Strangers at the Feast (7 page)

“Slow it down,” said Kijo.

Spider lightened on the gas, crept along a row of trees, lowered the radio. There wasn’t a person in sight.

“There,” Kijo said, taking a long look out the window. He felt adrenaline crack through his veins. “That’s the one.”

DENISE

Denise set out the hummus and crackers on the old trunk being used as a coffee table. When hungry, her children were like hyenas. She was not taking chances. She dipped a cracker, took a bite.

“Chow time, kids! You snooze, you lose.”

But Laura and the twins were marching along the perimeter of the room, a rash of Eleanor’s pink lipstick on their foreheads, Laura at the end dragging her tablecloth.

“We are an exploring party!”

“Hark, I hear a rustling in the forest yonder. Be still, explorers!”

“Who is this strange creature? Does she speak our language?”

The children had paused in front of Eleanor, who was straightening Ginny’s antique bric-a-brac on the mantel: a wooden butter churn, two copper candlesticks, a brass compass. She worked a handkerchief over a granite mortar and pestle. A red headband fastened her hair, an attempt at girlishness compromised by her halo of gray roots. She wore her Thanksgiving sweater, an orange wool pullover with a giant red maple leaf in the middle. Denise thought it looked unfortunately like the Canadian flag.

“From where do you hearken, strange woman?” Brandon asked.

“Westport!” Eleanor answered excitedly.

“She is of the Wesportonians,” said Brian.

“What is she doing?”

“She is dusting. Note this in the expedition logbook. The Wesportonian is dusting.”

“Shall we string her up by her ankles?”

“The Westportonians are known as a peaceful people. They are gardeners and stargazers and drinkers of wine. Let down your weapons, explorers!”

“Oh, my,” said Eleanor, touching her heart. “You children were very convincing. I was quite scared.”

“Aw, Grandma, we wouldn’t hurt you,” Brian said, wiggling his index finger up his nose. “We knew it was
you
. Did you know a human being sheds a complete layer of skin every three weeks?”

“How utterly interesting.”

“Most dust is dead skin,” said Brandon.

“Really!” Eleanor tucked her handkerchief back into her purse. “Well, I am pleased as a peanut you children are here. Denise, how wonderful you prefer to spend the holidays with our family. It’s such a treat having everyone together.”

“It’s nice being with you all.” Which was vaguely true. But also, when they visited Denise’s family, her mother flirted wildly with Douglas and her father spent an hour asking Douglas for investment tips before insisting he join him on the back porch for a cigar, then pleading for investment capital. It broke Denise’s heart. It mortified her. Her father had worked at U.S. Steel until the mill closed and for the past twenty years had picked up odd jobs welding and painting houses. The loan Douglas had given him when they first married—at Denise’s urging—to start an auto repair shop, had not been repaid. The shop had never opened. And Denise believed it was a testament to her husband’s character that throughout their own financial struggles, Douglas had never once mentioned her father’s unpaid debt. Nonetheless, Denise had come to the difficult decision that they would not loan her family money and would not, unless necessary, visit.

“Did I miss the turkey?”

It was Gavin, late as usual, a newspaper wedged under his arm.

Everybody went silent at his entrance; the man had a way of sucking the air out of a room.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in.” Eleanor snatched his newspaper and coat and tucked them in the entry closet. “You’re not going to read that here. This is family time.”

Gavin was nothing like Denise’s father. Gavin had worked for the same insurance company for thirty years, but looked more like a mountaineer than a company man. He was broad-shouldered and ruddy-faced and had run marathons until age fifty. He dressed conservatively, but almost always wore sneakers, which lent a boyishness to his otherwise solemn demeanor. In the last few years, however, he’d been suffering from arthritis, so Denise watched as he now carefully removed his running shoes, as though every joint and bit of cartilage in his knees was telling him to back off. As he straightened up, he palmed his silver hair into place and gave her a nod. That was Gavin’s hello. No hugs, no handshakes. A nod. He wasn’t one for gabbing. When Douglas first brought her home to meet his parents, the bulk of her interaction with Gavin had been when he led her out back to look through his old telescope.

“You know any constellations?”

“Zilch,” she said.

“Well, neither does Douglas. You two should get along well.”

Early on, Douglas had mentioned that his father served in Vietnam, that he was smart, ambitious even, but had been passed over for jobs because he was a veteran. He’d then been slowed, like many men his age, by the economic swamp of the 1970s and had never quite regained his footing. What struck Denise, though, was the insecurity Gavin elicited in Douglas. Ginny, too, seemed somewhat cowed by her father. Only Eleanor appeared at ease with Gavin’s gruffness, and that was because she ignored it. Eleanor treated him more like a defiant child than a remote husband. Denise had never minded him—it wasn’t in her nature to be intimidated.

“Nobody drink the tap water.” Douglas emerged from the basement and brushed off his shirt. “Those pipes look like they’re from the Revolutionary War.” At the sight of his father, he stiffened. “Hey, Dad.”

Douglas often complained about his father’s pessimism; he felt his father was too critical of him. After visiting his parents, Douglas, who rarely said much about his feelings, was often unable to sleep. In the dark, he’d whisper to Denise, “It’s like he judges the way I breathe.” She had at first thought Douglas’s compulsive optimism was a rebellion against his father. But over the years she had come to see that Douglas was simply rallying enough confidence in himself to make up for what his father had withheld.

As Douglas and Gavin simultaneously plunked down on the flimsy red couch, the coils whimpered. They looked shockingly like father and son. If Denise had measured each of their jaws, square and chiseled, there might have been only a millimeter’s difference. But for two men who looked so much alike, they couldn’t have been more different, or more awkward around each other. They triangulated themselves with the platter and reached for the knives.

“The Packers are having a great season,” said Douglas, looking at his watch. “An hour till kickoff.”

“Did you see today’s news about Freddie Mac?”

“I’m taking a news holiday. Today’s just food, family, and football.”

“A lot of people are going to be taking holidays soon. Mark my words. First the write-downs, then the layoffs.”

“You let this stuff psych you out, you make mistakes, miss opportunities. Speaking of. Okay, Dad, if you could go back in time, let’s say to the mid-seventies, fiscal crisis, everything’s cheap, where would you put your money?”

“We didn’t have money then. We had two small children.”

“I’m saying hypothetically. You came into an inheritance.”

Denise never understood Douglas’s bizarre addiction to hypothetical situations. It charmed people the first time they met
him—got conversations going at parties—but after years of marriage, it wore on Denise.
Hypothetically, Doug,
she imagined saying,
if you lost all our money and I were to leave you, what would you do?

Gavin smeared a cracker with hummus and shoved it into his mouth.

“Or let’s say you won the lotto,” urged Douglas. “You found a briefcase full of hundreds. Do you put it in GE? IBM? Johnson and Johnson?”

“I report it to the police.”

As though she could tell they were all assembled, Ginny slowly came down the stairs, the Indian girl at her side. The barefoot girl wore an ankle-length purple dress, which she carefully lifted off the stairs. Her long, sleek hair was pulled back with two tortoiseshell combs, accentuating her plump cheeks. She smiled shyly, revealing a dimple.

Ginny laughed nervously. “Yikes, this feels like a debutante ball.” But she studied her parents’ faces, gauging their response.

Well, thought Denise, the girl didn’t look like she’d set the curtains on fire. She didn’t look disturbed, or even malnourished. She looked Indian, sure. But not like an orphan, not like… what was the word Denise once heard? Not like an
untouchable
.

Laura reached for her hair. “Ma! Like Pocahontas!”

“A different kind of Indian, honey,” Denise said. “That’s your cousin.”

Douglas and Gavin set their crackers on the platter and sat up straight. Eleanor clasped her hands. Then an expression came over Ginny’s face that Denise had never seen: a shimmering tranquility. Her voice, usually loud and domineering, a lecture-hall voice, softened. “I need to do a few more things in the kitchen before I can kick up my feet and relax with you all.” She pet Priya. “You wanna help Mommy?”

Ginny led Priya into the kitchen and they all looked at one another. Denise was speechless. Maybe Ginny adopting a child wasn’t so outlandish. Maybe she
could
buy a house and raise a daughter. Maybe she didn’t need a husband.

Brian broke the silence: “How did she get here?”

“On an airplane,” Douglas said.

“Is an airplane like a stork?” asked Laura.

“A big stork with a big engine,” Douglas answered, leaning back in the sofa with a look of delight that suddenly irritated Denise.

“I’ll see if Ginny needs help,” she announced.

At the far end of the kitchen, Ginny set a piece of gingerroot in Priya’s hand. “
Gin
-
ger,
” said Ginny. “That’s also my name.”

The girl’s mouth hung open and Ginny set the root back on the counter.

Denise felt guilty for her earlier misgivings. “I gotta admit, Ginny, when I heard
orphan
and
India
and
seven years old,
I thought trouble. But she’s totally…” She stopped herself from saying
normal.
“Totally adorable.”

Ginny did not appear as moved by this confession as Denise had hoped, but she smiled graciously. “Thanks.”

Ginny looked around the kitchen, at bowls spilling peeled sweet potatoes and peas, the buttered baking pans. She tied on an old apron, and blew hair from her eyes. “I think this is more food than Priya’s seen her whole life. All they served in the orphanage were small bowls of watery dal.”

“How did you even end up in that place?”

“Research.” Ginny guided Priya onto a stepladder, tucked her purple dress beneath her, and had her sit.

Ginny started mixing what appeared to be stuffing, licking her fingers as she worked.

Denise made her way to the dishwasher. “I’ll see if I can squeeze in some more and then do a load before we eat. It’ll make the cleanup easier later.”

“I forgot you’re the former caterer!”

Ginny had shoved the dishes in at every angle, the cutlery crisscrossed like pick-up sticks. Flecks of food clung to the plates, crusted tomato sauce and peanut butter, determined flecks that would never,
even in the face of scalding water, loosen their grip. Denise removed the dishes one by one, sponged them down (ignoring the brown and livery ancient sponge), and rearranged them.

The kitchen was small, with old oak cupboards and rusted brass handles that needed scrubbing. A Sierra Club calendar hung from a nail, open to the month of June. Her electric oven looked like a stage prop in some 1950s play. But she’d lined the windowsill with clay pots of pothos and aloe and gladiolas. The cheery greenhouse look. For all Ginny’s hippie ways, the only thing missing was a nice leafy marijuana plant.

Happy Thanksgiving!

God, it had been years since Denise smoked pot. Growing up in dreary Homestead with three brothers and a mother who spent most nights yelling at her husband to get on
The Price Is Right
so they could put meat on their sandwiches, Denise had found that a little wake and bake out her bedroom window was a good way to start the day. She grew her own in the overrun steel mill yard, occasionally selling to the Homestead High cheerleading squad.

In college, though, it slowed her down. And by then, Denise was starting to realize there were other ways to live, there were things like exercise, studying. If she worked hard, after graduation she might be able to move to New York City or Boston, get away from her family and Homestead. She switched to cigarettes and diet sodas. Sometimes during finals she took NoDoz. The rush from daytime cold medicine wasn’t bad either, and left her calm enough to go for a run. A complex regimen of caffeine and exercise got her through thirty job interviews her senior year, perky and well prepared; it landed her a job.

Nowadays she still snuck cigarettes. After three children, it was hard to keep her figure, and smoking subdued her hunger. She kept a pack beneath the seat in her car, and on her way home from work she’d pull into the Minimart parking lot. Leaning against the hood, she’d suck down every last inch of tar and tobacco. She stashed
mouthwash in the car. She did a gargle-spit-gargle-spit routine and scrubbed her hands with a baby wipe before heading home.

Douglas would have been surprised. The children, appalled.

But you got married and had kids and that was the end of privacy, the death of anything resembling a solo self, the one that used to, every once in a while, just for kicks, introduce herself as Denise Boeing, heiress. The one who once got so high she made out with Cindy Keegan, the cheerleading captain.

God knew smoking in a parking lot was safer than boffing the history teacher. Which, she proudly reminded herself, she hadn’t done.

“Any new men, Ginny?”

“Only if you count my Realtor.”

Ginny turned heads when she threw on a dress. But she was high-maintenance and a know-it-all. Every year she spontaneously quizzed the whole family on the states named for Indian tribes.

Okay, guys. Connecticut was named after the Mohegan word Quinnehtukqut. Who remembers what that word means?