So Glad to Meet You

by Lisa Super

  “…My mom decided to do some good for the world and all the other Emilys and Jasons in it. She enrolled in nursing school, got her degree, and works at a mental health clinic. I get it, they’re understaffed and in demand on holidays. So, for Thanksgiving, she usually leaves my dad and me a turkey TV dinner in the freezer.”

  “That’s funny.”

  He thought she was joking. Daphne didn’t know whether to be amused or disheartened that the level of her family’s dysfunction was inconceivable to a person belonging to the second most dysfunctional family she knew.

  “Wait, she really leaves you a TV dinner for Thanksgiving?”

  “Sometimes it’s a pot pie.”

  He shook his head, a little disgusted. “You want to have Thanksgiving at my place?”

  “Uh, the way you’ve built up your mom’s cooking, I don’t think my stomach could handle that culinary amazingness.”

  “No, it won’t be that bad. They always buy a pumpkin pie from somewhere good and we have the spray whipped cream. That stuff’s awesome.”

  “Is that you or the whippets talking?”

  “Hey, I am an upstanding young man. If I need to huff something, there are plenty of toilet cleaning products to get the job done. The whipped cream is for pie and pie alone.”

  “I do like pie.”

  “Well, think about it. The offer stands.”

  He sounded genuine, like someone who wouldn’t openly invite her into catastrophe. Luckily, her answer could be delayed, saved by the end of the trail arriving under their feet.

  “This is it,” she said.

  At the top, they stared down. On the other side of a chain-link fence, the back of the Hollywood sign jutted out from the hill. The white vinyl appeared less substantial up close. It resembled the cheap siding of the shed in her backyard that stored the forgotten gardening equipment. Somehow it was appropriate for the symbol of Hollywood to be as much a façade as the film sets on its studio lots.

  “They should put lights all over it for the holidays,” she chirped.

  “Another missed opportunity for gaudiness,” he snarked back.

  “It would be fun, the Hollywood sign floating in the night sky in twinkle lights.” Under her steely exterior, Daphne had a soft spot for holiday decor.

  Oliver immediately exploited this vulnerability. “You’re so festive. How many reindeer sweaters do you have?”

  “None. But I have a headband with antlers.”

  Oliver was so repulsed by a reindeer antler headband that he moaned and clutched his stomach. Daphne could respect this. It was the way she felt about homecoming, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  He turned a slow 360. “Nice view from up here.”

  Daphne gazed out to the west, where the ocean would be if it weren’t hidden behind a layer of smog on the warm fall day. “Well, it’s not the Himalayas.”

  “The way you were puffing up the hill, I thought it might be.”

  “Yeah, I should put more effort into P.E.” She tried to laugh, but her face went bright, and she turned away from him.

  Daphne did her best to skirt the embarrassment, but her cheeks were a sure tell. Here she stood, pink and mute, unable to come up with a witty or self-deprecating comeback. At this point, Oliver apologizing would paint a pointing neon arrow above her head. He didn’t make that mistake.

  “When you summit Everest, how long do you stay up there?” he asked.

  “As long as your oxygen-deprived brain and all the other oxygen deprived brains waiting in line behind you will allow. Not very long.”

  “So you travel around the globe, put yourself through hell, risk your life, for a couple minutes at the top of the world?”

  “People die for less every day.” It was the noble thing to say. The words felt smooth against her tongue as they slid out of her mouth, but she didn’t know if she believed them.

  “Would it have been easier if Emily and Jason had died scaling Mount Everest?” he asked.

  “Than in my dad’s car in our garage? Yes, probably.” Her voice was one decibel short of an exclamation.

  Oliver shook his head.

  Curiosity overtook the warmth in her cheeks and she faced him. “You don’t think so?”

  “I think we’d still have questions, just different ones.”

  She sighed in half-agreement. This argument was unable to be won, all speculation and conjecture and trying to think for people she didn’t understand. “The great thing about Mount Lee is that there isn’t an oxygen shortage, and we can stay for however long we choose.”

  “Do you want to sit down for a little bit?” He glanced around for an open space to settle.

  “Sure.”

  He took off his jacket and spread it on the ground beneath them. Daphne folded her legs under her and they sat speechless for a few minutes, a half an hour, she couldn’t say. Time became a theory floating in the hazy atmosphere. Hollywood spread out before them on a sloping platter, a vast expanse of desert metropolis. The beginning and end of dreams and dreamers.

  In seventeen years, Daphne had seen so little of Los Angeles, only recognizing a few small enclaves among the miles upon miles of concrete and palm trees. Her entire world stretched out before her. For once, she enjoyed feeling so small.

  • • •

  After the visit to Marilyn Monroe’s grave, Daphne became fascinated with the icon. Bat your bedroom eyes, smile bright enough and no one will see the pain. It’s even harder to see if your lips are painted red. Had Emily owned red lipstick? Daphne had no recollection of seeing Emily in makeup of any kind.

  “Move over!”

  “Stop it!”

  Emily and Daphne elbow each other in front of the bathroom mirror, battling for sink high ground. The elbowing escalates into a duel with hairbrushes. The bristles pierce Daphne’s knuckles.

  “Ow!” Daphne cedes her ground. The end of the mirror cuts off half her face.

  “Crybaby,” Emily says. She brushes her hair. “You’re so lucky you got Mom’s nose.”

  “But, it’s big.”

  “You’ll grow into it, though. Dad’s boxy nose, no hope. It’s like a sculptor got chisel happy.”

  “Jason likes it.”

  Emily blushes. “Yeah, he does.”

  The nose was their most dissimilar facial feature. Perhaps that’s why Daphne took much time and care with her own makeup—the similar facial features needed to distinguish themselves.

  Finding her perfect red involved luring Janine to the mall three times in one week with the promise of cinnamon pretzels. Daphne subjected herself to an onslaught of salespeople, each with a different opinion about which undertone would best suit her. The process had expended an entire box of tissues, copious amounts of lip balm, and five downward turned thumbs from Janine before a nod of approval. The truth was found.

  Standing on the Paganos’ welcome mat, Daphne wore the oxblood lipstick out in public for the first time. It made her ivory skin lean even closer to the shade of snow and darkened her hair. One swipe of the deep maroon distanced her further from the California girl image, the antithesis of blonde and bronzed. This filled her with immense delight.

  She ran her tongue over the front of her teeth one last, precautionary time before ringing the doorbell. The two chords hit the notes of optimism and dread. Daphne reminded herself that this was any other family, any other dinner. It might as well be Janine answering the door. But it wasn’t Janine, it was Oliver, who may have stepped out of a parallel dimension, wearing a chunky sweater clearly gifted to him by a relative who hadn’t laid eyes on him in a decade.

  “Hello, Marilyn.” He whistled at the lipstick.

  Her cheeks went hot, and an insult was the only defense. “You wish, Grandpa.”

  Oliver tugged at the sweater. The pattern looked better when stretched against his chest. “Christmas present from last year. It makes my mom happy.”

  “Which great-aunt?”

  He nodded, impressed. “Second
cousin, actually. But, close.”

  “Six degrees of bad-sweater separation.” She crossed the threshold, easing into the warmth of the house, much warmer than her own.

  Oliver grinned in agreement and returned to the topic of the lipstick. “And, no, I don’t wish you were Marilyn Monroe. You’re way too smart to stand over a subway grate in a skirt.”

  Daphne sighed. “That was a character she played, not her. That’s like me judging you for the bird suit.”

  “You do judge me for the bird suit.”

  Daphne rolled her eyes for show, but she didn’t mind being caught in her contradiction. “Well, no one’s perfect. Plus, this isn’t even Marilyn’s shade of red.”

  “Well, I like it.”

  He led her down the hallway and couldn’t see her fail at holding back a grin.

  “You look ready to kiss a grave,” he added.

  Not the compliment she’d hoped for. The grin fell from her face.

  He pointed at the wall covered with framed photographs, giant tiles connecting and filling all of its blank space. “This also makes my mom happy.”

  The photographs were old and new, every possible combination of the four Paganos. Oliver’s hair was blond as a kid and he smiled with his top and bottom teeth. Jason looked happy in all the photos. Perhaps more pensive in the final candid ones, but Daphne figured she was reading too much into a stolen moment.

  Daphne wondered what Emily looked like in her last photo. In the months following her death, all family photographs containing the four original Bowmans mysteriously vanished. Only photos with Daphne and her parents remained. Since these photos were somewhat recent, there wasn’t a lot of smiling going on. It was American Gothic with the pitchfork swapped out for a dark-haired teenager wearing smoky eyes. In photographs, the family became a band that lost the original singer but still played all the old songs, no big deal. Except that it wasn’t the same.

  One day, out of boredom, she was rooting around in the china cabinet and found a framed photograph buried under a stack of plates. In front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland, Daphne’s smile was full of missing teeth, Emily’s full of braces. The four Bowmans in the photo were now strangers, people exuding an aura of happiness so unfamiliar that she could scarcely believe it was her own face grinning back at her.

  “I was such a cute kid,” Oliver said, trying to prove that he wasn’t embarrassed by the photo display.

  “Yeah. What happened?”

  Oliver laughed and escorted Daphne into the kitchen.

  If Stella and Blake harbored any ill feelings toward the sister of the girlfriend of their dead son, they smothered them with their hugs. Two big squeezes and Daphne took a seat at the table across from Oliver.

  Stella and Blake appeared much more alive than her own parents. The way they weaved around each other in the kitchen like a blundering dance, the frazzled search for extra hot pads when the timer went off. They also came dangerously close to finishing each other’s sentences. Oliver’s family horror film was her rom com. It all depended whether you were on the screen or in the stadium seats.

  A half-carved turkey, three shades lighter than the crisp brown of a well-cooked bird, sat in the center of the table, the ideal mascot for the meal before them.

  “Everything is delicious, Mrs. Pagano.”

  Stella sat a little taller. She had Oliver’s smile. “Thank you, Daphne. I hope the stuffing isn’t too dry.”

  “No, it’s perfect.”

  Daphne took a sip of water, drowning her white lie. Oliver coated his stuffing in cranberry sauce, making it edible.

  “Oliver, you didn’t get any sweet potatoes. Here.” Stella picked up the casserole dish to pass.

  Oliver waved her off. “I don’t like sweet potatoes, Mom.”

  “But they’re your favorite.” Stella’s voice pinched.

  “No.”

  His cold, flat tone made it an easy riddle; Daphne deduced that sweet potatoes were Jason’s favorite. Age and time swirled her own mother’s memories, she and Emily’s traits blurring together like clouds joining in the sky. Daphne always tried to not let these confusions upset her. Nevertheless, it was insulting for her own personality to be forgotten and replaced with one who’d abandoned them so long ago. Oliver didn’t expand on his mother’s error, and Daphne bargained with higher powers for Stella to move on. But, as holidays proved again and again, higher powers took the day off, too.

  After brief contemplation, Stella came to a conclusion. “Oh, you’re right. Sweet potatoes were Jason’s favorite.”

  Oliver said nothing, impaling his stuffing with his fork.

  Daphne perked up. “I’ll have some. I like anything with marshmallows on it.”

  She could feel Oliver shifting in his seat, annoyed that she was running damage control. His disdain had more seasoning than any of the food on the table.

  “Glad you’re not a picky eater like this one.” Taste wasn’t Stella’s only sense that was dead.

  Daphne had often turned to her own father with the same pleading expression Oliver now offered his. The last hope.

  Oliver’s dad was as oblivious as hers. “Jason loved every food. I remember him particularly loving the green bean casserole.”

  The pressure from Oliver’s elbows sent a small tremor through the table. Only Daphne noticed the tingle of silverware and wavering liquid in their drinking glasses. She watched hopelessness settle into his face. Oliver had brought a guest to the table and, still, the dinner cycle could not be broken. If anything, she was accelerating its course.

  Oliver spoke with quiet rage. “Except for the fried onions. He used to pick those off and hide them in his napkin.”

  “Did he? I don’t remember that.” Blake turned to Stella. “Do you remember that?”

  “No, not at all.”

  Oliver gritted his teeth. “Because he hid it from you.”

  Oliver was about to lose it. Daphne knew what he felt, what he was seeing. The black splotches that clouded his vision, the room closing in around him. The chords in his throat tightening, on the brink, unable to restrain the swell of his voice, so desperate to be heard. But now, a mile away from her own dining room, she could see everything clearly. And she had an idea of how to free him. Free all of them.

  “I heard Jason loved the ocean.” Daphne shoved a heaping forkful of mashed potatoes in her mouth and rolled the mush around.

  She winked at Oliver and verified herself as an ally instead of an audience. The violence in his eyes dissolved, the blackness surrounding him disintegrated, and the room opened.

  Uncontrollable laughter rose inside him, his strength too depleted to squelch it. His fork tumbled onto his plate and he keeled over, laughing with such force he had to push back his chair to avoid knocking his head on the table. Daphne choked down her mashed potatoes and joined him in free-flowing giggles.

  “Oh, yes. He did.” Though skeptical of Oliver’s laughter, Stella’s face warmed with pride. “You told her.”

  Oliver nodded, still unable to speak.

  Blake studied Oliver’s odd laughter. Finally, his dad’s timing caught up with the situation. “He loved the ocean. But not as much as you do.”

  “That’s true,” Stella said.

  Their admission was a welcome antidote to Oliver’s laughter. It steadied his breathing.

  “Can you please pass the cranberry sauce?” Daphne asked Oliver.

  He passed her the dish and touched her fingers in the exchange. It was an accident, a coincidence, until he cleared his throat. His eyes thanked her. She replied by spooning an ample dollop of gelatinous fruit onto her stuffing and taking a big bite.

  “Mmm.”

  With mouths full of subpar food, Daphne and Oliver gazed across the table at each other. Common sense told Daphne that better Thanksgivings had taken place in her past, but they weren’t in her memory.

  • • •

  Daphne handed two ice cream cones with bright green scoops to a man and his
six-year-old daughter. Janine sat at the counter, scowling at the scene. Heavy breathing and muffled screeches emitted from the little girl, in a tizzy over sugar.

  The kids that came into Sweetie’s were Daphne’s favorite part of the job. She loved the excitement on their faces, the wonder of cold-smooth-sweet ice cream and a crunchy cone. The children never bored of ice cream, and she never bored of their innocence.

  The bell over the door rang with the father-daughter exit, signaling privacy and the opportunity for Janine to opine.

  “Who the hell orders lime sherbet? There’s twenty-five flavors and he picked lime sherbet and passed that horror onto his kid.” Janine shuddered.

  “Maybe he likes the color.”

  Janine pushed herself off of the counter. “Then get mint chip or pistachio! Poor kid. She’s going to hate him forever when she tastes real ice cream.”

  “She’ll go ice cream crazy to make up for lost time, and she’ll never take it for granted. In the end, she’ll love ice cream more than both of us.”

  Janine squirmed in her seat. “What’s this Happy Heather bullshit? It’s that Oliver guy, isn’t it? You like him.”

  It was Daphne’s turn to squirm. There was no point in lying to Janine. It was more difficult to pull off than lying to herself. “Maybe.”

  “After you graduate college and law school and get a unicorn job at a high-paying nonprofit, you want to have 2.5 of his babies.”

  Daphne couldn’t deny that this was exactly how she pictured her future, minus the babies and Oliver as a life partner. “What do 2.5 babies look like?”

  “I could say a lot of politically incorrect things right now.”

  “I’ve thought of at least five. Want some lime sherbet?”

  “Give me two scoops of mint chip before I describe in vivid detail what half a baby looks like.”

  Daphne heaved herself into the freezer and furiously scooped.

  • • •

  In the chapel, Daphne typed numbers into her graphing calculator with authority and scribbled down her conclusions.

  “It’s holiday break. You have two weeks to do homework.”

  She softened at the emergence of his voice but didn’t take her eyes from her notebook. “If I get it all done tonight, I have two weeks of utter freedom.”