Mandy’s sisters are giddy. “When’s the wedding?” Lauren asks.
“Do it after I give birth, so I look hotter than you in your photos,” Amy tells Mandy.
“I’m not going to marry Salinger,” Mandy says.
I bare my teeth. “The fuck you aren’t.”
“You don’t even have a ring.” She crosses her arms.
“It doesn’t matter!” her mother yells. “Amy, go get one of those gummy worms you’re always eating. Mandy, the man is trying to save you from a lifetime of being single. Will someone please give my daughter some sense!”
“Even if he did,” Mandy argues, “I haven’t met your family yet, Salinger.”
“Goddamn it.”
“But once I do,” she says, reaching up to kiss me, “the answer will be yes.”
“No,” I grouse. “The answer will be you running away screaming because they’re horrible.”
51
MANDY
“Girls, do not touch anything,” my mother warns.
“Mom,” I say. “I live here. It’s fine.”
“Salinger, don’t you want to get some plastic covers on these chairs?” my mother calls to my boyfriend. “Mandy, I said don’t touch anything.” My mom pulls me up off one of the custom Scandinavian-style stools on the porch overlooking Salinger’s lawn.
“Plastic covers?” Gran makes a rude noise. “Now you sound like my mother.”
I head over to my boyfriend and wrap my arms around his waist. He grabs my hand, sliding his fingers over mine.
“Might want to tear up the lawn and plant the variant they used at the Pine Ridge Golf Course,” my dad tells Salinger as they watch in horror as Salinger’s insanely large cohort of half brothers and their families race around on his pristine lawn.
I leave them to go check on the food. When I come back out, the horn is blaring from the yacht as it offloads another set of Salinger’s brothers. The new batch descends onto the lawn for an impromptu game of field hockey.
“It’s like one of those surrealist paintings, right? Like someone’s cloned them,” Aaron Richmond remarks, stepping up beside me. We’d had a big port-contract meeting, and he stayed in town for the get-together.
“You’re one to talk.” I nod to his brother Grayson, also in town for the port contract. He’s with Salinger and my father, all scowling at the grass.
Salinger’s brother Fitz passes a ball to one of the other Svensson brothers. I wince. “Bruno, better watch that stick.”
“You know their names?” Aaron seems impressed.
“I made flash cards, and I’ve been studying.”
“I’ve known these idiots for years and still can’t keep them all straight.”
The hockey stick comes down hard. Grass flies.
“That’s it!” Salinger bellows. “All of you, get off my lawn.”
“What he means is it’s time for lunch!” I call out.
Salinger’s brothers all stream into the house.
“Dad, you hungry?”
