They both ignored me, much to my annoyance.
“Five minutes,” Rich said to his brother.
“No surprises this morning?” Terry asked as he joined us from the house.
“No Birdy this morning,” Rich said. “Besides, the kid was already awake.
Waiting for me, too, ambush-style.”
“For real?” Terry looked at me. “Good for you.”
“Will you guys take the love-fest outside and let me get dressed?” Danny said.
“Sure.” Rich looked at his watch. “Four minutes. Chop-chop.”
I followed Rich and Terry outside and started stretching. Danny joined us a few minutes later. Once we were all warmed up, we walked to the street.
Rich checked his watch and glanced at me. “How far do you run?”
“Farther than you,” I said.
He chuckled without looking up. Then he pushed a button. “All right, let’s move out.”
I thought he’d try to outrun me, but he settled into a distance-eating pace.
We ran for an hour in silence before Danny spoke up.
“That’s enough for me,” he said. “Have fun with your pissing contest, gents.”
Rich simply nodded as Danny peeled off and headed toward the house.
He took it for granted that he was tougher than his brother.
Terry glanced at me. “You good?”
“I’m good.”
“Hooyah.”
I felt I’d earned a bit of respect, if not exactly friendship.
We ran another half-hour before Terry checked his watch. “Any time, Rich,” he said. “This isn’t Hell Week.”
“You head home if you want,” Rich said. “I’m still good to go.”
“Copy that,” Terry said. He angled across the street and turned into the neighborhood.
“I can keep this up all day,” I said to Rich.
“So can I.”
We fell silent and pushed on, each too stubborn to quit before the other.
We probably would have run ourselves to death if Christy and her mother hadn’t intervened. The sun had been up about an hour when we spotted them coming toward us. Rich seemed ready to run right past them, but his mother wasn’t having it.
“Rich! Paul!” She waved.
Rich glared at me sideways, and for the first time I actually felt sorry for the guy. He couldn’t fight his mother, so I decided to cut him some slack.
“On the count of three?” I said.
He chuckled with actual amusement. “Sure.”
“Three… two… one… mark.”
We slowed at exactly the same time. I was a bit surprised. I thought he’d keep running a second or two longer than I did, but he played it straight.
He pressed a button on his watch.
I looked at mine. “Fifteen miles?”
“About that,” he agreed.
We reached Christy and her mother.
“I was hoping we’d run into you,” Anne said. “Will you walk with us?”
“We’d be delighted, mother dear,” Rich said. He wasn’t breathing any heavier than I was.
I stopped at a water fountain and drank a few sips, just enough to wet my mouth.
“Not too much,” Rich cautioned.
I glared in irritation. “Yeah, I know.”
“Relax.” He drank about a mouthful.
“Did you boys have a good run?” Anne asked as we started walking.
We chatted about random things for the next thirty minutes. Rich and I stopped at several water fountains and slowly rehydrated ourselves, and our unofficial truce held as we finished a circuit of the walking path.
The rest of the morning was fairly low-key, and after lunch we played a game of touch football. It was a tradition, and everyone but Anne played, even the little kids. Harold and Danny were the quarterbacks, and the rest of us played with varying degrees of seriousness. The Carmichael men?
Competitive to the core. The women in the family? Mostly there to have fun with the kids.
Dinner was a less-formal repeat of Thanksgiving, with plenty of food and wide-ranging conversation. I learned that Marianne’s father was on the Board of Trustees at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Terry surprised us both when he said that his mother was a working artist in Santa Fe. The three of us and Christy had a surprisingly interesting conversation about everything from Matisse and Cézanne to Southwestern arts and crafts.
The playing cards came out after dinner, and I almost won the first game of Florida. Harry edged me out by two lousy points. I did middling-well in the second game, much to Harold’s disgust. He was sitting on my left, and I never discarded anything he could use. His draws weren’t any better, and he came in dead last.
“Well,” he said after Jim read out the scores, “I know when to quit while I’m not so far ahead. Gentlemen, let’s take our drinks and retire to the living room.”
The women were chatting there with drinks of their own. Jim gathered Lynne with a gesture, and they sat at the piano together. He played softly, while she leaned with her back against his shoulder and sipped her wine in quiet contentment. Everyone was in a relaxed mood, even Rich, who joined Sabrina on the floor to look through fashion magazines with the older girls.
I was feeling a little woozy from drinking too much whiskey too quickly,
and also a little overwhelmed by the perfect people around me.
“You wanna go for a walk?” I asked Christy quietly. She was sitting on the arm of my chair with her drink balanced on her knee. She immediately sensed that something was wrong.
“Um… sure. Let me get a sweater.”
I set my glass aside and stood a bit unsteadily.
“I think we’re gonna go for a walk,” I told Danny, who was talking with Marianne on the couch next to me.
“To the beach?” he asked. “You want company?”
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“No and yes. In that order. I think we’re just gonna walk around the block. I need to clear my head.”
Marianne glanced at my empty glass and then my eyes. She understood immediately. “It takes a bit of getting used to, doesn’t it?”
I nodded.
“What?” Danny asked.
“All the booze,” she told him. “Your family drinks like fish. I think I was tipsy the entire first Christmas I spent with the Carmichael clan.” She laughed softly. “I’m pretty sure that’s when Virginia was conceived.”
He actually turned pink, and I had to force myself not to smile. Christy looked exactly the same when she blushed.
Christy herself returned wearing her sweater and carrying my jacket.
Outside, the cold air did wonders for my fuzzy head. We set off hand-in-hand and walked in silence for ten minutes or so.
“Better?” she said eventually.
“Much. Thanks.”
“I guess I forget how much we drink sometimes. It’s just so natural for me. Part of who we are.”
“Well,” I admitted, “I was also feeling a little overwhelmed.”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“Your family. How do I put this? They’re all so… perfect.”
That wasn’t what she thought I was going to say. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s start with Danny. He looks like the actor who plays him in the movie of his life. And he’s engaged to a supermodel.”
“Sabrina isn’t a supermodel.”
“But she’s still a model.”
“Well, yes, but not like Cheryl Tiegs or Christie Brinkley or anything.”
“Still, most models never make it into magazines like Cosmopolitan and Elle.”
“So?”
I ignored the question and continued, “Jim is a seriously good pianist, like professional. Not to mention that he and Lynne are both really good-looking.
Harry is on the fast track to be an admiral, and Marianne is one of the most cultured, elegant women I’ve ever met. On top of that, she’s actually warm and friendly.”
“She is,” Christy admitted. “I’m totally jealous of her sometimes.”
“Even Rich is at the top of his game. I mean, he’s probably the only one of you who isn’t model handsome, but he isn’t ugly. And Danny makes it sound like SEALs are even more selective than aviation. Believe me, I grew up in a Navy family, so I know that pilots think they’re the best of the best.”