“Leonardo DiCaprio’s yacht!” Clementine shouts, and it’s unclear if she is elated by the memory or getting one right.
“People dumping water on their heads on social media,” Priya says.
“The Ice Bucket Challenge,” I yell.
“The woman from The Hunger Games,” Priya urges. She picks up a fistful of paper scraps instead of one. Our team is on a roll.
“Katniss Everdeen!” Clementine shouts.
By the time Theo’s alarm sounds we have eight slips of paper in our discard pile. Clementine offers Priya a high five when she takes her seat on the couch.
An hour later, we’re in the final round, and my stomach hurts from laughing. After a rocky start, Finn and Theo have come from behind to narrow our lead. Coming into this round it’s seventy-four for the boys, and seventy-six for the girls. Theo’s way too into it, revealing a competitive side that rivals Finn’s. The slips left in the bowl are the ones that keep getting thrown back because no one can guess them.
“Guess it’s me. Promise you’ll still speak to me even if I boff it?” Clementine asks.
“You won’t boff it,” Priya tells her.
Clementine puts the sheet over her head, bringing along a few slips of paper with her underneath.
“Ready, set, go.”
Clementine tips her head back and mimes something with her hands. It looks like she’s playing an imaginary trumpet. Then she starts thrusting her hips like she’s dry humping something.
Theo is laughing so hard that he has to wipe tears from his eyes. We would be laughing, too, if we weren’t so invested in figuring out what the hell Clementine is miming. I never could have predicted tonight ending with an honest-to-god pop star dry humping the air with a sheet on her head. If paparazzi would have paid good money for the photos of her new nose, imagine how much we could get for these. The headline would read: “Clementine Del Suffers Mental Breakdown.”
Clementine is back to playing the air trumpet.
“？‘Drunk in Love’？” Priya guesses. Oh, that was drinking, not the air trumpet.
“You’re an ace!” Clementine yells from beneath the sheet in Priya’s general direction.
“No talking!” Finn chastises.
“Sod off, I’m not cheating.”
Now she starts zooming around the room with her arms spread wide. She dives to one side and knocks over an empty champagne flute. The glass is so heavy, it doesn’t break. “Leave it!” Theo orders. This is too important.
Clementine crouches into a squat, her arms held out, and slowly rises while duckwalking across the living room like a plane taking off. “Thoughts from Thirty-Five Thousand Feet,” I yell the name of Theo’s dad’s self-help book.
“Yes!” Clementine cheers. She pulls the sheet back so it sits atop her head like a wedding veil and tackles me into a hug. We go flying backwards in a mess of limbs and high-thread-count linen. Priya throws herself onto the pile.
Across the room Theo grumbles, “Leave it to my father to ruin Christmas without even being here.” Finn rubs circles on Theo’s back to console him. “I want a rematch.”
But the rematch doesn’t happen. Shortly after the game ends, Clementine falls asleep, curled like a kitten on the carpet, emitting light snores. But the rest of us are still wired from the game, or the wine, or one another’s company, or some intoxicating combination of all three.
As our conversation creeps into the early hours of the morning, there’s an electric feeling in the room, it’s as if I can feel something clicking into place between the four of us. I gave Finn a hard time about inviting Theo last year, but he was right. He’s one of us.
eight
Hannah
This year, November 22
Our rental car, a silver Prius, idles outside David’s parents’ house in Fairfield. I’ve been here twice before—once for his mother’s birthday and once for David’s—but every time the house impresses me anew. Not because it’s huge; it couldn’t be on two educators’ salaries in one of the most expensive zip codes in Connecticut. But because it looks like it was plucked from a TGIF sitcom. White siding, black shutters, a cornucopia filled with gourds on the top step of the brick walkway leading to a bright red front door—it’s all so inviting.
“Ready?” David asks from the driver’s seat.
“Yep,” I answer with more certainty than I feel. My knee bounced the entire hour and a half drive from the city.
“It’s going to be great,” David tries to reassure me. “My parents are so excited to have you.”
As soon as David clicks the lock button on the key fob, the car emitting a beep-boop of confirmation, the front door swings open to reveal his mother like she was standing there in suspended animation waiting for her youngest son to appear so the holiday could begin.
When we’re in arm’s reach, she pulls me in for a hug. I shove the pie I’m carrying in David’s direction to keep it from getting squished. “Hannah! We’re so happy you’re celebrating Thanksgiving with us this year!” June gives me an extra squeeze.
“And what am I, chopped liver?” David asks over my shoulder.
June grabs David by his upper arms and holds him at arm’s length to inspect him, always on high alert for him looking too thin. Like he might have wasted away since the last time she saw him three weeks ago when we met his parents at Grand Central and took them to dinner before they saw Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway, the tickets an extravagant birthday gift from David.
June pulls him into a hug and plants a kiss on his cheek, leaving behind a smudge of rosy pink lipstick. “You could never be chopped liver,” she coos at him. “You’re too handsome. Maybe you could be a corned beef reuben. Everyone likes corned beef.”
June loops her arm through her son’s and guides us into the house.
“Go say hello to your brothers, they’re in the den.” He hands me the pie and obediently disappears into the back of the house.
June couldn’t be more lovely, but she terrifies me.
This may seem like an odd reaction to a petite woman in a cream-colored sweater set and matching pants who’s never said a mean word about anyone. What scares me is how much her approval matters to David.
After I met his parents for the first time, over steak frites at Almond five months into our relationship, David had an extra pep in his step on the walk home.
“They like you,” he said.
“Well, good. I liked them, too.”
“They didn’t like Alexa.” His last girlfriend, the only one serious enough to meet his parents. “They thought she was stuck up and ‘not very bright.’？” Ever since, I’ve lived in fear of June rescinding her stamp of approval, aware it’s not a given.
I follow June into the kitchen where pots are simmering on every burner. The audacity of this woman to cook a full meal in an off-white outfit without an apron or any concern about stains only confirms I’m correct to fear her.
“Where should I put this?” I hold up the pink bakery box. “It’s pecan.”
June demurred when I offered to bring something. “I’ve got everything covered, just bring yourselves,” she said.