I tried every year to teach them about gift giving by giving them actually nice things, but this seemed to embarrass them, like I didn’t understand the cheapness rule. One time I gave them each an eight-dollar bacon-chocolate bar from Whole Foods in their stockings, and really nice bubble bath stuff for Sandy, perfume for Grace, an iPod speaker that looked like a panda for Jake, and for their father, an iPod shuffle. They eyed the bacon-chocolate bars but wouldn’t even open them. I tried not to get involved when Peter bought his family gifts, but it was hard not to interject and pick out better things.
We pulled into the driveway. The sky looked naked without any buildings to cover it. The house was small and yellow. Before I could figure out a way to sneak off to smoke, Grace nodded at me to follow her through the side entrance.
Everything was way too bright and way too noisy. I thought of the sanctuary of Elizabeth’s bedroom when she was strung out: darkness and a movie playing on a tiny laptop screen. Candles. Getting off dope was like coming back from the dead and like being reborn. The way to kick was to make the world as warm and womblike as possible. The birth experience of the bustling scene at Peter’s parents’ house was jarring and raw. Everything hit too hard, and emotions came out of nowhere. Their sad little house they were so proud of. How they had worked hard and done their best. How they loved their children. No matter where you went on Earth, there were parents who loved their kids and laughed at their jokes and wanted to know everything they did.
Behind me, Peter was carrying all of our bags like a Sherpa. Their skinny, tired son carrying all the bags while I walked in empty handed.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you,” Peter’s mother said as she embraced me. His father asked if Peter needed help. Peter shook his head. “Where are we sleeping?” he asked.
“In Jake’s old room,” his father said. Peter walked to the back of the house, leaving me there with all of them. Sue walked in, thin-boned, wearing blue jeans and a tight black sweater, her hair in a ponytail. We shook hands. “You look so cold,” she said. Her body was perfect. Her smile showed ultrawhite teeth. She was a ray of sunshine. I was doom and gloom and could hardly muster a smile. I wanted her to like me. I hated her instantly.
“Yeah, I’m kind of cold.” I was still wearing my coat. I kept waiting for the warmth to hit me after I came in, but there was no heat.
“Oh, sorry about that,” Sandy said.
You couldn’t say, “Please turn on the heat because I can’t stop shivering in your freezing shitty house.” You couldn’t say, “I’m just going to go to a bedroom because I’d rather read than talk to any of you.” You couldn’t say, “This is my first day off dope, and all of this is overwhelming.” You couldn’t say, “Let’s cut the bullshit. You don’t give a shit where I’m from, just like I have no interest in any of the questions I will force myself to ask so I don’t appear rude. So I’ll just shut myself in your freezing porch and watch your shitty television until it’s time to go, and you can ignore me and hang out with your kid.”
“No, it’s fine,” I smiled.
Sue opened the oven door and looked in.
“Are you making something?” I asked.
“Yeah, a pie,” she said. A fucking pie?
“Like, from scratch?” I asked, trying not to look down her top at her tits. She was wearing a hot pink bra. But Jake was looking too, so whatever.
“Yeah, me and Jake found the recipe last night, so this morning we all went to the market, and I bought the ingredients.”
“Why are you still wearing your coat?” Peter, coatless, asked. How can any of them stand it, I wondered.
“She’s cold. Maybe I can ask your father to start the fire.”
Jake wrapped his arms around Sue and said, “Maybe just turn the heat on.” Why did they have to be touching? It felt obscene somehow, like they were so obsessed with each other they had to always be touching. I wanted to be touched. I was pretty sure I would puke if anyone touched me.
“What’s going on?” Grace asked.
“Maya’s cold, so we were thinking of telling your father to start the fire,” Sandy said.
“Or we could put the heat on?” Grace replied.
“No, I’m. . it’s okay, I don’t mind. .” But Sandy was already walking away, calling, “Rick,” and then I heard my name. I should have just taken off my coat.
“Yeah, but the fire will take longer to warm the house, and we can’t have her sit there alone in front of the fire,” Grace said.
Peter’s father came down. “What’s up?”
“We were talking about putting the heat on.”
“The heat?” He wiped his forehead.
“Maya’s cold,” Jake said.
“I can put the fire on. .”
I wanted to literally vanish into thin air.
“We haven’t met, I’m Peter,” Peter said to Sue.
“Hey, Jake’s told me so much about you.” Sue put on Sandy’s apron. It had cherries all over it. I walked past Peter to Jake’s old bedroom and shut the door. I imagined my entire bag filled with heroin. Then all of this would have been very easy. Why did I even try to be clean? All my effort should have gone toward staying high all the time, I thought. I could smile and talk and be charming when I was high. I wasn’t self-conscious and weird. If not for me, then for the world. I started sweating. What could I do now? Tell them not to put the heat on and go through that whole hundred-year-long conversation. Sue and her amazing pie and her skinny waist and her smile — I wondered what it was like to be inside her head. She probably had her own insecurities. I needed a cigarette. I checked the time: five o’clock. Two hours of awkward conversations, and then just stuff your face and sit around the dining table for a while, and then off to bed. They went to sleep early, ten-ish. Just five hours. I fished out my cigarettes and my cell phone from my canvas bag.
I wanted a bag of dope so fucking bad. If I was sick, I could convince them to take me to the train, and then I’d go back home and get a bag. A rush of excitement filled me at the thought. It was okay, I would get high again. This was not for forever. This was like a job. A bad shift at a bad job.
After being numb for so long on dope, when I was finally faced with reality, I couldn’t handle the emotions. Not just the bad ones. The in-between ones too, like envy that Peter got along with his family, gratitude that these people were being nice to me and were willing to love me just for being there, and nostalgia when they played that Dylan song Peter sang on our first date. They wanted to like me, and all it did was make me feel lonely and insecure. I wiped the tears away and told myself to get it together. I was a grown-up and needed to act like one.
Back in the kitchen, Peter’s mother stood in front of a pot of some kind of meat, Sue and Peter chatted it up, and Rick held a plate of the cheeses Peter and I had bought yesterday at Whole Foods. That was the difference; Peter and I bought expensive cheese from Whole Foods while Sue baked a pie from scratch. That Sandy’s apron looked so cute on her was also troubling.
No one noticed me open the window. I was sweating through my clothes. I smelled like something that had died in the trash. At least if it was cold, I wouldn’t smell as bad.
“I should really go and call my mom,” I said to no one in particular, holding my phone as if they needed a visual aid. I turned and walked out, trying not to look at Peter’s face.
“Can you just not smoke for two fucking days,” he had said when I asked if I had to keep up this charade that we didn’t smoke.