Saul’s eyes meet mine, and there’s something in them that I recognize. He’s got this desperate yet thrilled look to him. Saul is in love. Part of me wants to hug him and tell him that some things are worth breaking the rules for. But I can’t.
I think back to Grace and how all I wanted was for someone to tell me we could make it work. Some kind of reassurance that I wasn’t setting myself up for heartbreak. I look to Saul and give the most encouraging smile I can muster. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
His face lifts. “Let me grab my phone and show y’all a picture.”
As he runs to the bedroom, Hattie turns to Ruth and says, “There’s no chance of this ending well.”
Instead of saying she’s right or wrong, I pull my knees into my chest and chew on the french fries in my to-gobox. Freddie scoots close to me and touches my thigh. “You okay?” he whispers.
I nod. I want this to work for Saul. He deserves to be happy, and if he does, maybe I do too.
NINETEEN
Me, Freddie, Hattie, Dad, Saul, Agnes, and Bart are all huddled around the kitchen table and the extra card table Agnes set up to accommodate all of us in her kitchen. In true Agnes form, each table is dressed in matching tablecloths with homemade centerpieces.
Agnes clinks her knife against her wineglass. “Before Bobby”—she motions to my dad—“carves this bird, let’s go around and say what we’re each thankful for this year.”
A few weeks ago, Agnes asked me what my family did for Thanksgiving, and I told her the truth: we order pizza. Agnes, of course, was outraged and demanded we all come over for a late dinner after Dad finished up at work. So here we all are in the closest things we have to church clothes. We look like a gang of sinners at an Easter service—especially Saul in his red polyester pants and denim button-up shirt. Tonight he’s an honorary Leroux since he couldn’t get the time off work to go with Ruthie and their parents to visit the rest of their family in Florida. Or at least that’s the story he told. Really, I thinkhis loverboy is about to have some time off the rig and he doesn’t want to miss a second of it.
It sounds bad, I know, to brush off such a major holiday with some greasy takeout. But Dad always works on Thanksgiving, and Hattie and I aren’t the type of people who are willing to cook for hours in the name of a holiday we don’t really care about. With the casino open 365 days a year, my mom’s place isn’t really an option either.
One year, though, when we were both in elementary school, and we were still making an effort to spend half our holidays and birthdays with Mom, it was her turn to have us on Thanksgiving, so she took us with her to work and left us in a corner booth at the buffet. Hattie and I ate crab legs and green Jell-O and played MASH for hours.
MASH, if you’ve never played it, is a silly game we used to play as kids. All it requires is a piece of notebook paper and a pencil. The game told us all the things we thought made an adult life. What kind of house we’d live in, how many kids we’d have, who we’d marry, and what kind of car we’d drive.
Back then it never occurred to us that those factors might be minor details when we were grown up.
But right now, all Agnes wants to know is what we are thankful for in this exact moment.
She reaches for Bart’s hand to her right. “I’ll go first. I’m thankful for this man and the adventure he’s embarked on with me. Just when I thought my journey had come to an end...” Her voice trails off for a moment, and her eyes are glassy and wet. “I’m just grateful for this. All of it.”
Bart’s response is as direct as his wardrobe. “My girl,” he says. “And her Freddie.”
And then it’s my turn.
I take a sip of my sparkling apple cider. I’m thankful for Hattie, even though she drives me nuts and even though her life is ballooning so quickly it’s practically edging me out of my own home. I’m thankful for my dad, even though he’s always busy and tired and working, because he’s there. Always. And I’m thankful for Freddie. His friendship has saved me bit by bit every day. It’s like I was drowning, and Freddie has slowly pulled me to the surface.
“Family, friends, and good food,” I say. It’s a generic answer that I immediately regret, but I don’t always know how to say the things I can so clearly see in my head and feel in my heart. Freddie catches my eye from across the table, where he sits between Saul and Hattie, and gives me a wink.
My dad stands. He clasps his hands together, but then shoves them in his pockets, like he’s not sure what to do with them. “Right. I’m thankful for my girls and for this goddamn delicious deep-fried bird.”
He’s right. The turkey smells amazing.
Down South we don’t cook turkeys for hours until they’re dry and the only way to salvage them is with gallons of gravy. Most every household slathers their bird in Cajun spices and dunks it in a deep fryer in the backyard for thirty minutes. Granted, the tradition has been known to cause a house fire every now and again, but the aroma is intoxicating enough to drive you mad. I don’t even haveto touch this turkey to know the meat is going to fall right off the bone.
Next is Saul. He’s thankful for many things. “Oh my word,” he says. “The list is long, but I’ll just say reality TV, discount liquor stores, spray tans, and tourists. And boys in good jeans.”
Everyone laughs except for Bart, who nervously stares down at his empty plate like he might make food magically appear there by the sheer power of his will.
Freddie licks his bottom lip and then chews on it for a moment, like he’s thinking and doesn’t mind that everyone else is drooling for this turkey. “I’ve got lots to be grateful for,” he says. “But right now, I’d have to say Ramona.”
I can feel the heat crawling up my neck, turning my skin red. I don’t know if it’s because everyone’s looking at me or because Freddie is looking at me, but I can’t bear to make eye contact with anyone or anything except the fried turkey at the center of the table. I feel like I’ve swallowed a magic seed, causing flowers to sprout up in my belly, and now they’re swelling against my rib cage.
“I guess when we moved here—and you know this, Gram—I thought my senior year would be something I just had to get through. To survive.” I glance up long enough to see him shaking his head. “But now I’m trying to hold on to each day.”
Hattie—perfect, obnoxious Hattie—breaks the silence and says, “Freddie! You sweet son of a bitch!” And plants a fat kiss on his cheek. There are few times when I think so, but why can’t I be more like Hattie? Because I would verymuch like to crawl under this table and squeeze Freddie’s neck.
Hattie grins, and it’s an expression I know. She rubs her belly like a crystal ball that’s full of secrets. “I should wait until Tyler gets here from his mom’s,” she says. “But, oh, hell! I’m thankful that we’re having a baby girl!”
