Parallel

NOVEMBER





10

HERE


THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2009

(Thanksgiving Day)


“You’re missing the parade.”

I peer out from under the covers and see Dad standing in my doorway, still in his bathrobe, holding a coffee mug. His thinning hair is all mussed up from sleeping on it.

“So are you,” I point out.

“That’s because I don’t have anyone to watch it with. Your mom is busy playing Martha Stewart in the kitchen.”

Even though it’s just the three of us this year (my grandparents are spending the month of November on a seniors’ tour of South America), my mom has planned an elaborate Thanksgiving meal involving excessively complicated recipes she found online.

“Meet in the living room in five?”

“Avoid the back stairs,” he warns. “If she sees you, she’ll put you to work. And then I can’t save you.”

I giggle. “Front stairs. Got it.” He nods, then disappears down the hall. I hear him shuffling down the steps. A few moments later, the TV comes on.

I spend another few minutes in bed. My bed. With all that’s been happening, I’m relieved to be home, in my room, where even the smells are familiar. Except for the blue Yale pennant hanging above my door frame and the graduation photos tacked to my bulletin board, everything is the way I left it when I moved to Los Angeles last May. It’s amazing how dramatically life can change while your bedroom decor stays exactly the same.

It’s been twenty-six days since my last reality shift, which is good, because the last one left me rattled. I haven’t been sleeping well, and when I’m awake, I’m distracted and uneasy. Replaying the horrible things Caitlin and I said to each other in the cafeteria that day is nowhere near as chilling and awful as reliving the night of Ilana’s accident (which I still do, at least once a day), but the memories of the fight and its aftermath haunt me in a different way. I used to think that waking up someplace else was my greatest risk. Now I know that there are far bigger things at stake. We’re all just a decision or two away from destroying the relationships that are most important to us and to the people we love. And most of the time, we never even know it.

Now I do. Now I see.

But this new awareness isn’t the only thing that’s throwing me off. There’s also the Josh factor. Against my will, my brain has stored that kiss from the day before Halloween last year in its Best Kiss Ever file, despite my attempts to replace it with one from Michael (who, it’s worth noting, is objectively the better kisser). But it’s not just the kiss that won’t go away. It’s every memory of Josh I’ve gotten since. Holding hands in the hall, sharing Skittles at the movies, watching him from across the room in astronomy. There’s nothing particularly significant about these moments, but that hasn’t kept my mind from making a freaking highlight reel out of them. Meanwhile my real memories, the new ones, the moments with Michael that I actually want to keep, have been relegated to Oh, That Happened status.

Michael. At the thought of him, my heart flutters a little and my stomach sinks. Joy competing with fear. The more serious we get, the more I dread our inevitable end. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like that end has come today. I haven’t run through my morning checklist yet, but with the blue pennant over my door and Caitlin’s bracelet on my wrist, I feel good about my odds. But I grab my phone off the nightstand to make sure.

The one perk to losing my phone on Halloween was the discovery that I was due for an upgrade, which meant I could get a fancier one for half the regular price. Since taking advantage of the offer required me to re-up my contract, I decided to get a new number, too. It’s silly, but having a 203 area code makes me feel rooted to New Haven, like I’ve somehow staked a claim to my existence there. Like I truly belong. The truth, of course, is that I don’t. I belong in L.A., or maybe at Northwestern, and no matter how many times I wake up to my current reality, I know that it won’t last. It can’t, now that Caitlin and my parallel aren’t speaking. Yale’s regular admission application deadline is a week away, and without Caitlin to talk her into it, there’s no way my parallel will apply. Truth be told, as thankful as I am to have gotten a few extra weeks with Michael, I can’t figure out why I’m still at Yale now. The way I figure, the fight with Caitlin erased any chance my parallel had of ending up here. Maybe she’ll decide on her own to apply? She’d better hurry. She only has a week till the deadline and, as of right now, she’s determined not to apply.

I tap the camera icon and scroll through the latest entries in my photo log. Thank God I backed up my phone three days before I lost it. Except for a few from the week before Halloween, I still have every photo I’ve taken since the collision. My life at Yale, in pictures. I skip over the one Caitlin took of Michael looking at another girl’s butt (I’d delete it, but it’s the only one I have from November 22) and pause on a shot of him and me at the Yale-Harvard Game last Saturday. We’re standing with our arms around each other in front of the Beta tailgate, holding Styrofoam cups of hot cider, our noses red from the cold. The next photo is from the night before, five seconds after Michael told me he loved me for the first (and so far only) time. We were in his kitchen, making microwave popcorn at three in the morning, when out of nowhere he said it. “You know I love you, Abby Barnes.” Just like that, as if he were stating the obvious. Yes, it was weird when I asked him if I could take a picture of him right after, but the weirdness was worth it for the proof.

I continue scrolling until I get to the picture from November 13, the morning they posted the cast list for Arcadia with my name at the very top. This one gets a grin every time. Rehearsals don’t start until the first week of next semester, but the Dramat held auditions early to get them out of the way before exams (which, unfortunately, start two weeks from Monday).

Of all of them, the tailgate photo is my favorite. My hair is down and wavy around my shoulders, and my eyes look almost silver in the midday sun. Michael’s green eyes are on me, and his mouth is open in a laugh. Neither of us looks particularly great, but there’s something so hi-we’re-a-happy-couple about the image.

Caitlin asked me yesterday if I’m in love with him. She knows Michael told me he loves me last Friday, and she also knows I didn’t say it back. I wanted to, but then the microwave dinged and one of his roommates came in and we all started eating popcorn. Not exactly an I-love-you-too scenario. Caitlin knows that part, too. So her question caught me off guard, surprising me enough to give me pause. Am I in love with him? How is a person supposed to distinguish between Love and Very Strong Like? Is the distinction all that important? Here’s what I know: I like being with him. I like the way he makes me feel. I like waking up next to him, fully clothed, and that being okay with both of us, on his flannel plaid sheets. Do those things add up to love? I think so, but I’m not sure. Which is exactly what I told Caitlin. She responded with some cryptic “trust your instincts” comment and wouldn’t elaborate.

Ding! A new text appears on my screen.

Michael: HAPPY T-DAY. CANT WAIT TO C U LATER.

I’m smiling as I reply: DITTO. DONT FORGET TO TEXT ME UR ADDY!

The next text I send is to Tyler. He’s been acting weird the last few weeks, enough to make me wonder if he’s mad at me for something. He and I talked for over an hour the day after Halloween, but since then, I haven’t been able to get him on the phone, and when he responds to my texts, it’s always with a one- or two-word reply. Not that Ty is a particularly loquacious texter, but I can usually count on him for some dry wit or not-so-veiled sarcasm.

U HOME? I write. CAN WE HANG OUT TOMORROW?

“Abby!” my mom is calling from the kitchen. “I need your help down here!”

“Coming!” I shout. I toss my phone on the bed and head down to the kitchen, where Mom is up to her elbows in turkey (literally). Dad is holding the bird while she stuffs it.

“She tricked me,” he declares. “Used the ol’ ‘come here a sec’ routine.”

“This turkey has to bake for six hours. It’s already eight twelve.” Mom is rapidly shoving handfuls of celery and onion into the hollow chest cavity. “Abby, there’s a ball of twine somewhere in the pantry. Can you see if you can find it, please? And there’s a bag of lemons in the fridge. I need those, too.”

“Sure.”

“So what time’s the boyfriend coming over?” Dad asks.

“Not sure yet. He doesn’t have a car, so I’m picking him up.” I emerge from the pantry with the twine. “How long a piece do you want?”

“I don’t know, check the recipe,” Mom replies, wiping away an onion-induced tear with her sleeve. “It’s on the counter over there.”

“So are things serious with this guy?”

“Dad.”

“What? You’ve never invited a guy for Thanksgiving before. It feels like a big deal.”

“Well, it’s not,” I insist, even though it feels that way to me, too. “He’s not that close with his family and doesn’t have any friends here because his parents moved after he was in college. So I invited him to eat with us. That’s it.”

“Why isn’t he close with his family?”

“I don’t know. But let’s not ask him that over dinner, okay?”

“Maybe you should give me a list of approved talking points before he arrives.”

I stick my tongue out at him. “Don’t you have a parade to watch?”

“Have you talked to Josh?” Mom asks when I hand her the twine. The question stops me cold.

“Uh, no,” I tell her, suddenly very interested in the burlap bag of cornmeal on the counter. “I should call him,” I say, because that’s what people say.

“You should,” Mom is saying. “I obviously don’t know what happened between you two, but he was always such a nice guy. If you can save the friendship, you should.”

“And next time you sever ties with an ex-boyfriend,” my dad pipes up, “clue us in, would ya? I had to hear from Josh that you stopped speaking to him. Over email, nonetheless.”

My head jerks up. “What?”

“When I sent you both that article about Lewis Carroll writing Alice in Wonderland in a rowboat,” he says. “A couple weeks ago. I asked if we’d see him while you were home, and he wrote back and said you’d stopped returning his calls.”

My heart begins to pound. A couple of weeks ago? My reality hasn’t changed since Halloween, so if my dad sent me an email, I should remember getting it. “I don’t think I got an email from you about Alice in Wonderland,” I tell him.

“Hm,” he says, puzzled. “That’s weird.”

“Will you forward Josh’s email to me?”

“Sure,” he replies.

“Done!” my mom announces, stepping back from the turkey. “Put that sucker in the oven,” she instructs, then walks to the sink to wash her hands. I open the oven door for my dad, and he puts the bird inside.

“Could you do it now?” I ask him as soon as the oven door is closed.

“What time is it?” my mom yells from the sink.

“Eight nineteen,” Dad and I say in unison.

“Could I do what now?” he asks.

“Forward Josh’s email. I really need to see it.”

“Sure,” Dad says. “Lemme just go get my BlackBerry.” He disappears into the living room.

“What did happen between you two?” Mom asks as she studies her to-do list. “Was it the distance?”

I feel nauseous. If my mom is asking about the distance, it means Josh and I must’ve still been together when I left for Yale. Never did I consider that Caitlin might have been wrong: that Josh and I might’ve lasted beyond prom, and even past graduation. Okay, maybe I considered it, but I told myself it wasn’t possible. Only a certain caliber of high school relationships last past high school. The word “LOVE” is pressing in on me, but I will it away.

“Uh, yeah,” I tell her. “The distance.” Too bad I don’t even know what kind of distance we’re talking about. I rack my brain, trying to remember where Josh said he wanted to go to school. West Coast somewhere. For crew.

“Does he know about Michael?” Mom asks as she disappears into the pantry.

Another wave of nausea. The idea that there might’ve been an overlap makes my chest hurt. Is it still considered cheating if you don’t know you’re dating the guy you’re cheating on? “Not yet,” I manage.

“Well, he’ll hear about it eventually,” she calls from the pantry. “I’m sure he’d rather it come from you.”

Dad reappears with his BlackBerry. “Where am I sending it?” he asks.

“Hotmail,” I tell him, surprised that he’s even asking. He knows I only use my Yale address for school stuff.

“Done,” he says, and sets his BlackBerry on the counter. “Now back to Michael. What’s he studying? Am I allowed to ask him about that?”

“Sure,” I say, distracted by the email that’s now waiting in my in-box. “I should get into the shower. I’m supposed to pick him up in an hour, and I still don’t know how far away he lives.”

Taking the stairs two at a time, I book it to my bedroom. My dad’s email is the only unread message in my in-box. The subject line is “Alice in Coxswainland.” I click on it.

Josh’s second reply message is the first one I see, sent from [email protected].

University of Southern California. Yes, distance would definitely have been an issue.

Hey Mr. Barnes,

Abby stopped returning my calls and emails a few weeks back. So no, I don’t think I’ll see you over Thanksgiving. Hope you and Mrs. Barnes are doing well.

Take care,

Josh

Holy terse. No pleasantries, no euphemisms. Just: Your daughter is a bitch. I keep reading. The message right below that one is from my dad.

Josh—Glad you enjoyed it! I thought you might. Will we see you at Thanksgiving? Anna is already scouring the internet for recipes.

Hope you’re doing well.

Best,

RB

P.S. Tell that daughter of mine that it’s rude not to respond to witty emails from her dad.

I keep scrolling. At the very bottom is my dad’s original email, addressed to Josh and to me at [email protected], an address I’ve never seen before today.

My heart is pounding as I type abigailhannahbarnes into the Gmail username box. Holding my breath, I type w-o-n-d-e-r-l-a-n-d in the password box and hit enter. Two seconds later, I’m staring at my sixty-eight unread messages. At least half of them are from Josh. I hover over the earliest one, sent October 31, 2009 at 7:08 a.m. PST.

I take a breath and double-click.

Abby,

I just left you a vm. I really need to talk to you. I have a plan! Call me when you can. My cell’s not working, so call my landline. 310-555-1840.

J

My rib cage contracts. Those calls on Halloween were from him. He’s the L.A. phone number I couldn’t place, the voice message I couldn’t retrieve. Even though I’ve only ever heard his voice in my head, I imagine how it would’ve sounded on my voicemail that morning, asking me to call him back and expecting that I would. But of course, I didn’t call him back. Not that day or since. I’m struck with a deep, hollow pang of regret. If I hadn’t lost my phone that morning, I would’ve eventually listened to his message. I’m not sure how I would’ve handled it, but I certainly wouldn’t have frozen the poor guy out. But now I have. Not for a day or a week, but for nearly a month.

Chest tight and getting tighter, I click on a more recent message, dated November 10, 2009. Ten days later.

Abby,

Not that it matters anymore, but the coach at UConn offered me a spot on their team. I was going to transfer. That’s what I wanted to tell you. That was my big plan. I was going to leave a school and a team I love to be closer to a girl I love even more. But I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t, since clearly she doesn’t give a shit about me.

—J

I stare at my screen as if staring at a train wreck, unable to look away.

He hates me now.

This awareness affects me more than I expect it to. I’ve never even met Josh—not in person anyway. He exists only in fragments, as mere memory, void of the emotion of experience. But in this moment, I remember more of him than I thought I possessed. Images pop into my head, new but familiar. Alternate memories I’ve been struggling to ignore. Josh carrying my bag for me. Josh singing along to the radio in his Jeep. Josh running his hands through my hair. The caramel corn sundae we split on our first date, and the slow kiss on my doorstep when he dropped me off, his lips still sweet from the ice cream and candy. The giant blue teddy bear he won for me at the Georgia Fair. The self-portrait we took with his phone at the top of the Ferris wheel. The way he looked in the moonlight on the drive home.

All of a sudden, I wish I could switch places with the parallel me. Not permanently. Just . . . for a day. An hour, even. Just long enough to know what it’s like to hold Josh’s hand, to kiss him, to feel his breath on my neck. My eyes flutter shut and I’m back there again, on that bench by the pond in his neighborhood, my lips on his, tasting cinnamon and Ivory soap, willing the clock to stop so I won’t have to go home. I give in to the memory, soaking in every detail. I haven’t let myself do this, not once, afraid of where it might lead. What I might feel. But that was a mistake, because there is truth in these memories. Raw and bright. Of course Josh and I were still together after we left for school. That’s not the surprising part. The surprising part is that we broke up. From these memories, it seems impossible that we could.

I scroll down, past the unread messages to the ones marked read, clicking on one dated August 29, 2009. The day I left for Yale. There’s a sweet I-miss-you-already message from Josh and a reply email from me. I stare at my screen, marveling at the fact that, because of some freaky cosmic accident, I’m reading an email exchange my parallel self will have with her boyfriend nine months from now.

I click on the next message and the message after that, needing to read every one. The first few are brimming with I love yous and I miss yous and talk of upcoming visits and holiday breaks. But it doesn’t take long for the tone to shift, for anxiety and doubt and fear to take hold. My parallel starts writing things like, Maybe it was crazy to think we could do this, and Josh starts writing things like, Let’s not make any decisions right now, okay? But he should’ve known better than that. The Abby he loves isn’t a wait-and-see kind of girl. The Abby he loves doesn’t know how to handle uncertainty, so she runs from it, the way I used to, before.

Subject line: Tonight. Sent September 25, 2009.

Abby,

I’m sorry I reacted the way I did tonight. I just wish we could’ve had that conversation in person. I know the distance is a lot. But we knew it would be, and we won’t always be three thousand miles apart. Please, don’t do this. What we have is worth fighting for. Let’s figure this out, together. I love you.

Josh

I sit, unmoving. Unhinged. Seeing the words in black and white, knowing how it’ll end, and when, and why—this awareness should comfort me. But instead I have this hollow feeling in my gut, the way you feel when you drink coffee on an empty stomach. She was afraid, so she gave up. Of all the reasons for their relationship to end, that has to be the worst.

I scroll back up to an earlier email, my favorite of them all, and read it again, allowing myself to imagine, just for a moment, that it was intended for me.

Abigail Hannah Barnes,

You changed my life. A year ago today, when you walked into it. “Are you here by fate or choice?” you asked me. I said choice. Now I know better.

I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy day before your birthday.

Josh

I sit with these words, basking in their simple truth. Then it dawns on me: My parallel will still be with Josh on her eighteenth birthday. According to the emails I just read, they won’t have “that conversation” for two more weeks. But if that’s true, then my relationship with Michael couldn’t have started the way I remember it. But clearly it did. I’ve got a picture of him scream-singing the lyrics to “Whatta Man” on the dance floor at Alchemy to prove it.

How is that possible?

“Easy,” Caitlin says after I explain the situation to her. “It’s just cause and effect.”

“Okay, new rule: When we’re talking about cosmic entanglement, you’re not allowed to use the phrase ‘it’s just.’ It’s never ‘just’ anything.”

“Would you like me to explain this to you or not?”

“Yes. Go.”

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?”

“I’m serious, Caitlin.”

“So am I! You asked why your parallel’s relationship with Josh hasn’t affected your relationship with Michael. I’m giving you the answer: because no one knew about it. Think about it: The only person at your birthday dinner who knew you in high school was me, and I had no idea that you and Josh were still together. I stopped keeping up with your love life when we stopped talking.”

“Ugh. It just feels so gross,” I moan. “I kissed Michael that night, and I was still with Josh.”

“Abby, you weren’t actually with Josh. He just remembers it as though you were.”

I know this, but I still feel weird about it.

“Abby!” my mom calls from the kitchen. “What time are you leaving to get Michael?”

Yikes. I’m supposed to be at his house in half an hour, and I still haven’t showered.

“I have to go,” I tell Caitlin. “Call you later?”

“Have fun,” Caitlin calls in a singsong voice. “Fingers crossed your dad does something super embarrassing.”

“I’m hanging up on you,” I say, and do.

Five minutes before I’m supposed to be at Michael’s house, I gun it out of our driveway, one hand on the steering wheel, the other fumbling with the clasp on my grandma’s pearls, which I’m wearing for good luck despite the fact that they in no way go with my outfit. After this morning’s revelations, lucky pearls seemed appropriate.

At the first stoplight, I enter the address Michael sent into my phone’s GPS, expecting at least a fifteen-minute drive. Estimated driving time four minutes? I pull over onto the shoulder and look at the map on my screen. Lilac Lane is a short street in what looks like a big subdivision. I scan the names of the streets near it. Daisy Court. Rose Terrace. Gardenia Place. Apparently, the builder had a flower fetish.

One name jumps out at me: Poplar Drive, two streets over. We had a party there junior year, before the road was paved. We left our cars at Tyler’s house and walked over. Now the flower names make sense: Poplar Drive is in Garden Grove, a little enclave of newer homes in Tyler’s sprawling subdivision. Michael’s parents live in Tyler’s neighborhood? Whoa. That means if they’d moved here four years ago instead of two, Michael and I would’ve gone to high school together. Would we have dated? Would my parents have allowed me to date him? They let me go to prom with Casey Decker freshman year, but he was only a junior because he skipped first grade, and he only asked me to the dance because the girls in his own grade called him Casey Pecker. I don’t think my dad would’ve been as keen on Casey if he’d looked like Michael.

I wonder what my dad thought of Josh when they met. Not what he told my parallel, but how he really felt. Judging from the tone of their email exchange, Dad was a big fan of Astronomy Boy. Did he like him instantly, or was it a gradual thing? Will my dad like Michael less because he’ll compare him to Josh?

Would I like Michael less if I could compare him to Josh? Truly compare them, not just how they appear on paper or in memory, but how they really are when you’re with them. Michael is smart and charming and confident. Josh is . . . a different version of that. Less . . . knock-you-off-your-feet. More . . . what? The word right keeps pounding in my head. Right, right, right.

I pull up in front of a modest two-story brick colonial at the end of a cul-de-sac. The numbers 4424 are painted on the curb. Wait, is this right? I thought I turned on Lilac, but this must be Poplar. I’ve definitely been on this street before. Turning around in the cul-de-sac, I drive back to the beginning of the street to check the sign. It’s Lilac, all right. Puzzled, I head back to 4424 and park in the driveway. As I’m walking up the sidewalk to the front porch, I take in every detail. The gray-blue shutters, the flower bed, the bird feeder in the front lawn. I’ve definitely seen this house before. My mind is on the brink of placing it when Michael opens the front door.

“Sorry I’m late,” I call. “It was farther than I thought it’d be.” I’m kidding, but he doesn’t know that. His face falls in mock disappointment.

“Bummer. I was hoping we’d live close enough for me to walk over to your house at midnight and throw rocks at your window.” He sticks his head back inside the house. “I’m leaving!” he calls to whoever’s inside. Without waiting for an answer, he closes the door.

I step up onto the porch. “Should I be offended that you’re not inviting me in?” I joke. Sort of.

“Definitely not. I want you to meet my mom, but tension is a little high right now. I just told them I wasn’t coming home for Christmas again this year.”

“Don’t you spend Christmas with your dad, anyway?” Michael gives me a funny look. I flounder. “When you said you spent Thanksgiving with your mom, I assumed that meant . . .”

“My dad died four years ago.”

“Oh,” I manage, wanting desperately to rewind the last ten seconds. “I didn’t know.”

“I guess I just assumed Marissa would’ve told you,” he says. “Otherwise, I would have.” Like you’ve told me so much other stuff about yourself? I fight annoyance. My boyfriend just told me his dad died. I’m supposed to feel sympathetic. I’m not supposed to be annoyed that he’s never mentioned it before. But we’re supposed to be a couple, and couples are supposed to tell each other everything. Michael tells me almost nothing. Then again, my brain is cosmically connected to a girl living in a parallel world, and I haven’t said a word about that.

“Hey,” he says softly. “I wasn’t trying to keep it from you or anything. It’s just hard for me to talk about, that’s all.” I nod, feeling like a bitch for being upset about it. He leans in and kisses me softly on the lips. I expect a quick peck, but it turns into a serious kiss. When I feel his tongue on mine, I pull back.

“Um, isn’t your mom inside?”

He laughs. “She went to the grocery store for more eggs. And my stepdad’s in his office. In the windowless attic.”

“And your neighbors?” I say, looking around the cul-de-sac.

“Don’t know ’em,” he replies, and pulls me into another kiss, silencing my protest.

A few seconds into it, I hear a car pull into the driveway behind me. I jerk my head back from the kiss. Not the way I wanted to meet his mom. “Don’t worry,” Michael says, looking past me. “It’s just my brother.” The car door slams, and there are footsteps on the driveway.

“You have a brother?”

Michael nods casually. “We’re not exactly close.”

I smooth my hair and turn around.

My stomach drops.

“Glad you could make it,” Michael calls from behind me, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Holy shit. Holy. Shit.

Josh is standing in the driveway, holding a suitcase. Tyler is behind the wheel of his mom’s burgundy minivan. Suddenly, I understand why Tyler has been acting weird. It was about Josh.

“You’re Michael’s brother,” I say, stunned. Josh is Michael’s brother.

Josh just stares at me.

“You know my brother?” Michael asks.

I nod feebly. “We went to high school together,” I manage.

Josh’s face twists in anger. “That’s right!” he says, his voice laden with sarcasm and fury. “We did go to high school together! Then you went to Yale and morphed into a heartless bitch. Here’s the part I’m not sure about: At what point did you start screwing my brother? Was it before or after you decided to blow me off?” For a second I think he might spit at me, but he just gets back into the van. Tyler is already halfway down the driveway when Josh slams the door.

“Whoa. What was that about?” Michael looks stunned.

“We used to date,” I say weakly, knowing he’ll need more detail than that and wondering how I can possibly give it to him.

“You dated my brother? Recently?”

“No! We broke up in September. Why didn’t you tell me you had a brother?”

“It didn’t seem important. Wait, this September?”

“It didn’t seem important???” I stare at him in disbelief. “He’s your brother.”

“I told you we’re not close,” Michael says evenly. “You had a boyfriend when we met?”

Crap.

For a second, I consider telling him the truth. The collision, the entanglement, all of it. The words start to form in my mouth. “It’s the craziest thing,” I start to say. But Michael cuts me off.

“Look, I don’t want my brother to come between us,” he says. “He’s not worth it.” Michael steps down off the porch so we’re eye level. “Whatever happened between you guys is over, right? One hundred percent?”

“One hundred percent,” I say firmly.

“Good,” he says, and touches my cheek. “Now let’s eat.”

The meal goes surprisingly well considering the massive elephant in the dining room. Two seconds after we sat down, Michael launched into the Josh story, sparing no detail (not even the front porch kiss). My parents smiled politely, but I could tell they were horrified by the notion that their daughter might have broken up with her boyfriend for his older, cuter (and thus, in their mind, less trustworthy) brother.

“I didn’t know they were brothers,” I offer by way of explanation.

“How is that possible?” my mom asks. “Didn’t you know Josh had a brother named Michael at Yale?” The problem, of course, is that I don’t know if I knew that. Fortunately, no one else at this table does, either.

“There are a lot of Michaels at Yale,” I reply defensively. “And Michael didn’t tell me he had a brother, so I didn’t make the connection,” I add, glaring at Michael. He brought this up. He can deal with it.

“Josh and I don’t exactly get along,” Michael tells her calmly, spooning sweet potato soufflé onto his plate. “Before this morning, we hadn’t spoken since last Thanksgiving. Wow, these yams look amazing, Mrs. Barnes.”

“Thank you,” she says, then turns back to me. “The name Michael Wagner didn’t ring a bell?” she says pointedly.

“His last name isn’t Wagner,” I snap. “It’s Carpenter.”

“Oh, so you’re stepbrothers,” Mom says, as though this makes everything better.

“No, we have the same parents,” Michael tells her. “My stepfather adopted Josh when he married my mom two years ago. I respectfully declined the offer.” Somehow I doubt there was anything respectful about it. Michael can’t even say the word “stepfather” without contempt. How can two guys have such different opinions of the same man? Even from my limited memories, I know that Josh adores Martin. Michael, for some undisclosed reason, hates him.

“How’d your mom and Martin meet?” I ask in an effort to both change the subject and gather some clues about the source of Michael’s ill will toward the man his mother married.

“He and my dad were best friends,” Michael replies.

“Yikes,” my dad says under his breath. I shoot him a look.

Mom holds up the platter in her hand and smiles. “Balsamic-glazed parsnips, anyone?”