Chapter 23: Dinner at Vicky's

My apartment table seats four, so Ben brought a folding table from the stockroom and we pushed it against the end.

It wobbled, and he put a folded coupon flyer under the short leg.

By noon on Thanksgiving, the whole place smelled like sage and burnt sugar.

I had cooked a turkey for the first time in my life.

My mother arrived first, with two pies in a carrier.

She stopped in the doorway of the kitchen and looked at the turkey, then at me.

"You didn't brine it," she said.

"I didn't know what that meant."

"It's fine." She took off her coat. "It's going to be fine."

She rolled up her sleeves and started on the gravy.

Aunt Deb came next, in a red sweater, with a third pie.

It was visibly store-bought, and the box had been removed so it would look homemade.

"I made this," Aunt Deb said.

"It still has the sticker, Deb," said my mother, without turning around.

My aunt looked down at the bottom of the tin.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," she said, and began to laugh, and could not stop.

Tyler showed up with a case of sparkling cider and his phone zipped inside his jacket.

"Not filming," he said. "I want you to notice."

"I noticed."

"I got a raise on Monday. Fifty cents."

"Fifteen fifty an hour," I said. "Don't spend it all in one place."

My father came last.

He stood on the landing in a clean button-down shirt, holding a covered dish with both hands.

He did not come in until I said, "Hi, Dad."

"It's scalloped potatoes," he said. "Your mother's recipe. She said you needed them."

"I do."

"I made them."

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