“I won’t,” I said, but it did sound more like a hope than a commitment.
We dropped the subject, and when we arrived at the diner, which was everything he had described, we talked about everything but family. On the way back to Littlefield, however, he revealed that his mother knew he had brought me to the house.
“Was she mad?”
“No. She surprised me, actually. She told me to bring you around for dinner before the Christmas holiday break. She wants to check your fingernails to see if there’s any dirt under them.”
“You idiot,” I said, punching him playfully. “Now I’m nervous about it.”
“Good. Then you’ll be just like me,” he said.
He turned up the radio, and we sang along with an early holiday tune that we both remembered growing up. Even as I sang, I wondered, was it too dangerous to be happy and to hope? Disappointment for us both, especially for me right now, would be like a nuclear disaster.
What should I recite before I go to sleep tonight? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread? Or To err is human, to forgive divine? Tread on in, Kaylee Blossom Fitzgerald, tread on in. I didn’t have much longer to wait to find out which quote fit better.
It was a long and hopeful kiss good night at my dorm. Troy would have as hard a time falling asleep as I would. The sun in the morning would struggle with us to light up our smiles.
However, the excitement at Littlefield before a holiday break wasn’t much different from the excitement Haylee and I used to experience at our public school. The air was electric with it. There was more laughter, louder conversations in the cafeteria, and more genuine grins of anticipation on everyone’s face, especially our teachers’.
Both Troy and I worked hard at controlling the nervousness that bubbled just beneath the surface of our own smiles and laughter, hiding it as best we could even from ourselves, until that Wednesday morning when classes broke at ten and parents began arriving to pick up their children. Seniors with cars drove off, beating on their horns as they exited the parking lots, as if we were celebrating the end of a war or something. Troy lingered, waiting with me for my father. They had yet to meet, of course.
Marcy was all right about going home. She was going to have two Thanksgiving dinners, one with her mother on Thursday and then one with her father on Friday. We talked about it Tuesday night. She said she was also looking forward to reconnecting with some old friends she knew when she was attending public school.
“What about you?” she asked me. “Reconnecting with anyone?” she sang, her eyes widening. I knew she meant an old boyfriend.
“Not really,” I said. “I’ll be going to a dinner with my father and his girlfriend Friday night, though.”
“Your father’s girlfriend. How that sounds when I say it, too. Sisters of divorce,” she said. “That’s who we are.”
We turned to Claudia, who had fallen into a funk that was more pronounced than when she had first arrived.
“What’s wrong with you?” Marcy asked her.
“Thanksgiving.”
“C’mon. It won’t be that bad,” Marcy told her.
Claudia smirked. “My mother is a lousy cook,” she said, which made us laugh. “My father won’t take Friday off. It’ll be just another weekend at the Lukases’ except for cranberry sauce from a can.” Then she surprised us with a smile. “But Ben might show up on Saturday.”
“You creeps!” Marcy cried. “When did you plan that? Rob never even suggested it.”
That cheered Claudia. She loved being special. Then they both turned to me.
“You’re the one with the boyfriend who could easily drive over to see you,” Marcy said.
“He might.” It was actually an idea neither of us had considered.
But now, as we sat in the lobby waiting for my father to arrive, I toyed with the idea of suggesting it.
“How do you think you will spend the long weekend?” I asked him.
“We’ll go out to dinner rather than have one at home on Thursday like most families. We’ll probably go out Friday, too. My father will work on Friday in his home office.” He hesitated for a moment and then added, “I think I’ll have that conversation with Jo. I don’t know how it will go or what we’ll do after that.”
“My sister will be gone on Friday. I have no plans for Saturday.”
“Oh,” he said. “Why don’t I come by and spend Saturday with you? I’ll take you to dinner, too.”
“I’ll call you,” I said. “That might be very good.” I saw my father arrive.