I thought once we had the plates and napkins and silverware set out, we’d be ready to eat.But no.Then there was the centerpiece (a cornucopia with so.many.squash).Then there was the second centerpiece that Millie had made, she told us, in second grade (paper pilgrims, and really, it looked like an A-plus job).Then Fox asked for help slicing lemons and limes for the bar.And then Bobby volunteered us (see?total teacher’s pet) to set up the cheese board.It went on and on like that.And meanwhile, my stomach was devouring itself from the inside out.
“All right,” Indira finally said as she cast a critical eye at the table.“I’ll bring out the food.”
“Where’s Keme?”Millie asked.
Everyone looked at me.
“I don’t know,” I said.
They were still looking at me.
“I’m injured!”
“He tried to break dance while you were in the bathroom,” Fox told Millie.“Showing off for Bobby of course.”
“What is wrong with you?”I asked.“What is wrong with all of you?Why am I surrounded by traitors?”
“It was break dancing?”Indira asked.“I thought he fell over.”
“Fine,” I said.“Fine.I’ll find him.Even though it’ll probably cause permanent damage to my ankle, and I’ll have to buy one of those old-fashioned Victorian wheelchairs and ring a bell every time I need something.”
“You’re going to wear out that bell pretty fast,” Fox murmured.
“I’ll—” Bobby began.
I stabbed a finger at him.“Don’t.You.Dare.”
He sat back, smiling at me.He was just such a goof.I didn’t even know how to handle it sometimes.
I stalk-limped out of the living room, calling, “Keme!Keme!”And then, because I wanted the urgency of the message to really come through: “It’s time to eat!”
He was probably playing Xbox, I decided.And I didn’t care if he needed to finish that round.I didn’t care if he needed to get to a place where he could save.I was literally starving to death, and whatever he was doing, I was going to grab him by the collar and drag him to the dining room right that instant—
I spotted him through the door to the den and opened my mouth.And then I stopped.
His long, dark hair was held back with a headband (and somehow, he made it look dope instead of, you know, like he was a Depression-era housewife).It left his face clear, and his features were fixed with concentration.I inched closer until I could see through the door what he was doing.
He was making place cards.And not just any place cards.These were cute little crafty ones, the kind that he’d made—I guessed—in elementary school.He had several paper plates lined up on the table, each one holding paint.There was black and brown and orange and red.And as I watched, he dipped his thumb into the paint, let the excess paint run off, and then pressed his thumb onto a piece of cardstock.The finished place cards showed a turkey, with its body made out of a single black thumbprint, and the feathers made with prints in orange and red and brown.In his teenage boy scribble, he’d written our names.
I thought about what I knew about Keme: that his home life was bad enough that he slept out some nights, and no one knew where, or he slept in Indira’s apartment; that he skipped school and nobody checked on him; that he went without meals when he wasn’t here.And I thought about what it might mean for him to have a Thanksgiving dinner.A Friendsgiving dinner.
I eased back from the door and made my way to the living room.
“Would anyone mind,” I asked, “if we waited a few minutes?”
Fox shook their head.Millie did too—only more emphatically.Indira smiled.And Bobby gave me a look I couldn’t read.
Later, after Keme had brought the place cards, after we’d all started eating, when the conversation was flowing, I caught Bobby giving me that look again, the one I couldn’t decipher.Then he noticed me, and he startled, as though I’d caught him somehow, and a strange smile crossed his face.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” he said quietly.
I glanced around at my friends, then back at Bobby, back to the remarkable bronze of his eyes.“Happy Thanksgiving.”
It Runs in the Family
This story takes place beforeBetween You and Me.
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