“Is he any good?”
Kate didn’t know this one, so they finally turned to me. I took as big a bite of my meal as I could manage. Dad and Kate watched me while I chewed. I took a sip of the purple drink and didn’t recoil so much this time.
“He’s Barry Wright,” I said quietly, and Dad dropped his hand to the table and stared slack-jawed at me. The name might have meant nothing to Kate and me, but Jeremy and Dadlovedhockey. Many sports, actually.
“Did you tell him about our baby?” Dad asked. As far as Kate and Dad were concerned, she wasn’t my baby–she was the family baby.
“She did,” Kate said before I could. “He’s been, like, texting her and stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Not sex, Dad. Stop,” I said.
“I wasn’t asking about sex,” he rebutted, but he was definitely asking about sex. An elderly couple holding down the table closest to ours was staring outright now. I lowered my voice.
“He asked me to move in with him,” I said.
“He what?” Kate sputtered. “When?”
“For what purpose?” Dad said.
“Not sex, Dad,” I repeated.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kate said. “What did you say to him?”
“It was this morning,” I said, and Kate punched my arm.
“Stop not telling me things.”
“Katie, your sister’s pregnant,” Dad chided. “Don’t hit her.”
“I told him he could stay with me for a little while,” I said. This put them both into silence, but only for a moment before they were in on the questions, what kind of hockey player wants to live in your guest room, why would I do that, for what purpose, do I know how much money he makes, etc.
“If the two of you would stop talking for twenty seconds, I could tell you,” I said. With visible effort, they did. Kate pulled apart a sopapilla from the basket and poured honey on it to keep her busy, and Dad pushed around the beans on his plate. I took the opportunity to eat more of my food, which was getting cold on the eggplant-colored ceramic.
The couple near us resumed eating.
“He wants to help with the pregnancy. He might not think I can take care of myself or something.”
They bothhmmed over their meals instead of jumping in to defend that I can, in fact, take care of myself. Obviously very encouraging.
“He could change his mind next week,” I said.
“How well do you even know him? Is he trustworthy?” Kate asked.
I think she was salty about the notion of me cohabitating with someone who wasn’t her after she’d offered so many times to move in to help with the baby. Having Barry living in my house might throw off our carefully structured weekly activities: Grocery Sunday, Movie Monday, Yoga Wednesday (well, Kate does the yoga, I just do some stretches). Kate might have felt a bit intimidated by the thought of having Barry around all the time.
“Barry is nice,” I said. “He’s…tall.”
“Will he come over next Thursday?” Dad asked as he scraped the last of his dish clean.
“Next Thursday like literal Thanksgiving Thursday? Probably not.”
“Why? We can give him a job,” Dad said.
Thanksgiving was a real collaboration in our household. Jeremy would bring a couple pies, Kate would bring a weird margarita (virgin for me, she assured me) and potatoes, Mom would make a couple casseroles, Ron on rolls, Dad on turkey. I was assigned cranberry sauce, not a job I took lightly.
Even if Barry didn’t have plans to see his huge family, what could he bring? Does he even know how to cook?
