“So tell us about the Spotlight!” I ask the People Puppets. We haven’t been together in weeks: I need details.
“What about it?” Nick says.
“Anything!” I say.
Phoebe laughs nervously and so does Nick. “It’s a surprise!” they both blurt at the exact same time.
“Really? Is this a new thing? Embargoing news about the performance program?”
“I’m not sure,” Nick says. “It’s our first year doing this, but Grace says it’s traditional to keep the parents in the dark until the big night. The collaborative work the kids do with the visiting artists is supposed to be kind of a sacred surprise.”
Grace. “A sacred surprise. That sure sounds ominous!”
“Does it?” Nick asks.
“It’s always this way, Mom,” Teddy says, nodding at Nick. “We prepare in secret for the big reveal when the parents come.”
Gary nods, too. “Didn’t they do this for Zirkus Schmirkus, our first Inhabitancy at Morningside, Judy? Teddy wouldn’t tell us if he would be swinging from a trapeze or getting shot out of a cannon. It was all hush-hush. As it turned out it was neither: just some somersaults and minor acrobatics on colored mats.”
“I was only eight!” Teddy says defensively, but he is smiling, beaming actually, in the center of the big table of food and people. He’s already helped himself to seconds and elbowing Nick to see if he wants more, too.
“I know!” I say. “Which is why we were trying to find out if we should be terrified before the show or not!”
“Yeah, well, we’re excited,” Phoebe says. “I think you’ll really enjoy it.”
I’m not ready to give up yet. “So there’s nothing—not a single little hint or tidbit—you can give us?”
“Well.” Nick shrugs, finally cracking under the pressure. “There are six skits—one for each of the grouped grades: preschool, kindergarten, first through third, third through sixth, and the middle school.”
I’m chewing and counting in my head. “So that’s five.”
I feel a kick under the table and assume it’s Gary, signaling me to shut up already, but he’s totally preoccupied with his food. That’s when I notice Phoebe glaring at Nick.
“Did I say something wrong?” I say as innocently as possible.
“No! No! No!”
I’ve stopped chewing and I am now watching Nick’s and Phoebe’s facial expressions like a tennis match. I put my napkin down. “Okay, guys. Come clean. What are you hiding?”
“Okay, we’re busted,” Phoebe says, with a huge eye-roll and a big laugh. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
“The sixth skit is going to be a solo, a special ‘Spotlight after the Spotlight.’ Just Phoebe and me, no kids.”
“Oh! Cool!” I’m relieved but still not convinced anything they’re saying is true.
“We just wanted to do something special. You know, since this is our first Inhabitancy. We want to make it as special and as entertaining as possible for everyone. Including you. Especially you! We’re so grateful that you opened up your home to us and that you shared so much about yourself—about why you wear the dog, all the feelings and life experience behind it. You didn’t have to be so honest. Especially during such a difficult time.” Nick’s voice cracks. He tears up.
“Especially during such a difficult time,” Phoebe echoes.
She takes Nick’s hand and holds it tight until he collects himself. He smiles at her, puts his forehead against hers and closes his eyes, then picks his spoon back up and inhales the rest of what’s in his chili bowl.
“We were happy to have you,” Gary says. “And we barely even saw you!”
I’m still trying to figure out what they mean by “especially during such a difficult time”—whether they know about the tuition credit we’re getting, or if they were indeed at the reservoir the day I accidentally stumbled upon Gary and his girlfriend, in which case they know far more than they’re saying—when Nick leans forward with his glass raised:
“At first we felt like we made new friends, but now we feel like we have a new extended family,” Nick says. “Another set of parents, but younger than our real ones, and a cool half sibling. We love this guy,” he says, patting Teddy on the back.
Teddy looks up and smiles with teeth. “Really?”
“Of course. You’re the coolest kid in the school.”
“No I’m not.” He blushes, but his eyes say tell me more.
“Are you kidding? When you played the guitar the other day during music, didn’t you see how all the kids were in awe?” Nick turns to Gary and then to me. “They were in awe.” Then he turns back to Teddy. “I wish I could play like that.”
“And, not to mention the dog,” Phoebe adds, “who is clearly the glue that keeps this whole family together.”
We all clink glasses and smile and wipe our eyes and pet Charlotte, who is running around, wagging her tail and whoring for attention, checking in with each of us with paws and barks. I feel like such an asshole. Here I was, as always, untrusting and suspicious, ready to suspect two young puppets of something creepy and criminal, when all they wanted to do was connect with us.
I pick up the dog and pet her as she settles onto my lap. “Well, we’ll all be there with bells on.”
“Even Glennie?” Teddy asks, his face wide open with hope.
I swallow hard and force a smile. “I’m not sure she’s up to it right now.”
“But Charlotte’s coming, right?” Phoebe asks.
“Charlotte is definitely coming,” I say. Teddy rolls his eyes but lets Charlotte lick his fingers when he reaches out to pet her.
Nick and Phoebe beam. “Excellent!”
* * *
Later that night, after Teddy goes up to his room to make Glenn a get-well card and the People Puppets are back in the basement, Gary and I finish the dishes, scraping and rinsing and loading plates and glasses and silverware onto the racks of the dishwasher. Usually I rearrange the plates to line up evenly on the left side—straightening them from how Gary throws them in there, seemingly without any rhyme or reason, but tonight I don’t. Why bother controlling something so meaningless when everything else seems to be spinning out into the universe?
“Well, that was fun,” Gary says as I shut the faucet off and bury my hands inside a dish towel. “But I’m sad. I feel like the People Puppets just got here and now they’re leaving. Time really flies.”
I keep my nervous hands hidden inside the towel.
“Do you think we’ll actually see them after they leave or was that all just bullshit?”
I shrug. “It’s probably bullshit, but I wish it weren’t.”
“You do?”
I shrug again. “Sure I do. I miss having a family.”
He stares at me. “But you have a family, Judy. Teddy and me. We’re your family.”
“I know, but—”
“Okay, Judy. What’s going on?”
I shrug. “What do you mean?”
“You’re upset, so you might as well tell me what’s wrong so we can go to sleep. We do have to sleep in the same room tonight, but don’t worry,” he says more sharply now, “you’ll have the place to yourself soon enough. Just a few more nights of pretending to be married and things will go back to normal. Whatever that means.”