Fun Together, page 2
Do I look the same to him too? Or is he also realizing, like me, that so much has changed since then. I see now that the boyish charm he always had in college has been replaced with something more mature, almost rugged. His skin is tan—like he’s spent the whole summer outside—and what was formerly a baby face now has a bearded jawline.
And when he reaches up to adjust the strap of his backpack, I notice his right arm is sprinkled with tattoos down to his wrist. Those are new.
“How have you been?” he asks.
Now there’s a loaded question. “I’ve been good. Are you happy to be back?”
“Yeah, it’s good to be home. I’ve missed everyone.” He smiles then, and as if recalling a fond memory. “I’ve missed the food, mostly. First thing I did when I landed was go to Bojangles for a chicken biscuit.”
The elevator dings our arrival on the ground floor, and we step out to walk toward the exit to see the security guard, Tom, always sitting sentry at the building’s entrance. Tom has been the security guard in this building for over twenty years. He has one of the most impressive thick white mustaches I’ve ever seen, and he eats a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch every single day. “Miss Faye, what are you still doing here?” he asks as we approach.
“You know the hustle never sleeps, Tom.”
He gives a good-natured chuckle. “Well, since you are here, FedEx just dropped this off for Alexis. He holds up a small rectangular box. “Should I keep it locked up this weekend for her to collect on Monday?”
I can’t help but smile at his diplomatic way of asking me to please take the cursed package off his hands, so he doesn’t have to deal with Alexis on Monday.
“No, don’t worry about it. She asked me to grab it for her.”
He looks relieved as he hands it to me. “Have a good weekend and try to stay out of trouble.”
I place the package in my tote bag. “You know I can’t make any promises.” Tom and I do this same song and dance every week, where he makes a joke about being on my best behavior during the weekend, and then I come in on Monday morning and say I did something super wild like try a new coffee creamer. I notice that Eli is watching our exchange with amusement. “Tom, this is Eli.”
Eli reaches out to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you, Tom. I hope you’re able to get out of here soon, too?”
“I’ve got about an hour left on the clock. Then I’m going fishing with my granddaughter this evening.”
“It’s a perfect day for it. Where do you fish?” Eli asks.
I guess Eli’s gift of gab is something that hasn’t gone away. They go back and forth for a few minutes until I decide to put an end to the bonding session when they start talking about whether nightcrawlers or something called a Texas rig makes the best bait.
“Alright Tom, we’ll let you back to it.” I start walking to the exit door and Eli follows me. “See you on Monday!”
We walk in silence for a few seconds as we make our way across the breezeway that leads to the parking deck. The sun feels good on my skin, thawing me out after freezing inside all day.
Eli playfully elbows my arm. “What kind of trouble are you getting into this weekend?”
“Let’s see. I’m currently in the middle of a very riveting Survivor re-watch.”
We reach the parking deck’s elevator and step inside. “What floor?” he asks.
I rack my brain trying to remember where I parked that morning. “Um, five.”
He reaches across to press the five button, and the sleeve of his white T-shirt moves up so that I can see where his tattoos continue up his arm. There doesn’t seem to be a particular pattern or theme to them, more like random images scattered across his skin in simple black line work. The look suits him, and I wonder if they extend up to his shoulders and back.
“What season are you on?”
“Hmm?” My face heats, realizing I’ve just been staring at his arm.
“Your re-watch. What season?”
“Oh. Twenty, I think?” Saying it out loud makes that too real. Twenty seasons of Survivor watched in a six-month period has surely landed me on some kind of watchlist.
He smiles down at me, bright and genuine, and things go topsy turvy. “That’s a lot of tribal councils.”
Eli has smiled at me countless times before and I never reacted this way. Between that, the tattoos, and this new facial hair he’s sporting, I suddenly feel unsettled.
When did Eli get so hot?
I’m so relieved when we arrive on the fifth floor that I scramble out of the confined space so fast that my bag slides off my shoulder and hits the concrete with a thunk.
And then it begins to vibrate.
I look at Eli as if he can provide some explanation, but all he does is raise his eyebrows.
The bag starts to pulse, like a steady heartbeat beneath the canvas cloth. I rush to pick it up and feel that the vibrating is coming from Alexis’s package.
“Have you ever shopped at a Sharper Image?” I ask him, trying to remember the last time I even saw a Sharper Image store. But I think I know what this is, and I really want to be wrong.
“Isn’t it an electronics store?”
I hold it up and let the bzzt-bzzt-bzzt fill the silence.
He bounces his head to the beat. “It’s got a nice rhythm to it.”
We look at each other for a couple of seconds, both on the verge of laughter. “What do I do?”
“Let’s open it,” he says, like it’s a treasure we’ve found that he can’t wait to get his hands on.
A silver ring on his right index finger catches the afternoon light as I hand him the package. Our fingers briefly brush against each other before he pulls his keys out of his pocket and uses one of them to cut the tape along the top of the box.
“Please tell me it’s not what I think it is,” I say.
He peeks inside and says in an impersonation of a QVC salesperson, “Today, we’ve got a lovely personal massager for you folks at home.” He places the box up on his palm, on full display, eyes glowing with playful mischief. “Boasting dual motors and a waterproof silicone design.”
I snatch the box out of his hands. “Please stop.” The packaging has a clear plastic front, so the vibrator is clearly visible, hot pink silicone resting snugly against its black velvet backing. “My boss really just gave me a vibrator to test over the weekend.” I didn’t realize I’d said this out loud until he laughs.
“What do you mean you’re testing it?”
At this rate, I will never have to purchase blush ever again. “Sometimes she gets me to test things for company gift ideas.”
“Is she planning on handing out vibrators like other companies give out water bottles? Will they be company branded?”
“This isn’t funny.” It’s extremely funny, and I can’t help but smile up at him. “I should pretend I didn’t get this, right?”
He tsks and shakes his head. “I don’t know . . . Tom and I are witnesses.”
“I know Tom would vouch for me. You wouldn’t keep a secret for me?”
“Faye, you know I’d take a bullet for you.” He pauses to allow the vibrator joke to land. “But as a new member of the HR team, I don’t know if I could be involved in your deception.” He grabs the box back out of my hand. “In fact, I think I need to take this as evidence.”
I reach for the box, and he dangles it out of my reach. We’re both fully cracking up now, because the way I’m flailing to take it back from him is hysterical. I stop trying when his words register. “Wait, you work in HR?” I don’t see him as the kind of guy who enforces company policies. If anything, he’d break them.
“Well, technically recruiting, but it’s under that umbrella.”
I nod, impressed. “That’s great.” The box is still buzzing away in his hand. “We need to turn that thing off.”
“Oh yeah, wouldn’t want it to run out of juice. Although . . .” He stops to read the back of the box. “It does operate up to four hours on a full charge.”
“Stop making me laugh about this. It’s mortifying.”
He hands it back to me. “Look on the bright side. Your weekend just got more interesting.”
I wedge my fingers into the package and feel for the off switch, refusing to pull the vibrator out right here in front of him.
It’s now that I notice the only car parked on this level is my lone Honda Accord, and his car is nowhere to be seen. “Where is your car?”
“Oh, I parked on the fourth floor.”
“Why didn’t you get off there?”
“Because we were talking.” He says this as if it’s obvious, like we were chatting about the most important thing in the world and not my pathetic weekend plans. “And then I couldn’t leave a lady distressed over her vibrating box.”
I bite my lip to keep him from getting the satisfaction of getting another laugh out of me. “It isn’t my box.”
“Mm-hmm.” He walks with me to my car. “Why didn’t you leave early like everyone else?”
I nod down to my bag in answer.
“That’s why you were working so late?”
That, and avoiding my life, apparently. “It’s complicated, but yes. What were you still doing here?”
“Trying to get a jump on things. Had a riveting orientation video about workplace safety to watch.”
I open my car door and toss my tote bag into the passenger seat. “Just wait until you get to the data security portion.”
He gives me another smile that makes my breathing do a weird thing that has nothing with coffee overconsumption, and everything to do with something surprising sparking in my chest. “It’s good to see you, Faye.” He turns to walk toward the stairs and waves to me. “Good luck on your testing!”
I wave back and get into my car, immediately resting my forehead against the steering wheel. My heart is pounding, mind racing to process the last thirty minutes. Was he just flirting with me? Was I flirting back? I attempt to ignore the butterflies emerging from dormancy in my stomach.
Really? You wake up for the first time in months, and it’s for Andrew’s best friend?
Almost as if I’ve summoned him with my traitorous thoughts, my phone buzzes with a text from Andrew.
I can come by later if that’s too early.
In all the commotion, I forgot he had even texted me.
I text back, 10 works. See you then.
3
Eli
Friday night dinners have been a staple in the Miller household ever since I can remember.
I’ve always looked forward to them, even though I did go through the usual teenage phase of wanting to be anywhere other than the dinner table on Friday night. It was the only thing my parents ever required of us. I could go hog wild, as long as I had my ass in the chair at seven o’clock every Friday.
Even though we’ve all aged out of the attendance requirement, we never really stopped having the dinners. There were several times I would FaceTime in back when I lived in New York.
Tonight, we have one addition joining us at the big round table in the dining room. My older brother Emmett’s daughter, Florence, is sitting between me and my younger sister, Evie. She looks down at the green beans on her plate, scrunching up her freckled nose, like they’re a big pile of worms she’s being forced to eat.
“You’ve had green beans before, Flo,” Emmett says. He looks tired. But then again, he always looks tired, like he came right out of the womb with his pointer finger and thumb pinched above his nose.
“But these look different,” she says, poking at them with her fork. “They’re not soft like those.”
“Probably because they didn’t come from a can,” Evie chimes in. If Emmett always looks tired, Evie is whatever the exact opposite of that is. She’s a walking ball of energy, like she was born with Red Bull running through her veins.
Emmett glowers at her. “Canned vegetables are better than no vegetables.”
“You don’t have to eat them, honey,” my mom says from her spot at the head of the table.
“Two bites,” Emmett says by way of attempting to compromise with a four-year-old.
She points to my plate. “Eli isn’t eating any.” She’s right, I hate green beans. But I know when I need to take one for the team.
“I’m saving the best for last,” I say, scooping some green beans onto my plate and stabbing my fork into one. I nod to her plate, encouraging her to do the same.
“Okay,” she says solemnly, like eating this green bean is her final gauntlet.
We take a synchronized bite. I still hate them, but I pull a dramatic face. “Mmm, delicious.”
She giggles and then takes another bite before looking at her dad like, Are you happy now?
Dinner continues as it always does. Evie and I dominate the conversation while Emmett frowns down at his phone. He’s currently renovating a house, and he seems to be in a constant state of frustration about it. We’ve been calling it his “divorce project” since he bought the house shortly after separating from his wife, Mara, last year. No one, not even Mom, knows what happened with them. It’s kind of an unspoken agreement we’ve all made with each other to not bring it up.
Dad methodically eats everything on his plate, one food at a time, while Mom nods and laughs along to whatever we want to talk about.
Evie has now steered us in the direction of my parents’ upcoming thirtieth anniversary. “You have to have a party,” she says.
“We’ll have a party for our fortieth,” my mom says, attempting to brush off the suggestion.
“What if you die before that?” Evie asks.
“What if we all die tomorrow?” my dad asks, saying the first words he’s uttered in about fifteen minutes.
“No one is dying,” my mom says, nodding deliberately toward Florence.
Emmett covers Flo’s ears. “We’re all technically dying.”
Mom tosses her napkin onto the table. “Good Lord, enough about dying.”
“So, it’s settled then,” Evie says with a pleased grin. “We’ll have a party.”
“I like parties,” I say.
“I love parties!” Florence shouts.
I can see my mom’s resistance waning in the face of her children and grandchild’s enthusiasm. We’re all well versed in how to wear Mom down. “Fine, but nothing crazy, Evie. Just a few people.”
Evie picks up her phone. “Let’s make a plan. First, we’ll need a caterer.”
“I can cook,” Dad says, getting up to grab our empty plates to take into the kitchen.
“You can’t cook for your own party,” Evie objects.
“Let me rephrase. I don’t want to pay for a caterer.”
Evie shrugs. “Fine. No catering. Music?”
“How about that band that played at Emmett’s high school reunion?” I ask. “What were they called again?”
Emmett leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “Wet Blankets?”
“Or was it Dirty Blankets?”
“Something Blankets,” Evie says, typing it in her phone.
“No bands!” Dad shouts over the running water in the kitchen sink.
“Why not? Live music is fun!” Evie yells back.
“It is fun,” Mom says. “But having a party at all is going to cause noise and I don’t want the whole neighborhood in a tizzy.”
“By neighborhood, you mean Mrs. Webber?” I ask. Mrs. Webber is a woman in her mid-sixties who takes her position as a member of Poplar Street very seriously, like it’s her sworn duty to protect her neighbors from the dangers of a single out-of-place blade of grass. “She’ll be in bed watching Forensic Files by then, anyway.”
“Still, I don’t want a big thing,” Mom says. “It’s a lot to clean up and there’s always someone who ends up drinking too much and causing a scene.”
“We just won’t invite Uncle Tony,” Evie says.
“Isn’t he in Arizona? Or was it Vegas?” I ask.
“He’s in Myrtle Beach, working as an Elvis impersonator,” Mom says, shaking her head.
“Too bad we can’t have him perform at the party. I’m sure Mom and Dad would love to re-enact their first dance to Tony’s rendition of ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love.’”
Evie springs up from the table and goes into the kitchen. “Someone will need to give a toast.”
“Not it,” Emmett replies.
She grabs a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge and gestures to me with it. “Eli can do it.”
“This is your thing. Why can’t you do it?”
“Because I don’t want to,” she says simply.
I turn to Emmett. “Why can’t you do it?”
Evie says in a loud whisper, “Because of the d-i-v-o-r-c-e.”
“Evie . . .” Mom chastises.
“What?” she asks innocently.
“Sorry,” I say to Emmett. Why would he want to stand up in front of people talking about the beauty of love and marriage?
Emmett just shrugs and says, “I also have to fight the urge to puke every time I have to talk in front of a group of people.”
I turn back to Evie. “Okay, he gets a pass. I still think you should do it.”
“Tennis match for it?” she asks. “Whoever loses has to give a speech.”
“That’s not fair and you know it.” She’s really fucking good at tennis. And I haven’t picked up a racket since high school, when I was on the tennis team for a season my junior year.
She shrugs. “Take it or leave it.”
My odds aren’t the best, but they aren’t zero. “Okay, deal.”
“Meet me at the park courts tomorrow morning at ten?”
“Sure, sounds good.”
She grabs her keys from the kitchen island. “I’m out. Got to meet Daniel for a workout.”
“Tell him I said hello,” Mom says.
Emmett stretches with a yawn. “We need to head out too. Ready to go, Flo?”
“I guess.” Flo reluctantly gets out of her chair. She’s been quiet, but you can still feel her excitement from being around everyone. Even if she’s not part of the conversation, she likes feeling included. I remember feeling that way too, as a kid.
