by KT Morrison
“Good looking kid,” Jason said, still looking down at the floor. “Not really a kid, though.”
It was the first time it occurred to him: Janie would be home alone with this tall, handsome twenty-year-old. To get out of thinking about that, he stretched now and groaned, said, “Hey, who won the game?”
* * *
In the kitchen with Roxy, Elizabeth, Marianne from the co-op, Marissa and one of Marissa’s friends from UB, Amy (who was here for the first time but seemed at home in the kitchen), they all prepared to serve their early supper. The menu consisted of her carefully curated selection of American goods: Buffalo wings, because of course, with her special sauce of butter and extra cayenne the way John liked it; lobster sliders; Mac and cheese in mini baked dishes the size of muffins; crab cakes; homemade potato wedges done in the deep fryer. And she would be remiss to leave out the iconic apple pie—there were three baking right now in her Findlay wood cookstove, to be served with American cheddar. Roxy had insisted on baking a cake, and it was chilling in the pantry fridge; vanilla layers sandwiched over red frosting and an icing American flag across the top that she had done herself by hand.
Not that it was a competition, but she wondered how Maceo’s parents would fare in their reception of Evan compared to this American extravaganza. She could see Maceo standing a head taller than all the guys, John, and Mitch, and Jason, and some others from town, all of them with brown bottles of beer in their hand. Roxy’s son, Trevor, stood in the corner watching over top of his glasses while pretending to play on his Game Boy, spying the other clutches standing and talking, especially all the college girls around the dining room table, all of them in their cute little clothes—their flannels and denim because Mar told them they’d be roughing it out in the country. Elbows on the table, their faces were close together—it was obvious what they were talking about because every once in a while one of them would shoot a look over at Maceo and then they would talk again in close conspiracy.
Roxy said, “We’re just about set.”
Elizabeth said, “ETA in fifteen minutes, Janie,” as she put the crab cakes in the gas oven for a final browning.
But she could see Marissa now, coming up behind Maceo and gently holding the back of his arm, cupping his elbow. He looked to her, stooped down so she could whisper something in his ear. Then the two of them were heading toward the stairs to the second floor.
“Man my spot,” she said to Elizabeth who nodded and popped a carrot stick in her mouth. They had the radio on, and in their slippers they’d been slipping across the hardwood floors, dancing their booties while they cooked. She stopped her daughter and Maceo on the stairs, saying, “Dinner’s in about ten, you going to show Maceo his room now?”
Without a look or hint of guilt her daughter smiled and said, “Yeah, I was going to give him the second floor tour—he didn’t even get a chance to clean up since he got home.”
She gestured for them to go up the stairs ahead of her and followed behind. Their tight staircase was narrow and unfinished, not even a hand railing at this point, though John swore he would get to it soon. The second floor was cramped quarters. Her and John had the master bedroom with an en suite bathroom that looked over the front of the house and the valley beyond. Right hand, top of the stairs, was Marissa’s old bedroom (still hers, really, she’d even stayed over Christmas); on the left-hand side at the very top of the stairs was Evan’s room where Maceo would be staying. There was one small bathroom—sink, toilet, and bathtub with shower head—that butted the master suite that Evan and Marissa had shared (sometimes sharing, too, with kids visiting from overseas).
The small square space at the center and left corner of the second floor was her room. The place where she used to do everything back when the kids were little. It was her seamstress place, her study, she used to paint, too, when there was time; it was even the home school classroom where she taught the kids before they finally went public in grade 5. Now it looked like a thrift shop had opened up at a tailor’s. Center were green felt-topped tables, her refurbished Swiss sewing machines, and sewing machine parts; shelves lined the wall, stacked with yarn and rolls and scraps of fabric, and other things she picked up along the way that she intended to turn into something (including a leaping horse with a saddle that at one time served on a merry-go-round).
Marissa took Maceo into the workspace, and showed him around, running her hands over some of her mother’s things saying, “This is where I remember my mom the most.”
Maceo said to her: “You make clothes?”
Marissa said, “She used to make all my clothes when I was growing up.”
Janie said, “All the quilts, too, knitted blankets, knitted baby clothes, sewed her dresses—you know back when she was little and let me dress her.”
“She didn’t make shoes, though. Those she had to buy,” Marissa laughed gaily, tossing her hair back, then crossing to the right side by the bedrooms. She put her hands on the master bedroom door saying, “This is where my mom and dad are,” stepping backward then and tracing a finger on the next door, “this is the bathroom,” then back another step, saying, “and this used to be my room.” She tapped a fingernail on the unicorn faceplate she got at a carnival one summer in Iroquois Falls. It bore her name spelled out in cookie jar letters. “And then over here is my brother’s room where you’ll be staying.” Now she opened the door to show him Evan’s room, and Maceo entered, towering over her daughter who watched up at him. She went in behind, leaning on the door, and Maceo stood by his luggage that John must have brought up here.
Evan’s room was deep and narrow; one side of the roof sloped, and his bedroom window was a dormer with a peaked alcove where Evan used to sit with a pillow and a blanket and read his Harry Potter books.
“It’s a very nice room. Very comfortable. Thank you,” Maceo said, looking up and around at all her son’s things while her daughter looked their tall, handsome houseguest over.
* * *
John was washing his hands in the sink when Janie came back down, saying to Roxy, “Everything ready to go?”
Roxy said, “More than ready, and if we don’t hurry up your husband is going to eat all the crab cakes.”
“What a snitch, Roxy,” he said, laughing and turning off the taps. He turned to see Janie eyeing him with her hands on her hips. Roxy was shrugging and smirking. He said, “One crab cake’s not going to ruin the party, Janie.”
Elizabeth was on the other side of the island, leaning on her elbows and nursing a red wine. She said, “Just one, John?”
Elizabeth was in her seventies now, a Vietnam era protestor and still-hippy revolutionary with long grey hair and hand-me-down clothes that were well-cared for but definitely vintage. “Another snitch. Isn’t it against your character, Lizzy? I mean, stick it to the man and all that, power to the people...”
Elizabeth said, “John, you are the man.”
“Oh no,” Janie said, knowing what he would say.
He lifted off the counter and took Janie in his arms. “I am the man.” Roxy snapped a tea towel on his ass but he ignored her.
“How many of my crab cakes did you eat, John?”
“They’re small.” Then turning to Elizabeth he said, “Janie’s the authority around here, Liz, man or not, aren’t you supposed to punch up not down?”
“You got me there, John,” she said, then to Janie: “I didn’t see a thing.”
He said, “Maceo like his room?”
“Of course. I think he’s a little overwhelmed, maybe tired. It’s a long flight. Let’s get dinner served so the kid can relax before he passes out.”
Roxy said, “We’ll eat, then I’ll get everyone out of your hair.”
Elizabeth said, “His English is good already, don’t you think?”
Janie pulled trays of mac and cheese out of the gas oven where they’d been warming. “What do you think, John?”
“Perfect English,” he said, twisting the cap off a Bud and tossing the cap in the trash.
“What?” he laughed before he took a swig.
Janie said to the girls, “John’s picking up an Italian accent,” and they laughed.
He made an exasperated sound. “No, I’m not.”
Roxy said, “Maybe John’s got a crush on him.”
“That doesn’t even make sense, Rox.”
Elizabeth said, “Does he make you nervous, John?”
Now coming in from the dining room was Stacy Bernard—Dr. Bernard—Janie’s doctor and friend. The two of them were pregnant at the same time, Janie with Marissa, and Stacy owned a homestead with her husband a few miles down the road where they raised sheep. “John’s nervous?” she said, one hand holding a glass of wine, the other snagging a radish rose from the veggie tray.
Roxy said, “John has a crush on Maceo.”
“You’re all idiots,” he said as they laughed.
Stacy looked over her shoulder at Maceo who was engaged now with some of Marissa’s college friends. “I get it, John. That’s a good-looking kid.”
“That’s all man,” Elizabeth said, eyeing him too.
“Guys, if you want me to leave, just tell me.”
Janie said, “John, we want you to leave.”
“And don’t grab any more crab cakes on your way outta here,” Elizabeth said.
Roxy folded her arms, looking over Liz’s shoulder at Maceo and the girls. She said, “I had doubts about you doing a swap with Evan, you know—who’s going to show up here? But, Janie, baby, if they’re going to send tall dark and handsome, tell me where I sign up.”
“I’m out,” John said holding both hands up in surrender, one with the bottle sloshing Bud out the neck.
As he squeezed past them, Stacy said, “If I don’t want to give up my son, you think they’ll let me trade my husband?”
* * *
The meal was served buffet style, set up on the kitchen counters—their husky, Sheba, spending the party out in the heated barn so they could let their guard down. Everyone ate in their own groups, laughing and joking, everyone getting a chance to spend some time talking to Maceo (who was noticeably woozy). The girls hogged the dining room table, and one was always calling Maceo over to ask him something. Maceo liked the attention, she could tell. The others sat on the fireplace mantle or the bottom step of the staircase, spread out on the sofa and loveseat in the family room. She got around, moving from group to group and loved catching up with everyone. Since Mar had gone to college, the house had become too quiet. There had always been something going on in the Holcomb homestead, visitors, friends, the kids and their gangs, plus young people from faraway places—but the kids were the magnets that attracted all the functions. With them grown up and out of the house she'd been reduced to the occasional visit with Rox for some gossip, or over to Liz’s for a pot of tea. Stacy’s younger sister had a surprise pregnancy and so there was a little one on the way, though Stacy's sister didn't live in Iroquois Falls—still it was nice to have that excitement renewed and she’d been knitting booties and a cap for the little baby that was due in about seven weeks.
John and his cronies disappeared into the addition once they were done eating, she imagined to watch football, and she began tidying in the kitchen. Marissa hopped in behind her to help, rubbing her hand on the back of her neck and massaging.
Mar whispered, “Oh, my God, Mom, I’m going to move back home for the semester—you don’t mind, do you?”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, for one thing, Mar, and why don’t you keep your mind on your schoolwork and forget about boys for now.” She drew a few circles in the air before her daughter’s face then wound it around in tighter concentric circles and booped the tip of her daughter’s cute nose with the point of her index finger.
Mar rolled her eyes comically then closed them, smiled while her mother pressed on her button but said, “I’m an ‘A’ student, Mom, and your houseguest is a dimepiece.”
“What’s a dimepiece, Mar?”
“How many cents is a dime?”
“Ten.”
“Maceo’s a ten, Mom.” She batted away the finger pressed to her nose.
“I don’t think ‘A’ students say dimepiece.”
“Does ‘stud muffin’ work for you? Is that what you used to call them?”
“Them?”
“Studs, Mom. Did they have studs back in the eighties?”
“Uh, the nineties, sweetheart, back when people apparently treated each other with more respect.”
“I’m jo-king,” Mar exhaled with another big eye roll, this time dipping at the knees.
“That young man is a guest in my home, Mar, so I don’t need you skulking around making eyeballs at him or texting with your friends how he’s a dime thing or whatever.”
“Piece.”
“Peace,” she said, flashing a hippy two-finger peace sign, saying, “Now get out of my kitchen, please.”
Nocturne
Marissa and her friends departed just after 7:30, six college girls cramming into one of her friends’ minivan. It was an hour drive back to University of Buffalo and he worried about them driving in the dark. At least the roads would be clear.
Their daughter had surrendered her use of the Yukon she shared with Evan, both of them attending the same university. This home exchange had been her idea after all. Maceo wasn’t exchanging with UB, he was going out forty minutes in the other direction to the art program at Chesborough, so the only way this would work was with a vehicle for the kid.
Once the girls were gone, the house went much, much quieter, and the energy began to deflate from the older crowd. Even young Maceo showed signs of wear, but of course he was jet-lagged, and had just endured a twelve hour flight and a couple hours holding up conversations in what to him would be a foreign language. His eyes had closed a few times, and Janie said she caught his chin nodding. Jason and Mitch and him had more cake out in the addition, then the three of them snuck out to the barn so Jason could smoke a joint and say hi to Sheba, bring her some leftover crab cakes and finger foods. When they came back in, Janie’s crowd was packing up to leave. She and the girls had prepared doggy bags for Mitch and Jason and they took them greedily but with much thanks. It was early, and while he and Jason weren’t jetlagged, they would both be at work before six in the morning.
At last it was the three of them alone in the house. The kitchen was tidied; the dishwasher hummed. Janie was happy and looked content—her party for Maceo had gone well. They introduced Sheba to Maceo, and he liked the husky, even getting down on his knees and roughing around with her a little. Maceo’s shoulder bag was in the family room, and he’d brought gifts for them from Rome; some t-shirts and hand-painted ceramics, fancy olive oil, chocolate with hazelnut, earrings for Janie that Maceo’s mother had picked out, and a bottle of limoncello for him. They sat at the dining room table and he wanted to pour the liqueur but Maceo said it had to be cold so he put it in the pantry fridge. They sat and talked a while but all of them were tired.
Now Maceo sat in the family room, a sinking heap in a leather recliner, knees on those long legs level with his dozy chin. Janie was at the sink looking out the window at the deepening blue of the night. The kettle was boiling, a cup with a tea bag next to it. He kissed her neck just above the collar of her shirt. “You coming to bed soon?”
“Not till I hear Evan got there safe.”
“Won’t be till after midnight.”
“I won’t be able to sleep, anyway.”
She was right about that. Janie wasn’t an easy sleeper and she let worries work at her. He took her shoulders and massaged up her collar with his thumbs. Janie groaned and melted under his palms. “It was perfect today, Janie. Kid couldn’t ask for a better welcome.”
“Thanks, John,” she said and stroked a palm over one of his hands. The kettle’s lever snapped up, and the water churned to a steamy boil. She filled her cup.
“Night, Janie,” he sa
id and gave her one final squeeze before turning away.
Around the wood stove and its massive stone chimney he said to Maceo, “Hey, you made it, kiddo, you can go to bed now.”
Maceo smiled, turned his face up to regard him. His eyes were heavy and bloodshot.
“You going to be able to make it up the stairs?”
“Yes, Mr. Holcomb, I—”
“John, Maceo, I warned you about that mister stuff.”
“John,” Maceo laughed and hauled his tall frame out of the comfortable chair, standing over John even though he was six foot. “Let me say good night to Mrs.—sorry, Janie.”
John waited with Sheba at the bottom of the stairs as Maceo went around the stone chimney into the kitchen where he couldn’t see them, spoke to Janie, then they both went upstairs, his dog trotting behind. “This is your room here,” he said at the top.
“Yes, Marissa showed me.”
“She did?” A protective rush swelled his blood vessels. Was Maceo up here alone with his daughter?
“Marissa and Jane,” he said, stepping into Evan’s room and switching the light on.
“Oh, okay. Hey, if it gets too hot you can crack the window open a little, but if you do, just keep the door closed so the heat doesn’t come up the stairs and shoot outside.”
“Okay, John, thank you. Thank you for everything. You’re so generous. It was a wonderful welcome.”
“Make yourself at home, Maceo. I’m out early in the morning but I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
They said their good nights, Maceo told him Janie showed him the bathroom, John made sure he had enough pillows and then left to get ready for bed.
* * *
Laptop open on her sewing table, Janie sat in the velour Queen Anne chair and knitted, keeping one eye on the screen. She’d left her browser open on a site that kept track of flights, waiting to see that Evan made it to Rome safely. He knew to text her as soon as he arrived and she’d sent a reminder, saying text me your safe when u get in I don’t care what time it is.