flair for provoking moods like that.
Ava is softly at my side before I hear her coming.
“Did Monty take off?”
“I don’t know, did he?” she wrinkles her nose. “I thought I heard an engine gunning a little while ago so it’s possible. Where have you been?”
“Capering around in the manure with Spence.”
“Spence likes manure.”
“Of course he does. Manure doesn’t talk back.”
Ava laughs lightly and brushes a hand across her sleeping son’s cheek. Alden’s father was cut from the same cloth we were. Child of celebrities, privileged and fucked up since birth. He’d already been hitting the party scene pretty hard when he and Ava hooked up. Costars on a short-lived family sitcom, they were bad for each other; a wild and entitled pair who behaved as rowdily as they pleased. The paparazzi had a field day with them partying all over Hollywood and Lita, goddamn her, encouraged it. Of course it couldn’t last. All Ava got out of it was a broken heart and early motherhood. She told me once what Lita had demanded upon the news of her pregnancy. “Get rid of it.” Ava refused. After that Lita was pretty well done with her. She’d been done with me for a long time already.
Ava follows me when I head to the kitchen. My hands are dirty. All I can find in the way of soap is an ancient trial sized bottle of dishwashing liquid. It takes me a full minute to realize there’s a crew member in the room. It’s Elton, the guy Monty apparently had a rough time with yesterday. He doesn’t make a sound. He’s just parked there in a corner, like an appliance. For all I know he’s been glued to the wall.
“You know,” says Ava brightly, “I think it would be fun to have a nice family dinner tonight.”
“You do?”
Somewhere there are families who habitually sit down together at a certain hour and avoid eye contact as they slice their way into fried pork chops. At least I think there are. I’ve never actually seen one. Savages don’t do sit down dinners. When we were kids we would just kind of forage handfuls of cereal or a bag of chips from the pantry because Lita couldn’t even boil water. Even when I learned to cook, meals were somewhat haphazard because no one could seem to sit down in the same place at once.
Ava is rooting around in the cabinets, which are magically stocked with things that seem to puzzle her.
“What do you do with tomato paste?” she asks.
“Glue bananas together,” I say but she doesn’t seem to hear me.
“I’ll make spaghetti,” announces my sister loudly, as she grabs some cans and a box of pasta.
I don’t buy it. Sure, Ava’s calmed down a lot since her party days but she doesn’t fool anyone as the domestic type. Last time I visited her she agonized over how to puree carrots for Alden’s dinner. Someone must have put the idea in her head that all of us squished around a table for an hour might light some fireworks.
When I open the refrigerator I am surprised to see it as well stocked as most restaurants. No way was that Spence’s doing.
“You know,” I say, “I bet it wouldn’t be too tough to grill up some of those steaks later.”
Ava looks down at the ingredients in her hands, sets them on the counter and twirls a troubled finger around a strand of hair. “Maybe I could make a salad or something.”
I close the fridge. “I love salad.”
Not true. I’m a meat lover, always will be. A bowl of green stuff is about as desirable to me as an enema.
Ava’s looking kind of desperate though. I understand. We have instructions. We’re supposed to keep things interesting. And if that means making asses out of ourselves in the kitchen and then suffering through an uncomfortable family meal then so be it. My sister looks nervous and for a second I just want to hug her and tell her everything will be all right. My other sister is screaming for someone to go fuck himself and the noise causes Alden to start howling for his mother.
Ava rushes back to the living room and when I get there a minute later she’s got her little boy in her arms, rocking him back and forth while his small hands grip her shoulders. The sight of them, mother and son, makes my heart hurt a little.
When have I ever loved anyone like that? Have I ever