Our New Normal (ARC)

by Colleen Faulkner

  “Yeah. She’s in my programming foundations class.” He’s hovering over the steaming colander of potatoes. I can tell he’s embarrassed, but also that he wants to share. “We’ve been um . . . studying together.”

  “Ah.” I make myself busy putting the green bean casserole in the oven. “She have a name?”

  “Lucy.”

  I can’t stand it. I turn to him, hot mitts on both hands, hands on my hips. “She your girlfriend?”

  My son blushes and it’s the sweetest thing I think I’ve ever seen.

  “I don’t know.” He avoids eye contact with me as he carries the potato pot back to the stove. “Can I get back to you on that?”

  I grin. “Sure can.”

  Marie and Joe’s dogs burst into a cacophony of barks and race into the kitchen, headed for the back door. Willie Nelson, who has settled near the door between the dining area and the family room, lifts his head, but makes no attempt to get up.

  “That must be Aunt Beth,” Sean says, dropping a stick of butter into the potato pot. He looks as surprised as I am. “I’ll go see if she needs any help.”

  “Tell her she owes me five bucks,” I call after him.

  20

  Hazel

  I sit on the living room floor, my back against the couch, and stare at my phone. Frank Sinatra is singing “White Christmas” on the Bluetooth speaker Mom and Dad gave to Gran and Granddad. Dad’s playing a Pandora station through his phone, but I guess he’s going to show Gran how to do it with her new iPhone she bought herself.

  The reason I even know it’s Frank Sinatra is because Gran and Granddad got into an argument earlier about who sang it better. Gran was on the Frank Sinatra side, but Granddad says Bing Crosby, and he wouldn’t give in. Then, when he asked Gran to make him another Old Fashioned, this gross drink with bourbon in it, she told him to make his own damned drink. And Gran never swears. It was a pretty tense moment. Dad gets a point for the save when he offered to make Granddad his second Old Fashioned. Granddad is limited to two because of an incident after a third one on Thanksgiving Day at the cottage.

  Gran is passing out Christmas presents now and the argument seems to have blown over. She even gave Granddad a gift: a pair of cargo pants. I’m not sure why she thought he needed pants with lots of pockets because what’s he going to carry in them? He doesn’t have car or house keys anymore, and now he’s not allowed to carry his wallet with him because last week he left it in the yogurt cooler at Hannaford. Gran said strike three and he was out because the week before that, he put his wallet in their freezer and they didn’t find it until Gran made herself a martini. And before that, he hid it under his mattress so the people who visit him in his room at night wouldn’t steal it. Luckily, with the latest wallet incident, some nice lady found it nestled between boxes of Go-GURT and turned it in. Granddad tried to say she must have pickpocketed him, but Gran made him apologize to the lady and the poor guy at customer service who apparently Granddad also chewed out. Then she cried in the parking lot because he embarrassed her; Granddad told me the part about her crying when I was helping him clean up a box of Cheerios he spilled all over the floor and didn’t want Gran to know.

  Lately I’ve been going to their house after school every day just to give Gran a break. I think it’s helping because she’s been having a good run as she calls it. She’s not using her wheelchair much and her hands don’t hurt like they did. I think the fact that I got her to try a gluten-free, dairy-free diet might be helping.

  Granddad seems to like getting a break from Gran, too. I know he frustrates Gran, but none of this is his fault. He doesn’t want to be confused between an eggplant and an orange and I know he gets tired of Gran fussing with him. I don’t mind going and Mom seems to appreciate it; she doesn’t have time to check on them every day, and Aunt Beth is dating some new guy, and is too busy to even call sometimes. And it’s not like I have anything else better to do. Besides Katy, I feel like I don’t have many friends anymore. Everyone in school is nice to my face, but people are definitely avoiding me. Sometimes I want to holler, “You can’t get pregnant sitting next to a pregnant girl at lunch!” but Katy says I’m being oversensitive. She also says they’re avoiding me because I’m such a bitch all the time. She says I still get invited to parties and stuff. That I’m the one blowing people off.

  I watch as my family’s Christmas gift exchange goes on, happy to be here in the warm living room with the tree I put lights on and decorated and a fire in the fireplace. The house smells amazing: a combination of the wood burning, gingerbread from the cookies we made, and a scent I can’t identify that smells like . . . a safe place.

  Gran opens an iPhone case that Mom bought for her. Then Dad opens a bunch of Smartwool socks. Mom’s next gift is a pair of silver earrings that look like calla lilies.

  We’ve been coming to their house for Christmas Eve since I was born, and even though I used to complain about having to come, I find it calming this year. My life seems so out of control right now that I crave things that are routine. Anything that seems like the normalcy of my life before this alien started growing inside me. And normal is our Christmas Eve traditions at Gran and Granddad’s. First, we have an early dinner: ham, macaroni and cheese, steamed broccoli, dinner rolls, and Mom’s homemade applesauce. The menu is always the same. Then we go to church, which I think is a little hypocritical since Gran only goes on religious holidays and we don’t go at all. But that’s what we do. Then we come home for dessert and gifts. We used to go to midnight service, but Gran said she was too old for that, so now we go to the nine o’clock. But I remember being little and thinking it was so cool that Mom let Sean and me stay up so late on Christmas Eve.

  I rub my hand on my belly where the skin is sore. I’ve got stretch marks and they hurt. No one told me they were going to hurt. Or that they’d be so ugly. They’re big red lines that look like they could tear at any moment. Mom gave me some moisturizer to rub into them and she said most of them would go away. Most of them? WTF?

  Still rubbing my belly, I wonder what kind of Christmas traditions Tyler and I will make for Charlie. After we’re married, I mean. When we all live together as a family. I like the whole Christmas Eve thing here at Gran and Granddad’s, so we’ll definitely come here. But I’m seriously thinking about skipping the Santa thing. I feel like it’s a bad idea to start lying to your kid when he’s a baby. Besides, the whole idea of a man you don’t know coming down your chimney to leave you tricycles and Hot Wheels tracks is just weird. How do you teach your kid to be careful around strangers, in case they’re pervs, but then tell him it’s okay to lure some guy in a fur coat into your living room with almond milk and peanut butter cookies?

  My cell phone in my lap vibrates, and I look at it, hoping Tyler is texting me back. He said he was coming tonight. He promised. Since I won’t see him tomorrow because he’s doing something with his stepdad’s family.

  It’s not Tyler. I’ve texted him three times and called him twice. Nothing.

  It’s Katy. I GOT IT! she’s texted.

  Gran’s cat, Rama, climbs into my lap and starts to purr. He’s a Siamese cat, named after the real-life king the musical The King and I is based on. The King of Siam, which is what we now call Thailand. I’m not into old musicals, but Gran is. All my knowledge of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals has been forced on me. Gran likes to play the music loud while I clean and she tells me what to do and, against my will, I know a lot of the songs. Mom says she knows too many lyrics from Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music, too.

  I want to text Katy back “Got what??” because I have no idea what she’s talking about, but then I feel bad because she’s been a really good friend to me since I got knocked up. And I haven’t been a good friend to her. All we talk about is me. My problems with Mom. My problems with Tyler. The baby. She’s been so patient with me. She doesn’t just listen to me whine; she rubs my feet when they get swollen and lets me go to the bathroom before her because she knows I’ll pee my
pants if I wait too long.

  Only the best kind of friend will do stuff for you like that, and I can’t even listen when she tells me something. Katy likes this guy, Cal, who’s in her English class and we’ve talked a little bit about him, but she could tell I wasn’t really interested. I don’t even know how their date went the other night. We were supposed to talk on the phone after, but I completely forgot to call her after I had a freak-out. I thought I was in labor and called Mom and made her come home from work even though she was meeting with some kind of inspector. Turns out it was something called Braxton Hicks contractions, which are like practice contractions. Guess I should have read that book about pregnancy and birth Mom gave me. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m suffering from some form of denial about having this baby. But how can I be in denial? I’m carrying this basketball/alien right in front of me every second of every day. It’s hard to ignore.

  Aunt Beth squeals when she unwraps a fancy wine bottle opener that’s got a rechargeable battery. She yanks it out of the box.

  I look down at my phone.

  Yay, I text Katy. Then I wait, hoping she’ll text me a clue so I can pretend I know what she wanted for Christmas. I’m sure we talked about it. I want a Britax ClickTight car seat. That’s what I asked for. I’m secretly hoping for a new iPhone Plus, too, though. There’s nothing wrong with my phone; I just really want the new one with better camera features. So I can take pictures of Charlie.

  I hear a buzzing sound and look up to see Aunt Bethie making the metal corkscrew thingy go up and down inside her fancy bottle opener. No bottle; she’s just running the corkscrew up and down and laughing. She’s had a lot of wine today. Dad made her ride with us to church instead of driving herself.

  My phone vibrates.

  Not new. Dad vetoed that. But it only has 18 thou miles and it’s red!!

  Katy got a new car. The powers of deduction. I shake my head. She got a car for Christmas. I’m getting a car seat that I probably won’t use because I’ll be afraid to take my baby out of the house because something might happen to him.

  I stare at the phone. Of course, Katy got a car. I try not to be jealous. But she gets everything she wants. I have a theory that her parents give her everything because she used to have a little sister who died of cancer. Parents do that kind of stuff. They try to make up for dead sisters by buying you a new pair of Ugg boots every year and cars that are practically new.

  I look up to watch Sean unwrap a new sweater. The wrapping paper is fancy and there’s red tissue paper folded just so inside a real gift box. Gran pays someone to wrap all her gifts. All of the gifts are wrapped in color-coordinated paper so it looks nice under her tree. There’s always a theme, too: “down by the sea,” with real seashells glued on the packages, or maybe “all that glitters” with, yup, a lot of glittery gift tags and bows and shiny foil paper. When I was little, it used to bug me that Gran was so particular about her gift presentation because I wasn’t allowed to put my homemade gifts, wrapped in brown paper I decorated myself with paint and stickers, under her tree. My homemade disasters had to go under the “kids’ tree” in the kitchen. When Charlie wraps a gift for me in a page of lion cubs from a kid’s National Geographic magazine I’m going to let him put it under our family tree.

  Sean holds up his sweater and everyone oohs and aahs.

  Christmas takes forever with Mom’s family because everyone has to watch while each gift is opened. We take turns by age, so Granddad opens something, then Gran, then Dad, then Mom, then Aunt Bethie, then Sean, then me. And then it starts all over again. But Gran gives good gifts so we don’t complain too much.

  There’s a lot less organization involved with Christmas with Dad’s family. Tomorrow we’ll go to the cottage where Aunt Marie and Uncle Sai and their kids will be and once everyone is there tomorrow night, we’ll get to rip open everything at once. Uncle Joe and his wife and their girls won’t join us until the day after Christmas because they went to Aunt Petunia’s parents’ house. Her name isn’t really Petunia, but that’s what Dad and Uncle Joe have always called her. I think her real name is something weird like Millicent.

  “Now, if you don’t like the color, they have a blue and a red and a green,” Gran tells Sean. “But I thought you might like black. Black’s classic and it looks nice with your hair.” It’s an L.L.Bean sweater; Gran buys almost exclusively from L.L.Bean, at least for casual clothing. I got a similar one, in green. I can’t wear it now because I’m too fat, but Gran said it would be nice to have something new to wear after the baby is born. We’ll still have snow on the ground when the baby is born.

  The idea of that makes me almost dizzy. It will still be winter when this kid is born. I can’t believe I’m having a baby.... I’m thirty-one weeks. Which means that in nine weeks I have to push this big-headed basketball of an alien out my V.

  I look at my phone that’s vibrating again.

  What time you going to cottage in the morning? Katy asks.

  Want to come by and show you my new car. Only she hasn’t spelled out car, she’s used a red emoji of a car.

  Not til 11. Which means 12 because nobody will be ready.

  K.

  Then the incoming text bubbles pop up again.

  Tyler show up? she asks. She’s added a poop emoji to the end of this one.

  I don’t want to answer her. Katy wasn’t a Tyler fan before but now she pretty much hates him and she’s not even trying to hide it anymore. Something happened between them a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know what. Neither she or Tyler will tell me. But they aren’t speaking except for her to call him a dickwad or for him to call her the C word under his breath when she walks away after she’s said something to me in the hall at school. I wish the both of them would just stop because I feel like I’m stuck in the middle. If I take Tyler’s side, Katy is mad. If I take Katy’s side, Tyler’s all pissy and makes excuses not to see me. At least when Katy’s mad at me, she still texts me and stuff.

  I push Gran’s cat off my lap and get up without texting Katy back.

  “Hazel. Your turn next,” Granddad tells me, holding up a gift. The box is too small to be an iPhone Plus. Looks like jewelry.

  “I’ve got one here for Tyler, too.” Gran holds up an envelope that looks like a Christmas card with his name printed on it. “Gift cards for the movies. I hope that’s okay. I thought you two could go together.” She’s still holding up the card as I walk by her. “Is he coming?”

  “I have to pee,” I say, not even trying not to sound grumpy.

  “Go to the little girls’ room. I’ll hold it for you.” Granddad sets down the little box wrapped in pale-blue paper tied elaborately with white ribbon. I think the theme this year is White Christmas—why Gran keeps wanting to play the song over and over again. I’m not sure what the blue has to do with it, but it is pretty.

  I look down at Granddad sitting on the end of the couch; he’s wearing a shirt and bow tie with a red V-neck sweater over it. He’s been on his good behavior all day because Gran’s really mad at him. She was mad even before the song argument. Yesterday he got into a fight with a lady at a crafts store in town because he wanted to buy a socket wrench and she kept telling him they didn’t carry wrenches. I guess he got confused. Apparently, a long time ago, the crafts store was a hardware store.

  Gran said he got really angry and started talking loud about people not wanting to sell people things because of elder prejudice. I can’t believe he thought they sold socket wrenches at a crafts store, but had enough of his marbles to know what elder prejudice was and to be able to argue the point.

  Gran was furious. She’d left him in the car playing Candy Crush while she went into a store to pick up one thing. Then she had to hunt him down. She told me she was going to chain him to the car with a combination lock from now on. Which, of course, would be totally unsafe. But I didn’t tell her that because I think she was kidding. At least I hope she was.

  “I’ll be right back,” I announce to the ro
om, bouncing up and down on my toes. “I really have to pee.”

  “Break time,” Mom announces, getting up. She’s been sitting on the floor at Dad’s feet. They got into it yesterday about something, but there seems to be some sort of truce right now. Mom even brought Dad another beer without him asking. “Sean, could you get some more firewood? There should be more on the back porch,” she says.

  I hustle to the bathroom. I’m washing my hands when my phone on the counter starts vibrating. It’s Tyler calling. I stare at the phone, trying not to panic. Tyler never calls me. He texts or we see each other. But we don’t talk on the phone.

  Either he’s not coming or someone died.

  I dry off my hands on my maternity jeans because I don’t want to get in trouble for using Gran’s pretty white hand towel with the green holly leaf embroidered on it. “You’re not coming,” I say into the phone as I walk out of the bathroom. I sound pathetic.

  He doesn’t say anything, but I know he’s there.

  “Ty, you said you would come.” I’m not even whining. I’m genuinely disappointed he’s not coming.

  I wait. He still doesn’t say anything. “Ty,” I say, angry now.

  “Nah, not coming,” he finally grunts.

  “Why not? You don’t have to stay. But you have to at least stop by. Gran bought you a present. She got you a gift card for the movies. So we could go. We could go see the new Marvel movie. You like those stupid superhero movies.”

  At the end of the hall, I stop and lean against the wall. I can see into the living room. Sean is setting an armload of wood into the basket by the fireplace and Dad is stoking the fire. Mom and Aunt Beth have their heads together, laughing. Maybe because Gran gave Aunt Beth one of the bottle openers last year for Christmas. Might have been the same one. Granddad is just sitting in his chair, hands folded in his lap, in his bow tie, looking very Norman Rockwell there next to the tree.

  “I said I’m not coming,” Tyler says in my ear.