Evvie Drake Starts Over(24)
“Those are all my brothers,” Dean said to Evvie. “My dad is sharing all their news. Did he mention they’re all married?”
“And Mark’s on a cruise,” Stuart repeated. “On Thanksgiving. Who eats pumpkin pie in a bathing suit on a boat in the middle of the ocean? With a little umbrella sticking out of your drink? Dumbest thing I ever heard.”
Angie laughed and elbowed him. “Be nice. They like the water.”
“I like the Runaway Mine Train at Six Flags Over Texas, but I’m not eating Thanksgiving dinner there.”
“Say, Stuart,” Evvie’s dad said, “you mentioned you grew up in Jersey. Did you ever go to Coney Island?”
“Sure did,” Stuart said. “Visited my mother’s aunt out that way and rode the Cyclone. Have you been to Dollywood?” Frank shook his head. “They’ve got one there called Thunderhead. Rode it a few summers ago. I got off it and rewrote my will.”
“I hope you left me something good,” Dean said.
“We’re leaving you the cat.”
“Don’t leave me that cat.”
“Oh, yeah. We’re going to leave you the cat,” Stuart repeated, “and a note that says you have to dress it up every Halloween and walk it down Fifth Avenue or you lose your inheritance.”
“We’ve got a lady in town walks her cat,” Frank said. “Tourists think it’s a local custom. It’s on the Internet that people in Maine walk their cats on leashes. All because one idiot sees Lois yanking Pookie down Main Street like a poodle.”
“Pumpkin, not Pookie,” Evvie corrected.
“Whatever.”
“All right, all right. Tell us about your work, Evvie,” Angie said pointedly.
Evvie laughed. “I do transcription. I work with journalists and people doing research, mostly. I listen to their interviews and I type them up and sometimes do a little indexing so they can find whatever they’re looking for. It’s interesting to me, anyway.”
“Dean knows lots of journalists,” Stuart said with a twinkle. “He loves interviews.”
Evvie turned to Dean. “Oh, really?”
“My dad is trying to start with me.”
“Well, now I want to know,” Evvie said.
“Tell her about Johnny Boo-Hoos!” Stuart grinned.
“Who’s Johnny Boo-Hoos?” Evvie asked.
Dean rolled his eyes. “It’s not a who. It’s a what. It’s a bar in Gowanus, in Brooklyn. My parents’ favorite magazine article about me starts out with me stuffing chicken fingers into my face at Johnny Boo-Hoos. Those things always start with the food. How Jennifer Lawrence is eating poached salmon or whatever, or how they’re at LeBron James’s favorite place for burritos, like anybody cares.”
“I’d love to try LeBron’s favorite burrito place,” Andy said, raising one hand.
“Not helpful,” Dean told him, pointing one finger. Andy smiled and sat back in his chair. “Anyway. It starts out like, ‘Dean Tenney is stuffing big fat pieces of industrial fried chicken into his maw while a sports reporter tries to get him to talk about how much he hates sports reporting.’?”
“That’s what they asked you about?” Evvie asked.
“They didn’t have to,” Angie said. “The TV in the bar was showing his favorite commentator.”
“Pete Danziger,” Stuart said darkly.
Evvie’s father gave a dismissive snort. “Oh, that idiot.”
“Thank you, Frank,” Dean said. “See? Frank agrees with me. Danziger’s a cable sports anchor. And an asshole.”
“Dean!” his mother protested, but with a smile. “Kell, I apologize for my son.” Kell waved her hand and took another sip of wine.
Dean went on. “It was maybe three years ago, and they were talking about this whole thing where Domenico Garza, who plays for the Mets, hit a home run, and he celebrated by doing this chest-bump with Florido Marquez. All these old guys got all bent out of shape, they said he was trying to show up the pitcher or whatever. And Danziger was talking about how players should be respectful, and I told the reporter nobody would have freaked out about it if Garza and Marquez were white.”
“I’d believe that,” Evvie said.
Dean sat up a little, like his body remembered the annoyance of it. “If Domenico Garza is named James Leo Francis Patrick Houlihan, you can bet your ass nobody decides he’s being disrespectful. Then he just loves the game. That’s what I told the guy, and they printed it.”
“Danziger didn’t love it,” Dean’s dad said.
“Yeah, well.” Dean smiled thinly. “He got to report later that I threw four wild pitches in one game, so I think that made up for it.”
Silence whooshed in under the doors and through the cracks around the windows. “I was proud of you,” Angie finally said. “You were saying what you thought was right. That’s why people love interviewing you. You tell the truth.”
“Like about the environment,” Stuart said.
“Oh, the environment!” Dean’s mom put her hand over her heart.
Evvie leaned forward. “Really.”
Dean leaned back, groaning like he was nursing a hernia, but Angie nodded. “He was on the red carpet for a movie that Melanie was in—she was his girlfriend at the time, very nice. And they asked what he wanted to say to his fans. And he said, ‘Climate-change denial is flat-earth idiocy for people who want us all to drown.’?”