* * *
Thanksgiving at my family’s house was always fun and always loud. My aunts and uncles—and their hordes of children—would all drive out to the suburbs to my parents’ place. It was tradition.
It was also tradition for my aunts and grandma to ransack three million newspapers for sale ads while my sister, the men, and I watched football in the huge garage behind our old brownstone. Well, they watched football. We mostly just drank and talked shit.
But, before I headed back there, I strode through the house to say hello to my mom.
Okay, that wasn’t completely true. I limped my roughly rode body through my childhood home to pillage for food. I needed sustenance, and it was a holiday after all.
The house smelled so damn good, and I hobbled into my mother’s zone. As if on cue, she bellowed, “Mar-lena Fran-cine For-sythe, why do you do that to yourself before every visit?”
My mother was referring to the lie she believed. The one I’d first told—and kept telling because it worked—freshman year at Thanksgiving. It was after the Mayor had his glorious way with me and I could barely walk right for three days. I’d fibbed back then, telling everyone I’d been at the gym. Suckers.
Don’t ask me why they didn’t question how my physique never improved, regardless of how sore and overworked I always looked when I came to visit over those past few years. It was totally beyond me.
The truth was, I always saw Ryan before I came home. Because, when faced with not being with him for a few days, I liked how the feeling of him stayed with me.
“You know I have to work off all of these calories.” Which wasn’t all that facetious since I could have tolerated losing a few pounds here and there, but it was more of a truth of convenience. “Now what do we have going on in here?”
I ran a carrot stick through the dip in the center of the vegetable tray and crunched it in half before double-dipping.
My mom smacked my hand. “Stop it, you brat. Everyone has to eat out of that. Get a damn plate if you’re going to eat like an animal.”
I stole another dollop of French onion dip and gave her my best angelic smile. “You love me,” I chided.
“I do, sweetie, but why don’t you wobble your ass out back and bother your father? I have a lot of cooking to do.”
I was truly blessed with my mother’s sharp tongue and salty vocabulary, and, furthermore, knew better than to ask if she needed any help in the kitchen. That woman had one day a year where she was the queen of the universe. Thanksgiving dinner was her gift to the world. She wasn’t about to share the glory, especially with me—her heathen child, who would rather get drunk with the rest of my family anyway.
At the sink, where she was peeling potatoes, I gave her a big hug from behind shoving her arms to her sides like the brat she’d said I was.
“Get off me, Lena. Go away,” she admonished, but she loved me and there was no doubt about it.
As instructed, I wobbled my ass out to the garage, passed all of the younger kids playing on the swing set and picnic table, and found my crowd. The game hadn’t started yet, but that didn’t stop all four men and my younger sister from blaring the pregame show from the TV on the wall.
“There’s my seeeeester,” Katie squealed from her place around the card table in the center of the room where my dad’s work truck normally sat. She looked like she’d gotten an early start on drinking.
I shut the door behind me and winced in her direction.
She rolled her eyes and looked down at her phone, then shot out of her seat and ran by me.
“I’ll be right back, then you’re going to tell me all about it. You dirty whore,” my baby sister teased after noticing the slow gate in my walk.
She was in on my lie, but only in the vaguest way. I never said who or exactly what had happened, but she knew of the arrangement I had with my casual friend at school. The one we affectionately referred to as the Mayor of Pussyville.
I took her seat and all of the men glanced at me, said hi, and went back to what they were doing.
“You need a beer, Marlena?” my dad asked as he reached into the cooler beside him.
“Yes, please,” I answered and pulled my coolie cup out of my back pocket, deliciously feeling the aftermath of the night before as I leaned. My dad caught sight of my face as my brow bunched and only shook his head. He may have been on to me, but he’d never confirm it.
I threw him a life line and said, “The gym, Dad. I worked out last night.”
His eyebrow pitched skyward. “The night before Thanksgiving and you were on a treadmill? I’m beginning to wonder if I’m paying for your education or just a really expensive gym membership.”
I laughed at what he said and the attractive pretzel salt in his mustache. I loved my family.
“Shut up or I’ll move back home after I graduate.”
His hands flew up in surrender. “You win. I can’t afford how much you drink.”
I stretched forward to grab a handful of snack mix in the center of the plastic, white folding table and popped a bagel chip in my mouth. Then, I nearly choked half to fucking death when Katie came back into the garage with my long-time fuck buddy.
I hacked and nearly gagged as my dad pounded my on the back.
“Take a drink,” he said and handed me my beer, but my eyes never left Ryan’s.
“Dad, Marlena, um…everyone else, this is Ryan,” Katie introduced. She didn’t interpret his pale face correctly, probably confusing his shocked expression with nerves from meeting her—our—family. “He’s going to have Thanksgiving with us.”
My asphyxiation abated, but all I could do was stare as she led him to where more chairs were against the wall. They each grabbed one and unfolded them at the end of the table near me. When she sat, I quickly broke eye contact with Ryan and focused solely on the mixture of Chex-mix in my palm.
What in the hell was I supposed to do?
Katie leaned over to say something to me, so reflexively I leaned her way, again catching sight of Ryan’s alarmed gaze over her shoulder.
She tried to whisper, but with the TV as loud as it was, it was more like her normal speaking voice. “So you hooked up with the Mayor again last night. You guys ever going to get serious or not?”
Ryan overheard and his large, warm eyes almost bugged out of his head as redness climbed his neck into his face.
She went on. “Lena, you know you’re in love with him, right?”
“No, I’m not,” I fired back, almost before she was even finished with her stupid statement.
I sat back into my seat and drank nearly half of my beer.
“Since when are you so shy?” she touted and turned to Ryan. “My sister has been banging this guy at her school for four years straight because he has the—what did you call it, Lena?—the most glorious cock in the world?” If I’d had any doubt about how much she’d drank, it was totally confirmed as she spoke.
I took a minute to collect my thoughts as I listened to her pseudo-drunken retelling of my secret, no strings attached, sexual relationship with the Mayor of Pussyville to the man who I shared said private relationship with.
I was fucking my sister’s boyfriend.
My kinky fuck buddy was at Thanksgiving.
My thighs were wonderfully sore, and it was nearly painful to sit in the cheap folding chair.
There was a lot going on.
He’d mentioned the girl he was dating a few times, but I couldn’t remember ever hearing her name. And, only the night before, he’d said he was going to break it off with her. I’d been the one to tell him to wait until after the holiday.
I was a fucking idiot with a big mouth. If I would have just minded my own business, and not been so cock-greedy, maybe I wouldn’t have been in the mess I was in.
Anxiety lit my stomach on fire, so I poured more beer down my throat to put it out.
Ryan stood.
Maybe he’ll leave.
“I forgot my phone in my car. I’ll be right
back,” he said and headed for the door.
“Why did you tell him all of that stuff?” I growled at Katie.
“What? It doesn’t matter.” She giggled and took another drink. “I’m going to break up with him tomorrow anyway. You’ll never have to see him again. I tried to do it over the phone last night, but he was busy studying and didn’t answer.”
I slapped my hand to my forehead, not quite believing the fucked up situation I was in.
She continued after a hiccup. “I know, right? Who actually studies instead of bar hopping the night before Thanksgiving?”
Studying?
If he called railing my body into a pile of limp bones and flesh studying... well, let’s be honest, I’d gladly stay in school forever.
“I have to pee.” I had a brief opportunity and ran to the small half bath in the back of the garage. With the door locked, I pulled my phone out the kangaroo-pouch-like pocket in my hoodie.
I typed as fast as I could.
ME: WHAT IN THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE!?
MAYOR RHODES: I was just about to ask you the same thing! What do we do?
I closed the lid on the stool and sat.
Think, Lena.
The fact was: they both wanted to break up with each other. If we could just make it through the afternoon, then it would work itself out.
ME: Are you still breaking up with her?
MAYOR RHODES: Yes. I’m sorry this is so weird. I obviously didn’t know she was your sister. I feel so gross.
I hadn’t even considered if they’d—Oh. My. God.
I fought to remember what he’d said about the relationship. It had been a few weeks back, and we were washing up after he pounded me over his desk. He’d told me he’d met a girl. Yes. He’d said she was cute and reminded him of someone he knew.
Ew. It was me.
ME: Did you two…?
I left the question open, not capable of typing the horror all the way out. He knew what I meant.
MAYOR RHODES: FUCK NO! God, Lena. I’ve only been out with her a few times. I wasn’t really feeling it. She’s great, but not for me.
I could have swam in the gallons upon gallons of relief that flooded that tiny room.
She didn’t want to be with him either. This was good. Maybe I wouldn’t lose him.
Losing the sex would have been God-awful and tragic. He was the only man alive who knew how to please me the way I liked. But realization hit me hard under the blinking fluorescent bathroom light, and I knew losing my close friendship with Ryan would have been so much worse.
Who would warn me when my back moles were looking suspicious?
Who would bring me 7-Up when I was hungover?
Who would pull my hair at the right moment before I came?
I might be fucking my sister’s soon-to-be ex-boyfriend or whatever, but he was mine first.
What if some other bitch tried to actually take him from me?
Even though we’d both had short-lived relationships with others before, I suddenly felt very different. Very possessive and possibly a little jealous.
ME: I’m not staying here tonight. I’m going back to school.
MAYOR RHODES: Why did your sister refer to me as the Mayor?
Jesus, all hell was breaking lose and he wanted me to stroke his ego? My eyes rolled as another message lit my screen.
MAYOR RHODES: So you’re sore, huh?
I smiled to myself, and my legs squeezed together as thoughts of the night before flashed through my scattered mind.
ME: STFU
I pocketed my phone and put it on silent before I rejoined my family. The game was starting and the traditional pre-game shots were being passed as the players for both teams were broadcast at semi sonic levels through the room.
I skipped the shot, deciding if I was driving back into the city, I’d need to be sober. My sister, on the other hand, did hers then mine, reciting, “You snooze. You lose, bitch.”
Ryan walked back into the garage and took his seat beside Katie, and that’s when time began to drag. The football game sucked so a game of poker broke out in the garage, just as I waddled inside to see if I could help my mom with the table.
My sister was getting shitfaced—despite the fact that her date had stopped drinking all together—but she deserved it. She rarely drank except for special occasions, and she was probably just trying to summons the courage to break it off with Ryan. Neither of them had been affectionate with the other, but still I hated being in the same room with him and not being able to touch him myself.
“What can I do?” I asked my mother. Sometime, between switching pans in the oven and cleaning the entire kitchen, she’d cleaned up and fixed her hair.
Pulling the foil off the bird, she answered, “Go in the dining room and tell them it’s almost ready. Their hen party can hit the family room. I need that table.” Her ornery smile beamed at me as she blew me a kiss. “Please, Lena.”
I was going to put her in a home someday for that one, but I did what I was told.
“Hey guys, Mom needs the table. It’s almost ready,” I said from the doorway to the dining room, which had been converted into the Black Friday Strategy Center. My two aunts and my grandma barely noticed or acknowledged I was there. Laughing at how seriously they took their bargains, I reiterated, “Hey, move it or lose it. I’m starving.”
“You’re just like your mother,” my aunt said and bunched her nose at me. “You’re no fun.”
I tried to help stack the papers that were scattered around the oak table, but my grandma smacked my hand away. “Don’t you even think about it,” she warned. “We’re moving. Don’t touch.”
Don’t touch. That was becoming a common theme.
Leave the dip alone.
Don’t mess up the sale ads.
Don’t jump your sister’s boyfriend on the workbench by the lawnmower.
Nag. Nag. Nag.
When I could trust that they were actually moving, I went back in the kitchen where it smelled like heaven. “Now what?” I asked for further instruction.
“Go get the drunks from the garage. And, was that Katie’s boyfriend I saw earlier?”
Not for long. Soon, he’d just go back to being the guy that tied her eldest daughter to the rod in her apartment closet and pounded her while wearing a Santa hat last Christmas Eve.
I wondered, what if I wanted more than just sex? It was becoming very clear that I despised the mere thought of him being with anyone else, especially having first hand witnessed such a thing.
“I’ll go get them,” I told my mom as I passed through the backdoor and waded through the sea of little people running around like maniacs in the back yard. I could hear the ruckus bunch in the garage as I got closer.
“I’m gonna kick your ass, old man,” Katie yelled at my dad. They’d moved on to playing darts.
Ryan sat at the table with the other guys and just shrugged when I caught his eye.
Then he gave me a panty-wetting smile, and I was totally sure of what I wanted. The Mayor was strutting directly out of my fantasies and right into my real life. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the feeling.
“Dinner is ready,” I shouted as I walked up beside him. My uncles grabbed full beers and headed inside while my dad finished giving my drunk sister a lesson in dart throwing on the other side of the room.
“I’m feeling like I should probably tell her before dinner,” Ryan said. “I’ll feel like a dick if I eat, then do it.”
That made sense, and I respected him for it, but I knew my sister wasn’t going to be too bent out of shape—if at all. Why should he have to be without a great holiday meal?
“And miss my mom’s turkey? Don’t be an idiot. Do it after you’re full.” He laughed, but it had a trace of humility in it, so I confessed, “She’s going to break up with you anyway.”
He signed in relief, and his shoulders slumped. “Really?”
I laughed and quietly said, “Yeah, you know when she called last night
, and I told you not to answer? Well, she was gonna do it then.”
He gave me a flirty scowl. If all of it wasn’t too weird for him, I prayed he’d punish me for causing the whole mess later. My breath hitched from the thought, and I bit my lip.
I don’t think he could believe it any more than I could. “Are you fucking serious?” he asked with a chuckle.
I nodded. “Yeah, that whole listening to me thing—don’t do that again. Apparently, I don’t know what I’m talking about. From now on, you’re the boss.” It was a dangerous little game I was playing—flirting with him only feet away from my family—but I liked the thrill.
He stood and glanced over to my sister who wasn’t paying any attention, then whispered in my ear, “No, I’m the fucking Mayor, Lena.”
He wasn’t a mayor. Nowhere near it, but I adored how he played along with me. How he always had. There was some naughty depraved part of me that was only for him.
As he looked into my eyes, I knew things were about to change. The hair stood on the back of my neck and a shiver ran up my back.
I peeked at the score on the dart board and knew they were almost done. It was my dad’s turn, and he’d end their game with his next throw.
I said, my tone low enough for only him to hear, “I know it’s a holiday, but do you think the Mayor could see me tonight?”
Something flashed in his brown eyes. “He definitely wants to discuss something with you tonight.”
I swallowed, and my heart raced.
The dart board sang the tale tell song of victory, and I knew our little moment was over. My sister, less than gracefully, walked over to us.
“Time to eat?” she asked and linked her arm through Ryan’s.
“Yeah, she’s already kicked the shoppers out of the dining room.”
“Oh, shit,” my dad said as he pulled another beer from his cooler and rushed past us like the house was on fire. “I don’t want to miss the good piece of turkey. She better not give that shit to just anyone.”
It was awkward for a minute. Then I realized, I was the one who was lingering.
Leaning against Ryan for support, Katie asked, “Lena, can you give us a minute?”
F*CKING AWKWARD HOLIDAYS: 25 Short Stories of Awkward Holiday Encounters Page 27
