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NOW
Our Town closed the following night, to rave reviews from all the parents and teachers in attendance. Joanna went straight home afterwards and fell into bed, exhausted and happy.
That Monday, Poppa asked Joanna how she’d feel about having Erik and his mother for Thanksgiving dinner, as they always had before. Her stomach clenched, but there was no point pretending that she didn’t want to see him again. She had Wednesday off and spent the day shopping, baking, and cleaning while Poppa worked overtime to clear the rest of his week. Thanksgiving had always been a small affair for her family but one that she loved. She spent much of Thursday morning on the phone with Mary and setting the table with the best linens and dishes that they owned. Andy was working that day, she said, but she was roasting a turkey anyway and was going to make him “the best damn turkey sandwich he’s ever eaten” later that night. “Sort of an in-your-face, look-we’re-poor-but-happy joke Thanksgiving,” she laughed.
Joanna told her about the car ride with Erik after Our Town the week before, and Mary squealed. “So—you two are back together?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure,” Joanna admitted. “He asked, I said no, and he said he’s not giving up. I guess the ball’s in his court.” She couldn’t deny a frisson that bubbled up every time she looked at the clock and realized he would be here in just a matter of hours.
They continued to chat while Joanna made place cards for the table and folded the napkins into little boats that she placed on top of the plates. It was silly, she knew—only four people at the table, after all. But it made her feel accomplished, and it kept her hands busy while she waited for the excitement to start. Mary told her about her new job, nannying for the children of a pediatrician who had a private practice near Andy’s hospital. Two little girls, three and one. She spent her days carting them from storytime to music class—“Music class for toddlers?” Joanna asked. “It’s glorified hang-out time for the moms and nannies,” Mary told her—to naptime to playground and then back home in time for dinner. Their mother had passed away suddenly only a few months after the younger girl was born, and the father was only now putting the pieces back together, Mary told her. “Rhea, the baby, called me Mama the other day,” she said in a tight voice, “And I thought their dad was going to burst into tears. It was so sad. I tried to play it off like she was just trying to say Mary, but it was so awkward.”
“The poor girls.”
“I know.” But, despite the sadness of their situation and the catch-as-catch-can aspect of her young marriage, Mary was happy. “The weather sucked all summer. So hot, you can’t believe it. I wanted to die every time I stepped outside, and then everyone keeps their AC blasting inside, so it’s freezing every time you step inside somewhere. But now it’s perfect. It’s sunny and in the 60s today. What’s it there?”
Joanna glanced out the window. “Blustery. Flurries. Cold. Should be dark by 4.”
“Yeah, I don’t miss that,” Mary laughed.
“Maybe you’ll be one of those rich doctors’ wives who have houses in every climate, so you can always get the weather you want.”
“Maybe.”
After Joanna hung up with Mary, she called Shoshana, whose family was hosting about 30 relatives from all over the country for dinner. Shoshana sounded harried, and Joanna could hear younger cousins wreaking havoc throughout their conversation, but they managed to catch up for a few minutes and promised to call again soon.
By then, the dining room was set, the hors d’oeuvres were prepped, and Poppa had taken over the kitchen. Joanna ran upstairs to take a shower and get ready for the evening. After trying on every combination of clothing she could think of over the previous two days, she had settled on her red heels—their presence during that disastrous dinner with Ronnie notwithstanding, they really were her favorite shoes—with a navy blue wrap dress. She twisted her hair into a low chignon and wore her dangly silver earrings.
When she came back downstairs, dinner was pretty much ready, and Poppa had gone up to take his own shower. The snow was falling thicker now, but it wasn’t sticking yet. Erik and Mrs. Donovan were due any minute; Joanna resisted the temptation to pace by picking out some music to listen to. She settled on Patty Griffin, turned low, and had just pressed play when there was a knock on the front door.
Erik gave her a hesitant smile, his eyes seeming to pin her in place, as he shook the snow from his hair and stomped his feet on the mat. Mrs. Donovan gave Joanna a light, stiff hug, a shy smile, and a small basket with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and a dozen blueberry muffins. “I thought we’d contribute a little something,” she said. Joanna thanked her and ushered them both inside.
“Well, hello!” Poppa said, coming down the stairs. His hair was still damp, combed back from his forehead, and he had changed into his off-day khakis and a plaid shirt. Erik was wearing almost the same thing, Joanna realized with a rush of affection for them both. Mrs. Donovan followed Poppa into the living room, leaving Joanna and Erik in the mud room, looking at each other in the small space.
“Thanks again for the cocoa last week,” she said quietly after a moment.
“My pleasure. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Happy Thanksgiving.”
She watched him hang his mother’s coat, and then she led him into the living room, where Poppa and Mrs. Donovan were already sitting and chatting quietly. Erik opened the bottle of wine they’d brought, and passed glasses around. “Well—that lasted long,” he quipped, placing the empty bottle on the kitchen counter and coming back to the living room. He settled on the couch where Joanna was sitting, though he stayed on the far side.
Sitting so close to Erik that she could see every flick of his wrist in her peripheral vision proved difficult, so Joanna made herself indispensable until dinner was ready and on the table. Bits and pieces of the conversation—the latest on Poppa’s search for a younger associate; the book sale at the Grace Public Library, where Mrs. Donovan had worked for decades; Erik’s travels with Ro—flitted in and out of Joanna’s ears as she refilled glasses, rearranged hors d’oeuvre trays, and checked on things in the kitchen.
They’d finished a second bottle of wine by the time they traipsed into the dining room and made more noise settling into their seats than four people usually would. There were two chairs on each side of the table—Poppa and Joanna sat on one side, with Mrs. Donovan and Erik across from them. Joanna took a sip of her wine and noticed Erik glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, before he put his napkin in his lap. She felt a buzz—from the alcohol, to be sure, but from him, too.
Poppa always liked to start Thanksgiving dinner with everyone saying what they were grateful for that year, and he always liked to go first, so, once everyone was settled, he cleared his throat and, in what Joanna called his Court Voice, said, “There’s a lot to be grateful for this year. We’re all here, and we’re healthy and happy.” He paused, looking down at his plate. He was a crier; Joanna could feel it coming. But he just cleared his throat and finished quietly: “I like having a full table in my house. It’s been a long time without a full table here.”
Everyone was quiet for a minute, and then Joanna piped up. “I’m grateful this year for…” She tilted her head, considering how to put the last year into words. “Learning new ways to look at things I thought I’d understood.”
“Oh, I like that one, Jo,” Mrs. Donovan breathed, looking around the table. “I’d say that learning new ways of seeing things is one of life’s most important lessons.” Erik looked at Joanna through lowered eyes and, though she’d been alluding to far more than just him, she was glad he’d been there to hear it.
“Adele, why don’t you go next?” Poppa said.
Mrs. Donovan responded with an intense but short-lived blush, high on her cheeks, and a self-deprecating smile. “I would have to say,” she began. “This year, I’m grateful simply for the life that I live. It isn’t the one I planned on when I was sixteen—” Everyone laughed knowingly. “—or even at your age, Jo, but here I am, sitting next to my son, sharing a table with steadfast friends…” She shrugged. “When I was a girl, planning my life, I didn’t even know to want these things, but I got them anyway.”
“All right, my turn,” Erik said, laying his palms flat on the table on either side of his plate. “Mr. B., Mom, Joanna—I’m grateful this year that, um, that things are…well, just that they’re falling into place. Work is good. Ro and I are good. I got to see a great play last week,” he added, smiling at Joanna. “And things just feel like they’re…settling.” Mrs. Donovan patted his arm; Joanna smiled down at her lap.
After a moment, Poppa piped up and said, “I know I already went, but I’m also grateful for this enormous spread on the table! Who’s hungry?”
There followed the chaos of passing plates, serving food, pouring drinks, and loudly asking the types of questions that tend to start conversations. When things had settled, and there was a brief lull in the conversation, Mrs. Donovan asked Joanna how the semester at Grace High was going so far.
“You know, I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve liked it,” she said, taking a small sip of wine.
“Erik says the play last week was very good.”
“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him. He shrugged and smiled back. “I don’t know how much of the credit I can really take for that, but thank you.”
“What is your job, exactly, day-to-day?” she continued.
“Well, without the play going on, my job is technically to assist Mike with his last period every day, which is an intro class. But we’ve noticed that it works better if we split the kids into, basically, two groups. There are some kids with no experience and then some who are very experienced and just need the prerequisite so they can get into Theater 2 in the spring. So, there’s a big range of skill, and it was hard keeping everyone on the same page. So I take the less-experienced students and work with them, and Mike does the same with the other group. I’m doing a lot of fundamentals with my kids—diction, projection, genres of theater, a little bit of theater history, stage presence, that kind of thing.” Joanna pointed her fork at Erik and asked him, “Do you remember, in Our Town, the dead man in the third act? He didn’t have any lines, but he was there with Emily after she died?”
Erik thought for a second and nodded vaguely. “I think so. Kind of.”
“Well, the guy who played him is Jesse Bradley. Oh—he’s Mr. Young’s nephew!” The others nodded at this connection. “Anyway, he’s never been in a play before. He signed up for the class because he needed the credit. He barely even speaks. His posture is awful, he was grumpy with me for the whole first month. That kind of kid.” Joanna laughed lightly, feeling the wine warming her belly, and gave Erik a sidelong glance. “He’s as bad as you were, to be honest. Not as nice, but just as bad.”
Erik raised his eyebrows and shot back, “I seem to recall getting you a passing grade with that scene study.”
“Yeah, a B-!”
“You’re welcome,” he said, grinning.
She giggled and waved her hand in his direction, dismissing him—We’re flirting! Joanna realized suddenly, feeling flush on her chest and cheeks—then paused and looked at everybody at the table. “Well anyway, that kid got it in his head to audition for the play, because of the work he’d done in the class! And he got in! No lines, and a very minor role, but who cares? For him to even entertain the notion of speaking in front of people…? I mean, I didn’t watch the auditions, but I can only imagine how terrified he must have felt, poor guy.” She speared a bit of turkey and dipped it into some cranberry sauce and then held her fork above her plate and continued. “I have to admit, I was way more excited about Jesse getting cast than anyone else. He was the only one who did something so radically out of his…out of his worldview. And he came to every rehearsal he was called for, he took care of his costume, he goofed around with the rest of the cast—sometimes…” She stuck the turkey in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “I was just so proud of him,” she said around her bite. And then, swallowing, she looked at Mrs. Donovan, who’d been listening with her hands placed calmly in her lap. “So—yeah. That’s how it’s going. I thought it would just be this little job, just a way to make money and have some fun. And it is. But I’m actually getting a lot out of it too. And learning a lot.”
Erik spoke up next, addressing Poppa and his mother. “One thing that struck me about Our Town is the fact that I was watching high schoolers. I kept forgetting that, because the characters all age pretty significantly, throughout the play, don’t they?”
“Yeah—I mean, George and Emily are almost 30, I guess, when the show is over, so yeah, they age a bit.”
“Okay, and some of the characters are killed in World War I, and the stage manager character is presenting it during the Depression, so there’s a lot of…stuff going on behind the scenes for the characters. And they did a great job, portraying all of that. You could tell—or I could tell, anyway—that the kids had been taught what it was really about and not just what their lines were.” And then, with an air of propriety, he added, “It’s something Joanna’s always taken really seriously.”
They talked for a few minutes more about the show and then the conversation moved naturally to football and then the Christmas art market downtown and then whether or not they thought Sheila Rood was really planning to close her diner or whether that was just a rumor and then to all of the other topics that people who have known each other for twenty years float through, and Joanna participated in all of it but with a feeling like she was holding onto a secret.
Erik was proud of her.
The party broke up a little after nine, at which point Mrs. Donovan was yawning more often than not. The table was littered with the remains of their feast, and Mrs. Donovan pushed herself out of her chair, swaying a tiny bit on her feet.
“Time to go?” Erik asked, looking up at her.
“I think so, sweetheart.”
The four of them said their goodbyes at the table, but then Poppa and Joanna got up to escort their guests to the door. As they crossed the threshold into the living room, Erik grabbed Joanna’s elbow and pulled her back so that it was just the two of them standing together. Joanna swayed a little bit as she looked up at him, realizing only now just how much wine she’d had tonight. It made her feel giddy and expectant.
“I wanted to say goodnight to you personally,” Erik told her, looking down at her with a small smile. Joanna smiled back, all of her nerves standing at strict attention. “And so, goodnight,” he said. They both laughed a little. “And—I just want you to know that this is entirely selfish of me and not meant to win you back in any way. It’s just something I’m dying to do.”
“What?”
He slid an arm around Joanna’s waist and took a step toward her, until their bodies were fully aligned, and then he lowered his head and kissed her on the lips.
The shock made her feel like she was sixteen again and on that high school stage. Like that kiss, this one didn’t last long—just long enough for her to reacclimate herself to the particular warmth and pressure that Erik’s lips had. Then, he stepped back, dropped his arm, cleared his throat, and turned to join his mother at the door. Meanwhile, Joanna felt the impact of his lips on hers and his hand on the small of her back so strongly, it was several seconds before she was able to shake her head slowly and follow him to say goodnight.