Lock and Key(76)

“. . . no, I don’t,” Olivia was saying now as she took another sip of her smoothie. “Because shoes are not going to make you run faster, Laney. That’s all hype. What? Well, of course they’re going to tell you that. They get paid on commission!”

“Who does?” Nate said, sliding onto the bench beside me. Olivia, listening to Laney, raised her eyebrows at me.

“No idea,” I told him. “As you’ll notice, she’s not talking to me. She’s on the phone.”

“Ah, right,” he said. “You know, that’s really kind of rude.”

“Isn’t it?”

Olivia ignored us, picking up my chip bag and helping herself again. Then she offered it to Nate, who took a handful out, popping them into his mouth. “Those are mine,” I pointed out.

“Yeah?” Nate said. “They’re good.”

He smiled, then bumped me with his knee. Across the table, Olivia was still talking to Laney about shoes, her voice shifting in and out of lecture mode. Sitting there with them, it was almost hard to remember when I first came to Perkins, so determined to be a one-woman operation to the end. But that was the thing about taking help and giving it, or so I was learning: there was no such thing as really getting even. Instead, this connection, once opened, remained ongoing over time.

At noon on Thanksgiving Day I was positioned in the foyer, ready to perform my assigned duty as door-opener and coat-taker. Just as the first car slowed and began to park in front of the house, though, I realized there was a hole in my sweater.

I took the stairs two at a time to my room, heading into the bathroom to my closet. When I pulled the door open, I jumped, startled. Cora was inside, sitting on the floor with Roscoe in her lap.

“Don’t say it,” she said, putting a hand up. “I know this looks crazy.”

“What are you doing?”

She sighed. “I just needed to take a time-out. A few deep breaths. A moment for myself.”

“In my closet,” I said, clarifying.

“I came to get Roscoe. You know how he gets when the oven is on.” She shot me a look. “But then, once I was in here, I began to understand why he likes it so much. It’s very soothing, actually.”

For the first time, Cora and Jamie were hosting Thanksgiving dinner, which meant that within moments, we’d be invaded by no less than fifteen Hunters. Personally, I was kind of curious to meet this extended tribe, but Cora, like Roscoe, was a nervous wreck.

“You were the one who suggested it,” Jamie had said to her the week before as she sat at the kitchen table in full stress mode, surrounded by cookbooks and copies of Cooking Light. “I never would have asked you to do this.”

“I was just being polite!” she said. “I didn’t think your mother would actually take me up on it.”

“They want to see the house.”

“Then they should come for drinks. Or appetizers. Or dessert. Something simple. Not on a major holiday, when I’m expected to provide a full meal!”

“All you have to do is the turkey and the desserts,” Jamie told her. “They’re bringing everything else.”

Cora glared at him. “The turkey,” she said, her voice flat, “is the center of the whole thing. If I screw it up, the entire holiday is ruined.”

“Oh, that’s not true,” Jamie said. Then he looked at me, but I stayed quiet, knowing better than to get involved in this. “It’s a turkey. How hard can it be?”

This question had been answered the night before, when Cora went to pick up the bird she’d ordered, which weighed twenty-two pounds. It took all three of us just to get it inside, and then it wouldn’t even fit in the fridge.

“Disaster,” Cora announced once we’d wrestled it onto the island. “Complete and total disaster.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Jamie told her, confident as always. “Just relax.”

Eventually, he had managed to get it into the fridge, although it meant removing just about everything else. As a result, the countertops were lined not only with all the stuff Cora had bought for the meal, but also all the condiments, breads, and cans of soda and bottled water— everything that didn’t absolutely have to be refrigerated. Luckily, we’d been able to arrange to use Nate’s oven for overflow—he and his dad were going to be gone all day, getting double time from clients who needed things done for their own dinners—as nothing else could fit in ours while the turkey was cooking. Still, all of this had only made Cora more crabby, to the point that I’d finally taken a loaf of bread, some peanut butter, and jelly into the enormous dining room, where I could fix myself sandwiches and eat in peace.

“You know,” Jamie had said the night before, as Cora rattled around the kitchen beyond the doorway, “I think this is actually going to be a really good thing for us.”

I looked at my sister, who was standing by the stove, examining a slotted spoon as if not exactly sure what to do with it. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “This is just what this house needs—a real holiday. It gives a place a sense of fullness, of family, you know?” He sighed, almost wistful. “And anyway, I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. Even before it was our anniversary.”

“Wait,” I said. “You guys got married on Thanksgiving?”