“Nothing, really.” She glanced at her watch. “I don’t have to worry about anything for at least thirty minutes.”
“Do you want me to be on turkey duty?” Mom offered.
“Turkey’s done. I cooked it yesterday.” Macallan popped a bacon roll-up into her mouth. “I did the fancy turkey last time. This year I wanted to do my aunt Janet’s recipe. Cooked the turkey yesterday, then marinated it overnight in gravy.”
“It’s so good,” Adam said as he took the knife away from me to help himself to more cheese ball.
“Don’t eat the entire cheese ball! You know I’ve got a ton of food for dinner: stuffing, wild rice, macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole, glazed carrots…. I think there’s a green vegetable somewhere in there. I’m not sure, it’s a holiday!”
“It all sounds fabulous.” Mom rubbed Macallan’s arm. “You look gorgeous, sweetie.” She really did. She had this green dress on that accentuated her red hair. “We’ve really missed you. All we keep hearing from Levi is how busy you’ve been.”
The cheese ball got caught in my throat. I didn’t want the day to begin with me getting caught in a lie. I wanted this to be a fun meal like we always had together, even though I knew my mere presence was enough to prevent that from happening.
I studied Macallan’s face to see if she was going to give away the fact that I’d been using excuse after excuse for reasons why Macallan wasn’t around. Why we couldn’t do Sunday dinners anymore. I kept saying Macallan had this cooking thing or that academic event.
But the real reason was that I was being selfish. I didn’t want anything to take away from my time with my guys. I didn’t want to be attached to Macallan. Like she was some sort of tether weighing me down. But it was my ego, my insecurity about where I fit in that was responsible for my stupidity.
Macallan smiled. “Yeah, it’s been a crazy few months.” She took a handful of pecans and headed into the kitchen.
“Ah, I’m going to see if she needs any help,” I said as I got up. I ignored the sarcastic comments from my dad, as it was pretty clear that the only help I could give anybody in the kitchen would be to exit immediately.
Macallan was washing a pot. Her back was to me. I couldn’t tell if she was angry.
“Do you need help?” I offered.
Her shoulders tensed up. “No, I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?” I approached the side of the sink and picked up a towel.
“Suit yourself.” She handed me the dripping dish.
Macallan jumped up to sit on the kitchen island as I began to dry off the pot.
“Did you invite Stacey for dessert?” she asked.
When Mom had talked to Macallan to see what we could bring, Macallan had invited Stacey to join us later when she was done with her family.
“Nah. I thought it would be good to be only family.” I hesitated. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be together.” Which was true. Stacey was a cool girl, but I was with her because I thought I should be with a cheerleader. That was what most of the varsity athletes did. That was what Keith did. Plus, I thought it would be easier to have a girlfriend to keep my feelings for Macallan in check. And that wasn’t fair to Stacey. Or to me.
“That’s too bad,” Macallan replied. There was absolutely no emotion on her face. I couldn’t tell if she really thought this was bad news or if she was being sarcastic. Usually, it was pretty clear when she was being sarcastic, mostly at my expense.
A smile started to slowly spread across my lips as I thought back on some of our epic bantering sessions. Guys think they can talk crap, but they’ve got nothing on Macallan in terms of wit and a rapid-fire reflex.
She looked confused. “You’re smiling over your relationship ending?”
“No, no.” I didn’t need her to think of me worse than she probably already did. “I was thinking about the time we went to that Brewers game —”
“And you dropped your hot dog,” she finished for me.
“Yes! And you would not let me forget it because I —”
“Still ate it!”
“Yeah!” I said a little louder than I intended, mostly because I was excited to remind her about a fun time we’d had. “But!”
“There’s no buts about it. It was disgusting.”
“It was only —”
“ ‘On the floor for five seconds.’ ” She repeated what I kept saying to her that day in a low voice, the one she always used when she imitated me. Usually, it annoyed me when she did that. I was ecstatic to hear it from her now.
“Remember, I hadn’t put anything on it yet.”
“Which would’ve been better because then you could’ve at least wiped the dirty ketchup off.”
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t stop teasing me about it.”
“Because it was disgusting.” She said this slowly, like she was talking to a toddler.
I started laughing. For the entire game, anytime something happened, the Brewers struck out or the other team scored, Macallan had leaned forward and said, “Well, they may be losing the game, but at least they didn’t eat a dirty hot dog.” Or “Wow, that must be tough to swallow, although not as tough as a dirty hot dog.”
Macallan studied me. “Well, what about it?”
“What about what?”
She wrinkled her nose. “What about that game?”
“Oh,” I said, disappointment seeping through. “It was fun.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. One of her timers went off. “Well, I think I need to ask you to leave. I don’t serve dirty food, and with your luck …” She let the words hang there, but I was grateful to have her say something teasing to me. Macallan didn’t waste her time, or her barbs, on people she didn’t care about.
Now that I think about it, having Macallan as my best friend prepared me for all the trash talking that can happen in the locker room. And the weight room.
“You call that a rep?” Keith taunted Tim as he pushed up the weights on the bench press a week after Thanksgiving.
Tim got up and sat down on the mat next to me while I did leg lifts.
“Let me show you how it’s done.” Keith laid down on the bench press and started easily pumping the weight up and down.
“Yeah, you only weigh fifty pounds more than me, dude,” Tim reminded him.
“Dude, I can’t help it if I make everything look good.”
I stayed quiet as I worked on strengthening my lower body. Tim started stretching, and asked, “You want to go run some suicides on the court?”
The weather had gotten even colder as Christmas approached, so we’d taken to staying inside to work out. We’d hit the weight room above the gymnasium after Tim was done with basketball practice.
“Yeah, man, sounds good.” I got up and grabbed my gym towel.
“That’s right, you skinny boys can’t handle the pressure, so get out of the kitchen,” Keith grunted as he finished his last set.
“That didn’t even make any sense.” Tim laughed.
“Hey, I’m pumping a lot here. Gotta save everything for the game.”
“Nice excuse,” I snarked at him.
“What’s your problem, California?” Keith got up and came toward me. “You’ve been acting all weird lately.”
I hadn’t been acting “all weird.” I’d just stopped laughing at Keith’s jokes when they weren’t funny.
Keith continued. “It’s like you get a taste of the good life and then can’t handle it anymore. But don’t worry, this year will fly by and then we’ll be back on the field. Senior year’s gonna be awesome. You’ll for sure start and we will own this place. No question.”
I shrugged. That sounded nice, but I didn’t know what price I’d have to pay for it. For the first time, I wasn’t so sure it would be worth it.