2019-11-15 - Plus One for Family Dinner

Alexander lays on his bed, the cat curled up like a warm stone at the small of his back, and stares at his phone. He pokes at the green button, takes a deep breath, and waits for it to be picked up.

Which it is, almost immediately. Since they retired, the elder Claytons haven’t exactly been idle, but after careers spent in public education and health care, they’re unapologetic about enjoying lazy mornings lingering over coffee, and not having to go out into the cold damp unless they damn well want to. So it’s no surprise to hear his mother’s voice, saying, “Clayton residence.”

“Hi, Ma.”

A pause, then her voice shifts to that chipper, upbeat tone she always tries to use with him. The ‘there’s nothing wrong with you some hugs can’t fix, and I won’t hear any differently’ one that somehow makes him feel worse than Pop’s gruff incomprehension. “Alexander! Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s good,” Alexander is quick to say. Not asking for bail, not asking to be driven to the hospital. That’s the translation, and he hears the quick breath of relief, and the muffling as she puts one hand on the receiver and calls out to his father. They do the quick reassurance dance (What’s wrong with the boy, now? Nothing’s wrong, Tom. He says he’s good. Well, then find out why he hasn’t been at Sunday dinner.)

She comes back on the line like he couldn’t possibly have heard that conversation, and cheerily says, “We’ve missed you at dinner. I know we were out of town for a bit; Edgar and Joyce say hello, and that they hope you’re well. They invited us back for Thanksgiving, by the way.”

“Oh?” That could be awkward. He should have called earlier. “Are you gonna go?”

A breezy dismissal, “Oh, goodness no. They have five dogs, now, Alexander. Five! Everything I own was covered in hair by the end of our visit. I’ve just gotten it clean. We’re just going to do a quiet dinner here. You’re coming, right?”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat, and hears his mother go still and waiting at the end of the line. “Do you mind if I bring a guest?”

“A guest?” There’s a little indrawn breath from the other end, like she doesn’t dare to hope. He hears his father’s gruff rumble in the background, and another of those not-so-quiet conversations (He wants to bring a guest! Is it a girl? I don’t know, Tom, I haven’t asked. Please god, let it be an actual, living girl. Tom! Don’t be like that. C’mon, Liz, you’re thinking it.) She shushes him in the background, and chirps cheerfully back, “You know that any friends of yours are welcome in our home. Do we know…her?” A pause. “Him?”

He can’t help the soft, rusty laughter, his eyes closing so he can thread this part of the conversation with care. “Her.” (Thank god, in the background – his father has moved closer to the phone.) Alexander pretends not to notice. “Her name’s Isabella Reede. I think Dad had her for a class or two a while back.”

It’s easy to tell the moment his father takes the phone, even before his voice, gruff and weathered from decades of yelling at teenagers on the football field, comes on the line. A different sort of energy to the silence that has nothing to do with being an empath, and everything to do with knowing his parents. Alexander’s hands start to sweat. “Reede! That’s the Admiral’s girl, isn’t it? The one who had the brother who ran off?”

“He didn’t run off,” Alexander is quick to say, and only barely bites back his plea, do not say that at dinner, because if he does, then his father will, if only to try and prove that Alexander is just overreacting. Again. “But yes.”

“She was smart as a whip, that one. Bit bossy, for a slip of a thing.” His father chews over the information in silence. “Younger than you, isn’t she, son?”

“Yes,” he says, because it’s true. “She’s only here to finish up her thesis and do some work. She’s an archeologist.” It’s the only way to manage expectations, and keep his parents from demanding a wedding date the moment they walk through the door.

It relaxes the man on the other end of the line. “She’s got a job, then. Stable? Not,” he clears his throat, “not involved in any funny stuff? Hunting aliens, or anything like that.” The phone is now slick in his hand, although the room is cold. Talking with his parents is always difficult.

“She’s a graduate student—“

“Close enough,” the elder Clayton grumbles. “I guess we look forward to meeting her, then.” His voice drops down low. “You, uh. You’re being careful, aren’t you, son? I mean, I know we never had much trouble from you when you were young,” his dad’s tactful way of saying couldn’t get a date if we paid someone, “but you’re smart enough to know how to take care of a girl, I hope.”

“Yes, Pop.”

“Good. Good.” His father clears his throat several times. “And you definitely want us to set another place at the table? I mean, if she has something come up or,” doesn’t exist, is the thing he doesn’t say, but which echoes down the line anyway, “…whatever, it won’t be a big deal. Seeing you is enough.”

“I definitely want you to set another place at the table,” Alexander says, more resigned than embarrassed by the haste of his father to reassure him that no one will judge him for an imaginary girlfriend (and yet, at the same time, judging him pre-emptively for having one). “Is there anything you’d like us to bring? For dinner?”

“Don’t you dare!” That’s his mother, moving forward to claim the phone again. “Not a single thing, Alexander. I’ve never failed to set a full table, and I’m not going to fail now. You just bring Miss Reede and your sunny self, and we’ll have something to be truly thankful for.”

Despite it all, and the brassy false notes on her good cheer, Alexander finds himself smiling. “I think I can manage both of those things. It’s good to hear you both. After Thanksgiving, I’ll try to make dinner a bit more often.”

“I should hope so! It’s not right, living so close and we see so little of you. You ought to get a car; you know how it gets in the winter. You’ll catch your death of cold. We only just missed that miserable flu that was going around,” and then it’s chatter about the flu, various neighborhood gossip, and their health issues. All of which he listens to, sorts through for useful information. His parents would probably be horrified to know how much their idle gossip gave him, when it came to tracking certain criminal elements in the town.

He hangs up, eventually, eyes still closed, his hands clammy. Almost sticky. That didn’t go so badly, he starts to think, then freezes in place as his eyes open. The phone and his hands are covered in sticky red, already turning towards rusty brown and coagulating. Alexander’s heart jumps in his chest, and he can smell it now, the copper-sweet scent of fresh blood. He jerks upright, scaring Blue Bell, who scrabbles away to hide under the bed. His eyes flick to follow her white, unbloodied form, and when they return to his hands?

There’s nothing there. The blood he’d seen, felt, smelled, just a moment ago was gone. He gives a shudder, and puts the phone down. Then goes to take a shower, to try to wash the memory of it from his skin.