Thomas listened to the banter, smiling. Part of it was done for his benefit, yes, but the Weavers truly had a solid marriage and didn’t mind needling each other. They reminded him of the Oxendines and their endless loving quarrels. It seemed only the older generations had these bonds. The marriages of the middle and upper classes of today were more like tenuous accords between historically hostile nation-states: there would be war, it was just a question of when. The marriages of the poor were sloppy and ridiculous, with far too many kids being popped out, more like the fumblings of naive teenagers (sometimes, quite literally) than a contract between two adults.
No, it was all too messy these days. Thomas was thankful he’d never slipped an overpriced ring on some princess’s manicured finger, even more thankful when he considered how Emily had gone AWOL a few days ago and thrown everything into confusion.
The door opened behind him. He figured it was Allison coming out to try another cast of the net, but it was a plastered, goggle-eyed, sweaty Reggie.
“Tommy! Tom! The Tomster!” he yelled. “What’re ya doing out here?”
“Needed some fresh air.”
“How much you need? You gonna stand out here and suck up the whole atmosphere? Oh, hey Benny, hey Maribel!”
He waved down to his landlords, who chuckled and waved back.
“Sounds like the party’s hopping, Reggie,” Benny said.
“Oh, it is, it is. It ain’t hopping too much, though, is it? Don’t want the noise to bother ya’ll.”
“It’s fine for now,” Maribel said. “Just don’t let it go on till too late, now, ya hear?”
“No problem. I’ll kick ’em all out at two o’clock, that good?”
“Yup, that works,” Benny said. “We’re about to retire, but we can sleep through hurricanes, so don’t mind us.”
“You can sleep through hurricanes,” Maribel said, “but I’m a light sleeper.”
“You slept through that one nor’easter just last week that banged on the house like a herd of elephants!”
They were at it again, and Reggie laughed and turned back to Thomas.
“Come on back in, Tommy,” he exhorted, nudging Thomas on the shoulder. “That nurse was giving you The Eye. She’s ready to drop those panties, all you have to do is spit a little game at her.”
“Yeah, she seems eager — but she’s also dumb as a post.”
Reggie spread out his arms and stared up at the heavens in exasperation. He mumbled a few words that Thomas didn’t catch; he may very well have been praying to a God he ignored pretty much all the time.
“Who cares about her intelligence?” Reggie demanded. “You’re gonna be ramming your rod into her vag-hole, not sipping Earl Grey and talking about Shakespeare!”
“Reggie, no need to yell,” Thomas said, motioning to the couple sitting below.
“Oh yeah, you’re right,” he said, looking shockingly abashed. “They don’t like my language sometimes.”
The Weavers, however, had both recognized that this conversation should not involve them. They got up creakily, complaining of bad joints and general decrepitude, said goodnight, and went inside. The light pouring out from the sliding-glass door on their back porch was extinguished, and curtains were drawn across it.
“Now we can talk like we want,” Reggie said, again giving Thomas a playful shoulder-nudge. “So let’s go. Talk.”
“Nice party. A few vixens…”
“Aw, hell, cut the crap. They ain’t worth two cents. I ain’t worth a nickel myself, but that’s still better’n those walking Instagram accounts. I wanna know what’s going on in Tommy’s world. Something’s bothering ya. So spill the beans.”
“Just not up to it tonight, Reggie. Thought I was. Felt like getting drunk and fucking some girl, but there’s this stuff holding me back.”
“What stuff?”
“Family stuff. Co-worker stuff.”
“I want details, Tommy! Tell Dr. Willis what ails ya.”
Thomas began reluctantly, but as soon as he got in a rhythm, the words poured out. He was soon going into minute detail, and he feared Reggie was going to interrupt him and say “Yeah, yeah, yeah, get to the point.” But Reggie stood there, as still as he could, his eyes as focused as a drunken man could possibly make them, and listened.
First, Thomas told him about Orianna. He described how she looked: her paleness, her fondness for bandannas, her tattoo. He recounted how she’d embarrassed him with “Are You Interested?” and how she’d caught him with a weeping Kara. Finally, he relived their moonlit walk by the docks, when Orianna had discarded Oxendine’s Grocery and ruined his evening — and, truth be told, his past several weeks.
He described how Orianna had given her notice on Christmas Eve, and how Vernon and she had agreed to a five-day notice instead of a two-week one. Her last night had been the 29th. Thomas wasn’t there. He hadn’t talked to her since the night of the Christmas Party, and he had no intention of being part of any farewell ceremony Vernon or anyone else might plan. Vernon tried to talk to him about all of this, since he seemed to know there had been some sort of disagreement between them, but Thomas had evaded him each time.
Next Thomas talked about his sister. He described their Christmas Eve dinner, and how Emily had suddenly raged up to her room. He placed a weirdly hysterical Dan on a front lawn in a quiet subdivision, and dragged a Jetta across said lawn and out into the vastness of Raleigh. He told Reggie how he’d fallen asleep instead of dealing with the drama.
He woke up from his soon-to-be-forgotten dreams with a parched mouth and a strong sense of guilt. Color was coming back into the world outside, but the sun had not yet risen. He pulled himself out of the sensual bed, sloshed some water in his mouth, took an epic shit, and went in search of a family member. He found everyone easily: they were all downstairs on the living room sofa, save Dennis, who was still sleeping contentedly. No one said Merry Christmas. They had, Thomas learned, been up all night waiting for Emily to return, and their vigil had taken its toll. His pajama-wearing parents looked haggard, but Dan’s appearance was downright shocking: he was startlingly ashen and hollow-eyed, and his hair, usually so well-combed and well-oiled, now looked like a bird’s nest, if the bird who’d built the nest had gone insane and forgotten its centuries-old nest-building instincts.
Thomas was strangely enlightened to learn there were actually honeycomb-licking bears on his pajamas, not sailboats or dinosaurs.
The accusing looks of the family suggested that, while Dennis may have been tacitly excused from the vigil due to his young age, Thomas was a grown man and should’ve counted down the dark minutes with them, especially since it was really his fault Emily had run away. Thomas apologized weakly, although no one had actually denounced him.
They made room for him on the couch, and he joined the vigil, proud to finally suffer with them. But after two minutes, he felt embarrassed because he’d crumbled beneath his family’s accusing stares, and he reasoned that suffering was pretty much pointless. He asked if Emily had contacted any of them in any way. She hadn’t. He asked if anyone had called Emily’s friends, her co-volunteers at the rape crisis center, or anyone else who may have acted as a port for Emily’s storm-tossed ship. No one had; Dan said he wanted this kept “within the family.” Thomas asked what they had been fighting about last night. Dan stated with almost childish obviousness that they’d had “a major marital quarrel.” Had they had any other quarrels recently? No — well, sort of, but nothing major like this. Thomas sighed and got up from the couch to go get some breakfast, to the disapproval of all. As he walked away, his mother started telling a story about the fisherman Emily made out of clay in the third grade, and his father told her to quit going off on tangents.