“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the refrigerator look like this.” Mrs. Cone stood at the door, smiling. She was wearing the pink blouse and genie pants, and had tied a pink floral scarf around her head so she looked sort of like a dancer.
“You both look so pretty.”
“Ah, thanks.” Mrs. Cone leaned in and kissed the top of my head. No one had ever kissed me like that. Not my mom and not my dad. Sometimes I’d get a little pat on the back, or a squeeze from my mom that might resemble a hug. But a kiss on the head was totally new to me. What were you supposed to do when someone kissed you like that? Just stand there? Say thank you? I blushed, then grabbed Izzy and pulled her in close to me because my hands suddenly needed something to do.
“We’re going to lunch,” Sheba said. “You think anyone will recognize me?”
“I don’t think anyone would ever in a million years expect that you’d be in Baltimore, so they probably won’t recognize you. But I bet they’ll stare at you, just, ’cause . . .” I was too embarrassed to go on.
“We’re going to make dinner!” Izzy said.
“I know.” Mrs. Cone leaned over Izzy and kissed her head three times, before turning up Izzy’s face and kissing her fat cheeks.
Just as all this kissing was taking place, Dr. Cone rushed into the kitchen, his hair a scrambled mess on his head. He left the door open and I watched out the window as Jimmy ambled across the lawn, eating from a box of Screaming Yellow Zonkers.
“The Apollo-Soyuz docking is on TV now!” Dr. Cone went into the family room as Jimmy entered the kitchen.
“We gotta see this, man.” Jimmy talked with his mouth full of Zonkers. “Russia and the US coming together in space. It’s fucking historical shit.” Jimmy walked into the TV room and Sheba, Mrs. Cone, and Izzy followed. I paused at the threshold of the kitchen, looking into the family room.
“What is fuckinghistoricalshit?” Izzy climbed onto her dad’s lap. None of the adults seemed to notice that Izzy had just used a swear word.
Dr. Cone clicked the thick brick-size remote control and turned up the volume. Mrs. Cone dropped onto the couch next to Dr. Cone. Jimmy sat on the other side of Dr. Cone, their shoulders touching. Sheba tucked herself down at Jimmy’s feet and wrapped her arms around his calves. They looked like a litter of pups.
“Mary Jane!” Jimmy called. “Get your butt in here. This is his-to-ry!”
“Here. Mary Jane.” Sheba patted the shag rug beside herself. I walked in and sat down, my back perilously close to Dr. Cone’s calves. Izzy climbed off her father’s lap and nestled into mine; her weight pushed my back against Dr. Cone’s legs. I looked up and saw that Mrs. Cone had tucked herself under her husband’s arm. Sheba put her hand on my knee, and at that moment every single body in the room connected into a single fleshy, leggy, arm-entwined unit. We stared silently at the TV as an American astronaut leaned out of his spaceship and shook the hand of a Russian astronaut who was leaning out of his.
“I still don’t understand what is going on,” Izzy said. “Are they on the moon?”
“No, they’re just connecting,” Sheba said. “The spaceships connected and now the people are connecting.”
“Like us,” I whispered in Izzy’s ear, and she nodded and pushed herself deeper into my lap.
No one stayed to listen to the newscasters discuss the moment. Dr. Cone and Jimmy returned to the barn-garage-office; Sheba and Mrs. Cone left to have lunch downtown. Izzy and I returned to the kitchen, where I picked up the phone and called my mother. She answered on the first ring. I knew she was in the kitchen doing prep work for supper before she left for the club.
“Mom, I need to stay at the Cones’ for dinner tonight.”
“But I’m making meatloaf with pan-fried potatoes.”
“They want me to cook. Mrs. Cone can’t—”
“She can’t make dinner?”
“No, not for the rest of the summer. They asked me to make dinner.”
There was silence for a moment. I wasn’t sure if my mother was doubting my lie, or if she regretted that I wouldn’t be home to help her prepare the meatloaf and fried potatoes. Or maybe she’d miss my company at the dinner table. After all, my father rarely spoke.
Finally my mother said, “Can you do that? Can you make dinner on your own?”
“I think I can, Mom.”
“Why can’t Mrs. Cone cook?”
“An illness,” I said. “I’m not sure what.” My second lie to my mother.