Table for Seven (43 page)

“What are you making for us?” Luke asked. He regarded me with large, suspicious brown eyes.

“Hot dogs,” I said as I handed out plates with rolls and chips on them. “There’s mustard here. Does anyone want ketchup? Or relish? I have chopped onions, too.”

“Dinner is served,” Jeremy said, setting a paper plate full of hot dogs down on the blanket. Miles and Rose fell on their dinners as though they hadn’t eaten in days, but Luke frowned and poked his hot dog suspiciously.

“I don’t like hot dogs,” he said.

Otis perked up at this. He sat down at the edge of the blanket and stared meaningfully at Luke’s hot dog.

“Yes you do,” Rose, Miles, and I said in unison.

Luke was going through a stage where he claimed not to like anything served to him, including foods he’d happily eaten since he was a baby.

“I don’t,” he insisted.

“Just try a bite,” Jeremy suggested.

Luke looked doubtful. Otis licked his chops.

“Hot dogs are really unhealthy,” I said.

“They are?” Luke asked.

I nodded solemnly. “In fact, your mom probably wouldn’t approve that I made them for you. I bet she’ll be really mad at me when she finds out.”

“That’s okay, we won’t tell,” Miles assured me. I winked at him, and he grinned.

Luke was intrigued. He picked up the hot dog and took a microscopic bite. Deciding that it was acceptable, he took another, larger bite. Otis drooped with disappointment.

“Do you know what hot dogs are made of?” Rose said conversationally. “They make them out of—”

I cut her off before she could complete her thought. “It’s probably better not to talk about it while we’re eating.”

Rose giggled. “But it’s really gross,” she said temptingly.

Luke looked up, his mouth full of hot dog. “What’s gross?”

“I can touch my eyeball,” Jeremy said quickly.

“Ewww!” Rose said, safely distracted.

“Let me see!” Luke said.

Jeremy—who’d worn contacts for twenty years—obliged, touching his right index finger to his eyeball.

“Don’t you think you should wash your hands before you do that?” I asked.

“I want to try!” Luke said, stuffing the last of his hot dog into his mouth.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said, with a sudden vision of calling Mimi with the news that we were in the emergency room having Luke’s scratched cornea tended to.

“Don’t worry,” Jeremy said, lowering his voice so Luke wouldn’t hear. “When I first started wearing contacts, it took me forever before I could put the lens in without blinking.”

Jeremy was right; there was nothing to worry about. As soon as Luke’s finger was an inch away from his eye, his eyelid snapped shut.

“I bet you a billion dollars you can’t do it,” Rose said.

“You don’t have a billion dollars, half-head,” Luke retorted, trying—and failing again—to touch his eyeball.

Half-head?
Jeremy mouthed at me. We both swallowed back laughter.

“I won’t need it,” Rose said smugly. “But you will.”

Miles, the pacifist in the family, was rarely drawn into arguments with his bickering siblings. Ignoring Rose’s taunts and Luke’s attempts to touch his eyeball, he stood, pulled a Hacky Sack out of his pocket, and began kicking it.

“Are Hacky Sacks back in? I haven’t seen one since high school,” Jeremy said.

“My soccer coach says it’s a good way to improve your
ball control,” Miles said, shaking back his long hair. He’d talked his mother into letting him grow it out and was immensely proud of its shagginess.

“I used to be pretty good with a Hacky Sack,” Jeremy said. He stood, and Miles passed him the ball. Jeremy kicked it once off his heel and sent the small beanbag flying. Miles chased after it.

Used to
being the operative words,” Jeremy said sheepishly.

“Let me try,” Rose said, springing to her feet, always eager to join in a game.

Miles kicked the Hacky Sack to her, and Rose juggled it expertly before kicking it back to her brother.

“Good job, Rose,” I said.

“She’s better than me,” Jeremy said.

“Rose is the star of her soccer team,” I reminded him. “She gets more practice than you.”

“Girls rule and boys drool,” Rose crowed.

Miles passed the ball to Jeremy again, but Jeremy wasn’t able to catch it and it fell to the sand.

“Whoops,” Jeremy said.

“You just need some practice,” Miles said supportively.

“Why don’t you have kids, India?” Luke asked.

The question caught me off guard. It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard it before. Jeremy and I were in our mid-thirties and had been married for seven years, so I’d gotten used to being asked about our baby plans. Acquaintances at cocktail parties, clients of my photography studio, even cashiers at the grocery store. I suppose asking someone if they have kids is pretty harmless. Unless, of course, you happen to be infertile.

Normally, I give an abbreviated version of the truth: that we very much wanted a baby, and were hoping to get pregnant, but it hadn’t happened for us yet. I never mention the
grittier details—the extensive medical exams, the hormone injections, the failed IVF cycles. Repetition had made this little routine nearly painless.

But I hadn’t been expecting to hear the question from Luke, in these idyllic surroundings, while relaxing with the kids. Instead of my usual, measured response, I found myself stuttering, “W-why do you ask?”

“It’s just that if you had a kid, Jeremy would have someone to practice Hacky Sack with,” Luke explained, as though it were the most logical thing in the world. Which, to a six-year-old, it probably was. “And I’d have someone to play with when we visit you,” he added.

Jeremy looked sharply at me, his face etched with concern. I smiled at him, and shook my head slightly to let him know it was okay.

“If we did have a baby, it would be a long time before he was old enough to play with you. And by then, you probably wouldn’t want to play with him, because you’d be so much older,” I explained to Luke.

Luke considered the wisdom of this argument. “But I wouldn’t be the youngest anymore. And I’d have someone to boss around.”

“That’s true,” I said.

“If you had a girl, it would almost be like I had a sister,” Rose said.

“Yeah, and if it was a boy, it would be like I had a brother,” Luke continued.

“You already have a brother,” Rose informed him, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Yeah, thanks, Luke,” Miles said mildly, still juggling his Hacky Sack.

“Besides,” Rose continued, “India and Jeremy are
my
godparents, not yours. So if they had a baby, it would be my sister or brother, but it wouldn’t be yours.”

Rose liked to lord her superior claim to Jeremy and me over her two brothers whenever possible. It had the desired effect now. Luke swelled with outrage.

“That’s not true! Take it back!” he demanded.

“It is too true. Right, India?” Rose said.

Both kids looked at me, as though I were the referee. I tried to remember what Mimi did at moments like this, and had a vague recollection of her saying that if there wasn’t actual bloodshed, she stayed out of sibling warfare.

“Okay, everyone simmer down. I promise that if Jeremy and I ever do have a baby, you can all be official big brothers and sisters. Yes, Rose, that includes Luke,” I said. “Now, who wants to toast a marshmallow?”

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Whitney Gaskell

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Mommy Tracked

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When You Least Expect It

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WHITNEY GASKELL briefly—and reluctantly—practiced law before publishing her first novel. This is her eighth novel, all published by Bantam, and she lives in Florida with her husband and son. You can visit Whitney’s website and read her blog at
www.whitneygaskell.com
.