“Okay . . .” He placed his finger on the doorbell. “Wanna use this?”
Emira said, “Yes,” and Kelley pressed the button. Together they waited and Emira held her breath.
“Hey.” Kelley touched her waist as the doorbell chime sang. “What’s your boss’s name again?”
“Mrs. Chamberlain.”
“Do I have to call her that? What’s her first name, just in case?”
“Umm . . . it’s like”—Emira adjusted her thick black braid on her shoulder—“Ellix?”
“Ellen?”
“No.” Emira put her head to his shoulder. “It’s Alex but it’s weird. It’s like, uh-leeks?”
“Emira.” He grinned. “How do you not know this?”
“I do, it’s just not what I call her. Just call her Mrs. Chamberlain. Shh!”
They readjusted and waited in silence.
In the painful pause, Kelley, once again, leaned toward Emira. “Is she European or something?”
“I don’t know, maybe?”
“What do you mean maybe?”
“Jesus, Kelley. I don’t know, she’s white.”
Kelley laughed into the top of his coat. “Okay, miss. Let me kiss you before they come.”
Emira leaned into him, and she felt his lashes close on her face. They backed away as Mrs. Chamberlain opened the door.
“Emira, you made it!” Mrs. Chamberlain’s blond hair was curled at the ends, and it flew with the gust of the door. Fumes of candlelight, pumpkin pie, and brandy came with her.
Emira said, “Hi, Mrs. Chamberlain, thanks so much for—” But then Mrs. Chamberlain said, “Ohmygod,” with both panic and recognition, as if she’d almost walked into a very clean glass door.
Emira watched Mrs. Chamberlain’s face go into the same warfare that her daughter’s did when schedule did not go according to plan, or when Emira tried to read to her at night. With her hand on the door, Mrs. Chamberlain seemed to brace herself as if she were preparing to be hit, or as if she already had been and barely made it out alive.
Kelley seemingly woke up, blinked twice, and said, “Alex?”
PART THREE
Thirteen
Alix checked herself in the mirror (she wore a deliciously chunky oatmeal-colored sweater over tight jeans and brown boots). She walked downstairs with Catherine in her carrier (she whispered to Tamra, “I think she’s here”), and then, as she swung the door open, she stepped back and tapped herself fifteen years into the past. In front of her stood both a grown man and a high school junior, and this person that embodied them both was saying, “Alex?” as if he knew her.
There, next to her babysitter, stood Kelley Copeland, William Massey High School, class of 2001. Alex Murphy’s first everythings (blowjobs, sex, I love you, heartbreak), and a million insecurities in between. On top of his unbelievable presence on Alix’s front stoop, the way he’d said her name had momentarily paralyzed her. Alex. It sounded whiny and pedestrian, and it felt like she’d discovered a vegetable deep in a refrigerator drawer, forgotten so long that the mold it gained had also started to gain mold. Her heart buzzed as she thought, No, it’s not possible, but the more they stood before her, she thought, Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Emira laughed once and said, “Wait, what?” as she looked from Alix to Kelley.
Catherine started to squirm in the cold and Alix said, “Umm, come in, come in . . . it’s freezing.”
Emira and Kelley stepped into the vestibule, and Alix closed the door behind them thinking, Kelley Copeland is in my house. Past the vestibule door, Alix saw all the people she loved most surrounded by the campy Thanksgiving decorations she’d piled high in her trunk just days before, all glittering beneath a dumb fucking turkey piñata. It was all much akin to the over-the-top décor her parents would have paid for someone to assemble on 100 Bordeaux Lane, and for a moment Alix actually thought, How fast can I throw all this garbage away? It wasn’t supposed to look like this. It was supposed to be a joke.
“Is this the wonderful Emira?” Jodi’s beige poncho flowed past her elbows as she came forward. “We’re so happy to meet you. I’m Jodi.”
“Don’t be scared.” Rachel hugged Emira next. “We just feel like we know you already. Hi, boyfriend. I’m Rachel.”
“Kelley. Nice to meet you.”
Fuck fuck fuck.
Tamra came down the stairs appearing, as she typically did, presidential and important. She opened both of her arms to Emira as if she were a ringmaster at the top of the show, and said, “Emira? Bring it in, sister.” She embraced Emira as Alix tried unsuccessfully to lock eyes with Jodi. “Happy Thanksgiving, girlfriend. Let’s get you a drink.”
The three women seized Emira and took her to the bar, where the bartender asked if she’d like red or white. Just outside the front vestibule where she’d read so many of his text messages, Alix stood with Catherine and Kelley. Catherine kicked her legs and chewed a sock she’d pulled off her foot. For the first time ever, Alix wished she hadn’t strapped her daughter to her chest.
“You look . . .” Alix had no idea what to say or where to put her hands. “Very much the same.”
Because he so heartbreakingly did. His tallness was still shocking and his hands seemed almost freakishly huge. This was Emira’s boyfriend. This was Kenan&Kel. This was the guy Emira met on the train who’d told her that he was excited to see her tonight.
“Thank you.” Kelley looked up at the chandelier above the table that stretched twelve places long, and the red and brown turkey piñata that swiveled slightly in the blasts of heat that came up from the floors. He was seemingly assessing the rest of his evening when he said, “I see nothing has changed for you either.”
“Excuse me?”
But before he could answer, Peter was walking over and sticking his hand out to Kelley like it was a football on the first day of the season. He smiled and said, “Peter Chamberlain,” the way he did on TV.
Walter joined Peter to alight on the only other male presence in the house aside from baby Payne, who was fast asleep. Rachel, Jodi, and Tamra were interrogating Emira with drinks in their hands, and nodding furiously at all of her answers. Alix removed Catherine from her chest and placed her in a playpen beneath a soft arch of hanging moons and stars. She paced halfway up the stairs, locked eyes with Jodi, and mouthed over the banister, “Come here.”
Upstairs the kitchen was still. The counters were stocked with yams, mashed potatoes, bread rolls, and asparagus waiting on top of burners and under sweating foil lids. Next to the girls’ bedroom, Alix stepped over a case of red wine on the floor and opened the door to the tiny laundry room, which was more of a substantial closet by New York standards. When she heard Jodi’s footprints change from carpet to wood, she reached for her friend and pulled her inside.