You in Five Acts(30)

“Did you order a package?” Pop-Pop asked Nana, looking up from his section of the newspaper.

“Who delivers on a Sunday?” She took off her reading glasses and walked over to the buzzer while I went back to my bacon. I’d barely registered the exchange; my parents used to joke that every time they talked, it sounded like the grown-ups in the Peanuts cartoons, just a bunch of dull, wordless wah wah wahs. So when the doorman’s voice crackled through to say that someone named Libby was there to see me, it took me a few seconds to catch up.

It felt like slow-motion, Nana’s barely contained look of delighted surprise, the way she said, “It’s for you, Davy,” using the nickname that made me feel like I was six years old again and sitting with her in the planetarium at the Museum of Natural History, counting the minutes until the show was over and we could go to the gift shop for astronaut ice cream. Then the mental dominoes started falling and I realized that I didn’t know a Libby, and that it had to be you standing downstairs in the lobby, talking to Bobby the weekend doorman, and that Nana was already telling him to send you up, and that I was still in tube socks and boxers, and that Dad was doing tree pose in spandex bike shorts like some sort of statue erected in the center of the living room to commemorate the utter humiliation of my life.

“Call back!” I pleaded, leaping up. “Tell him I’ll come down!”

“Who is this girl?” Nana asked. “One of your school friends?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have time. “Dad!” I yelled, sprinting into my room. “Put on regular pants!” I ran my fingers through my hair, taking in my unmade bed with the faded Mets comforter, my open suitcase of dirty clothes, the framed bumper sticker over the dresser that read IMPEACH TRICKY DICK. I grabbed the nearest pair of jeans and pulled them on, shoving my feet into my boots so fast I almost tripped over a dusty medicine ball. My T-shirt didn’t smell great, but I pulled a sweater on over it and hoped for the best.

I got back to the living room just in time to see Dad rolling up his yoga mat, still in the bike shorts. “Come on!” I said. “This isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little bit funny,” Pop-Pop said. He hadn’t moved from the dining table and was watching me with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“You didn’t mention you were having company,” Dad said. “A heads-up would have been nice.”

“I didn’t know!” I shouted. I vaguely remembered telling you, probably overeagerly, that I was up for rehearsing one-on-one, any time, any place. But I think I’d also promised Ethan I would go to Staten Island, and that was definitely never going to happen, just like you, in my grandparents’ apartment wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Relax, honey, we’re excited to meet your friend,” Nana said. “But Kevin, you really should change.”

“Don’t act excited,” I said. “Don’t act any way. Just—” Don’t exist. Evaporate, please. “—be normal.” I swallowed nervously as I heard the telltale chime of the elevator doors opening. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dad stepping back into the sweatpants he’d slept in. It wasn’t much of an improvement, but it would have to be good enough.

Nana, displaying a staggering lack of smoothness, opened the door before you’d even had a chance to knock.

“You must be Libby,” she said. I shoved my hands into my pockets and then took them out again, crossing my arms over my chest. No pose felt casual.

“It’s Liv, actually.” You appeared in the doorway, so improbable in the space that you looked like a hologram superimposed over the fading floral wallpaper. You were glowing, your cheeks rosy from the cold. Nana took your coat and you stepped into the apartment. If what you saw surprised you, it didn’t register.

“Hey,” you said.

“Hi.” We locked eyes and I smiled dumbly. “I would’ve come down if I’d . . . um.” I could feel my family staring at us, which made me even more self-conscious.

“No, it’s OK, I’m early,” you said. “I like your place.”

“Thank you,” Pop-Pop said, standing up.

“Sorry, Mr. Roth,” you said, moving past me to shake his hand. “I mean, I like your place. It’s really homey.”

“Call me Phil,” Pop-Pop said. “Also known as ‘the actor’s grandfather.’” I gritted my teeth; this was just as embarrassing as I’d feared. And I was still tripping over your apology that you were early. Early for what? How could I have made a date with you and forgotten about it? We hadn’t even been drinking.

“I’m Barbara,” Nana said. “Davy’s grandmother.”

“Which makes you . . .” you said, turning to my dad with an expectant smile.

“Dave’s dad,” Dad said, extending his hand. “Although I would also accept much-older brother.”

“I’m an only child,” I said quickly, and everyone laughed.

“Are you hungry, Liv?” Nana asked. It was a rhetorical question, since she was already making a plate. Within minutes, you were perched on the couch in your socks, balancing food on your knees and drinking coffee out of a mug printed with the title of a failed pilot I’d shot a few years back. I sat next to you, more awkward in my own (sort of) apartment than I had been at the movies. I felt like a goalie, my whole body on edge, ready to leap up at any second to block a dangerous shot.