“We need you to drop us at the restaurant.”
Greg started the engine as he fastened his seat belt, all one fluid motion.
“Why do your children keep calling me GUP?”
“Gay Uncle Pat.” Greg’s expression said it all. Duh.
Patrick was appalled. “Seriously?”
“What,” Greg began as he gripped the wheel, “you don’t like being gay?”
“I don’t like being Pat.”
“Are you our guncle?” Maisie asked.
Patrick buried his head in his hands. “Make it stop.”
“Audra Brackett in my class has two guncles,” she continued. “She’s my best friend.”
“Guncle Pat!” Grant exclaimed.
“Patrick. Guncle Patrick. We’re not doing Pat.” Pat was so—oh, god—he didn’t even know the word. Heterosexual. “And I don’t like guncle, either.”
“What’s wrong with guncle?” Greg asked.
“What’s right with it? It sounds like cankle.” Patrick flipped down his visor to catch Maisie’s eyes in the mirror. “Calf and ankle,” he said before she had a chance to inquire.
Greg threw the car in reverse, looked over his shoulder, and backed out of the driveway.
“You don’t have to do that, Dad! There’s a camera.” For the first time Patrick recognized a little bit of himself—the know-it-all—in his niece.
“Yes, he does. I’m going to teach you some things while I’m here. That’s Guncle Rule number one. Okay? If we must? Cameras are your enemy as much as they’re your friend. Scratch that. That’s Guncle Rule number two. Guncle Rule number one: Brunch is splendid.”
* * *
The restaurant hostess smiled when Patrick entered holding the kids’ hands. People tended to do that when he was with them, he noticed. Smile. No one ever frowned with concern that he’d kidnapped two children; not one person’s facial expression the equivalent of an Amber Alert. Couldn’t they see how unnatural this all was for him?
“Three, please. Or, two and a high chair.”
“I’m too old for a high chair!” Grant screamed.
“Jesus.” Patrick sighed audibly. “Three, please.”
The hostess smiled even wider. “Three it is.”
“Are you still serving brunch?”
“Of course! Brunch is our most popular meal.”
Patrick shot the kids a look. See?
“Follow me.”
She led them to a corner booth and left them with menus, which they studied with great interest. “What looks good?” Patrick asked.
“I can’t read, stupid,” Grant declared, although “stupid” came out more like thtupid. He put his menu down and swung his feet back and forth, kicking the table.
“No kicking,” Patrick said, but in truth he was relieved at least Grant wasn’t screaming.
“Who are you again?” Grant asked. He wasn’t entirely sure of Patrick’s authority in this situation.
“He’s our guncle!”
Patrick looked down his nose at his niece. “Don’t make me repeat myself. That word is unpleasant.”
“You’re unpleasant,” Maisie observed.
Patrick sneered like an old black-and-white-movie villain. “You have no idea.”
“But who are you?” Grant implored.
“I’m your father’s brother and I was your mother’s friend. Got it? You came to visit me once at my house in California.”
“We did?”
“I have a pool,” Patrick said, as if that would settle it once and for all. “Now, focus. What looks good?”
“I like bacon,” Maisie announced.
“We don’t eat bacon.”
“Yes we do.”
“No we don’t.”
“Yes we do.”
“Bacon is pigs and pigs are our friends. Do you want to eat your friends?”
Without hesitation. “If they taste like bacon.”
Patrick set his menu down. “I’m a vegetarian. Lacto-ovo. Well, pescatarian, to be more precise. And maybe you should be, too, while I’m here helping because I can’t buy all that stuff from the grocer. You know. Morally.”
“What’s pethca—？”
“Pescatarian. I occasionally eat fish. Do you like sushi?”
“I like hot dogs.” Grant perked up just enough to take the conversation backward.
“What? That’s like the worst parts of the pig. Like lips and buttholes and . . . I shudder to even think.”