“You need to get out of this town,” Mason says and immediately winces from Mom’s icy glare. “It’s a nice town, I’ll give you that,” he adds. “It’s quiet and relatively safe, and yeah, I like it. I’d like to come back here eventually, but…” He looks at me. “We can’t all date the one person we had the hots for back in high school.”
“Then date someone else,” Mom says. “You dad wasn’t my high school sweetheart.”
“My point is,” Mason starts, and we all watch him knowing Mom’s not going to like what he’s going to say. “Small towns mean small dating pools.”
Mom just purses her lips and picks up her pizza. “How’s your class this year?” she asks Lennon.
“My first-graders are great, but I have some parents I already know are going to drive me insane. I have a new principal this year too,” she adds ruefully. “A new hire from an outside school corporation. Not me.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, knowing she’s been applying for principal jobs for several years now. “Are you back at Silver Ridge Elementary now?”
She nods. “Yeah. The big city chewed me up and spit me out. Though it’s kind of funny I leave Detroit right as Mason gets reassigned there. I do like it here, like Aunt Jeanette.”
“You always were my favorite niece.”
“I’ll let the fact that I’m your only niece slide.” Lennon winks and leans to the side, looking out of the dining room. “There’s either a ghost in the house or Chloe is coming downstairs.”
I stand, smiling as soon as I see her coming down the stairs. Chloe’s eyes meet mine and she smiles too, and then sees everyone behind me in the dining room. She slows, eyes going wide.
“Your whole family is here,” she whispers. “And you just let me sleep?”
I slip my arm around her. “You didn’t feel well. I thought you should rest as much as you could.”
“Now I feel stupid.”
“Why would resting when you don’t feel well make you stupid? I think it would be the opposite.”
“Because,” Chloe presses, cheeks reddening a bit, “now I have to walk in and everyone will look at me.”
“And they wouldn’t look at you if you’d walked in with the rest of us?”
“Yes,” she says with a laugh. I kiss her neck and go into the kitchen with her. The dining room is connected to the kitchen by a butler’s pantry with cabinetry that was original to the old farmhouse. You can’t see straight in, but I can tell by how quiet everyone’s has gotten that they’ll all peering in, or at the very least listening.
“Now I have to be the center of attention.”
I laugh. “Wait, so being on a talk show or being interviewed on national TV is fine, but walking into the dining room after everyone else is already seated isn’t?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds even worse.” She picks up a plate from the counter. “Really, I can’t ever face your family again. We should leave now while I still have my dignity.”
“And pizza.”
She puts two pieces of cheese pizza on her plate. “I have to eat.”
“Fuck, I love you, Chloe.”
Her eyes meet mine. “Good.”
“What do you want to drink?” I ask as I get a glass from the cabinet.
“Water’s fine.” She turns and sees the wine on the counter. “Oh, and maybe like a little bit of that.”
I fill up a glass of water and pour half a glass of wine for her and take it into the dining room. Cookie, Mom’s old gray cat who Jacob rescued years ago, is sitting on my chair, and looks at me innocently when I go to sit down. I pet her and then gently move her to the floor, where she slinks over and rubs against Mom’s legs, knowing she’ll get table scraps. That cat begs worse than a dog, and she’s fat enough to prove it.
“Hey, Lennon,” Chloe says as she sits down. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Chloe.”
“I remember you,” Lennon says. “I played D&D with you and Rory a couple times.”
“Right, you did! Do you still play?”
Lennon shakes her head. “No. But only because I have no one to play with, well, other than Rory. But she had to go and get married and leave me.”
“The nerve, right?” Chloe says with a smile.
“How are you feeling, honey?” Mom asks.
“I’m fine,” Chloe says without missing a beat. Her cheeks are still a little flushed, making me think she might still have a fever, and the usual spark in her eyes has yet to return. “I’m tired from traveling so much, I think.”
“You need to make my lazy do-nothing brother go see you,” Mason says with his mouth full. “LA has better weather than Michigan this time of year.”
“Oh, it does,” Chloe agrees. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to lounging around my pool with a drink in my hand. Well, after I finish the book I’m working on.”