“Alex, did Nicki tell you I’ve been in federal prison for the past seventeen years?”
For a moment I think Alex is going to slice his thumb off. “Uh, no. She didn’t.”
“Well, I was,” I say. “I just got out a couple of months ago.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “That’s terrible.”
I forgive this kid for acting like I have cancer. He’s never met someone who’s been in prison before.
“Alex, let me ask you a question. What’s it like to grow up in Palo Alto? Did you just never have a care in the world until . . .” I stop and think. “Wait, maybe you still don’t have a care in the world.”
To his credit, Alex is not just jumping to his own defense. He’s sitting stock still. “I’m thinking about what you’re saying,” he says.
“I see that,” I say. “Thank you. I really appreciate that, Alex.”
“And you’re right. I don’t really have ‘cares,’ not in the sense you’re talking about. All of my basic needs are met, and they always have been. The only thing I have to worry about is—”
“Self-actualization,” I say.
I’m referring to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It’s a psychology thing I’m sure Alex knows about. Most college people do. The theory is that human beings have basic needs: food, shelter, etc., and once those are taken care of, they move up to the next level of things to worry about, like security or friendship. And eventually, there’s nothing left to worry about but the meaning of life. That’s where Alex has been his whole life.
“Exactly,” he says, a little shocked. “You know Maslow?”
“I studied a lot in the joint. Psychology, child development, attachment, a little evolutionary biology,” I say. I pour my sesame oil dressing over my kale slaw, then sprinkle in some sesame seeds. Hell yeah, this is going to be good. “Lotta time on my hands in there. I sort of think of myself as an unlicensed therapist. Ha!” I clap and laugh real loud.
“That’s hilarious,” Alex says, laughing with me. “I love that you know Maslow.”
I’m not hating this Alex cat. I grab the hand blender. “You ever work one of these before?” Alex takes the blender, just as Nicki and Peaches walk into the room. They’re surprised to see Alex. Well, Nicki is.
“Alex!” She goes over to him, and before she can pull him into a hug, he takes her by both hands and gives her a polite kiss on her right cheek.
Peaches looks at me and raises an eyebrow as if to say, Are you kidding me?
And I think, I’m going to like sitting next to this Peaches girl.
* * *
“Dinner’s ready!” I’m shouting at Cody’s bedroom door. “Time to come to the table.”
The three boys mosey in. I wait at the door until the kids are moving, then usher them into the dining room. I notice Nicki is holding the hand of the new boyfriend, but she drops it when Cody walks into the room.
“You guys sit there,” I say, pointing toward the corner of the table. “Cody, you’re on the end. You fellas, one on each side.” I want the kids at one end so us adults can make conversation.
“The table sure does look nice,” Alex says. He makes a moon face at Nicki.
“Thank you,” Nicki says. Then she introduces him. “Cody, this is Alex.”
That’s it, just his name. No explanation. None necessary, I guess.
“What’s up?” Cody gives one of those head dips men use to acknowledge each other. “Um, that’s Max, and that’s Justin.”
“Hey, guys,” Alex says. “Nice to meet you.”
“Cuuuuute!” Peaches says. “Codes, you think you’re going to like your new dad?”
“Peaches!” Nicki’s pissed. “Stop.”
“I joke, I joke,” she says. “Jesus, people. You have no humor?”
That Peaches sure is a scoundrel. “Peaches, you’re next to me. Nicki, you’re to my right. And Alex, you’re next to Nicki.” We all take our seats.
Shit. This is beautiful. A Thanksgiving table and I got my daughter and my grandson here? And I’m free? Dear Lord, I’m grateful.
“Let’s say grace.”
“Grace?” Nicki says. “We’re not religious.”
“We’re going to be thankful for our food, daughter.” I take her hand. “Everybody take the hand of the person next to you.” Nicki really wants to protest, but I keep talking. “Just go along with me.”
She takes Alex’s hand, but refuses to bow her head.
“Universal Creator,” I say, “thank you for this food. These friends. This family. We thank you for the blessings we continue to receive. Our health, our open hearts. We thank you for the opportunity to spend time together, and get to know each other better, and we ask that you heal the scars from the past.”
“Amen, already,” Nicki says, jumping in.
“Amen.” I squeeze her hand before I let it go and smile at her. “I love you, darling. Thank you especially for letting me be here. Our first Thanksgiving together. This is really special.”
“So sweet!” Peaches says. She’s beaming at me. Which I like, naturally.
Nicki doesn’t say anything back. Again, that’s fine. I don’t expect a response. The way I see it, I’m chipping away at her defensiveness. I’ve got the rest of my life for her to come around. It’s two steps forward, and one step back.
“So, guys,” I say to the kids’ side of the table, forking a big piece of white meat. “Why don’t you tell us more about your game? The whole thing. Starting with what’s so great about it.”
“That’s boring,” Cody says.
Max starts talking even though he just shoved a huge spoonful of macaroni and cheese into his mouth. “What’s so great about Magic? Only everything.”
“I was into magic when I was little,” Alex says. “But I couldn’t ever make a coin disappear, and I finally gave up.”
The boys all snicker. Cody says, “This is why I hate talking about Magic.”
“Just tell him what it is,” Nicki says. “Don’t talk about what it’s not.”
“It’s too confusing,” Cody says.
“Oh, I think I can handle it,” Alex says. “Why don’t you try me?”
“It’s not, like, David Blaine magic,” Max says.
Cody cuts him off. “Basically it’s strategy, fantasy, and competition all in the same game. And it’s constantly evolving.” The way he talks, it’s obvious Cody really knows the whole deal. “So it never gets old. Also, it was invented in 1993 by a guy who was getting a PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. In combinatorial mathematics.”
“Richard Greenfield,” Max says.
“Bro, they don’t need to know his name,” Cody says.
“Yes, we do,” Peaches says. “Was Richard Greenfield hot?”
“Peaches, stop,” Nicki says. “You’re being inappropriate.”
“Peaches is always inappropriate. That’s what we like about her,” Cody says.
“I didn’t know you liked me!” Peaches says, clearly in fun. “Awwww!”
“I don’t,” Cody says. He’s got that blank face he wears sometimes, and right now, I can see that he doesn’t really mean it. It’s a way of being funny and in control at the same time. This kid has some really interesting levels to him. “I was joking.”
The whole table breaks into whistles and catcalls. Maybe Cody’s got some game in him after all.
“That’s enough,” Nicki says. “Next subject.”
“You know who I want to hear from?” Peaches looks right at me. “You, Ronnie. I want to hear from you.”
She leans into me and I can feel her body graze my arm, and I know right then and there that I am in trouble.
* * *
I grab the car keys without even asking Nicki. Peaches needs a ride home and asked me to take her. Nicki’s walking around the block with Alex,
pretty drunk the last time I saw her, and she’s been letting me drive the car a little more lately, so I figure she won’t mind. We’re only a couple of minutes away from the house when Peaches puts it out there.
“Do you want to get some tea?” Peaches says.
She only said those seven little words, but she said them while sliding her long blue nails through the right side of her hair. I know that look on her face and I know what the deal is when a woman tries to spend more time with you at ten o’clock, after a great meal and too many drinks. It only means one thing.
She wants to get down.
“No, I don’t think so,” I say.
I’m lying, obviously. I want to go wherever this woman is suggesting we go. I want to go there no matter what, because I’m not a normal person. When you have what I have, you don’t really choose whether you go get tea or not. You just do it. Even when you know it’s a bad idea. But maybe if I say no enough times, this feeling will pass.
“Come on! How good would some tea be?” She giggles. “Tea-be. It rhymes!”
“I said I don’t think so, Peaches.” I’m trying to keep it light.
“It would be good, you know it would.” She’s dropped her voice an octave, she’s almost whispering, and she’s looking at me that one way. “Don’t you like tea?”
She’s saying it that one way. The way I can’t say no to.
Oh fuck.
So I don’t.
“You know what?” I say. “I do like tea.”
“I thought you would,” Peaches says. The air in the car is electrified. “Take a right at the next light.”
Oh shit. It’s on.
22
* * *
NICKI
I don’t usually drink this much. Normally, I try to keep it sane, one glass of wine, maaaybe two. But after we cleared the dishes from the table, the discussion turned into a tutorial on Magic: The Gathering, which is when Peaches got bored and decided to break out the blender and the tequila. Three margaritas later, Alex and I went for a walk around the block and ended up at the park down the street. Now I’m sitting on a bench and Alex is walking around picking up leaves off the ground. There’s a single park lamp shining on us, and the ground is wet, as it usually is in Portland anytime between November and May.
“Remember our first date?” he says to me. “You were sitting on a bench just like that, and as I walked toward you, I saw you sitting there and thought to myself, I sure hope that’s her. And it was.”
“Awwww,” I say. “You’re sweet.”
“No, you’re sweet. Here.” Alex hands me a bouquet of wet leaves that he just pulled together. He bobbles just slightly, thanks to the tequila. “For the lady.”
“Are you for real? These are so beautiful! Seriously,” I say, also tipsy as shit. I don’t even care that the leaves are all soggy and brown. “No one’s ever given me wet leaves before!”
We giggle and Alex sits down next to me and kisses me, really long and warm.
The past couple of weeks with Alex are making me realize I’ve spent my whole life choosing guys who could be warm or close but not both. Either they could be affectionate and loving but have to disappear for a couple of days at a time until they couldn’t take it anymore and they disappeared forever—or they were aloof and distant but stuck around until one day when I couldn’t take it anymore and I broke up with them. That’s pretty much my entire relationship history in a nutshell.
Part of me wants to second-guess this whole thing. Like: this is too good to be true, I just got out of a relationship with Jake, I’m supposed to cry and feel bad for a long time before someone awesome comes along. How in the world could this good thing be happening to me? But then I just stop questioning it because here it is, it’s happening, and how do you argue with what is? What is is the only real thing.
Which I know sounds totally like something Ronnie would say.
Alex puts his hands around my waist and then we’re all into making out and he is possibly the best kisser ever.
“I like kissing you,” I say.
“I like kissing you,” he says.
We go back to kissing and I open my eyes and look at him and think that being here, right now, making out with Alex outside in the night air in the park down the street from my house on Thanksgiving might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever done since Gio and I walked across the Hawthorne Bridge.
This is the only real thing.
Except then a few minutes pass, and I remember that I’m a grown woman with a houseful of people and a kid and a whole bunch of dirty dishes in the sink and I have to get back home. Twenty-five minutes is the limit for walking around the block and impromptu make-out sessions in the park. I pull my shirt down and steady myself.
“I better go. I gotta check on everyone,” I say. The night air and the make-out session has sobered me up just a little, to where I’m now pleasantly warm inside and feeling wonderful.
Alex touches my cheek and gazes at me for a long moment. “You’re so beautiful, Nicki.” He traces the curve of my cheekbone and kisses me again, really lightly. “I really, really like you.”
This is probably the most sincere thing any man has ever said to me. Sure, I’ve had guys say nice things, but not in this tone of voice, with this much eye contact, and so unguarded. It’s making me squirm. I’ve spent a lifetime dreaming someone would say something like that to me—and now that someone has, I feel itchy. Not that I like admitting that. I don’t even know what to say.
So I just go, “Thank you.”
He smiles at me like I’m adorable. “It’s not really a compliment, Nick,” he says. “It’s the way I feel. I like you and I want you to know.”
Holy shit. Is this what it’s like when someone is just, like, there? Present? Available? If so, it’s going to take some major getting used to. I’m feeling so shy I can only look at my fingernails. They’re really chipped, by the way.
“I don’t even know what to say,” I say.
“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know.” He kisses my cheek, then lifts up my chin with one finger and looks me in the eye. “I really like you.”
I start to get up, and Alex offers me his hand to help me off the bench. Home is only five minutes away, but that’s not far enough. I don’t want this moment to end. We walk in a nice silence, and I feel this sense of calm wash over me. Nothing’s missing right this second—nothing at all. As we walk the one hundred yards to my house I look into people’s windows—I have the same fascination with people’s homes at night that I have during the day. At night, you can see right into their lives—just a snapshot—a corner of wallpaper, a split-second of doing dishes, a glimpse of someone walking from the living room to the kitchen for another glass of bourbon.
“I love houses,” I say. “They’re my favorite thing in the whole world.”
Alex squeezes my hand like he understands this. “What do you love about them?”
“I love how they have rooms, and windows, and roofs, and . . .” I start laughing. “I’m joking. Kind of.” Then I think about it. What exactly is it that I love about houses? And all at once the answer is behind my eyes, at first a little burning feeling, then a welling of tears. “It’s that all I ever wanted was a home, you know? A really beautiful place to live and be safe and belong.” I’m trying to keep the sound of the tears out of my voice, but he can probably hear them anyway. “That’s all I ever wanted.”
I look over at him and smile. He looks at me and smiles back. “And now you have one,” he says.
He’s right. I do have one.
I haven’t told him I’m moving—it’s way too messy a story for three weeks in—but I feel safe with him, and I know when I finally do explain it, he’ll understand. He was so great at dinner—Peaches didn’t hate him and he completely won over my dad. It turns out they know a lot of the
same stuff because Alex was a psychology minor.
“You know I’ve never had my dad meet someone I’m dating before? You were the first. Ever!” I say. “And you really had his attention at dinner. Not that you were trying to impress.”
“He’s nice, Nicki,” Alex says. “I like him.”
“Yeah, everybody likes him,” I say. It’s true. Everybody likes Ronnie. “He’s a storybook charmer, all right.” Alex looks at me like, huh? So I explain. “In real estate, they always call a certain kind of really cute house a ‘storybook charmer.’ It means the kind of house that’s going to make you get all emotional and go against your better judgment. Just like Ronnie.”
Alex seems to get this. Then, out of nowhere he says, “You know what I want to do?” He’s all excited. “I want to give your dad a job. He said he needs a job for his probation or parole or whatever it is, right? I’ll get him something down at my work.”
“You would not!” I can’t believe Alex is serious. His tech start-up is the toast of the so-called Silicon Rainstorm—Portland’s cutesy name for the small congregation of tech firms based here. “But your company is one of Portland’s top-ten hottest tech firms!” I’m always giving Alex a hard time about a magazine article that came out listing his company as one of the most desirable to work for.
“Yeah, and everyone who works there went to politically correct schools like Reed and Stanford,” Alex says. “They believe in the whole idea of rehabilitation, and I’d say your dad is clearly rehabilitated. Why not challenge them to walk their talk?”
I kiss Alex. “You’re awesome,” I say. “But this sounds like one of those great ideas people get when they’ve had too much tequila.” Although I’m secretly thrilled Alex would even talk about making such a grand gesture on behalf of my dad (and me), I feel like I need to give him an out so he doesn’t feel so bad when he realizes what he said and wants to change his mind tomorrow.
Multiple Listings Page 22
