The family event was going to take place at Nick’s the day before. He decided that the house was big enough that anyone who wished to avoid another person could easily do so. He also thought he would let his parents look over the furniture and see if there was anything they wanted. He had yet to decide how he was going to phrase that properly without offending them.
“Okay, here we are,” said Nick, pulling the car up in front of the house.
“Wow! It’s big,” said Abby.
“I know. Isn’t that stupid? That I would buy a house this big for one person?” He shook his head. “What do you call that, when people get money for the first time and spend it on stuff like this?”
“Nouveau riche,” said Abby absently, following him into the house. She thought it was a good thing that Nick was selling this house. That way Sharon Fremont would never have to see it. Abby knew her mother would hate everything about this house. It just screamed ‘new money’. Everything was too big, too overdone, too…well, Abby hated to say it, but too tasteless.
She followed Nick on the tour in silence. Six bedrooms, all with their own bathroom. A couple of living rooms, a formal dining room (which Nick said he had never used), a big, modern kitchen (Abby was willing to bet that Nick couldn’t even identify all of the gadgets and gizmos in it) a billiard room, a workout room and a few others that didn’t seem to have a purpose (or much furniture, for that matter).
It wasn’t a warm house. The walls were all white, with a few splashes of color here and there, provided by art work. The floors were hardwood or ceramic tile. It was big and echo-y and empty. It made Abby feel lonely. She was glad Nick was getting out of it.
They ran into Mrs. Marchesa when the tour went through the laundry room. “Hey, Miz M.,” said Nick, sliding an arm around Abby. “This is Abby. Abby, this is Mrs. Marchesa.”
“Hello,” said Abby formally, reaching out a hand.
Mrs. Marchesa wiped her hand on her dress and shook hands with Abby. “So pleased to meet you,” she said. “Senor Nick, when do you want to talk about the food for the party?”
Nick looked at his watch. “You’ll be leaving soon, so what about first thing in the morning?”
Mrs. Marchesa said that would be great. So they would meet in the kitchen around eleven?
Abby chuckled. First thing in the morning was eleven o’clock?
Nick gave her a little hip check and laughed. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “but you’re wrong. I get up earlier than that. I have Luke the Terminator, remember! So by the time Miz M. and I cross paths, it’s around eleven.”
“Yes, you’re such a morning person,” said Abby, exchanging an amused glance with Mrs. Marchesa. “Am I going to get to meet Luke?” she asked, following Nick out of the laundry room. “I have some suggestions for him,” she teased.
“I don’t think so. It might not be good for my health. Hey, are you hungry? I forgot you’re two hours ahead. Did they feed you on the plane?” They were back in the kitchen.
Abby looked at her watch and did the math. “There was a meal, but I didn’t eat it. I wasn’t hungry.”
“Most people aren’t,” said Nick. “I think they eat the food on an airplane just to pass the time. What did you do…to pass the time, I mean?”
Abby blushed and ducked her head.
“Princess Penelope Takes a Plane?” asked Nick.
“Actually, no,” said Abby. “There is no plane travel in Myopia. I was writing something else… something…um…real.”
“Can I read it?” asked Nick immediately.
Abby shook her head. “It’s not even at the freezer stage yet,” she said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Something real. Nick shook his head and went back to the computer. He was having the damnedest time figuring out what was real and what wasn’t with Abby. He sighed and sat down to finish the email. He took out the words ‘I liked…’ and ended it. He re-read it and then sent it off.
He looked at the clock. He still had twenty minutes. He propped up the pillows on his bed and leaned back against them. He put his hands behind his head and massaged his neck and thought about Abby.
It had been four days of fun, if you didn’t count the parent fiasco. The weather had been warm enough for hanging outside but a little too chilly for a boat ride. Nick had shown Abby his boat and various other sights in a driving tour the afternoon she arrived. Then he took her out to dinner at Liberty’s. When they came home, they played video games.
Nick smiled to himself. Abby had never played video games before. Her style was hilarious and Nick had tried not to laugh. While he sprawled back on the sofa with the controller held casually in his lap, Abby sat primly on the edge of the sofa. Only Nick’s thumbs moved on his controller. Abby used her whole body. She held the controller at chest level and when she moved the buttons, she moved the controller too. During a car race game, she turned the controller like it was the steering wheel. When she tried to make Mario jump, she’d make the controller jump too. And her body would lift up off the sofa a bit. It was the funniest damn thing he’d ever seen and eventually he broke down into gales of laughter.
Abby pretended she was angry and threw a pillow at him. Then she laughed and told him to play it himself, that she would just watch. Nick got into one of his quest games and lost track of time. When he looked over at Abby, she was asleep. Nick turned her so that her head was on a pillow on his lap. He covered her with a blanket and finished the game. And then he woke her up…
Nick shook his head to clear it. No, I’d better not think about that right now, he told himself, getting up off the bed. That’s the last damn thing I need, to have a hard-on blooming when the guys come knocking. Old habits die hard, he thought, and apparently ‘teasing Nick’ was going to be the last one to go!
He walked to the window and looked out. He raised his arms up over his head and stretched, pulling on first one forearm and then the other. He didn’t need Luke here, that was for sure, he thought; he was going to get enough of a workout with the choreographer. It wasn’t that the dancing was overly energetic or anything; it was more stage movement than anything else, but it had to be done over and over again until it was automatic. The first day had been fun, but he knew that they’d be buckling down today and getting serious.
Yesterday, they had worked out the order of the songs. That wasn’t written in stone, of course, nothing was. But they had tossed around ideas for staging and moving from one to the next. They were going to be at this for a couple of months and then they would be hitting the road.
A couple of months. Without much of a break. Nick wouldn’t have to worry about fake trips to Chicago. There wouldn’t really be time for any. A frown creased Nick’s brow. He didn’t think that would bother Abby either. She hadn’t seemed too keen on the idea of him moving to Chicago.
That had come up during the family party. It had gone okay for the most part. Abby and Mrs. Marchesa had made the food. It was all buffet-style, laid out on the never-used dining room table. People were welcome to wander back and forth eating as much or as little as they wanted. Nick had invited every single person he was related to. He sure as hell wasn’t doing this twice. He had made both his mother and father promise that they wouldn’t start something with the other. They had both promised on their own behalf but said they couldn’t speak for the other. Nick told them both that the first one to start something would be asked to leave.
There hadn’t been a formal receiving line, but Abby and Nick answered the door together whenever there was a new arrival. Nick had given her thumbnail sketches of everyone beforehand and shown her pictures of as many of them as he could find.
It was a whirlwind of a day, people coming and going, checking out Abby, checking out Nick, checking out the house, watching to see if sparks flew between Nick’s parents. Bob and Jane had behaved themselves for the most part, staying in separate rooms. That didn’t stop them from talking about each other but they shut up whenever Nick came near them.
It was Aaron who brought up Chicago. He asked Abby if Nick was going to get to bring his video games when he moved to Chicago. Abby blinked and looked surprised. Nick jumped into the conversation and said, “Of course, I am. I don’t go anywhere without them.” He slipped his arm around Abby’s waist and hugged her.
They talked about it later, after the party, after the fight!
Nick had got some of his best laughs yesterday describing the fight for the fellas, but it wasn’t really funny even now and it certainly hadn’t been at the time. Thank heavens most of the people had already left. Nick had casually pointed out a few things to each of his parents and told them to let him know if there was anything they wanted. He was getting rid of most of it. Each had mentioned an item or two over the course of the afternoon. Nick got a list going in the kitchen. It helped him remember and it also gave him an excuse to escape from the room occasionally.
It was all fine until Jane mentioned that she’d like the vase from the front hall. It was nothing special, just a glass vase for flowers, but Nick had to tell her that his father had already asked for it. It was news to Jane that Bob was being offered anything and that pissed her off. The vase became the symbol of everything that her marriage had become. She wanted that vase.
First, she wheedled. Oh, come on, Nick. It’s just a vase. We can get him a different one. He’ll never know the difference.
Nick demurred, saying that she could get another for herself if it was nothing special. He walked away from her, but she couldn’t let it go. She followed him into another room a couple of minutes later and continued the argument. This time, she tried to drag emotion into it. She had bought that vase for him, her beloved son, when she was helping him set up house. It had sentimental value for her.
Nick retorted that since sentimental value didn’t seem to be her strong suit as far as relationships went, he couldn’t see how she could apply it so easily to glassware. Jane got a hurt look on her face. Nick apologized, hating himself for doing it. Talk to Dad, he told her. Work it out with him. I’m staying out of it.
A couple of minutes later, Bob cornered him and told him that if Nick didn’t want him to have the vase, he should just have said so.
“What the f…? Dad, I told her that you asked for the vase first. If you want it, it’s yours.”
“She said that you said she should talk to me about it. Why did you do that? Why didn’t you just tell her ‘no’? If you don’t want me to have it…” Now Bob had the hurt look. And the determination that the vase would be his.
“I don’t give a fuck!” said Nick angrily. “It’s a vase. A stupid glass vase. I don’t care who gets it. Since when did either of you have such a big need for flowers?” He turned on his heel and stormed from the room.
Abby found him in the kitchen slamming his hand on the refrigerator. He told her what was going on. “They’re always keeping score,” he said. “All the kids have a point value. Everything we do, it’s like it’s for one of them and against the other. I can’t win this one.”
It kept up all afternoon. First one, then the other, would seek him out. Nick calmly told his mother that his father was getting the vase because he had asked for it first. Jane wheedled, cajoled, persuaded. She tried to get the kids on her side, sent them one by one to their father to try and talk him out of the vase. With each new effort, Bob redoubled his determination to have the vase.
It all came to a head as the party was winding down. Somehow they all ended up in the front hall. Nick had informed his parents separately that he would have the things they had chosen delivered to them. Bob announced loudly in the hall that he would take the vase with him right now if that was okay. Jane made a grab for it and said wasn’t that just like him to want to take something away from Nick that he was still using. Bob grabbed it from her hands and said didn’t the fact that there weren’t even any flowers in it give her a hint that Nick wasn’t using it.
Nick grabbed it from his father’s hands and said that was enough. He’d heard all he wanted to about the vase. And were they that stupid that they thought anyone was fooled…that anyone believed it was about the vase?
Both Jane and Bob turned on Nick, demanding his support against the other, trying to re-establish their right to the vase. Then they started screaming at each other, all the bitterness and recrimination pouring out in one long, ugly stream. Abby and Aaron tried to move the kids away but they weren’t budging. They hovered in the doorway of the living room with tears streaming down their face.
Nick turned desperate eyes on Abby. Help me.
“Is that an antique?” she asked. Nick shook his head. “Is it valuable?” He shook his head again. “Would you miss it?” Another shake. Abby gave him a small grin and shrugged.
Nick peered at her. Really? She shrugged again. Why not?
Yeah, why not, thought Nick. He opened the front door and threw the vase out. It sailed through the air in a long arcing path before it landed on the brick walkway where it shattered into a million pieces. “Oops,” he said, turning back to his parents who had been stunned into silence. “It slipped.”
“Aw hell, take the damn vase,” said Bob. “No one sends me flowers anyway.”
Angel snickered and then Leslie giggled. Soon everyone was laughing. Everyone but Jane. She wanted to kill Nick. She glared at him but he wasn’t looking at her. Jane followed his glance over her shoulder. He was looking at Abby, who was smiling back at him.
“Where’s the broom?” asked Abby. “I’ll clean that up before anyone goes out there.”
“No, I’ll clean it up,” said Aaron.
“No, it’s my mess. I’ll clean it up,” said Bob.
“Well, somebody clean it up,” said Nick. And then get the hell out, he thought. All of you. I want to get my hands all over Abby.
