Suffice it to say that the adventures of the fictional Grant teenagers didn’t go unnoticed by people in real-world Stanwich. Suddenly, the police were on the doorstep and reporters were calling—first, just from the Sentinel, but then it started to gain national traction. It was a ready-made human-interest story—a comic strip leading to a real-life break in a possible case over, of all things, stolen street signs. My mother defended herself to us by saying she put it in the strip to teach my siblings a lesson, but I always thought it was more than that—I think part of her must have seen what an opportunity this was for publicity.
The whole thing ended up going to court, with a judge ruling that a comic strip about a fictional family didn’t provide sufficient grounds for a search warrant. My parents, alarmed that it was going this far—and by this point, I think they’d discovered just how high the penalty for stealing town property could be—got it settled quietly. My siblings never had to admit guilt, but, coincidentally, all of them spent a month doing community service that summer. My parents made a large donation to the Stanwich Public Works Department, a new Grant Avenue sign was installed, much higher than street signs normally were. And that seemed to be the end of it—at least for the Grants in the real world.
On the comic side of things, though, the sign strips were a kind of a turning point. Maybe it was because of the extra publicity, or, more likely, it had just been building for years, but the comic collection that featured these strips—Give Me a Sign—was my mother’s first bestseller, and the beginning of what would end up being the height of the strip’s popularity, though we didn’t know that at the time.
I crossed over to the wall of signs to look closer just as the door swung open with gusto, and I jumped out of the way to avoid being hit by it as my middle brother barreled through, blinking when he saw me. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m staying here, remember?”
“Oh, right. Well, we need to go downstairs. Mom wants everyone in the family room in five.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, widening his eyes at me. “Good Morning America’s here.”
CHAPTER 9
Or, Edibles & Arrangements
* * *
WELCOME TO ‘THE FAMILY BEHIND Grant Central Station.’ I’m Jackson Goodman,” said Kevin the Lighting Guy, as he sat in an armchair facing the two couches in the family room.
I sat up straight and looked at Kevin, who was standing in for Jackson during this rehearsal. Danny was perched on the arm of the couch next to me, J.J. was on the other end, and the pillow representing Mike was in the middle. Linnie and Rodney were sitting on the other couch with our parents, and everyone had slightly fixed smiles on their faces. I glanced toward the back of the family room, where the GMA crew was, then looked away quickly. I’d already been admonished once for looking at the tape marks on the ground where the cameras would be and not at the fake Jackson who was preparing us for this interview.
Because even though this wasn’t real—even though it was Kevin the Lighting Guy reading off cue cards, and there were no cameras rolling—I was having to work hard not to stare at everything that was happening around us and fight to contain the excitement I was feeling. Even though I wasn’t a devoted watcher like Siobhan was, this was still Good Morning America. In our house, coming to talk to us about our family and our mom’s strip. If it hadn’t been Linnie’s wedding this weekend—and if Jesse Foster hadn’t unexpectedly reappeared in my life—it would have easily been the most exciting thing that had happened in a long, long time.
It was still a little surreal to see them there at all. There were five crew members—Kevin, Jill the segment producer, her assistant Lauren, and two guys who hadn’t been introduced but who kept holding up light meters and looking into viewfinders and shaking their heads at each other.
They’d swept in, decided the interview would take place here, and commenced marking down where the cameras would go, moving plants and tables around, and arranging us on the couches. They’d even carefully moved the model Linnie and Rodney had been fussing with for weeks—the one of the guests’ tables and chairs, the way they would be set up tomorrow, with little pieces of paper tied to each chair, indicating who was supposed to sit where. Apparently, nothing in planning the wedding had taken as much time and energy as figuring out the seating arrangements.
The crew from GMA was here so that we could go through the questions Jackson would be asking and make sure everything was in place so that the full crew could come in on Sunday morning with minimal setup time. Jill had told us, with a great deal of confidence, that it wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes, but that had been forty minutes ago.
Kevin cleared his throat and then read from an index card, “I’m here in the Connecticut home of the cartoonist Eleanor Grant, where she and her family have lived for more than two decades. We’re here to talk about her wildly popular comic strip Grant Central Station, which came to an end this morning—and to meet the people behind your favorite cartoon family.”
We all turned to look at my mother, who realized this after a moment, and jumped. “Oh, right, me.” She cleared her throat. “Welcome to our home,” she said, sounding incredibly stilted. “We’re so happy to have you here.”
“Eleanor, you’ve been drawing a version of your family for twenty-five years,” Kevin-as-Jackson read from his card. “What has been your favorite part of this journey?”
My mother took a breath to answer, then turned to Jill. “I’m sorry,” she said, as the rest of the crew audibly groaned. “I don’t mean to keep going over this, but can’t this be more organic? Not so scripted like this?”
“Eleanor,” Jill said with a tight smile as she crossed over to us. We’d been through this at least twice already—my mother hadn’t realized that any of the questions would be set in advance, but it hadn’t surprised me that Jackson Goodman wasn’t the best at improvising. While very handsome, he’d never seemed to me like the sharpest tool in the drawer. “This isn’t a hard-hitting interview. It’s three minutes with Jackson Goodman in your home to mark the end of the strip. I’m sure you can . . . Jeff, where are you going?”
I turned around to see my dad was halfway across the family room, heading for the back door. The tent guys were working, and my father seemed convinced that rather than just hammering in pegs and putting up the wedding tent, they were secretly out to damage all his plantings. He’d been trying to escape the family room and supervise them ever since we’d all gathered here. “Me?” he asked, looking around. “Um . . . I just thought I’d check to make sure those maniacs aren’t damaging my flowers. You know, since we’ve stopped.”
“We haven’t stopped,” Jill said, her voice rising slightly.
“Actually,” one of the other guys said as they stepped forward, “we do need to stop. We’re getting some shadow at the end of that couch.” He nodded toward the couch Linnie was sitting on. “I think we’re going to have to move it.”
“While you do that, I’ll just take a look outside,” my dad said, making a beeline for the backyard.
“Jeff, let them do their work,” my mother called after him. When she didn’t get a response, she shook her head and followed behind him.
The rest of us were shooed in the direction of the doorway as the crew members started moving our furniture around yet again.
“Can we switch seats?” J.J. asked me. “I think they’re getting my bad side.”
“You have a good side?” Rodney asked.
“My left side,” J.J. said, like it should have been obvious. He turned his face one way and then the other. “Can’t you see it?”
I exchanged a look with Danny and took a breath to respond just as I heard heels clicking on our hardwood floors and turned to see Brooke walking through the doorway, an apologetic smile on her face.
“Sorry about that!” She came over to stand next to Danny, who gave her a quick smile. “Work. I reassigned my patients and told my office I needed to b
e off the grid this weekend, but . . .” She looked around at the crew arguing over couch placement. “Are you guys still rehearsing? I thought you would have been done by now.”
“Us too,” J.J. muttered.
“So, Linnea,” Brooke said, smiling at my sister, “is there anything I can do to help get things ready for tomorrow?”
“Call me Linnie,” she said. “And that’s so nice of you! But seriously, you should just enjoy yourself.”
“I’m happy to help, though,” Brooke said, taking a step closer. “I’ve been a bridesmaid, like, eight times by now, so I’ve pretty much seen it all.”
“Eight times?” Linnie laughed.
“That’s what happens when you’re in a sorority,” Brooke said, laughing too.
“Linnie!” My dad was yelling from the other end of the family room. “I had a thought. Why put the tent in the middle of the yard? What if we pushed it way to the back of the yard and spared my nasturtiums? Doesn’t that sound like a great solution?”
“No,” Linnie said, shaking her head at him. “We talked about this—” But my dad had disappeared through the door again. “Dad!” she yelled, but he didn’t reappear. “Be right back,” she said to me, already heading in his direction, deftly stepping around the GMA crew, who had moved the couches to nearly the center of the room and were currently pacing around them, light meters in hand.
“Weddings are always crazy.” I looked over to see Brooke smiling at me, like we were in this together, like we were friends. “I remember when my brother got married, it was two days of chaos leading up to the big day. I swear, everything that could have gone wrong did. But it all worked out in the end.”
I nodded. I knew I should respond to this, hold up my end of the conversation. I didn’t know anything about this girl, after all—I should ask her how many siblings she had, or where this nearly chaotic wedding took place, or even what kind of medicine she practiced. I could have treated this like a profile for the Pilgrim. Babbling Brooke! The Girlfriend Nobody Knew Existed Tells All. But I didn’t. I just stared down at my feet and crossed my arms over my chest. And as the silence between us stretched on, I became increasingly aware that I was behaving badly, but also that I wasn’t about to do anything to change this.
The doorbell rang, and I jumped at the opportunity to get out of there. “I’ll get that,” I said quickly, already heading for the front hall. As I reached it, I looked back for just a second to see Brooke standing alone where I’d left her, a fixed smile on her face, looking a little bit lost. I pulled open the door and smiled when I saw who was standing on the other side—Max Duncan, Rodney’s best friend, best man, and wedding officiant. “Hey, Max.”
Max looked the same as when I’d seen him last, at Rodney and Linnie’s engagement party. He’d been Rodney’s roommate freshman year and had been the one to officially introduce Rodney and Linnie at the first-night-of-school mixer. He was short and stocky, with an incredibly bushy beard, which he’d had since college—I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen the lower half of his face. He’d gotten ordained online to perform the ceremony, and had, in my opinion, gotten a little too into this, signing e-mails on the bridesmaids-and-groomsmen e-mail chains as Reverend Duncan. There was a suitcase at his feet, and he was holding a large duffel bag tightly with both arms.
“Hey, Charlie. Is everything okay?”
“Sure,” I said immediately, then wondered if Rodney had told him about our embezzling wedding planner. “Why?”
“I saw news vans in the driveway,” he said as he stepped inside and I shut the door behind him.
“That’s just Good Morning America,” I said. “They’re interviewing us on Sunday, so they’re here to prep.”
“Whoa,” he said, craning his neck toward the family room. “That’s pretty cool.”
“How was the drive?”
“Not bad,” Max said with a slow smile. Max didn’t seem to ever move too quickly or get too upset about anything—and he always, frankly, seemed fairly stoned, which Rodney had assured me was not an incorrect observation.
“I thought I heard the best man,” Rodney said as he came into the front hall from the kitchen. He reached out to hug Max, but Max just tightened his arms around his bag and took a step away.
“Hey, man,” he said, adjusting his bag and then smiling at Rodney. “How are you?”
“Fine,” Rodney said, glancing at the bag Max was clutching to his chest. “Uh—can I help you with your bag?”
“No!” Max yelled, then cleared his throat. “I mean . . . I’m fine. I’ll just . . . handle this one myself.”
Rodney exchanged a look with me. Stash? I mouthed to him, and Rodney rolled his eyes but then nodded. “Everyone’s in there,” he said, tipping his head toward the family room. “Want to come say hi?”
“Um,” Max said, shifting his weight between his feet. “I’d actually like to put my stuff down if that’s okay? Get settled in?”
“Sure,” Rodney said, giving him a knowing nod. “Just open the window this time, okay?”
“No,” Max sputtered. “That’s . . . that’s not . . .”
“He’s staying in Dad’s study,” I said, and Rodney nodded as he picked up the suitcase resting at Max’s feet.
“I’ll get you situated,” Rodney said, heading up the front stairs, Max following behind, still gripping his bag tight.
They had just disappeared up the stairs when there was a loud crash from the family room, followed by silence. I hurried into the room and felt my eyes widen as I saw what had happened. The model of the seating arrangements was lying on the ground, the tiny chairs and tables scattered around it, most of them smashed. J.J. and Kevin the Lighting Guy were each holding one end of our couch, and both of them were looking very guilty.
“Uh,” J.J. said as he dropped his end of the couch, causing Kevin to stumble forward. “It’s okay, right? No big deal . . .”
The back door slammed, and a moment later, Linnie was walking fast into the family room, followed by our parents. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “I heard—” She stopped short as she saw the model on the ground. “What happened?”
“So,” Jill said, sounding more and more tightly wound. “Can we just get this cleaned up and reset? If we could be ready to go in the next five, we should be okay.”
“We won’t be okay,” Linnie said as she looked up from the pieces of the model, “because the seating arrangements have just been wrecked!” He voice was high and trembling, the way it always was before she was about to burst into tears.
“It’ll be okay,” my mom said as she bent down next to Linnie and helped her gather up the pieces of the tiny chairs. “Surely you had the table numbers on the place cards?”
“No,” Linnie said, and I could tell that she was now meltdown-adjacent. “Because Clementine was supposed to do the place cards. So that model was all we had to tell us the seating arrangements!”
“Maybe Clementine did the place cards and Will has them,” I said, jumping in, even though I doubted it. If you’re neglecting your clients and fleeing with their money, I’m not sure you’re taking the time to fill out place cards. “I’ll call him, and—” I pulled out my phone and saw I’d missed a call and text from Siobhan.
Siobhan
OMG JESSE! We must discuss.
Also call me ASAP I need to talk to you!
I made a mental note to call her back later as I scrolled through my phone, looking for Bill’s number.
“We need to figure out what to do,” Linnie said. “Because if Clementine didn’t do the place cards, all the work we did figuring out where everyone would sit is just gone.”
“I actually took a picture of the model.” This was Brooke, of all people, holding out her phone to Linnie as she took a step forward. “So maybe you can use that to see the seating arrangements?”
“You took a picture?” J.J. asked.
“Yeah,” Brooke said, her cheeks going slightly pink. “Sorry if that’s weird. My si
ster is getting married, and I thought it was such a neat idea. . . .”
“She is?” Danny asked. “Since when?”
“Since four months ago. We talked about this.”
“Oh, right. Sure.”
“I hope it’s helpful,” Brooke said, handing her phone to Linnie.
“Thank you,” my sister said, sounding grateful, and much calmer. “I really appreciate it. Mom, can you help?”
Feeling like this crisis had been resolved for the moment, I started to put my phone in my pocket just when it buzzed with a text—from Jesse.
Jesse
Hey. So great to see you today.
Thinking about you.
I stared at the words he’d written, trying to keep a smile off my face, my heart pounding. I quickly walked over to the front hall, feeling like I needed some privacy as I wrote back.
Me
Me too
Maybe I can see you soon?
A second later, Jesse replied.
Jesse
You know it.
I smiled and continued walking, wondering if I should reply to this—like ask him for specifics—but stopped short when I realized I was walking in on a conversation between Rodney and his aunt Liz. I’d met her just before we’d all been hustled into the family room. She really resembled Rodney’s mom, and had seemed very sweet, chatting with Linnie about wedding plans.
“What do you mean your uncle is coming?” Aunt Liz snapped, and I realized the nice older lady that I’d met was gone. This Aunt Liz was glowering and steely-eyed and looked pissed.
“Well,” Rodney said, glancing around nervously, like he was hoping someone would come and help him. “We invited both of you to the wedding, of course. But you’re sitting far away from each other, and . . .”
Sorry, I mouthed to Rodney as I started to back away, realizing this must have been the family feud he’d mentioned earlier. I pulled open the front door, thinking that if I needed privacy, outside might be one of the few places I could get it—only to see Rodney’s parents, General and Mrs. Daniels, heading up the walk.
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