Since Rodney was in his third year of law school and studying for the bar and Linnie was finishing up her master’s in historic preservation, this spring was probably not the best time for them to be attending a wedding, much less planning their own. But when my parents told us they were putting the house up for sale, things on the wedding front suddenly went into hyperdrive.
I looked over at the stack of cardboard boxes that I’d pushed up against my closet door, like that might make me forget about why they were there in the first place. I was supposed to begin the process of cleaning out my room, because our house had been bought by Lily and Greg Pearson, who would be moving in, along with their three extremely loud kids, as soon as the escrow process was complete. I had secretly hoped there would be no buyers, that our house would languish on the market for months, but when it sold, and fast, I wasn’t surprised. After all, who doesn’t want a house that had been featured in one of America’s most beloved comic strips?
So, in the midst of all this, Clementine had been incredibly helpful—Danny had found her through Pland, a start-up his venture capital firm had invested in. It had contacts with wedding planners all over the country, and matched couples with the best ones. And apparently, aside from a serious disagreement about the napkin colors, everything with Clementine had gone great.
“Well, I can’t wait to see it all myself this afternoon.”
“You’re still getting in at two?”
“That’s the plan.” Danny cleared his throat. “And I’ll have a surprise when I see you.”
I grinned; I had a feeling I knew what this was. “Is it a Double-Double?”
Danny sighed. “I never should have taken you to In-N-Out when you came to visit.”
“So that’s a no?”
“That’s a ‘hamburgers shouldn’t go for six hours without being refrigerated.’ ” There was a small pause, and he added, “You could have access to In-N-Out constantly if you moved out here next year.”
I smiled and glanced, automatically, at the stack in the corner of my desk—the bright, shiny folders that were my college acceptances. I’d applied to eight schools and gotten into three—Northwestern, outside Chicago; College of the West, in a small town in Los Angeles; and Stanwich, the local university in town where my dad taught. I’d decided last week to go to Stanwich, and had told Danny my decision even before I’d told my parents. He’d been trying to talk me into joining him on the West Coast ever since. “Well, I really think all major life decisions should be based on fast food chains, so . . .”
“I knew you’d come around.” I could hear, in the background, an announcement about buckling seat belts and making sure all overhead bins were secure. “I should go. See you soon, Chuck,” he said, using the nickname for me that only he was allowed to use.
“Wait,” I said, realizing he’d never told me what his surprise was. “Danny—” But he’d disconnected the call. I left my phone on the dresser and walked over to my desk, set aside the orange College of the West folder, and picked up the bright purple one from Northwestern.
I’d gotten into Medill, Northwestern’s journalism school, which was the whole reason I’d applied there in the first place. My guidance counselor hadn’t believed me, thinking that I wanted to be at the same school where Mike was, not understanding that this was actually a bug, not a feature. I flipped through the brochure from Medill that had been sent to me, looking at the glossy pictures of students in the newsroom, the possible internships with major media companies, the journalism study-abroad program. . . . Before I got too far, I closed the folder and picked up the Stanwich College one, running my fingers over the lamp that was part of the school’s crest.
Northwestern had stopped appealing to me right around the time my parents told me they were selling the house. The idea of going away had sounded a lot better when I had a house to come home to. Suddenly, the thought of losing both my house and my town was too much, and I’d started to think more and more about Stanwich. I’d practically grown up on the campus, and I loved it—the tree-lined quad, the stained-glass windows in some of the classrooms, the truly epic frozen-yogurt topping bar. And it just began to seem like the best choice—I’d get to start something new while still holding on to the familiar. And it was a great school, and I knew it was going to be really, really great.
I hadn’t officially accepted or told the other schools I wasn’t coming, but I’d made my decision, and even though my parents had seemed a little surprised by my choice, I knew they were just getting used to it—and that they’d be happy when my first tuition bill came due and I got the discount for being the child of a professor.
And as soon as the wedding craziness was over, I’d figure out what the next steps were—telling Northwestern and College of the West that they hadn’t made the cut, finding out about Stanwich deposits and paperwork. But I didn’t want to think about any of that—not this weekend. After all, right now my sister and future brother-in-law—and possibly donuts—were downstairs waiting for me.
I was halfway to the door when my phone rang again, and I picked it up immediately, hoping it was Danny calling back—only to see the contact picture of my best friend, Siobhan Ann Hogan-Russo.
“Hey, Shove-on,” I said, picking up, turning my phone onto speaker. This was the way Siobhan told people how to pronounce her name, which was most people who weren’t expecting a name with a silent b in it.
“Oh,” she said, sounding surprised. “I didn’t think you’d pick up. Why aren’t you in history?”
“I got my mom to call me out. I’m taking the day off so I can help with wedding stuff.”
“I thought all of that was taken care of by Tangerine.”
I shook my head, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “You know her name is Clementine. You just have a weird prejudice against her.”
“You know my policy,” Siobhan said. “Never trust anyone named after a fruit.” I sighed; I’d heard this more times than I’d wanted to, and could practically feel Siobhan teeing up her punch line. “After all . . . they might be rotten.”
“I know you think that’s funny,” I said, and sure enough, on the other end, I could hear Siobhan laughing. “But it’s really not.”
“My dad thought it was funny.”
“Which one?”
“Ted. Steve is still trying to get us into some alumni dinner thing tonight.”
Siobhan had been, with her dads, up at the University of Michigan since Wednesday. It was where she was going next year—unlike me, she’d never had any question about where she’d go. Both her fathers had gone there and had met years later at an alumni networking event. In the Hogan-Russo household, there was a prominently displayed picture of newborn Siobhan in a Michigan onesie, posed with a mini maize-and-blue football. Apparently, there had been a serious discussion about naming her Siobhan Ann Arbor Hogan-Russo to help her chances of getting in. But fortunately, she hadn’t needed it—she’d found out back in December that she’d been accepted early decision.
“How’s the campus?”
“It’s amazing.” There was a happy sigh in Siobhan’s voice. “Wait,” she said, sounding suddenly sharper, like she was coming out of her Michigan happiness daze. “Why are you skipping today? Don’t you have your editorial meeting?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but it’s fine. Ali can handle things.” There was silence on the other end, and I added quickly, “She wants to be editor in chief next year anyway, so she should get used to running these.” Siobhan still wasn’t saying anything, but I could picture her expression all too well—arms folded, one eyebrow raised. “I swear it’s fine.”
“You’re doing the thing you always do.”
“No I’m not. What thing?”
“The thing where your siblings come to town and you forget all about everything else.”
I took a breath to deny this, but then decided not to—it was a fight Siobhan and I had had many times over the years, and she usually won it because, frankly
, she wasn’t wrong. “This is different. Linnie’s getting married.”
“She is?” Siobhan said, her voice sounding overly shocked. “But why didn’t you mention something about it?”
“Sio.”
“Oh no, wait—you did. Like every three minutes.”
“It’s going to be amazing,” I said with certainty, feeling myself smile. “Linnie’s dress is so beautiful, and I’ve seen the pictures from her hair and makeup tests—she’s going to look gorgeous. You’ll see.” Siobhan was coming to the wedding—she’d known Linnie her whole life, after all. She was flying back from Michigan tomorrow morning, with more than enough time to get ready before the ceremony.
“Is everyone there?” she asked. “The whole circus in town?”
“Not quite. Linnie and Rodney came in Wednesday night. Danny gets in this afternoon, and J.J. . . .” I stopped and took a breath. “And we’re all going to be together.” As I said it, it was like I started to feel warmed up from the inside, like I’d just taken a long drink of hot chocolate.
“Not exactly.”
I blinked at the phone. “What do you mean?”
“Mike,” Siobhan said simply. “Mike’s not going to be there.”
“Who wants him here?” I muttered.
“Well—Linnie did, right?” Siobhan asked, and I crossed over to my desk again and started straightening the piles of papers, mostly just to have something to do with my hands. “Didn’t she invite him?”
“Of course,” I said quickly, ready to talk about something else. “But he’s not coming, and it’s better this way.”
“Okay,” Siobhan said, and even through the phone, I could tell that this was her letting the subject go, even though she still disagreed with me. “Now.” There was a getting-down-to-business tone in Siobhan’s voice, the same as she’d had when we were five and trying to decide who got to be Belle when we were playing Beauty and the Beast and who was going to be stuck being the teapot. “What are you wearing on GMA?”
I winced. Good Morning America was going to be coming to our house in two days to interview all of us, because my mom’s comic strip—Grant Central Station—was, after twenty-five years, coming to an end. And despite the fact that this was rapidly approaching, I hadn’t yet gotten as far as deciding what I would be wearing.
Grant Central Station depicted the lives of the five kids, two parents, and a dog that made up the Grant family—the fictional version, since those of us who lived in the real world were also the Grant family. It was syndicated in newspapers across the country and around the world. It was about a large family dealing with everyday things—work and crushes and bad teachers and siblings’ fights. As the years had gone on, it had transitioned away from broad gags and more cartoonish illustrations and had slowly gotten more serious. The humor had become more poignant, and my mother would sometimes trace one story line for weeks. And unlike most strips, in which characters lived in a kind of stasis—Garfield perpetually hating Mondays and loving lasagna; Charlie Brown forever missing the football; Jason, Paige, and Peter Fox stuck in fifth, ninth, and eleventh grade, respectively—Grant Central Station followed real time. My siblings and I each had a strip equivalent that was a version of us, and for the last twenty-five years, the strip had charted the progress of the fictional family, moving in step with us in the real world.
The fact that it was ending had come with an onslaught of requests for publicity—my mom had been doing phone and e-mail interviews for weeks, and taking the train into New York for photo shoots and taped interviews—but it seemed the really big ones were happening closest to when the strip was actually ending, probably so she could give her take on how she was feeling, now that the moment had arrived. There had been comic retrospectives in newspapers around the country, and the Pearce, our local museum, was doing a whole show on her artwork. We were squeezing in an appearance tonight at the opening, before we’d all rush to the rehearsal dinner.
But the biggest of all these promotional appearances was Good Morning America on Sunday morning, a live interview with all of us that they were calling “The Family Behind Grant Central Station.”
When Linnie and Rodney had decided on their wedding date, my mother had set the strip’s end date for the same weekend, so we’d all be together. And apparently, GMA had gotten a lot more interested in doing the piece on us when they’d found out we would all be available. Linnie and Rodney weren’t thrilled about this, and J.J. had commented that if we were expected to appear on national TV the day after a wedding, they might want to change the name of the segment to “Grant Central Hangover.” But I was just happy we’d all be together, that when this thing that had defined all our lives came to an end, we’d see it through as a group.
“Um,” I said to Siobhan now, stalling for time. “Clothes?”
“Charlie.” The disapproval in my best friend’s voice was palpable. “Jackson Goodman is coming to your house on Sunday.”
“I’m aware of this.”
“Jackson Goodman. And you don’t know what you’re wearing?” Siobhan’s voice rose sharply at the end of this. She and her dads watched Good Morning America together every morning until she had to leave for school, and Jackson Goodman—the laid-back anchor with the wide grin—was by far her favorite. When she’d found out that he was going to be at our house, she’d pretty much lost her mind, then promptly invited herself over for the taping.
“You can help me pick an outfit, how about that?”
“Deal. And you’ll introduce me to Jackson, right?”
“Sure,” I said, even though I had no idea how things were going to run on Sunday.
I could hear muffled voices on Siobhan’s end. “I should probably go. This accepted students thing is starting soon.”
“Have fun. Hail to the victorious.”
“Hail to the victors,” Siobhan corrected, sounding scandalized. “Have I taught you nothing?”
“Clearly not. Um, go Wolverine.”
“Wolverines,” Siobhan said, her voice rising. “It’s not like Hugh Jackman is our mascot.”
“See, but if he was, maybe I would have applied.”
“Steve and Ted are still mad you didn’t, you know.”
“Just tell them to be glad I didn’t apply to Ohio State.”
I heard the sharp intake of breath that followed whenever I mentioned Michigan’s rival school, which I found ways to bring up as often as possible. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“That’s probably wise.”
“I gotta go. Tell Linnie congrats for me?”
“Of course. See you tomorrow.” I hung up, then after a moment opened my photos and started looking through them. I scrolled past my photos, stopping at the ones with my siblings, trying to find one of us all together.
There I was with Linnie and Rodney last night, picking up pies at Captain Pizza. And then me and Danny and J.J. in front of the Christmas tree, both Danny and me giving J.J. bunny ears—Linnie and Rodney had spent the holiday with Rodney’s parents in Hawaii. And then me and J.J. and Linnie at Thanksgiving—Danny had had to work, jetting last-minute to Shanghai, trying to save a deal that had started falling apart. There I was with Danny in September, sitting outside at a Coffee Bean—he’d sent me a surprise “Come and visit me for the weekend!” plane ticket, and I’d flown out to California and back again in less than forty-eight hours. And then there was one from last summer, me and J.J. trying—and failing—to play Cards Against Humanity with only two people.
But there were none of all of us together, and looking at the pictures was evidence that we hadn’t all been together in a while. But at long last, this weekend, we would be. For three days, my siblings were going to be home and it was going to be us again—playing games and standing around the kitchen laughing and making bagel runs and just being together.
I’d spent so much time thinking about it, and now it was so close. I was so near to the way it felt when we were all together, like finally things
had been put right again. Not to mention that this weekend was the last time that we’d all be together in this house, so it was going to be perfect. It had to be perfect. I would make sure of it.
I headed for the door and was halfway down the stairs to the kitchen when the alarm went off again.
CHAPTER 2
Or, Everything Is Fine!!
* * *
HIYA, KID,” MY DAD SAID, smiling at me as I came into the kitchen. He was sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island, a mug of coffee in his hand, and he raised it to me in greeting. “Morning.”
“The alarm went off again?” I said, peering at the panel mounted by the door. But it was silent, all the lights on the console dark. The alarm had stopped as abruptly as it had started, and by the time I’d made it to the main floor, it was quiet again.
“Your sister’s checking it out,” my mother said, looking up from where she was sitting at the long wooden kitchen table, mug of tea on the table next to her. “She thinks maybe one of the window sensors is setting it off.”
I nodded, then pushed myself up to sit on the kitchen counter and looked around. The kitchen had always been the center of the house. It was where everyone seemed to congregate and the first place I looked when I was trying to track down either siblings or parents. And even though it was a big room—the island and stools on one end, the kitchen table at the other, with an area by the door that was kind of like an ad hoc mudroom, hooks on the wall for coats and a bench to remove snowy boots that inevitably ended up kicked underneath it—the kitchen always felt cozy. I thought briefly about one of Lily or Greg Pearson’s horrible kids running around in here when this place would no longer be ours and felt my stomach drop.
“You okay, kid?” my dad asked as he crossed toward me and opened the kitchen cabinet. Even a month ago, it had been stocked full to bursting, with a collection of mismatched mugs and dishes we’d accumulated over twenty-five years of living here. But now there were only a handful left inside, the only ones that had survived my parents’ we’re-selling-the-house purge and subsequent massive tag sale on the front lawn, the one I’d refused, full stop, to participate in. And when my parents had realized that I was planning to make loud comments to potential buyers about bedbugs and fake antiques, they’d sent me to spend the weekend with Linnie and Rodney in Boston.
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