French Braid(4)

“No, I just meant…I was talking about the whole Amtrak route,” Serena said. “The Northeast Corridor.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t realize it was a competition,” she said in a joking tone.

“Oh, I know how uppity you Baltimoreans are,” James said. “I know how you guys sort people out by what high school they attended. And then marry someone from your high school in the end.”

Serena made a big show of looking to her right and left. “You see anyone from my high school sitting here next to me?” she asked.

“Not at the moment,” he admitted.

“Well, then!”

She waited, curious to see what he would say next, but he didn’t pursue the subject, and they traveled awhile in silence. Behind them, a woman with a soft, coaxing voice was talking on her phone. “So how are you really?” Serena heard her say. And then, after a pause, “Now, hon. Now, sweetie. Go ahead and tell me what’s wrong. I can hear there’s something.”

“Just look at poor Nicholas,” James said all of a sudden. “His dad moves him away from Baltimore, and so the rest of the family stops speaking to them.”

“That’s not us doing that!” Serena said. “It’s them. It’s Uncle David, really. My mom says she can’t understand it. He used to be so outgoing when he was a little boy, she says. Aunt Alice was kind of a killjoy but Uncle David was one of those sunshine children, all happiness and glee. And now look: he left early from his own father’s funeral.”

Grandfather’s funeral, Nicholas had called it: “Grandfather Garrett’s funeral.” But Pop-Pop had never been “Grandfather”! How could Nicholas not have known that?

“And then your aunt,” James went on. “The farthest she moved was Baltimore County, but oh, no. Oh, no. Never going to speak to her again.”

“Don’t be silly; we speak to her all the time,” Serena said, exaggerating only a little.

She didn’t know why she felt so defensive. It was the stress, she supposed. The stress of meeting his parents.

When the subject of this trip had first come up, the idea was that they’d go for a weekend. James had talked about where they could get the best Philly cheesesteaks, and whether she’d like to visit the art museum. “You’re going to love the Chamber of Horrors,” he’d told her.

“Chamber of Horrors?”

“That’s what my family calls my bedroom.”

“Oh. Ha.”

“Wall-to-wall Eagles posters. Sandwich crusts under my bed from 1998.”

“But…not to stay there, though, right?” she asked him.

“Stay?”

“I mean…not to sleep in the Chamber of Horrors overnight.”

“Hey. I was kidding,” he said. “Well, at least about the sandwich crusts. I believe my mom did come through with the vacuum cleaner once I’d moved out.”

“But I would be in the guest room,” she said, meaning it as a question.

“You want to be in the guest room?”

“Well, yes.”

“You don’t want to stay with me in my room?”

“Not in front of your parents,” she said.

“In front of my—” He stopped. “Look,” he said. “I guarantee they assume we’re sleeping together. You think they’d make a fuss about that?”

“I don’t care if they assume it or not. I just don’t like to be so public about it when I’m first being introduced to them.”

James had studied her a moment.

“They do have a guest room, right?” Serena asked.

“Well, yes.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“It just seems kind of…artificial, saying good night in the upstairs hall and going our separate ways,” he said.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Serena said stiffly.

“Plus, I’ll miss you! And Mom and Dad are going to be baffled. ‘Good grief,’ they’ll say, ‘do these kids not know about sex?’?”

“Ssh!” Serena had said, because they’d been sitting in the library where anyone might be listening. She glanced around the room and then leaned across the table toward him. “We’ll just go on a Sunday, then,” she said in a lower voice.

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“We’ll say we’re tied up on Saturdays and so we’re coming in on a Sunday, and since I have a class Monday mornings we’ll have to make it a day trip.”

“Geez, Serena. You’re saying we’d travel all that distance just for a few hours? Just to pretend we’re not really so much of a couple after all?”

But that was what they’d ended up doing. Serena had gotten her way.

She knew she had disappointed him. He probably thought she was a hypocrite. But still, she felt she’d made the right decision.

They were nearing Wilmington now. Scattered, abandoned-looking houses were gradually giving way to clean white office buildings. The conductor passed down the aisle collecting ticket stubs from the slots above certain seats.

“Take that thing your mother said about my brother-in-law,” James said suddenly.

“What? What thing are you talking about?”