What They Always Tell Us (9 page)

“Yeah,” James finally says, agreeing with his father. After all, it is true; Alex needs a friend. And James doesn’t see the harm in his brother latching on to one of his.

Later, around four, the whole family walks down a few houses to the Watsons’, armed with covered dishes and a few bottles of wine. The bright sky is fading and cloudless—it could be a summer afternoon, save for the nip in the air. James can smell burning wood, so people are already opening their fireplaces.

“If it isn’t the lovely Donaldson family,” Dr. Watson booms, opening the front door. Dr. Watson is James’s and Alex’s dermatologist, when they need one. Luckily, their pimples have never been too bad, the usual flare-ups here and there. Not like Preston, who takes a pill to keep him from being a total pizza face. Once inside, they’re greeted with hugs and hellos, and then they set the food and wine in the kitchen. Mrs. Watson shoos the boys away, but Mom sticks around to help prepare the feast. The house smells heavy with food, the smoky scent of turkey blending with baking bread and cooking vegetables. James feels extremely hungry all of a sudden.

“Steven and Michelle are in the TV room—why don’t you boys go join them?” Dr. Watson says, while James’s father pours some bourbon at the bar in the living room.

Alex saunters ahead of James to the TV room, his hands in his jeans. This will be the first time they have seen Steven and Michelle since the incident, and James wonders if Alex is nervous. As greetings are made, James can’t detect any trace of awkwardness. But he does notice Steven eyeing Alex more closely, as if looking for an outward sign of a defect. Steven is only a year ahead of James, a freshman at Vanderbilt, and Michelle is a junior at Colorado. They’re both dark-haired and average-looking, more like their father than their mother, who’s blond and pretty for an older lady. Actually, Michelle looks a little hippyish now, her hair long and stringy, her tissuelike long yellow shirt over baggy, bell-bottomy jeans and sandals. She’s a pot smoker, James bets.

“How’s C-High treating you?” Steven asks both of them.

“It’s okay,” James says.

Steven asks about his teachers and tennis, and James asks about Vanderbilt. “It’s awesome,” Steven says, not really explaining why it’s so awesome, which makes James wonder if it really is awesome after all.

Snacks are laid out on the coffee table—cheese straws, cubes of cheese and little wheat crackers, bowls of almonds and spicy peanuts—and they all sit on the couch and surrounding chairs and start munching. An NFL game is on the TV.

Alex and Michelle start chatting, and occasionally James can hear snippets about Boulder and classes and how Alex likes her shirt.

“Mom says you applied to Vandy,” Steven says to him.

“Yeah, I did. And a few other schools. But my first choice is Duke.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, laughing. “Yeah, everyone says that. But not everyone can get in.”

James shrugs. “I guess.”

Right after that the Ashfords arrive. Everyone goes to the foyer to say hello, then settles back to their respective domains. Clare sits next to Michelle on the love seat and the two of them play catch-up, leaving Alex the odd man out. Clare is wearing a jean skirt with a satiny white blouse, her blond hair swept under a headband, making her look very prim and proper. Their breakup is ancient history—they dated for six months, sophomore year—but James still feels a little weird around Clare since she started dating that college guy.

Eventually all the fathers storm into the TV room with their drinks and do their usual grilling about school and life and this and that.

“So, James,” Mr. Ashford says, “your dad tells me you applied early to Duke.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t heard yet.” Great, now everyone knows. And now, if he doesn’t get in, everyone will know that, too. Perfect. He almost envies Alex, because everyone besides Michelle seems to be steering clear of him.

“Well, if Duke won’t have you, you can always go to Shelton State,” Mr. Ashford says, laughing heartily to himself. Shelton State is the community college. It’s not a bad school, as far as that goes, but the implication is that it is for dummies, people not good enough for a regular college. James manages a light chuckle.

“Alex is running now,” his dad says, maybe sensing James’s annoyance at the topic at hand. “He just made the cross-country team.”

“That’s great!” a few people exclaim, as if it was the greatest achievement in the world, especially for a complete head case.

He sees Alex, sitting there, offering sheepish smiles, and realizes that he also doesn’t want any attention.

They’re both saved when Mrs. Ashford peeps in the room, holding a glass of white wine, and says that dinner is served.

James, Alex, Michelle, Steven, and Clare—as expected—are seated at the kids’ table that has been set up in the living room, within earshot of the dining room. James fills himself with turkey and ham, sweet potatoes and regular mashed potatoes, corn bread stuffing, cranberries, salad, green beans, and cheese biscuits. It’s almost too much. The girls nibble mostly on salad and vegetables, with bird-size portions of the meat, afraid the boys might think they’re pigs or something. Steven’s a pig like James, and Alex eats heartily as well, though he doesn’t really seem to be digging the turkey.

“So, Clare,” Michelle says. “You haven’t said anything about your college boyfriend. Who is he?”

James sees Clare stop midchew, then keep going. She looks up and puts down her fork. “Well, we broke up last week, actually.”

“Oh, God. Don’t I feel stupid,” Michelle says.

“It’s okay. I’m over it.”

“You were probably too good for him anyway.”

James doesn’t know much about this college guy, but he feels oddly happy about the news. Not that he wants Clare back. But it’s like this has brought her back down to earth. He is careful not to break into a grin.

“What about you two?” Michelle asks, meaning James and Alex.

“I’m not dating anyone,” James says, careful not to look at Clare.

“What about Alice?” Alex asks, like a thud.

James says, “Uh, I…we broke up.” He’d wanted to say,
I dumped her.
Saying they broke up makes it sound civil and mutual, which it sure as hell wasn’t. Meanwhile, he’s fuming at Alex for not keeping his trap shut. Like he or anyone else needs reminding of Alice. James can see Alex redden, already feeling chastised.

“God, it’s like breakup time in Tuscaloosa! What about you?” Michelle says to Alex.

This girl is relentless! James thinks. Isn’t it obvious that Alex does not, will not, have a girlfriend right now? In fact, as far as James can recall, he never has had one. Well, there was that girl in eighth grade, Carla, but does that count? Sure, maybe they kissed and stuff, but he just knows Alex is still a virgin. No, Alex has never
really
dated a girl, though he could have—plenty of girls liked him. But who would want him now?

“No,” Alex says. “No girlfriend for me. Not yet.”

“High school dating is meaningless anyway,” Michelle says, and without thinking about it, James looks at Clare. Thankfully, she’s focused on scooping a small pile of mashed potatoes onto her fork.

Later, after dinner and dessert—pumpkin pie and cherry pie and a caramel cake and vanilla ice cream—the adults continue sitting around the dining room table, drinking and chatting and gossiping. The rest of them resume their spots in the TV room, feeling drunk on rich food. Eventually, the girls sneak off upstairs to Michelle’s room, where they’re probably talking about the college guy and what went wrong.

“You really should think about Vanderbilt,” Steven says. He’s drinking a beer now because his parents said it was okay. As if Steven doesn’t guzzle beers at college. “I think you’d like it there. You should come visit the campus,” Steven continues.

“Cool. Well, maybe I’ll come visit in the spring.” He wants to say,
That is, if Duke doesn’t work out.
But he doesn’t want to bring
that
up again.

Clare strolls in without Michelle and sits next to James.

Steven flips the channel to some Christmas movie. No matter what’s on the screen, Alex’s eyes are glued to it. And he seems to be smiling to himself, like he’s holding in some great secret. He
has
been in a better mood since making the cross-country team, but he’s still mostly quiet, at least when he’s around James.

“So,” Clare says, “what are you doing the rest of the weekend?”

“Uh, mostly working on a paper for English class.”

“Oh yeah, you’re in AP. I’m in advanced, so mine’s not due for another week or so.”

“Lucky you.”

“But I might as well get started. I hate procrastinating.”

“Man,” Steven says. “You think writing papers in high school is tough? At Vandy, it’s like all we fucking ever do is write papers.” He goes on and on about his papers—for Spanish class, for political science—and he and Clare just nod and wait till he’s finished throwing in his two cents. He finally shuts up and decides he needs another beer and heads to the kitchen.

“Well, if you want a study break, maybe we could see a movie on Saturday or something,” Clare says.

Without thinking about it, he says, “Sure.”

“Okay. Well, call me.”

James nods and, like Alex, begins to focus intently on the TV. A movie with Clare? He’s pretty sure he won’t call her. Or maybe he will, to say he’s too busy. If she’s trying to rebound with him, she can forget it. Besides, Saturday night is supposed to be Tyler’s party, and he’ll probably go to that.

Feeling like he needs an escape, James heads for the bathroom. At the door, which is just down the hall from the dining room, he can hear all the parents gossiping.

“Well, I heard that she’s Jack Pembroke’s girlfriend,” Mrs. Ashford says. “Or she was. They’ve been spotted together.”

“Get out of here,” his mother says.

Jack Pembroke is the richest man in town, the owner of the country club that James’s family belongs to, who made his fortune in the lumber industry or something like that. Maybe it was a paper mill, James can’t remember. He lives in a big mansion on the country club grounds, with his prissy wife. He’s got to be about seventy years old, maybe older. Notoriously grumpy, he recently banned kids under sixteen from the hot tub because he said they peed in it. James has heard all this from his parents. He’s never had much interaction with the man himself.

“Old Jack can get a piece of tail that young?” Mr. Ashford says.

“Don’t be crude, hon!” Mrs. Ashford says.

“That can’t be true,” his mother says. “I’ve seen her go on dates with other men. I mean, men around her age.”

“Well, she has no husband to speak of,” Mrs. Watson says.

James has no idea who or what they’re really talking about, and he doesn’t really care—it’s about boring old people and has nothing to do with his life. So he shuts himself into the bathroom, turns on the sink, and wonders when they can just go home.

Around five o’clock the next day, James’s phone rings, startling him out of a catnap. James got his own private phone line last summer. Not because he’s a big phone talker, like a girl, but because his dad got sick of all the shouting up and down the stairs to tell him the phone was for him. Now, as the phone rings, he decides to let the machine get it. He’s too groggy to talk. The machine clicks on after the fourth ring, but no one speaks—it’s a hang-up. He
hates
when people can’t bother to leave a message.

It’s getting dark out now, so he hops off his bed and flicks on his overhead light. Maybe he should shower to wake himself up? Or maybe grab a soda in the fridge? He’s actually hungry again, too, even after the pigfest from yesterday.

But the phone rings again. This time he answers it.

“Hello?”

“James?”

“Oh, hey, Tyler,” he says, recognizing his voice. “Did you call a few minutes ago and not leave a message?”

“No, man. Not me.”

He wonders if he’s lying. “So, you still having a party tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Not a huge one, but it should be bad-ass. You gonna come? Maybe bring Nathen and those guys?”

James wants to ask,
And Alex? Can I bring Alex?
Even though he doesn’t want to, not really. “Yeah, I should be able to come. What time?”