Chapter Eleven.
Thanksgiving
A week and a half later...
"You wanna tell me, sweetness, how dessert for seventeen people translates into seven pies and two cakes?" Brock asked.
I watched Rex give Joel a look as we all stood at the trunk of my car and Brock carefully handed out bags filled with cake boxes and stacked pie holders to his sons. Joel caught Rex's look and they both visibly struggled with quelling their laughter.
I answered Brock, "I did the calculations."
Brock straightened from the trunk with the last bags and slammed it shut.
Then he looked at me saying, "You did the calculations."
"Yes," I answered, holding a bundle of flowers, a six pack of bottled Bud and a bag filled with a tub of Cool Whip, canned whipped cream, a carton of the real stuff not yet whipped and a gallon of gourmet vanilla bean ice cream Brock continued not to move and also continued to stare at me.
So I asked, "What?"
"How many slices do you get out of a pie?" he asked back.
"That isn't the point," I informed him.
"What is?" he asked me.
"Well, it's Thanksgiving and people look forward to it and everyone has something they look forward to about it. So, say you're looking forward to a piece of pumpkin pie and I only made one pumpkin pie and one pumpkin pie isn't enough for seventeen people should, even though it's unlikely but it could happen, all seventeen people want a slice of pumpkin pie.
Then, say, you didn't move fast enough so you didn't get your piece of pumpkin pie. Think of how disappointed you would be. So, I made two pumpkin pies, two pecan pies and two apple pies, the traditional pies of Thanksgiving and that way everyone can be sure to have what they're looking forward to."
Rex and Joel continued to quell their laughter however not entirely successfully as I heard snickers.
Brock continued to stare at me but now he was doing it like he thought I may be a little crazy.
I kept talking.
"Then, just in case there are those who wish to venture out of the traditional, I made a maple buttermilk pie which isn't traditional but it is autumnal so it fits with the occasion and then there might be those who want a little something different but a taste of traditional so I made a pumpkin cheesecake and for those who just might be in the mood for cake, I made a the crowd pleaser of chocolate with whipped cream frosting."
Brock continued to stare at me and now he was doing it like he didn't have any doubts about the fact I was crazy.
"Jeez, Tess, how long did it take to make all this?" Joel asked and I looked to him.
"Honey, I own a bakery. I do this for a living. Even in my kitchen at home, I whipped all that up in about three hours."
This wasn't true. It took more like five.
"Awesome," Rex muttered. "She's like a cake baking superhero."
"And a pie baking one," Joel added.
I smiled at the boys then looked back at Brock and suggested, "Maybe we should go in?"
"Yeah and hopefully me and my boys can haul all this in there without any of us getting a hernia," Brock muttered, both his sons lost their battle with their humor and burst out laughing and then, eyes to his boys, Brock jerked his chin toward his mother's house and they started marching. I fell in step beside Brock following them and heard him say under his breath, "Only I could find a woman who describes pies as 'autumnal'."
"Well, how would you describe maple buttermilk pie?" I asked.
"Babe, I've never had maple buttermilk pie but there are only three adjectives to describe any pie and those are bad, okay and fuckin' great."
"Then it's good you work in law enforcement and not as a food critic," I muttered.
"Yeah, that's good," he muttered back and I could hear the smile in his voice.
I watched Rex walk up his grandmother's front walk cautiously carrying the bag with the boxed chocolate cake well away from one side of his body and the one with the cheesecake well away from the other lest they bump into his legs and get jostled. Then my eyes moved to Joel who had two bags, each with two carefully stacked pies in holders and he was also cautiously holding his arms away from his body. Then I looked down at Brock's hands to see he had one bag with three carefully packed pies and another bag with two bottles of wine and a two liter of pop.
Then I considered the possibility that I might have gone overboard.
"Maybe I went overboard," I murmured as we neared the front door.
"Baby, my calculations say, just with the pies, there are fifty-six pieces open to seventeen people. That's more than three pieces of pie for each person. And that doesn't even take into account the cake. I think 'maybe' should be deleted from that sentence even if it is Thanksgiving and we can all expect to lapse into a food coma in about three hours."
Seeing as neither had free hands and they were treating their baked good carrying responsibilities with paramount importance, Joel nor Rex braved knocking on the door so Joel started shouting, "Grandma! Open up!"
At this, it hit me that Brock wasn't wrong.
Then I found my mouth whispering, "I didn't want to mess up."
To which I heard Brock say softly, "Hey," and I stopped watching Joel shout (with Rex now accompanying him) and looked up to Brock. His eyes moved over my face then captured mine before he leaned in deep, touched his mouth to mine, pulled back an inch and murmured, "What am I gonna do with you?"
"Eat a lot of pie so it doesn't look ridiculous how many leftovers there are?" I murmured back and he grinned.
"Scout's honor, darlin', I'll do my best to have your back."
I returned his grin and whispered, "Thanks."
The door opened and Jill was there.
A year and a half older than Brock, her hair had started to silver and she let it go at that.
She got her Mom's eyes, both her parents' height (like all her siblings), wasn't pleasantly rounded like Laura but fit in a sturdy way. She'd been with her partner Fritz for twenty years, they'd never married and they had two daughters named Kalie and Kellie, aged, respectively, eighteen and sixteen.
I'd been around Jill three times because she came with Laura and/or Fern to my bakery but I had yet to meet Fritz, Kalie or Kellie and, to add to that, Austin, Laura's husband and Levi, Brock's brother would be new additions to my ever-expanding Lucas social network.
In other words, regardless of the fact I knew some of them; I didn't know others so I was more than a little bit nervous thus me going overboard on dessert.
"Hey guys, welcome to the madhouse," she greeted, pushing open the storm door and holding it whereupon Joel and Rex carefully scuttled in sideways giving their aunt their greetings then disappeared into the house.
Jill's eyes went to her brother.
Then she asked quietly, "How'd you talk the Wicked Witch of the Rockies into relinquishing her offspring for a family holiday?"
"I didn't. Tess provided distraction for me in the front while I penetrated the house through a basement window and the boys and me escaped out back. She still doesn't know they're gone."
Brock said this as we both slipped by her and into the house but I did it smiling because my man was funny.
Jill closed the door and looked at me muttering, "I wish."
Brock finally spoke the truth. "It was my turn, Jill."
"The other story is better," Jill said as she guided us toward the kitchen and when we hit it, I noticed madhouse it was.
Fern lived in a two bedroom bungalow with a finished basement in the out, out, outskirts of Washington Park. In other words, she was in my 'hood though I lived close to Reiver's Bar and Grill so I was officially in the 'hood while Fern was arguably in it.
Brock had told me he and his family didn't grow up in this house but in a much bigger one situated in the Highlands. The house he grew up in was the house Cob had left his family in and he left his family in that house when his wife was a nurse's aide and didn't make a lot of money. And he left his wife, who was from Montana and all her family still lived there (to this day), in that house and didn't provide either financial support or very much of his time to help his wife raise their children and pay the bills and she had no kin close to help her do it.
Cue Brock and Jill, at very young ages, growing up fast to assume heavy responsibilities as Fern took extra shifts as well as night classes to become an x-ray technician. Then they kept these responsibilities as Fern went on to take classes to become a radiology technician in order to make enough money to keep a roof over the heads and food on the table for her brood which included two growing strong and tall boys. And always, Fern worked full-time hospital shifts which meant Brock and Jill never lost these responsibilities but Brock, being the oldest boy, assumed more.
However, once the kids were out, Brock told me Fern put their big, four bedroom house on the market, "two seconds after Laura's foot left the threshold" (Brock's words) and downsized.
Lucky for her, she'd been in that old house for decades and the real estate boom and regeneration in their old neighborhood meant she made a mint on it. This meant she owned outright this cozy, comfortable, easy-to-maintain bungalow that, even small, still managed to look and feel like the definition of Grandma's House.
And the big kitchen full of family on Thanksgiving Day screamed it when we walked in and were immediately accosted.
And I had to say, seeing it, I liked it.
For about ten minutes.
Laura swept forward and, with a kiss on her brother's cheek and quick hug for me, she divested me of my flowers, the beer and bag and swept away at the same time Jill took Brock's burdens.
Dylan and Ellie (in another princess dress, this time with pink, sequined mary janes but she'd added a crown adorning her dark locks and I got that seeing as Thanksgiving was a big occasion so royal headwear was an important accessory), both screeching, attacked Brock's legs while Grady hung back and played it cool when he greeted his awesome uncle. I watched Brock's big hand give Dylan's neck a squeeze but he swung Ellie up in his arms to kiss her neck and, this time, tickle her sides so the air rang with her peels of little girl giggles.
After he was done with that, she turned to me.
"Are we gonna watch Tangled, Aunt Tess?" she asked.
I got the title of "Aunt Tess" at the bakery the second time Laura brought the kids in.
I also liked it.
"Sure, honey, maybe after we eat."
"Yay! " she shrieked, arms straight up in the air and Brock smiled down at her.
"Great, Tangled, " Dylan muttered.
"I'm watchin' football," Grady declared.
"So am I," Rex seconded that notion.
"And everyone knows Thanksgiving means football not cartoons," Joel told Ellie.
"Boys can watch football in the basement while the girls have girl time with Tangled in my bedroom," Fern declared while unearthing my chocolate cake from a box. "Now, children out. Go play Wii. Go play football in the yard. Go play anything just go play. "
Hmm. It seemed cooking for seventeen was putting Fern in a mood.
Joel, Rex, Grady and Dylan raced out screaming, "Football! " and Brock put a confused looking Ellie on her feet. She watched the door where the boys disappeared, considering this dilemma and clearly wishing to play princess games though unsure how to convince her all-male older brothers and cousins this was what they'd prefer. Then, gamely, she raced out after them and I hoped they didn't damage her crown when tackling her.
"Hey Uncle Slim," I heard and I looked up to see a very pretty, dark, curly-to-frizzy haired girl who was dressed like she was at a costume party and she was a 60's hippie (without headband or funky sunglasses but the rest... all there) come forward and give Brock a hug.
"She lives," Brock teased, hugging her back and I scanned the room.
Those I knew were there including Elvira who was standing at the sink peeling potatoes liked she'd been to Thanksgiving at Brock's Mom's house every year since she was born.
Yes, I said Elvira.
Although it was me who "asked" her (in quotes because she mostly invited herself), I wasn't entirely sure why she was there. I'd since had cosmos with her and the girls (twice) and she was not afraid of texting or phoning to tell you anything that was on her mind (frequently), I still didn't know her very well. What I did know was that she was currently in some drama with her sister and they weren't speaking, she detested (with a passion) her brother's new "skanky 'ho" of a girlfriend and, wisely (I thought) to escape this discord her parents had chosen Thanksgiving to vacation in Hawaii. Therefore, Elvira was at odds for a Thanksgiving meal and although she had tons of friends, she latched onto me.
I suspected undercover work for Martha but I knew what it was like to face a Thanksgiving alone and the lengths you'd go to avoid that so I'd let her make that play and, when I asked, Fern told me she felt the more the merrier.
Brock did not feel the same way and nonverbally let this be known (another time he looked at me like I was crazy) but he didn't say word one.
Also in the room was a tall, blond man with light blue eyes who was smiling at me like a madman (my correct guess, Austin), a stocky, salt and pepper, close-cropped but obviously still frizzy-haired man (another correct guess, Fritz), a tall, dark-haired girl who was for some reason in late November wearing short-shorts and a thin drapey t-shirt over a camisole (and that reason might be because she was young, she was gorgeous, she had great legs and I was with her, if you had them, flaunt them) who had to be Kellie (Jill and Fritz's youngest) and the girl hugging Brock who had to be Kalie. Lastly, a breathtakingly handsome man who, with his tall, lean, powerful, fit body, thick, dark hair but, strangely, since no one else had them, hazel eyes, had to be Levi and hovering visibly nervously at Levi's side was a young woman (another correct guess, in her late twenties) with a fabulous figure, blonde hair in a pixie cut that suited her very pretty features and a carefully selected outfit that said she wanted to impress but not show off, Levi's latest squeeze.
Jill introduced me to Fritz as Kellie went in for her snuggle with her uncle (and also got stick from him for "disappearing into thin air", his words). Laura introduced me to Austin who smiled warmly at me while giving me an equally warm hand squeeze. Elvira muttered, "Yo bitch," at me to which everyone chuckled even though they all had just met her that day.
Then Levi came forward with his girl and I watched him as he did it.
Oh man.
Suffice it to say, one look at him I knew he trusted me a fair sight less than Cob did.
He clapped his brother's arm while shaking his hand, kissed my cheek, stepped back and introduced his girl as Lenore before he launched in.
"Tess, been hearin' a lot about you."
"I'll bet," I replied.
"You been hearin' a lot which makes me wonder why we haven't seen you a lot," Brock put in and Levi's eyes went to his brother.
"Been busy," he muttered.