By the time Chris arrived they were finishing off breakfast, and Brenda and Sal were dividing kitchen duties between them.
“Then I guess I’ll just watch the game.”
Brenda looked at her son.
“What, I spent yesterday helping you pre make half the food.
“That is fair,” his mother agreed. “Only, I actually wondered if you were just pretending to like football.”
“I’ve been an athlete my whole life, but suddenly cause I have a boyfriend it’s a ruse?”
“That was stupid of me,” Brenda realized.
“What am I walking into?” Chris wondered as he embraced Brenda and then Sal and then lastly, and lingering, Swann.
“Sal’s coming out.”
“Oh,” Chris said distastefully.
“It feels like a stereotype, but I swear it’s not,” Swann said.
As usual, Chris was well dressed in good shoes, khakis and a white shirt. He’d hung his car coat in the closet.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Chris said. “And for Easter too. I was thinking I was going to have to drive up to Chicago. Everyone was super bored. We were literally boring each other. I think Joe’s on his way.”
“What?”
“I called him, His house is crowded, you know, with all that family. And then I think I promised my parents we were all going over there later,” Chris pushed a hand into his bush of curls, “though I didn’t exactly say when later was.”
“I’m going to put the turkey in the oven,” Brenda said, “and start the mashed potatoes.”
Chris reached into the bag he’d brought, and Swann could smell his expensive cologne.
“I brought… Cheesecake, and sweet potato pie because now I realize no one really likes pumpkin pie, and crusty bread and a bottle of wine, though not the good kind.”
“Well, if you’re wearing that I guess that means we better put real clothes on,” Sal said, scratching his head.
“At least by the time the turkey’s half done,” his mother suggested.
“So, we’re going to Chicago tomorrow,” Sal said. “Or maybe even tonight?”
“Tonight?” Swann said, but was ignored.
“Are you coming?” Sal asked.
“I didn’t know we were going anywhere?” Swann said.
“It’s not like your driving,” Sal said.
“If we go tonight you can sleep,” Chris told him.
“And I will,” Swann said.
Joe arrived near one o’ clock, and dinner was coming to the table close to two. Brenda had done a ham which Chris said was great because his family was doing turkey, and Swann brought out the mashed potatoes and stuffing and tried not to say anything about the lack of macaroni. There were rolls in addition to the bread and a corn pudding and something with sweet potatoes that was not suite potato pudding as well as a green bean casserole. Brenda clapped her hands in honest happiness and said:
“I thought it would just be me and Sal this holiday, and look at this. A real family gathering.”
And then she turned to Swann and said, “Would you like to say grace?”
And Swann said that he would not, and Chris kicked him under the table and then when everyone looked at each awkwardly, Swann put his hands together and made a suitable prayer thanking God that they were all together, and thanking him for the resurrection of his son then tacking on a quick Amen. There was no need to stretch it out. His father used to always stretch it out, and the more stretched out it was, the sillier it became.
As Brenda stacked up Joe’s plate, he said, “At my house they keep the game on the whole time and people watch it from the table. If there is a table.”
“We could turn on the TV,” Brenda said.
“No,” Joe said. “I just meant it’s nice to act like civilized people.”
“Well, we can always act,” Brenda said as Joe took the plate.
Swann said very little, which Brenda said was praise .
“When no one talks that means the food is good. Or either you all hate each other. And I feel like that’s not the case.”
Joe had apparently heard the whole story Sal told Chris and he said, “So you just pulled up last night on the train?”
“I was lonely just sitting in South Shore without you all.”
“Apparently Prynne felt just the opposite,” Joe said, recalling how he had been going in the opposite direction.
“What do you think the Prynnes talk about around the table?” Sal wondered, opening a hot roll.
“You don’t have to imagine,” Chris said. “Swann, what do the Prynnes talk about?”
“Well, they will probably be with my family and the talk will probably be a little inappropriate, but if we get to Chicago on time, we may learn what they talk about first hand.”
Sal laughed to himself and said, “I told Prynne I was surprised he had a mother. Actually I said I couldn’t imagine him being born.”
“Well, I can’t imagine it either,” Swann said as he scooped more stuffing onto his plate. “And what’s more, I don’t particularly want to. However, Miss Florence is, I assure you, a very real person, and she would be surprised if you told her she hadn’t given birth to her son.”
Right around the same time Brenda was rising to ask if anyone wanted dessert there was a knock at the door. Mr. Roff barked and ran to the door.
“I’ll get it,” Sal said.
“You’ll have to,” Brenda said going to the kitchen, and Sal headed through the living room and opened his front door only to see:
“Doug!” Joe exclaimed.
In the midst of general rejoicing and exclamation, Swann Portis asked, “How the fuck did you get here?”
“When I got to Birches, Meech said you left for Calverton, so I stayed the night and then got up early this morning and came here. I stopped at Joe’s house, but Lucinda told me you were here, and so here I am.”
“You missed dinner,” Joe said.
“No he didn’t,” Swann said as if it was his house. “Just go in the kitchen and make him a plate.”
“Make me a plate, Joseph” Doug repeated, hanging up his coat.
Around four they parted from the house, all hugging Sal’s mother, and saying goodbye to Mr. Roff. Swann rode with Chris. Sal drove behind them. Joe drove next and Doug went behind him.
“We look like a funeral procession,” Swann noted.
“Then are we the hearse?” Chris said.
“I’m afraid we are.”
They wound south into Benton and the cul de sac of houses half hidden in trees and hills and the Navarro house was filled with turkey, casseroles, steaming vegetables and how rolls, and Chris introduced everyone but Swann to his Aunt Sophia, his Uncle Percy and cousin Alix.
“Did you bring a sweet potato pie?” Alix asked Swann.
“I did not.”
“Aw, Man, What about macaroni?”
“Alix, Swann was on a train and he left sort of spur of the moment.”
“Why did you leave like that?” Alix asked.
She was thirteen and Swann simply said, “Because I wanted to be here.”
Knowing she still coveted the sweet potato pie and macaroni which he had made here once, Swann said:
“Next time, I promise.”
They were all in that kitchen built over the garage with the large windows over the sink looking down on the street, and the open doorway on the other side leading to the dining room.
“Do you think you can eat a second dinner?” Chris’s mother, glass of wine in hand asked, but before Swann could answer, Tina shook her head and said, “Why did I even ask?”
The days were lengthening and after dinner, as Chris and Sal lay sprawled on couches sleeping, and Joe’s head was on Doug’s lap, Swann said, “And they thought we were driving to Chicago tonight?”
“We could,” Joe yawned, eyes closed, and turned around, butt sticking out, his head on Doug’s lap.
“Joseph,” Douglass Merrin said when Swann had risen and left the bedroom they sat in, “I need you to wake up long enough for me to tell you something.”
“Okay,” Joe yawned and burrowed into Doug more.
“Joseph,” Doug said, firmly, “wake the fuck up.”
Joe blinked up.
“Alright.”
“Sit up.”
Joe did wake up now, rolling his neck and swiveled his shoulders. He sat beside Doug.
“Hit me.”
“I slept with Mike Buren.”
“What?”
“On Holy Thursday I went out with Mike and then I stayed the night with him.”
“Wait wait wait. Let me get this straight? Joe said. “You fucked Minnow.”
“Why is this a surprise?”
“It’s… It’s a surprise because you’re sitting here with me, and you’re my boyfriend.”
“And that’s the reason I’m telling you, and it’s not like I’m running around fucking everybody, but what happened between me and Mike—”
“Are you going to do it again?”
“I don’t know. Probably… Yes. I love him.”
“But you don’t love me.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“So… You and Minnow have this deep love for each other.”
“Just like I have a deep love you for.”
“And what about Ben Forrester.”
“I don’t give a fuck about him. I don’t even know about his ass.”
“What about me?”
“What about you? You all aren’t in the same place. Where you are Mike isn’t. Where Mike is you aren’t.”
“So that gives you license to fuck both of us?”
“If you want to put it that way—”
“There’s not another way to put it.”
“Then actually you give me license to fuck the both of you. And he does too.”
Joe threw his hands in the air, but not with much energy, He was shaking his head and he was tired.
“I don’t think I like this.”
“You know what I think?” Doug said. “I think you fucked my cousin and Sal with not so much as a by your leave while I was five hundred feet away, and I think you’d be glad to do it again, and I also think that you even tried to fool around with Sal and Chris before Swann got here because he told you he didn’t give a fuck, only it wasn’t very good.”
Doug fixed him with that awful triumphant glare, the look of someone who saw far more than they should and knew far more than was proper.
“So what I think is I don’t give a fuck what you think because Michael is in the picture. He always was. Unless you plan on leaving me, we’ll just both have to learn to live with it.
END OF PART ONE
