Dad frowns at Athena, who’s been a statue in the corner by the pantry door for half an hour. “What are you doing?”
“It’s the fan,” I reply, pointing. Mom has a fan going to help with her hot flashes, oscillating back and forth. Athena’s figured out that she looks the most attractive from this particular position, the airstream tossing her hair. The chair she usually claims is empty, since if she were sitting in it her hair would blow all over her face. She won’t put it in a ponytail to keep it out of the way. The last time her hair was in a ponytail, Octavian said that it made her head look small.
“I’m over here because the fan makes it drafty,” she snaps. “But I want to be part of the family conversation, so. It’s fine. I’ll stand over here in the corner, out of the way.” She rubs her hands down her arms.
Felix coughs. “Martyr.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Mom vaults out of her chair. “I didn’t know the fan was bothering you! Here, I’ll shut it off.”
“Aaand, that’s where she gets it,” Grandma murmurs.
Felix, who needs to have menopause spelled out for him, loudly says, “I think the temperature in here is fine. You feeling all right, Mom?”
Marilou scoots her chair closer to me. Leans in. “Hey, you.”
I nudge her shoulder with mine. “Hey.”
“Congratulations on your engagement! Your fiancé’s in the family room doing magic tricks for the kids. Theylovehim. Daisy told him she’s ‘thrilled’ he’s going to be her uncle.” The blood drains from my face. Marilou doesn’t notice. “You picked a good one, Bettie.”
She’s right. I picked such a good one, in fact, that I can’t see myself settling for my old type ever again. I used to be partial to artistic bad boys: brooding, sleep-deprived, tall and lanky. I couldn’t count on getting a text back and was never sure of our status. It was as if they all had magnets that drew me, but those men all look so small and powerless now. What are troubled bass players and up-and-coming actors with ulterior motives compared to the Holiday Spirit?
Hall has been seamlessly ingratiating himself, especially with Grandpa and my parents. If I were actually engaged to him, this would be validating beyond my wildest dreams. I can’t begin to imagine what they’ll think about the guy Idoend up marrying, if that ever happens.
It’s just now hitting me that Hall masquerading as my significant other isn’t merely covering up any magic I might want to deploy while visiting my family for the holidays. He’s unwittingly setting a standard, which all men who come after him are going to fall short of. This is the only truly good man I’ve ever introduced to the Watson-Hugheses, which is... sad. They’re all going to hate whoever I decide to date after Hall.Hey, remember that happy young man in the wholesome sweaters who did magic tricks for the kids? Why couldn’t you have made it work with that one, Betts?And they’ll say it right in front of my future boyfriend, because tactful they are not.
I should have introduced Hall as my personal assistant. Damn my love affair with engagement rings and attention!
“So helpful and considerate, too,” Marilou’s now telling me. “He carried my suitcases to my room for me.”
Felix glowers at the table, profile turned away from Dad, who he’s accurately guessed is mentally berating him for not carrying his wife’s suitcases to their room himself. Mom accidentally knocks him in the cheek with her elbow while fanning her face with one hand.
“So sorry, dear.” She kisses his boo-boo, and Felix allows himself one swift glance at me. My smirk prompts him to kick me under the table. I am briefly transported back to childhood vacations, my siblings and I crammed into the back of a van together, pinching each other as hard as we could and suppressing all our yells so we wouldn’t get into trouble.
To Marilou, I say, “Hall is... great.” It’s a weak reply.
“How did he propose? I love proposal stories.” She spins her engagement ring around her finger, reminding us all that Felix proposed to her at a small award ceremony televised only on local programming, high off the adrenaline of the evening. He didn’t even win. It was, as Grandma decreed,abominably gauche.
Felix’s glower has taken on a life of its own.
“He proposed spontaneously, on an ordinary day. He didn’t even have a ring ready.” I don’t know why I say this, but it sounds right.
Marilou nods. “Love it.”
I sit up straight, a flicker of pride running through me. “There I was, listening to Mariah Carey on the record player”—she brightens, as she’s the one who gave me Mariah’s albums—“and he came into the room, and I said,Hey, there, and it just happened. It’s like he dropped out of the sky one day, being everything I needed.”
“Do you have a dress picked out? A date? I love wedding dresses.Say Yes to the Dressis my favorite show.”
She and Felix got married in Vegas, at his urging. He’d alreadydone the big weddingmultiple times, so by the time wife number four came along he thought big weddings might be a curse, dooming them to fail. If they went as low-key as possible, purposefully making choices that ran opposite to his previous ones, they’d last forever. Marilou, who was getting married for the first time, wore jeans and a tank top. I look at my brother, who is trying to change the subject to his movie. No one listens. Three different conversations are currently taking place in the kitchen, so he can either participate in (1) wedding talk, which doesn’t cast him in the most flattering light, or (2) a conversation about hunting quail, which he’s actively avoiding because he once shot Grandpa in the ass while hunting together, and which he’s hoping no one will bring up, or (3) a heated debate about Minecraft between Octavian and Frangipane.
He shifts toward Octavian and Frangipane. “What are we talking about?Enter the Dragon?”
“Enderdragon.”
“Oh. That’s cool. I like dragons.”
“You don’t know what we’re talking about.” Frangipane rolls his eyes. “This is out of your depth, Felix.” (Felix is his father.)
Hall, finished with his magic show, strides into the room and tells Mom he likes her hair.
