Analog to Digital

by Posy Roberts

  As my mom pulled into the drive of her huge Victorian with a wraparound porch, she said, “I was thinking we’d go out for burgers tonight. Have you had a Juicy Lucy before, Toby?”

  “Uh… no…?”

  “You’d know.” She nodded and smiled at him. “The cheese is on the inside of the burger instead of on top.”

  “Oh. Well, then no, I haven’t.” Toby looked back at me, unsure.

  “They’re really good,” I said and then warned, “Be prepared to be overfed. It’s how Mom lets you know she loves you.”

  She smiled at me in the rearview mirror as she drove into the garage.

  MOM HAD thankfully put us in the same bedroom with a queen-sized mattress, unlike the last time we were here “because you two aren’t married”—another reason I’d dreaded coming home. She now knew we had no plans to get married and that Toby and I had lived together for two years. It wasn’t like we were doing the “I Love Lucy separate bed” thing back home. So why do it here?

  At least that’s where I figured my mom’s brain had gone.

  “Should I dress up for dinner?” Toby asked.

  “Heck no. We’re going to a dive bar, but it has the best Juicy Lucy in town, in my humble opinion.”

  “Come here.”

  I stepped closer, and Toby put a finger under my chin to lift it so my lips were closer to his. “You’re tense,” he said against my mouth before pressing a soft kiss there. “I can feel it right here in your traps.” He thumbed across the tight muscles in my shoulders, and I couldn’t keep in the needy moan.

  “I know.”

  “Thinking about work?”

  I nodded and closed my eyes. “Always.”

  “Look at me.”

  I saw how serious he was.

  “I need you to promise me something.”

  “Anything. Just tell me what it is.” His scruff scraped my palm as I cupped his jaw and studied his eyes.

  “I need you to relax on this trip. Or do your best to let work go.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I’m serious, Ethan. Your mom’s right. You work way too hard, and you can’t walk away from your responsibilities like I can by flipping the Closed sign and locking the door.”

  I let out a sigh that even sounded weary to my own ears. “If I work hard these next few days, I think I can be done with everything by Christmas Eve. Maybe even the day before. And then I’ll have the rest of the trip to devote to fun.”

  He smiled on the way in to a deeper kiss, finally, as I slid my hands down his chest and around his waist. I took a moment to squeeze his ass and warmed when he chuckled.

  “Anything you have to do while we’re here? Fun stuff, I mean.”

  I shrugged and took a step back before my body reacted to him more than it already had. “Anything that sounds fun to you that I’ve reminisced about over the years. I’m not sure if the ice is thick enough to skate yet, probably not, but if it is, that would be worth it. A walk around the lake, if nothing else. Maybe visit a taproom or three. There have to be at least ten new breweries opened since I moved. Tell me where you want to go and we’ll go there.” I might live to regret that statement, especially if we ended up in dusty, junk-filled warehouses sorting through hundred-year-old farm tools in search of that one special treasure. But I’d do it for him. I’d packed antihistamines just in case.

  Toby nodded his way in for another kiss, and this time I didn’t pull away. Instead, I tumbled to the bed and drew him down with me. I sighed as he thrust against my hip and felt tension in my shoulders, back, and neck ebb away.

  Maybe I needed this forced time off worse than I realized.

  I WOKE the next morning to an empty space beside me and sheets that felt cool to the touch. When I looked at the clock on the nightstand, I didn’t expect it to be as late as it was, and the 7:23 that beamed at me told me my body was still on California time. I had too much work to sleep in.

  Groaning, I sat on the edge of the bed and set my feet on the fluffy rug that covered the hardwood floors. Thankfully. As much as I loved this old house, it got cold in the winter. Especially with how Mom and Dad kept the thermostat set to 62º F. “You know, to save energy.”

  Right.

  I scratched my belly on the way to the bathroom across the hall. My childhood bedroom was just a door down, but I knew it didn’t look like a kid had ever lived there. Mom redecorated it a few years after I moved the last of my stuff to California, so there was no need to step in it to look up at the model P-38 Dad and I glued together, lovingly sanded, and painted one Christmas vacation. The pursuit plane now took up residence in my office, right next to several sketches I made of the fighter years ago. Without that plane and the way it made me put pencil to paper, I’m not sure I’d be a creative director today. And if I weren’t a creative director, I never would’ve been hunting for inspiration by seeking out an antique restorer, and then I never would’ve met and fallen in love with Toby.

  God, could I be more sickeningly sweet?

  After a long shower, I made my way downstairs to see where Toby was. If he was getting up before five, California time, then he obviously wasn’t relaxing well enough here. He wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. I stepped out onto the three-season porch that wrapped around the front of the house, since that was his favorite place to hang out last summer, but it was immediately obvious he wouldn’t be there. Brrr!

  I found Dad in the sunroom near the back of the house. “Have you seen Toby?”

  Dad folded the newspaper so he could look at me over it and the bridge of his reading glasses. “Nope. The two of them had an errand to run. Wasn’t expecting you to be up yet.” Then he gave me an uncharacteristically evil smile.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He popped the paper back up and pretended he hadn’t given me the most suspicious grin in the world.

  I rounded the end table and sat in the chair next to him. “What’s with the secrets?”

  “What secrets?” Puppy-dog eyes. I didn’t realize I’d inherited that look from him until right then.

  “Dad, tell me.”

  He pressed his lips together and shook his head, ruffling the pages in his hands as if he were searching for a very important article.

  “Fine.” Just then the kitchen buzzer went off.

  “That’ll be the quiche.” Dad set his paper aside and stood. He was shorter than me now. I didn’t know if that was because I’d grown or if he’d started shrinking. Maybe a combination of the two. “Gotta hurry and get that out on the counter before the top layer burns or your mom’ll have my hide.”

  “So they’ll be back in a few minutes?”

  “Nope.”

  I reared back, confused. If Mom and Toby weren’t going to be back soon, then why not cover the quiche with foil and put it back in the oven until it was golden perfection without risking the eggs in the center not being cooked all the way through?

  Something wasn’t jiving, so I followed him into the kitchen.

  “Can you go in the fourth drawer down?” Dad tilted his head where he wanted me to look. “There’s an insulated hotdish carrier. It’s red. Or maybe green. I don’t know.”

  “Okay.” I opened the deep drawer and rummaged past embroidered flour sack dish towels and decorative-yet-functional aprons until I found what he was looking for. It was orange with green stripes. “This it?”

  “Yeah. Open it for me?”

  I unzipped the container and held it open while he set the nine-by-thirteen Pyrex dish in the carrier. Quiche Florentine. My favorite, especially when Mom made it. My mouth watered, but Dad covered the quiche with aluminum foil before gingerly setting the baking dish’s plastic lid on top. The contained heat would cook the eggs safely in a few more minutes’ time. Not as quickly as if he put it back in the oven, but the insulation would help. Odd, but I supposed it worked. Then I watched with surprise as my father zipped the carrier closed, hefted it, and walked out the back door toward the garage with nothi
ng else said aside from “See you in a few hours. Make yourself at home, which I’m sure you will. I understand you have work to do.”

  “Where are you going? Where is everyone?” I shouted after him, but he set the casserole in the footwell of his backseat, got in the front, turned the car on, and then backed up.

  I stupidly walked through the house, trying to spy him through windows, and then watched him drive down the street and away from me with no other explanation.

  “What’s going on?”

  I decided to text that same question to Toby along with Where are you?

  Half an hour later, I had no reply, so I pulled out my laptop and opened my final projects.

  “WHERE WERE you?” I asked as soon as Toby was back, just after noon. Before he had a chance to take off his coat or kick off his snowy shoes, I had him wrapped in my arms and was kissing his neck and jaw, all the way up to his ear so I could whisper without Mom or Dad hearing. “I missed you. I don’t like waking up without you.”

  Toby set down the bag he was carrying and palmed my cheeks with cold leather gloves. “It’s good to see you too.” He gave my nose a placating kiss before sitting on the mudroom bench and untying his shoes.

  He methodically unwrapped his scarf and tugged each glove off, one finger at a time, before slowly unbuttoning his long coat. His cheeks were pinked up from the cool air, but his hairline was darkened more than usual, as though he’d been sweating. Maybe he’d shoveled.

  Dad handed me the casserole carrier and mumbled something about needing to shovel the front walk so the mailman would deliver the mail, as my mom gave me a quick kiss and asked if I’d found the cereal. She slipped away, leaving Toby and me alone. I unzipped the insulated container and saw the Pyrex was empty and already scrubbed clean.

  “Where did everyone go, and why did you get quiche while all I got was stale corn flakes?”

  “You’re pouting.” Toby stood and pulled my bottom lip between his teeth.

  I looked down at his socked feet and gently stepped on them, playing footsie with him. “You’re right. We came to Minnesota to relax together before Gigi’s vow renewal takes center stage and all our attention, even if I have to fit our escape from work obligations in between… work obligations. I wanted to push the puck around or go on a walk around the lake or go to a museum or wake up by having slow, lazy sex rather than three cups of coffee. But instead, you got up before Jesus and ate my favorite quiche without sharing any.”

  Toby chuckled, low and hearty, as he wrapped me in his arms. “You’re too cute. You come home and revert back to a little boy I’ve never seen back in California.”

  “Not true.”

  He snorted. “Okay. Whatever you say, but I’m telling you, I’ve never heard your voice do that… that thing before.”

  “What thing?”

  He pointed at me and smirked. “That thing where you sound like you’re twelve and arguing with your parents to pretty please, can I stay up for another hour?”

  “Pfft.”

  Toby rolled his lips between his teeth, and I could see he was making an enormous effort to not laugh. “It’s juvenile, but lucky for you, it’s also cute.” He popped a kiss to the center of my forehead and patted me on the head before heading into the kitchen.

  WE WALKED to the skating rink on the lake a few hours later. It was open, ice thick enough. Toby was far from graceful on skates and looked more like some of the toddlers on the ice: arms spread wide, knees bent inward, ankles at odd angles. But he got better after a few laps with me skating backward while holding his hands.

  We tapped a puck around the imperfect surface, using old hockey sticks from my youth. They were too short for us, but Toby probably benefitted from bending at the waist some. He fell on his ass a lot less, at least.

  At suppertime my mom stuffed us with one rich dish after the other, and I gorged myself while Gigi and Mom talked over last-minute wedding plans. Toby acted uncharacteristically interested in those and ended up offering advice on how to better secure the candelabras to the rustic beam that Blake insisted be used near where they said their vows. Apparently it came from Blake’s great-grandfather’s barn. Since Toby knew how to put things together without destroying them or ruining their value, I left them to it and trekked back upstairs to see if Stella had e-mailed the client-approved proofs so I could get the wheels of production moving and mark at least one of the projects on my to-do list as complete.

  Instead, I ended up falling asleep in a matter of minutes.

  THE NEXT morning I woke up alone again, so I did what I’d do if I were at home: more work. Toby arrived for lunch, and then we ran a few errands for my sister, picking up boxes upon boxes of candles for the table centerpieces and delivering them to the reception site, storing them where we were told.

  Back at home, I took a quick siesta, which one should be allowed to do on vacation. The time change was only two hours, but it was wreaking havoc on my body. When I woke up, everyone was gone again, so I opened up the package of lefse Mom had in the fridge, smeared the thin, flat bread with butter and sprinkled it with sugar, and proceeded to eat all eight slices myself.

  “Shit.” That was the last of her lefse. There wasn’t any tucked away in the freezer, and it wasn’t like you could go to the store and pick up decent stuff. What most groceries stores sold, if they stocked anything at all, was more akin to flour tortillas, thick and pasty, not the light delicacy Mom made.

  I dug through her recipe box until I found Nana Heim’s recipe. I’d only made it one time with Mom, and after the disaster the kitchen was left in, she decided I didn’t need to be part of the process from then on. Buried deep in the cabinets, I found her potato ricer as well as all the necessary specialized tools.

  For the next few hours, I boiled and riced potatoes, mixed in flour, milk, and salt, and waited impatiently for the dough to cool. I ended up shoving it in the fridge to speed up the process. I proceeded to mess up rolling out the dough, not getting it thin enough, and when I did, it ended up with more holes than not, or it stuck to the fabric-covered pastry board when I attempted to lift it.

  I tried again, adding more flour, doing better by my third try. It wasn’t as thin as the pack I’d just scarfed down, but it wasn’t as thick as grocery store lefse either, so I tried cooking it on the griddle.

  In the end, I did my best to emulate the way Mom packaged her lefse, cutting it into semicircles and then folding it again and again into a neat triangle that I wrapped in cling film. I put one package in the fridge and tucked the rest in the freezer under several bags of veggies.

  I had just put the last clean dish away and wiped any residual flour from the countertop and what the reflection in the window revealed had landed on my cheeks, when everyone arrived.

  Mom greeted me with a kiss, same as Toby, but Gigi, Blake, and Dad were busy attending to Gigi’s three greyhounds: Blue, Bailey, and Beck. In the matter of a minute, the house went from stone-cold quiet, where I could actually hear the snow falling outside, to pure chaos.

  Toby had a huge box in his arms, and as he unloaded the bags and boxes on the wooden table in the center of the room, I realized we were having Chinese for dinner. I pulled plates down, as well as chopsticks and napkins, setting the table while Mom dug through the fridge.

  I froze, positive she’d see the disaster I’d made of the lefse. Instead, she plopped the package on the counter and said, “Ethan, can you go downstairs to the deep freeze and bring up a frozen package of lefse so it has time to thaw for tomorrow?”

  I turned, staring at her with my mouth open wide. “What?”

  “The deep freeze. Next to the washer,” she said slowly, as though talking to a dimwit.

  “Sure.” I spun on my heel and walked right into a dog, losing my balance and nearly landing face-first on the hardwood floor. Good thing I had quick hands. “Shit.”

  “Are you okay, Ethan?” Mom asked, clearly worried.

  Toby held his hand out to me and helped me up.
“Are you?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just wounded my pride.” I took off, leaving the gawping faces to stare after me as I went hunting for the lefse that had been in the house the entire fricking time.

  I let out a silent scream in the basement, writhing at the waist and swinging my fists in the spartan space until I was certain I was going to have a neck ache in the morning. I’d fretted all afternoon over that stupid lefse, and if I’d used my fricking head, I would’ve remembered Mom and Dad had a deep freeze in the basement. But no, I’d lived in small spaces for so long I forgot people used freezers aside from what was attached to the goddamned fridge.

  I sat on the bottom stair and buried my face in my hands, getting irritated at the very sound of the three dogs’ nails clicking on the hardwood floor above me and Gigi talking nonstop about her stupid, fake wedding. It wasn’t a fucking wedding! She’d already had that on the damn beach. If she’d wanted the whole world to witness her and Blake reciting vows, she wouldn’t have gotten married with three hours’ notice with only a wreath of flowers in her hair and a tiny posy in her hand. Instead she would’ve waited and planned this social extravaganza she kept erroneously calling a fricking wedding.

  “How am I going to get through this?” I asked the washing machine.

  It didn’t answer.

  “How am I going to pretend I want to be there celebrating with her when Toby and I should be the ones getting married?”

  Listening to my thoughts voiced made me sick to my stomach, so I stood, found the lefse, and then slowly made my way back up to the kitchen.

  The dogs were everywhere, weaving between legs and resting their muzzles on the countertop.

  “Go!” I yelled. “Get out of the kitchen.”

  “Sorry.” Gigi pulled them each by the collar and directed them to the back of the house and away from the food. “They’ve been home alone all day, so they need some people time. They’ll calm down in a few minutes. Blake, deal with the dogs, please.”