Page 42 of Play Nice

“I am intimidated,” he says, crossing the threshold, bringing his pretty face close to mine. “But not by the house, to be clear.”

“Duly noted,” I say. “We can go upstairs.”

I follow behind him, checking out the view. He wears jeans and a generic black sweatshirt. His Vans.

“The cookies are from my mom. The beer is from me,” he says.

“That’s sweet,” I say.

“She remembers you. And your mom. They had coffee…a few times,” he says, setting the cookies down on the dining table. He looks around.

“That surprises me. My mom would often lament her status as the outcast divorcée.”

“Well, my mom’s a widow, so…” He crosses to the wall, studying the array of paint colors I swatched.

I don’t want to hear about his dead parent any more than he wants to hear about mine. “Did you bring a bottle opener?”

He takes a set of keys out of his pocket and walks back over, opening a beer for me. Then he opens one for himself.

“Cheers, neighbor,” he says.

“Cheers,” I say. We clink bottles. “So, you live at home with your mom.”

He laughs. “You’re direct.”

“Your powers of observation know no bounds.” I grin and take a swig of beer. In theory, drinking a lukewarm Yuengling in the suburbs on a Sunday evening with a mommy’s boy isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. In practice, it’s not so bad. “You want to sit outside? It’s a nice night.”

We go out through the sliding doors and sit in the two plastic Adirondack chairs on the deck. I immediately go back inside and get my blanket. It’s a little chilly for May. But the stars are out, and the moon is full and bright.

“I do live at home with my mom,” he says. “Just turned twenty-six, living in my mom’s house.”

I shrug. “My dad still pays for my cell phone.”

He laughs again. He laughs a lot. I like that about him.

“Yeah, well. My mom has MS,” he says. “It’s hard.”

“So you’re a good son, not a fuckup?”

“Oh, I’m both,” he says.

“I’m neither.”

“Not a good son?”

“No,” I say. Thinking of my dad this afternoon, I add, “But I am the favorite daughter.”

“I could see that,” he says. He takes out a joint. “Mind?”

“Go for it.”

“Where are your sisters?” he asks, lighting up. “Are they helping you?”

“No. They’re too traumatized,” I say, taking the joint from him and hitting it. “Not by demons or whatever. By my mom.”

“Ah,” he says.

Because I can’t tell my sisters, or Dad or Amy, and because he’s here and I feel like it, I tell him, “I found a copy of her book in the house. She wrote little notes in it, for me.”