“And I went along with it because I didn’t want to leave, either.”
“And then Dan called and Ben left, but now he’s back.”
Coffee burbled into the pot. The waffle maker made the series of odd ticking noises that preceded the preheating green light. May opened the lid and poured in the rest of the batter, scraping the bowl with a spatula.
“You overfilled that,” Allie said. “It’s going to splooge out the side.”
“Don’t say splooge,” their mother corrected.
Her father asked, “When’s the part about your moving to New York?”
“She’s not moving,” her mother said. She crossed her arms. “It’s much too soon for that. I’m sorry, sweetie, but you have to admit, you’re at a very delicate time right now. You and Dan—”
“—broke up,” May supplied.
“Well, yes, but even if that is what you want, in the long run, I don’t think now is the time to be making decisions that will affect the rest of your life. Especially when you’re talking about a man we don’t even know well.”
“I know him,” May said. “I know him better than I ever knew Dan.”
“But be reasonable,” Nancy said. “It’s your nature to think the best of people, but you have to acknowledge”—here she speared a look at Ben—“that this man lied to us.”
“To you,” Allie said mildly.
“And if you met him at a bar, of all places …” Nancy sighed. “You can’t move to New York to be with him. You just can’t. This kind of thing happens in the movies, or to movie stars. It doesn’t happen to people like us.”
May looked down to see that both lights on the waffle maker were on. Once it got warmed up, it made waffles supernaturally fast. She lifted the lid and removed the waffle to a plate, then unplugged the machine.
She kept waiting for her mother’s doubt to transmit itself to her. At the bare minimum, she expected to discover some buried lode of conservatism. A deep vein of previously unacknowledged concern.
Instead, she heard that ugly phrase. People like us.
People who weren’t beautiful or exotic, her mother meant. Practical, solid, salt-of-the-earth people like them.
May put the batter bowl in the sink, squirted in soap, and turned on the water. Soap bubbles foamed from the surface to form an unstable tower. A small cluster detached and floated into the sunlight coming through the kitchen window. A little iridescent clan of refugees from the ordinary.
“Yes,” she said to the bubbles. “It does happen.” She turned to look at her mother. “This kind of thing happens to us. And it’s not a fairy tale, or a fantasy, or any kind of crazy magic. It’s just the way life happened, this time, to me. So stop trying to tell me that it didn’t, or that I don’t know what I want, because I do. I know exactly what I want. And honestly, it’s about fucking time.”
Her mother’s mouth pooched into a frown.
May looked at Ben. His eyebrows were way up by his hairline.
“What?” she asked.
“Welcome back,” he said.
She shook her head, smiling even though she still kind of wanted to shove him.
He would never be perfect. He would disappoint her, snap at her, try to push her away. She would do it, too, in fits and bursts of stupidity. But she loved all his flaws as much as she loved his strengths. She loved his broken smile and his generous heart and his warped idea of himself.
She loved how he made her feel—whole and good and alive.
She loved him the way he really was.
Her mother fiddled with the chain at her neck. “Was this your idea?” she asked Ben.
His eyebrows dropped into their habitual V-shape. “Not exactly. But if May wants to move to New York, I’m pro. Very much pro.”
“He didn’t even know about it, Mom,” Allie said. “He just got here. We’re all backwards anyway. He and May need to make up, still.”
“May’s not a New York City kind of person,” Nancy announced. Her voice wavered with genuine distress.
“May’s amazing,” Ben said. “She’s smart and interesting and funny. I don’t know who it is you think lives in New York, but I haven’t met anybody I liked better than May yet.” He paused, then added, “I’m pretty sure I’m not ever going to meet anybody I like better than May.”
Her father stood, his usual benign expression not quite managing to conceal the amusement in his eyes.
“Where do you think you’re going, Bill?” Mom asked.
“Football’s on in five minutes.”
“But we’re having a family crisis.”