If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now (8 page)

“My son doesn’t like the seeds,” the woman said. She was wearing a cropped leather jacket even though the sun was high in
the sky and blazing hot. “We go through this every year. I don’t understand why you people insist on only having buns with
seeds.”

“Sorry,” said Melanie. “Do you want it without the bun?”

“You can’t eat a hamburger without a bun. There’s no point.”

“My son always eats burgers without buns,” I said. “He can’t eat wheat.”

“Oh, poor thing,” she said with sudden sympathy. “I know just what that’s like. I went off wheat for a while and I had so
much more energy, but it was just so hard to maintain. Don’t you think?”

“He doesn’t have a choice,” I said. “It’s a medical thing.”

“Mine too.”

Sure it was. Some quack doctor had convinced her she’d feel better if she stopped eating bread. A little difference between
that and my son’s chronic autoimmune disease, but I wasn’t going to get into it with her.

Melanie intervened. “Here!” she said, handing over a circular, foil-wrapped package. “I cut the top off—that’s where all the
sesame seeds were. Ketchup’s over there.”

“I’ll see if he’s okay with this.” The woman snatched it and walked away.

“You’re welcome!” I called after her.

“Shh,” Melanie said, hitting my arm. “Go help those people.” She pointed to a big family that had just come up. It took a
while to get them all outfitted with hamburgers and hot dogs, but it gave me a chance to figure out how the system worked.
There were several grills set up on a separate lawn about twenty feet away. For some undoubtedly sexist reason, only men seemed
to be doing the actual grilling, but Carol Lynn Donahue was working as a runner, carrying the platters of cooked meat over
the grass to us. It was our job to put the dogs and burgers on buns, wrap them in tin foil, and exchange them for the tickets
people had bought at a separate booth. Six tickets for a burger, five for a hot dog.

“I went to college for this?” I said to Melanie after twenty minutes of fairly frantic burger-wrapping and hot-dog distributing.

She raised her eyebrows. “You only went to college for a year.”

“Good point,” I said. “
You
went to college for this?”

Before she could answer, there was a cry of “Mom! Mom!” and Cameron and Nicole came running up to the booth.

Cameron was a gorgeous little boy, tall and thin like his mother, but with his father’s light brown curly hair. Right now
he was literally jumping with excitement. “Mom, Dad’s here! With Sherri! He said he’d come say hi but Sherri had to go pee
first.”

“Really?” Melanie’s voice was suddenly unusually high. “Your father’s here? He didn’t tell me he was coming.”

“We asked him to,” Cameron said.

“You’re not mad, are you?” Nicole asked, peering up at her mother’s face. She looked a lot like her dad, with a round face
and gorgeous huge brown eyes that didn’t miss a thing.

“Of course not,” Melanie said with a strained smile. “It’s fine.”

Someone came up and asked me for a hamburger. As I handed it over, I whispered to Melanie, “You want to go hide somewhere?
I can run interference for you.”

“Too late.” She gestured toward the field. Gabriel was striding across the grass toward us.

“There you are!” he said as he bore down on us. “The kids told me you’d be here.”

“Yes, I’m working here,” Melanie said a little too brightly. “It’s so nice to be able to help out.”

He reached over the tray of hot dogs to give me a warm hug. “Rickie! I’ve missed you! How are you, darling?”

“Good,” I said. “I’m good.” I couldn’t help smiling at him. That was the thing about Gabriel: he always seemed so genuinely
happy to see you that it was impossible not to respond in kind.

He turned toward Melanie. “Hi, Mel,” he said more softly. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek—softly, but you could
see his lips really connect with the skin there. It wasn’t an air-kiss. His eyes, so much like Nicole’s, were keen as he stepped
back to study her face. “You okay?”

“Never better,” she said, flushing dark red, which was moderately better than the pale greenish-white she had been a few seconds
earlier.

Nicole was looking back and forth between her parents anxiously, but Cameron was grinning ear to ear. “It’s nice all of us
being here, isn’t it?” he said eagerly.

“Very nice!” Gabriel said. He scooped up Cameron and swung him up high before clutching him against his chest. “I love the
Autumn Festival! I’ve been dreaming about these hot dogs for days. I’m going to eat like I’ve never eaten before.”

“You always eat a lot,” Nicole said.

“That I do!” He put Cameron down and mussed Nicole’s hair.

“Where did Sherri go?” asked Cameron.

“Oh, she wanted to wander around a little, see the sights.” He kept grinning down at the kids, but now it felt like it was
to avoid making eye contact with Mel and me.

“Naomi told me she was famous,” Nicole said. Naomi was Nicole’s best friend and occasionally her worst enemy. “She recognized
her and said we were so lucky we knew her and she wants an autograph.” Then, with a sudden anxious look at her mother. “But
I don’t have to get one. I mean,
I
don’t care if she’s famous.”

“She asked to come,” Gabriel said. It wasn’t clear who he was talking to. “I was going to come by myself but she asked if
she could come. I thought it would be okay?” He gave a quick questioning look up toward Melanie, who was just standing there
like she was frozen, a stiff smile on her tight lips.

“Of course,” she said tonelessly. “You’re allowed to bring whoever you like. Or is it whomever? I can never remember which
is right when it’s the object of the sentence, can you?”

I said quickly, “Hey, Gabriel, will you do me a favor and take the kids to go find Noah? He’s with my mother but I know he’d
rather be hanging out with you guys.”

He got it. “Of course. Come on, kids, let’s go find your cousin.”

As soon as they were out of earshot, Melanie’s whole body went limp. I put my arms around her and she let her head sink down
onto my shoulder. “I can’t believe he brought her here,” she whispered. “It’s
my
event.”

“It sucks,” I said. “He shouldn’t have done that.”

“And they’re excited that she’s here. She’s famous. How can I compete with that?”

I squeezed her tightly. “Your kids are smart—they’ll see right through her.”

“Everyone will see her here with him.” She stood up. Her eyes were swollen but she wasn’t actually crying. “It’s so humiliating.”
Someone came up and asked for a hot dog and she handed it over mechanically without even smiling or saying “Thank you,” which
was very un-Melanie-like.

“It’s only humiliating if you let it be,” I said. “Act like you don’t care. Better yet,
don’t
care. Someday soon, you’re going to be dating someone wonderful and Gabriel will be sick of Sherri.”

“I can’t imagine ever being with anyone else,” she said.
“That’s the worst part. That I still love him in spite of everything.”

I remembered what Ryan had said. “Did you ever think about giving Gabriel a second chance?” I asked.

“What would have been the point?” she said wearily. “He is who he is. Even back when we were dating, he—”

“Excuse me?” said a tall man with glasses who had stepped up to the counter. “Is it possible to get a burger that’s not beef?”

“We have veggie burgers,” I said.

“What brand?”

“I have no idea.”

He narrowed his eyes at me.

“Let me go find out,” I said with a sigh. I gave Melanie a quick pat on the shoulder and headed toward the grills. Carol Lynn
was coming my way with a tin of freshly cooked hamburgers, the weight of it making the narrow, ropy muscles in her arms stand
out even more than usual.

“Hey.” She nodded in Mel’s direction, resting the tin on her hip while she stopped. “She okay? That was her husband, right?
And they’re separated?”

“Yeah.” I had no desire to gossip about Melanie’s private life with someone over the age of forty-five who was wearing a baby-doll
T-shirt with the word
Juicy
over her chest.

When it was clear I wasn’t going to say more, Carol Lynn said, “I feel for her. I remember when I was going through this—school
events were the worst. Do you think I should say anything to her?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

“I just want her to know it gets better.”

“That’s just what I was telling her.”

“Only… it never gets
all
better,” she said.

“Yikes,” I said. “That’s depressing.”

“It’s just life.” She stared down at the foil-covered tin propped against her side. “We all have crap to deal with, right?”
She shifted and lifted up the tin again. “Ah, well. Better get this over to the counter while it’s still hot.” I nodded and
watched her make her way over.

Her T-shirt looked normal from the back.

I hailed one of the grilling dads, who wiped the sweat out of his eyes long enough to dig up a veggie burger package and show
it to me. I came back to the counter, but the tall guy had vanished. “What happened to Veggie Burger Guy?” I asked, but Mel
and Carol Lynn were talking quietly and intently to each other and didn’t seem to hear me.

Tanya Bonner came gliding up to the booth. “Why are you all up front?” she asked, an edge to her voice. She was wearing a
cotton hat with an enormous brim, which contrasted oddly with her severely tailored outfit but made it clear that the sun
wasn’t going to get anywhere with
her
skin. “One of you is supposed to be the mover. Two servers and one food mover. I thought I explained that.”

“I’m the food mover,” Carol Lynn said, a little guiltily. “I just brought this over.” She gave a little push at the tin she
had set down on the counter.

“You should be clearing away the used ones.” Tanya pointed to an empty tin that had been shoved to the side. “That’s part
of the mover’s job. We want the booth to look neat and inviting—can’t let the mess pile up like that.”

“I was just getting to it.” Carol Lynn picked it up.

“Don’t forget you’re covering the drinks booth next,” Tanya said to Melanie.

“Right. We’ll be there.” She included me with a gesture.

Tanya gave a brusque nod. “Until then, keep things moving. We want the food hot and ready. Hot and ready.” She stalked off.

There was a pause and then Carol Lynn, Melanie, and I all looked at each other. I’m not sure who giggled first, but pretty
soon all three of us were cracking up like fourth-graders who’d just given fake names to a substitute teacher.

“I’m failing food moving!” Carol Lynn cried out.

“The food’s
hot
but is it
ready
enough?” Melanie said. “I just don’t think we’re getting the ‘ready’ part right.”

Carol Lynn picked up the errant tin. “Lord knows we need people like Tanya to run things and she’s great for the school, but
honestly, how she can bear to be like that is beyond me.”

“You’re not moving,” I pointed out. “Movers have to keep moving.”

“Look at me move,” she said and headed back to the grill area.

“See?” Melanie said to me almost accusingly.

“What?”

“She’s
nice
. You were all mean about her before, but she’s nice. She was telling me about her own divorce, how hard it was.”

“She dresses like a tween,” I said. “And she’s closing in on fifty.”

“So?
You’re
going to be judgmental about someone’s clothes?” She eyed my frayed jeans, my Vans, my long-sleeved old T-shirt with a tear
at one shoulder seam.

“It’s different—”

A male voice interrupted me. “So did you ever find out what kind of veggie burgers you serve?” Veggie Burger Guy was back.
“You were gone long enough.”

“I did,” I said. And then, realizing, “but now I’ve forgotten what it was. Oh, wait. Gardenburgers. I think. Or was it Boca
burgers? It was a blue package. Or green…”

“Oh, forget it,” he said and turned away as someone else
came up and asked for hot dogs and then there was a rush of people that kept us busy until Maria and her daughter arrived
to relieve us and Melanie and I fled to the relative calm of the drinks booth.

As the lunchtime mania passed, things slowed down at the drinks booth even more. During a long and boring lull, I pulled out
my cell phone and started playing a game on it.

“Hey, I know that music,” said a voice. I looked up. Coach Andrew was standing in front of me, on the other side of the counter.
“Tetris, right?” I nodded. He said, “Where’s Noah?”

I closed the game and slipped the phone in my pocket. “With my mother.”

“Oh, you brought your mother? That’s nice.”

I gave a short laugh of disbelief. There was actually someone at the school who didn’t know who my mother was. “
She
brought
me
,” I said. “My mom kind of runs the board of trustees.”

“Oh, wow,” he said. “I had no idea.”

I wondered if it was now occurring to him that I had power at the school and he should be more careful how he treated Noah.
I hoped so. “So,” I said, feeling the need to make polite conversation, “did you enjoy the dunk tank?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘enjoyed it’—you’re either burning up in the sun or sucking in some really nasty water. But the kids love
it.”

“Your girlfriend has a good arm.”

He nodded, pleased. “She played softball in college.”

“I’m a little bummed
I
didn’t dunk you.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? It wasn’t enough you tried to get me fired? You have to try to drown me too?”

“I didn’t try to get you fired,” I said stiffly.

“I was kidding,” he said, but there was an awkward moment where we were both just kind of standing there, not really looking
at each other. “Can I have a Coke, please?” he said abruptly and held out a ticket.

I bent down and got a Coke out of an ice-filled tub. As I handed it to him and took his ticket in exchange, I said slowly,
“Maybe I overreacted that day. I don’t know. It’s just… sometimes it’s a little rough for Noah here and I want to help him
and I don’t always know what the best thing to do is. It’s hard.”