Of course, their youngest was now fifteen, so mostly I was thinking of my kids when I said the backyard was nice. Long story short, we would be here all day.
When we arrived, Greg was out back telling one of his big fish stories to a rapt audience that consisted of Alex, Matt, Drew—who was manning the barbecue—Nico, Quinn, Desmond, and some kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen, that I didn’t recognize.
Kat went inside to visit with her knitting ladies while I stayed outside to keep an eye on the kids. Mostly, I was keeping an eye on DJ, making sure he didn’t roll himself in the mud. Covers my scent, he’d say.
I swear, this kid.
I turned my attention to Greg’s story.
“She considered the raccoon to be her raccoon?” Matt looked totally confused as he asked Greg this question.
Greg took a swig from his beer. “Mmm. That’s right. But you have to understand, where I lived, this woman was a crackhead. It was a three-story complex with one big, shared backyard. Ms. Jenner—”
“The crackhead?” Alex sought to clarify.
“Yes. Though I doubt she listed, Ms. Jenner, Crackhead, on her résumé. Anyway, as I was saying, Ms. Jenner considered the raccoon to be her raccoon. So when she came home one fateful morning at 3:00 AM and found the raccoon on the second floor balcony, well . . . she was displeased.”
“What did she do?” Drew asked, but the way he asked gave me the impression he was afraid to find out.
“She put out a bag of sugar at first, in an attempt to lure the animal.”
“Sugar?” Nico glanced at Drew. “Just a little bag of sugar?”
“No. A five-pound bag. The raccoon was not impressed. She then used found objects in the yard to build a stairway of sorts to the second balcony. This is when I was awoken. She’d fallen off a garbage can, causing a ruckus outside my window.”
“Was she okay?” Quinn asked.
“As well as can be expected, given it was 3:00 AM and she was a crackhead in deep despair over the appropriation of her beloved raccoon. But let me finish the story. When I came outside—mind you, I was sixteen, newly arrived from Mayfair—I found Ms. Jenner setting up the garbage can again in an effort to climb up to the second floor balcony. Immediately, I realized her error.”
Quinn and Alex traded looks and I asked, “You stopped her from climbing?”
“No. Certainly not. I realized she’d been trying to climb on the garbage can without a lid. She was attempting to balance herself just on the rim. I flipped it over for her and held the base so she could use a hula hoop to reach the raccoon.”
This was the best and the worst story I’d ever heard, and I couldn’t wait to find out how it ended. “Did it work?”
“It didn’t. The raccoon climbed down the waterspout, grabbed a handful of sugar, and made off into the night like the little ninja bandit that it was. Meanwhile, the owner of the second story unit became enraged, jumped down from the balcony wielding a katana, and bit Ms. Jenner on the kneecap.”
“The kneecap?” Nico asked, as though the placement of the bite was the strangest part of the story.
Alex seemed to be the only one who didn’t look confused.
“What are the chances of trying to trap a wild animal, and being bit by your sword-wielding neighbor instead?” Matt asked Drew.
The big man shrugged.
I answered, “In Boston, pretty high.”
This earned me some laughs.
“Hey, Dan.” Matt pointed at me with his beer. “Are you and Kat still coming to Marie’s birthday party?”
“Yeah. Kat has already pulled our Hogwarts robes out of the attic.”
“I still can’t believe you’re a Hufflepuff.” Nico clinked his beer against mine. “Marie and I were the only Hufflepuffs until you took the test.”
“Was anyone surprised to find out Kat was a Slytherin?” Alex asked the group, grinning at me. “For the record, I was not.”
“That’s because you’re a Slytherin. You people recognize each other.” Greg grabbed another beer, popping off the top.
“You people? What are you talking about? You’re a Slytherin.” Quinn gave Greg an irritated look and then shook his head, mumbling to himself, “Why are we having this conversation? What are we, ten?”
Greg ignored Quinn’s mumbled statement, saying, “I’m allowed to call myself you people. Prerogative of the pejorative.”
“Hey guys!”
We all turned towards the sound of the voice, finding Fiona and Janie leaning out of the kitchen window. “Where are the kids?”
Now we all turned towards the lawn, finding the backyard empty.