to continue arguing when Mike drives his point home by kissing me on the cheek again.
“Bye, Andy. Good to see you”
“You, too,” I reply hesitantly with my eyes on Katie.
He turns and pecks her on the lips. “See you at home,” he says before pushing his hands into his pockets and sauntering back the way he came.
Katie sighs and shakes her head. “He told me not to get him lunch.”
I nudge her shoulder with mine. “Don’t feel badly. Your wires got crossed.”
“I guess.”
We toss away our trash and head back toward Arlington Street. Katie is quiet. Her peppy mood from earlier has all but disappeared. It was just lunch, but still, it feels as though Mike has manipulated her into feeling this way. I want to talk to her about it. I want to do some serious Mike bashing, but I won’t. Both her expression and her current situation do not welcome any further commentary from me.
When we part ways that afternoon, I hug Katie I and make her promise to call me tomorrow to let me know how Mike takes the baby news.
fifteen
Barbecue day dawns clear and cool. The plan is to drive over to Laura and Jonathan’s apartment and then leave together from there. Safety in numbers is the general idea. Making an early escape is another idea.
Mom and Dad always encourage us to invite our friends to the barbeque, but we know without asking that none of our friends would be interested in attending. With mostly friends of my parents, and relatives who suffer from various physical ailments and want nothing more than to describe them in detail to us, my sister and I don’t even want to be there, never mind torturing our friends.
“Will your mom have some backup food this time?” Jonathan asks. He’s driving. Laura sits beside him and I’m in the back.
“Maybe we can convince Dad to let you man the grill this year,” Laura suggests.
This is Jonathan’s second appearance at the barbecue. Last year, when he noticed my dad putting cooked hamburgers back on the same plate he had retrieved them from when they were raw, his half-eaten burger nearly made a reappearance.
“Please don’t suggest it,” Jonathan pleads, a hint of panic in his voice.
“Okay, I won’t. Relax.” Laura replies, sounding annoyed. From the backseat, I can picture her rolling her eyes at him.
For some reason, Jonathan believes that my father doesn’t like him. Jonathan is a friendly, gregarious person--as is his entire family from what I can tell. He seems to think that because my father never speaks to him or acknowledges him, that my father doesn’t like him. We’ve explained that my father never really speaks to anyone, including us, but that hasn’t changed his opinion.
Cars are already filling the driveway when we arrive. We take a spot on the street, and I lead the way, carrying the flowers we’ve bought for my mother. When I pull open the screen door and step into the foyer, I can hear voices coming from the backyard, and I smell something cooking that I can’t quite identify. We find my mother in the steamy kitchen donning a white apron and looking frazzled.
“Hi,” I say, surprising her.
She turns abruptly, her disingenuous smile disappearing once she realizes it’s us.
“What’s going on?” Laura asks beside me.
Mom wipes a hand across her forehead and places the spatula she’s been holding on the counter. I see pots on the stove behind her. “Ask your father,” she scowls.
“What do you mean?”
She places a hand on her hip. “I asked him to check the grill last week. Then I asked him again yesterday. With everything going with the wedding, we haven’t had a chance to use it this summer. So, I asked him to please check to make sure it was working. What do you think he did?”
“He didn’t check it,” we mumble in unison.
“No, he didn’t.”
“It’s not working,” I say needlessly.
“Of course it isn’t!” She picks up her spatula again.
“Do you want Jonathan to take a look at it?” Laura offers.
“No, it doesn’t matter now.” She turns back toward the stove. Obviously, the barbecue has moved inside. At least the cooking part has. On the stove, hot dogs are boiling in one pot, corn-on-the-cob in another. The hamburgers are sizzling inside the oven.
Quietly tiptoeing around Mom as though she’ll ignite and explode if we get too close, we apply ourselves to helping. Laura lifts a vat of potato salad and takes it outside. Jonathan follows wordlessly. I put down