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“We want to wait and tell everyone at the same time.” Falon takes the whisk and bowl from me and starts mixing. “Maybe we’ll just have to wait until tomorrow morning when it’s just family. We could do it over brunch.”
“I don’t want to wait until Friday morning.” Phoebe glares at me while she pours herself a glass of prosecco and adds a tiny bit of orange juice. “This is dinner-worthy news, not brunch.”
“Can we get back to the part where you said this is like the Thanksgiving before Oxford?” I rest my hands on my hips. “Or as I like to remember it, the Thanksgiving that you ran me out of my own house?”
“I didn’t run you out. That was a choice you made all on your own. You were behaving completely unreasonably because for once the moment wasn’t about you and—” Phoebe pauses and unties her apron. “You know what, it’s not worth it.”
“Phoebe, where are you going?” Nana Rosie asks. “There’s still so much food we need to make. Surely you two can call a truce for the time being.”
“I need some air, Nana.” Phoebe makes her way to the back door. “And don’t worry about dinner. I’m the one who always comes back to make sure everything is taken care of.”
I don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling. It’s some unfamiliar combination of surprise and hurt and anger. I can’t control who Dad invites to his home for dinner. How was I supposed to know that Phoebe made plans to make this big announcement tonight? What if I wanted to use tonight’s dinner to talk about my bookstore? That’s dinner worthy, isn’t it? I thought we’d squashed everything last night. We’ve been getting along so well. I’ve got the group chat between us to prove it.
“She’s just stressed, Penny,” Falon tries to reassure me.
“I get that, but why does she keep taking it out on me?”
I realize the answer before Falon has a chance to reply. I’m the source of her stress. Me being here has thrown everything off for her. If I wasn’t here, Smith wouldn’t have come over last night, and he wouldn’t be coming over again this evening. It would just be another normal holiday. I’ve taken that away from her.
“Maybe we should go talk to her together?” Falon suggests. She’s an excellent Switzerland, which is great considering how often the Banks family is on the cusp of nuclear war. “We can both assure her that tonight can still be just as special as she planned, despite a few extra guests.”
“You go ahead,” I say.
The only way Phoebe’s going to feel assured of anything is if I leave, and I’m not doing that again. I don’t want to invalidate her feelings, but I can’t make her happy at the expense of the store. Chelsey and Jackie are counting on me to pull through on this.
I also can’t sacrifice my own happiness for Phoebe, or anyone else for that matter. Despite all logic and reason, I’m a little happy right now, even with Smith and his Penny knockoff coming to dinner tonight. It’s not a big happy—nothing to shoot off confetti cannons over—but it’s happier than I expected. And I don’t want to give that up just yet. I want to hold on to it, and see if it’s possible for this little happy to grow roots and bloom.
Chapter 15
Thanksgiving 2009:
The One with Irene
I balance my ancient laptop on my knees, praying to all things holy that my battery doesn’t die, while Smith navigates through the sludge that is the 5 on Thanksgiving Day. The Berkeley Gazette doesn’t loan laptops to low-level journalists, and as the official curator of the obituaries, there truly isn’t anyone less important. This means I’m forced to use my old college laptop, which likes to play a fun game of roulette whenever it’s time to save a document. To save the file or to completely obliterate it along with three other files is the question my laptop asks every time it runs out of battery, and I can’t stomach the idea of one more thing letting Irene Steadman down.
“Poor Irene.” I bite at my cuticles nervously. “I think I might’ve found someone whose family is worse than mine.”
Smith takes a drink of his third gas station coffee in the last eight hours. “I’m intrigued. Go on.”
“Irene Steadman died alone in her home. The official date of her death is unknown, but her body was discovered on November 13 by her downstairs neighbor. Irene is survived by her six cats. No memorial or funeral services are to be expected. Irene was seventy-four years old.”
“Is that what her family sent over or one of the six cats?”
“Family. She actually has two kids and a few grandkids, but her son, Eddie, asked that personal family information not be included.”
“What an asshole.” Smith drops his hand from the gearshift of his old Mustang and squeezes my hand. “You know that’s never going to be you, right?”
The midday sun catches the moonstone on my engagement ring, setting off a shower of iridescent lights across Smith’s face. He’s too busy dodging traffic to notice the colorful display, but I can’t stop staring and thinking to myself, I get to marry Smith Mackenzie. I get to marry my best friend. I get to be a Mackenzie.
And because I get to be a Mackenzie, I will never end up like Irene Steadman.
“I know.” I tilt my head onto his shoulder. “I’m allergic to cats.”
“Do you think they ate her?”
“Her cats? No. Her family? Possibly.”
We pull onto the bridge and my stomach churns. Not because of the bridge itself, but because of what the bridge means. In less than ten minutes, I’ll be home for the first time since I dropped out of Princeton and moved to Berkeley to be with Smith. It’s our first holiday as an engaged couple, which means today should be an exciting day. There should be a champagne toast before my father carves the turkey, and my mother should have a stack of bridal magazines that she insists I look over with her. Everyone should be happy and excited, and Smith’s family should be joining us too because being engaged is something to be celebrated.
