one more.”

  And at that moment I had felt an incredible sensation of relief because I knew the three of us would be together on Thanksgiving Day.

  “Do you need to have your hearing checked, son?” My father’s demanding voice brought me right back to the dinner table. “I asked how you met Savannah.”

  “Oh, sorry, Dad. I guess my mind was on business,” I lied, reaching up to unbutton the second button of my shirt, as if that would make it any easier to breathe. “I met Savannah after a job meeting at Somerville University, she’s a student there.” I shifted my ass on the stiff cushion of the dining room chair in a futile effort to get more comfortable.

  “Somerville University?” Dad repeated the institution’s name, his nose wrinkled with distaste. S.U. wasn’t exactly a country club of a college; it was schooling at its most basic level, designed to educate those who hadn’t been born with a silver spoon anywhere in the vicinity. “What are you studying there?”

  Savannah did not appear even slightly daunted by my father’s arrogance. She spoke to him patiently, as if he was a child. “I’m a graduate student, Mr. Dalton, in the School of Education. I want to be a high school guidance counselor.”

  “Education?” Dad coughed a few times, rather forcefully. I half expected a pea to come rocketing out of his throat, shoot midair down the length of the table, and hit Brandon in the forehead. “You won’t make any money in that field, young lady.”

  In response, Savannah’s jaw dropped. Coupled with her bulging eyes, she really made quite a picture. Before she told him off, I stepped in. “Dad, Savannah isn’t pursuing counseling for the money. She wants to help teenagers in crisis.”

  My father continued to examine Savannah critically, but directed his words to m
e. “Like I always said to Lindsey when she was in school, it isn’t easy to make a living in this economy.” He didn’t look pleased at all, and he demonstrated that by wrinkling his nose again. But finally he conceded. “I guess somebody needs to do that sort of work, though. And you are both women, so you’ll end up raising families, not being breadwinners.”

  Lindsey rolled her eyes, as she was accustomed to Dad’s chauvinism as well as the complete lack of value he placed in social services, but Tristan and Savannah both appeared flabbergasted at my father’s attitude, which I’d honestly never questioned until that very moment. In fact, I’d constantly strived to prove to my stockbroker father that my chosen field of construction management was a worthy one.

  Buttering a roll, Dad turned his thick neck to look at Tristan. “So, Tristan, Rob’s buddy, Mike, tells me that you are a waiter.” He might as well have said that Mikey told him Tris was a serial killer. His tone of voice would have been identical.

  Warily, and for good reason, Tristan lifted his gaze from his dinner plate and looked at my father. “Yes, sir. I work at Michael’s on the Waterfront, on the Boston Harb—”

  “I know exactly where it is.” Dad cut him off curtly, midword. “How did you get involved in the practice of that type of work?” Again, the same disgusted tone that sounded as though he wanted to say, “How did you get involved in the practice of tossing live kittens from moving vehicles?”

  And then there was silence. Yes, it was Tristan’s thinking kind of silence that I had become accustomed to, but I knew my father would have no use for it. Everyone at the table gawked at Tris, as he dipped his head and ran his hands through his hair. “I guess one thing just led to another and I found myself working at Michael’s. I really like it there, sir. I love to serve people and see them enjoying themselves.”

  My father’s expression shifted rapidly. From distaste to disgust to disbelief in a mere second. It was record-setting. “Didn’t you even go to college?”

  Tristan’s head fell further and I knew what was coming next, because I also knew he’d barely managed to get his GED. He raised both of his shaking hands to that silky dark hair at once and began to move them around in agitation. It was clear that Tristan was in dire need of rescuing. And who was it to come galloping in on a white horse, ready and willing to sweep him up and save him from this terrible interrogation? Yes, it was Savannah.

  “Mr. Dalton, Tristan is a very good waiter.” She spoke with pride. Tristan glanced up just slightly and caught her eye. I could see his pain—it was right there, bubbling out of those sensitive brown eyes.

  And she may as well have said, “Mr. Dalton, Tristan is a very good male stripper.” Her sweet compliment did absolutely nothing in terms of raising my father’s opinion of Tristan. Open, honest, caring Tristan, who’d dressed with such care today in his best shirt and tie and fancy slacks in an effort to make a good impression on my family. But no, my dad had not been even slightly impressed by any aspect of Tristan Chartrand. He abruptly turned away from Tristan as if he was no longer worthy of his attention.

  “Brandon took me to Michael’s for Mother’s Day. God, it was amazing!” Lindsey was clearly stepping in to assist Savannah in Tristan’s liberation from my father’s oppression. “I had the seafood chowder first and then the Lobster Alfredo.”

  Tristan lifted his head a bit more and spoke quietly. “Those were excellent choices, Lindsey. We are rather famous for our seafood chowder.” I sincerely hoped that he was oblivious to my father’s rudely rolling eyeballs. “Next time you are going to Michael’s, have Robby tell me. I’ll take good care of you.”

  Lindsey smiled and even blushed, because she could tell he meant it. And then my mother chimed in with, “That sounds heavenly, dear. John, maybe the four of us could go together? I’d love to try the Lobster Ravioli. I’ve heard it is wonderful.”

  Dad simply looked at her blankly and then dove into his meal, predictably spouting his stocks and bonds discourse between bites.

  AFTER dinner, we all gathered in the living room to view the newly decorated Christmas tree. My mother always managed to have it set up for our Thanksgiving celebration because she loved to have us eat our pumpkin pie beneath its lights. And Savannah was decorated as festively as any holiday gift that would go beneath that tree. A forest-green velvet dress, a perky red satin bow at the small of her back, and a ribbon of green velvet holding her golden ringlets off of her face. Yes, she looked like a gift most men would be in a huge rush to unwrap. And although I appreciated her beauty, I was much more interested in unwrapping all of the secrets that enfolded the man who sat on the floor by her feet, leaning against the couch.

  While Savannah chatted enthusiastically with my sister about the lack of crisis programs for at-risk teens in local high schools, Tristan sat silently, seemingly taking in the aura of a real family holiday. Probably for the first time in a long while. Maybe ever. It was nearly impossible for me not to stare at his delicate face in order to study that wistful expression. But I knew I had to hold back; the others would surely notice me gawking at my “girlfriend’s” roommate and it would raise eyebrows.

  But Jesus, it was a challenge to drag my gaze from his face. And it was even more of a challenge to restrain myself from moving to his side, just to feel the warmth of his body against mine. Or better yet, to reach up and loosen his tie, to smooth my hand over the silky skin of his face, to stroke my fingers through his hair so softly, like he’d once stroked mine. I found my fingers itching to do those things, and honestly, the list of things I wanted to do didn’t end there.

  I needed to distract myself from the intensity of what I was thinking and feeling for Tristan, from what I was now fairly certain was Robby Dalton falling in love for the first time. “Tris, you love a good game of Go Fish.” I shuffled the deck of cards that I’d picked up off of the bookshelf. “Come on over here and we’ll show Maddy how it’s played.”

  “Uncle Robby, I already knows how to play Go Fish. And even Daddy can’t never, ever beat me at it.” Nonetheless, she’d dropped her baby doll right where she was standing and was on my lap in a split second, all ready to play.

  Crawling over to the coffee table where I was already dealing the cards, Tristan wore the sweetest smile. He truly did love to play children’s card games and I knew he was going to love getting to know Maddy even more. That was when the front door burst open and Mikey DeSalvo, towing this year’s nameless Thanksgiving date behind him, barged his way through the front door.

  “Mista and Miz Dalton, I brought ya family a nice big platter of cannoli. My mama just put ’em together ’specially for you.” Smiling widely, he hugged my mother and then lifted up the hand of the bimbo. “This here is, uh, Monica, yeah. We’re just on our way to the bar at her hotel and we wanted to stop by wit’ these.” He nodded to the dessert platter he held in his other hand.

  “Why, thank you for the treats, Michael. I’m sure we’ll all enjoy them.” My mother was suddenly fluttering about, placing the cannoli on the coffee table, and then she scurried off to drag a bench in from the hallway. “Sit down, sit down, you two, and have a cup of coffee and some pie with us before you go.”

  Mikey approached the couch where my very pregnant sister sat beside Savannah. He leaned over and hugged her like a brother would. Then he quickly stepped over to where Brandon sat and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “You’s looking damn good, have ya been hitting the gym, my man?” Mikey completely avoided my eyes as he crossed the room, but he did mumble something like “hey, man” as he passed by me. My father stood up and shook his hand heartily, and then they exchanged more than a few quiet words under their breath. After their little chat, Mikey whirled around and directed his attention to Madison, who was still seated on my lap. “And you, my little princess, I brought you a pretty ring. It’s in this here velvet box. And I got me a secret; it’s the same color blue as your eyes.” He bent down to hand her the box.

  “You are not s’posed to tell secrets, Mr
. D. ’Cause if you tell them, then they isn’t secrets anymore.” Nevertheless, she reached for the velvet box and was soon sporting a shiny blue plastic bauble on her index finger.

  “Madison, you are supposed to say thank you when someone gives you a present.” My sister didn’t let her get away with too much. “I’m waiting.”

  “Thank you, Mr. D.,” Maddy replied obediently. She was a very rule-oriented child.

  “And you, baby, have got yourself the prettiest ring in town.”

  I waited for what I knew was coming, and Madison did not disappoint. “I am not a baby.”

  Yes, Mikey was quite charming, bearing sweets and gifts and secrets and hugs, but he did not once so much as acknowledge the presence of Tristan and Savannah. I wondered if my family had noticed his slight.

  “Please, Mike, sit down and make yourself at home.” My father’s voice was friendlier than it had been all night. “You too, Monica.”

  “Nah, we ain’t here to impose. Just stopped by to wish a happy Turkey Day to my good friends.”

  “At least let me walk you two kids out to the car.” Dad was on his feet in a flash, grabbing his zip-up sweatshirt off of the back of his chair. And he was eager. Much too eager.

  When I looked over at Tristan’s downcast expression, I decided I’d had enough of our family holiday. So I got to my feet as well. “See you later, Mikey. And nice to meet you, Monica.” I still had manners. “I think it is time that we started getting ready to head out too.”

  My mother headed for the kitchen to pack us each a plate of leftovers. That left Tris, Savannah, and me alone with my sister’s family.

  “Well, there was certainly a chill in the air when Mikey came in the room, huh?” My sister hadn’t missed Mikey’s snub of my partners. She looked squarely at Savannah. “He doesn’t seem to care for you two very much at all. Why is that?” Yes, Lindsey was very observant, and even more direct.