|photo by Nic-Y-C from Unsplash|
Maybe it's just my imagination but it seems like the closer it gets to Thanksgiving, the more intense things get between Conner and me. Megan claims it's just the natural order of things. She says it's pent up sexual tension from months of "repressed lust."
I think it has more to do with the fact that in less than a week, I'll be going home. It kind of feels like Conner and I are running out of time. Like maybe things won't be the same when I get back.
No-No squirms when I step closer to the sliding glass door. "It's okay," I say, readjusting my hold to make him feel more secure. "It's too cold for the terrace."
A pair of strong arms snake around my waist. "What's going on with you?" Conner asks.
His entire body is pressed against the back of mine but it's not having its usual effect—at least not on me. No-No climbs my shoulder and licks his chin.
"Ugh," he says. "Toto goes on the floor."
He accomplishes the task with one hand. The other urges me over to the couch. "Why do you look so serious?" he asks, pulling me into his lap.
"Too much thinking."
"About?"
"The future."
"Hmm. I wonder if we're thinking the same thing."
I relax back against him. Gotta love a boy who likes to talk. "You first," I say.
"I think we should go public. Or at least semi-public. Like when we're with Chase, I want to be allowed to touch you."
"So you want to tell Chase?"
"Chase already knows."
"He does?" I readjust myself, turning sideways so I can see the smug confidence in Conner's tone. "I mean, I suspected..." Chase said a couple of things that made me think he knew Conner and I went out the night of his party. "But you know for sure that he knows?"
"Yes," Conner says, with a smile I can't interpret. "And now I want the rest of the swim team to know. They keep asking me if you're with Chase and I hate that shit."
I'm sure a lot of people assume Chase is the reason I started hanging out in the gym after school—with the rest of the swim team groupies. Mari Okada comes to mind. I'd like for her to know that Conner and I are together. Because every once in a while, I catch her glaring at me and I get the feeling she's making nefarious plans.
"If the team knows then everyone will know, right?"
"Yeah, probably."
If everyone knows then Paige will know. Has Conner thought about that?
"Is that okay?" he asks.
If everyone knows then I'll have to really and truly let go of the pretense that I have a boyfriend back home. I'll have to admit that I've moved on. And I have, obviously, because I care about Conner. And yeah, it would be great to walk down the hall holding his hand, to kiss him after I straighten his tie.
And when I go home for Thanksgiving, I'll tell Glenn he was right.
I cross my arms over my chest. Stupid freaking lump. What do you want from me?
"Apparently it's not okay," Conner says.
"I think maybe we should wait until after Thanksgiving?"
"Ah." His hands drop from my waist and he sags against the back of the couch. So that now I'm just awkwardly perched on his knees.
I'm tempted to get up and go back to my view of Central Park but I don't want him to feel like I'm abandoning him—because I'm not. "The thing with Glenn, it's not... I mean, it's definitely over. He went out with my best friend's sister and hasn't called me since. But there's still something..."
Conner is squinting now, like I'm causing him pain.
He waves an impatient hand in an air-circle, encouraging me to keep talking. The hand I can't see returns to my waist, warm and encouraging.
"There are a lot of feelings I've been trying not to think about," I say. "But I'm going home in a couple of days and I'm going to see Glenn—I have to see him; he lives on our property—and I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't know what he's going to say to me."
Conner straightens, suddenly energized. "You know what? We'll wait until you get back from Virginia if that's what you want but I'm not going to worry about it, because I know what this is." He does the back-and-forth thing with his hand. "And I know fate's on my side."
He delivers the last line with an adorable smile. I shift myself around, so I'm straddling his lap. And I kiss him, partly because I don't want him to talk anymore and partly because I want him to be right.
His hands move to my cheeks, which I love because it's so endearing, so real. I find the hem of his shirt and lift—I need to feel his skin against mine. Like now. He takes over, pulls off his shirt and tosses it. Then he starts on the buttons of my blouse and leans down to kiss my collarbone, mumbling warm, undecipherable words against my skin.
I drop my arms and shimmy out of my blouse while Conner's hands slide past my waist and up my back, where he fumbles with the hook on my bra. And then my stupid phone rings.
It's not Megan's special ringtone, which means it could be anyone—like my aunt calling to tell me she's on her way home. Not that she ever does that.
But now the thought is there.
"Let me just..." I brace my hands against his beautiful chest while my feet find the floor. "I'll just check. To make sure..."
I pluck my phone out of my purse. Crap. "It's my dad. This is an odd time of day for him to be calling. I should probably..."
Conner nods, gets up and heads for the kitchen. I slide his shirt over my head before I unlock my phone. "Dad, hi. What's up?"
"Hi, sweetie. How are you?"
"I'm good," I say and Conner gives me a half smile that makes me blush.
"Good," Dad says. "I'm calling to let you know there's been a change in plans. Your grandmother called this morning. Pop is going in for surgery next Monday. It's nothing bad, everything is fine but..."
I loose track after "everything's fine" because Conner is staring into the refrigerator: one hand holding the open door, the other hooked around the back of his neck. His pants are sagging enough to show that super sexy muscle just below his hips.
"So that's the bottom line," Dad says.
"The bottom what?"
"I changed your flight reservation to December. Your mom and I will fly into New York next Wednesday. We're having Thanksgiving dinner with Emily's next-door neighbors. I'm looking forward to meeting Chase."
My parents are coming to New York. Okay. That's...not necessarily a bad thing.
"Oh," Dad says, "and Emily said another one of your other friends will be there, too. I can't remember his name."
"Conner Barlow?"
Conner turns his head, lifts his chin. He just told me two days ago that his parents were going to Arizona for Thanksgiving and he didn't want to break his practice routine so he was going stay here.
"Yes, that's it," Dad says. "Conner Barlow."
Mother of shit.
Conner reads my alarm. I wave him off, shaking my head like it's no big deal. But it definitely is. I'm not ready for my worlds to collide.
* * *
Mom and I bundle up to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from Aunt Emily's balcony. It's not the greatest view—we're on the wrong side of Central Park—but it's better than getting down into the crowd. Or so I've been warned by the native New Yorkers.
"I'm proud of you for standing your ground," Mom says. She gives me a timid smile and turns her attention back to the giant hot-air snowman bobbing above the tree line. "I've never been able to negotiate anything with my sister."
I will definitely be wearing the Dorothy dress to the Allemande. For that, the Wicked Witch gets to play the part of Professor Henry Higgins. I agreed to four voice-coaching sessions—mostly because I like Bob—and one four-hour Saturday morning session at the Etiquette Institute.
"I really do love the dress," Mom says, "But I agree with Emily about the shoes. They're a little too plain."
Chase has agreed to stash my silver shoes in the inside pocket of his tuxedo so I can put them on right before he parades me around the dance floor. But I might save them for prom instead.
Not that anyone's asked me to go.
"And it seems like you've made peace with your escort," Mom adds, blue eyes on me now. The inquisition has begun. "His friend Conner is very charming. He seems quite taken with you."
Charming is an understatement. So is "quite taken." Conner has been relentless since "fate gave him" three more weeks to prove that we're meant to be together.
And I'm damn near convinced.
I hold up my phone so I can record a few seconds of video for Megan, as requested. "Tell me something about home," I say. "Something good."
Mom's sigh lets me know she got the message: we're not going to talk about Conner Barlow. "John finished his first round of chemo two weeks ago and he looks great," she says. "Although, I nearly had a heart attack the other day because I thought I saw him on one of those giant farm machines. But it was just Glenn. He looks more like his father every day."
I drop my arm but catch myself before I allow my hand to console my stomach. Not that it matters. I'm sure the look on my face told my mother what she wanted to know.
"What time did Mrs. Tinsley say dinner would be ready?" I ask.
Mom sighs again and checks her watch. "We still have half an hour."
Great.
"You used to like to talk to me," she says.
I open my mouth, ready to say something I'll probably regret, and my phone vibrates in my hand. I check the screen. It's a call from Glenn Nash.
"Who is it, Thea? You look pale."
"Uh, it's...Megan. Being impatient. I'll call her after dinner."
And yeah, I feel pale.
"You're hypoglycemic," Mom decides. "You barely ate anything for breakfast."
Okay. We'll go with low blood sugar. "I should probably drink a..."
My phone buzzes again, voice mail. Glenn left a message.
I point toward the kitchen and attempt to finish my sentence with the word, "Soda," but it comes out in a choked whisper. Mom tilts her head to one side and gives me an empathetic pout. There is no fooling this woman.
She opens the sliding door for me and I head straight to my room, barely getting my door closed before I play Glenn's message: "Hey...it's me. I was just flipping through the channels and I saw the parade and I thought..."
He doesn't finish the sentence but I know. He's thinking about how every Thanksgiving—for like the last eight years—I've made him watch it with me.
"I've been thinking about you a lot, Thea. All the time. I was hoping we'd be able to talk when you came home but then you didn't. I don't think it can wait until Christmas." He breathes into the phone. Breathes five tons of weight onto my chest. "Okay. So hopefully you'll call me back. I miss you. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry."
Oh you monumental asshole. Where was this call three months ago? Or even two months ago? Why did you have to wait until...
Shit.
Until I let myself get seriously attached to someone else.
I resist the overwhelming urge to crawl into my fluffy cloud bed and hide, but Glenn's words haunt my Thanksgiving.
"I think maybe I'm just missing my grandparents?"
That's the answer I give when Conner corners me to ask if I've been thinking too much again. And as soon as the words leave my mouth I realize it really is part of the problem. The Tinsley's made a wonderful dinner but it's not what I'm used to. "I miss cornbread dressing. And store-bought cranberry sauce. You know, the congealed kind? It comes out shaped like the can and then you have to cut it into slices. I freaking love that stuff."
His smile and his eyes say, "That's the most adorable thing I've ever heard."
Later, after he goes home, I get a text message that says he's found a restaurant in Brooklyn that specializes in Southern food. So we're going there on Sunday, after my parents fly back to Virginia.
* * *
A gust of wind catches the tail of my mother's scarf and keeps it suspended like an electric blue flag until she ducks into the black sedan. Dad blows a kiss and waits in the rain until I send one back. Then he climbs in beside her and the car jerks forward a couple of times. The brake lights tint the beads of water collecting on the lobby's glass wall as the driver fights his way into the traffic.
The onslaught of rain rushed our goodbye but maybe it's better this way. There was no time for Dad to question my tears—which are excessive and impossible to restrain.
I use the sleeves of my sweatshirt to dry my cheeks and send Conner a text: Can I get a rain check on Southern food in Brooklyn?
I'm homesick and heart sick and just sick of being in my own freaking head. I want to get back in bed and do algebra problems for the hell of it.
But I can't because I have to finish my stupid essay on stupid Beowulf.
If you're up to getting out in this mess, you can come to the penthouse. We could get take out and watch a movie. And maybe you could proofread my British Lit. paper? *gets down on knees and begs*
The black sedan is lost: one of half a dozen dark patches in a river of yellow taxis. My own personal Yellow Brick Road. The elevator dings and I head for it. I need to call Megan but I don't know if I'm ready. She'll have expectations. She'll have opinions.
I send Conner's message, open Megan's thread and type: I need you to cover for a lie I told my mother. Details soon.