“Yes, Joey tried working in produce awhile, but I don’t think food management turned out to be his thing.”
“I stayed just long enough to ask Lily out for a burger,” Joey said, materializing next to her. He set an arm around her shoulders and asked Micah, “Don’t I know how to pick ’em?”
“You’re a lucky man, all right,” Micah said. He was thinking that Joey—pink-faced and chubby, wearing a sweat suit and purple Crocs—seemed dressed for a whole different occasion from the one Lily had dressed for. But she beamed up at him adoringly and let him pull her sideways against him.
“Uncle Micah’s an IT guy,” Joey told her. “He’s got his own company and all.”
“Oh, you could do that, Joey, honey!” Lily said.
This implied that Joey had still not found his chosen line of work, which was a troubling thought if he was about to get married. But Joey smiled confidently and said, “Sure! I could do that.”
Someone pushed a cold beer can into Micah’s hand—Suze, the youngest of his sisters and the one he felt closest to. “Did you not bring Cass?” she asked him.
“She had something to do,” Micah said. And then—because he might as well get it over with—“In fact, I think we’ve broken up.”
“Broken up!” Suze said.
The words cut through the babble like a knife. Everyone fell magically silent and looked at him.
“But we loved Cass!” Ada said. “You are never, ever again going to find anyone else as right for you!”
Micah said, “Gee, that’s a comfort to hear.”
“Durn, I wanted Lily to meet her,” Joey said. And then, turning to Lily, “You’d have been crazy about her.”
“Oh, well,” Micah said. “These things happen.”
Someone on the TV was announcing a substitution—“Going to bring in Hawkins to replace the injured Kratowsky”—but the teenagers on the couch were all watching Micah instead. One of them—Norma’s daughter, Amy—said, “She was going to help me with my college application!”
“You’re applying to college?” Micah asked her.
It didn’t work. Everyone went on staring at him.
“Could you not try to get her back?” Ada asked. (Wouldn’t you know that she would assume the breakup was Cass’s idea.)
And “Tell her you’ll change your ways,” Phil advised him.
“Change what ways?” Micah asked.
This made them all start laughing; he didn’t know why. Nor did Lily, of course. She looked from him to the others, and then at him again. Joey told her, “Uncle Micah’s kind of…finicky.”
“I am not finicky,” Micah said.
“What day is it today, Micah?” Suze’s husband called from the foyer doorway. He had a small child on his shoulders; her flounced skirt encircled his neck like an Elizabethan ruff.
“What do you mean, what day? It’s Thursday.”
“Is it vacuuming day? Is it dusting day? Is it scrub-the-baseboards-with-a-Q-tip day?”
“Oh, Dave, leave him alone,” Suze said.
“He doesn’t mind! Is it window-washing day?”
“Well,” Micah said grudgingly, “it’s kitchen day, as it happens.”
“Kitchen day! Ha! Your kitchen has a day all its own?”
“Yes.”
“And what does that involve, exactly?”
“For God’s sake, Dave,” Ada said. She set an arm protectively around Micah’s waist.
“What?” Dave said. “I’m only trying to understand, is all. What on earth needs doing in his kitchen? Any time I’ve seen it, we could eat off the floor.”
“It’s not floor-mopping day,” Micah said. “It’s kitchen day. On kitchen day I clean the counters and the appliances and such. And one complete cabinet.”
“One cabinet?”
“In rotation.”
They laughed again, and Micah gave an exaggerated scowl. He wasn’t sure why he played along with them like this. (Even encouraged them, some might say.)
Suze said, “Never you mind, Micah. We’re just going to pretend my husband has some manners. Teasing a man when his girlfriend has ditched him! Ada, is it not time to eat yet? Let’s have supper!”
“Yes, come to the dining room, everyone,” Ada said, and she let