Page 45 of High Notes & Hail Marys

“Mom, this is Kai,” Sterling says. “Kai, this is my mom.”

“I’m so glad to meet you, Mrs. Grayson,” you say. “It was so nice of you to invite me. You have a beautiful home.”

“Call me Margo,” she insists. Standing on tiptoe, she hugs you. “And please, sweetheart, it’s my pleasure. I’ve been so excited to meet you. Let me introduce you to Sterling’s dad.”

Burt Grayson, parked in a recliner in the den watching the afternoon game, looks closer to the age you expected—he and Margo must be pushingsixty—but a handsome guy. He’s tall and burly, with a close crop of silver hair and a neatly-trimmed beard and mustache. Sterling, you notice, has his exact eyes. He shakes your hand with vigor.

“Good to meet you!” he booms. “Beautiful sack this morning. That little shit Prescott wasn’t expecting that!”

“Babe, we agreed that we weren’t going to ambush him with shop talk right off the bat,” Margo cuts in, but Burt is on a roll.

“Just for the record, Pat McAfee is a clueless hack,” he says. You are pretty sure his voice is loud enough to hear from the street. “I told the guys I play golf with that he was wrong about Covelli. I knew he was going to bounce back from that shoulder strain. The kid’s a machine! Howisthat shoulder treating him?”

“Better every day,” you answer. “He’s been getting some cortisone shots that are doing wonders. I know he’s listening closely to the PT as well.”

“All good, all good!” he says. “I have to say, young man… I’m a Minutemen fan through and through, but they’re letting me down this season. Think there’s room up there on that Cyclones bandwagon?”

“We’d be happy to have you, sir,” you say.

“You wanna grab a seat and watch Detroit beat thebrakes off the Grizzlies?” He gestures at the couch. “I’ve got cold beer in the mini-fridge. I’m dying to hear your thoughts on this Williams kid.”

Margo rolls her eyes. “You can jaw off about football later. I haven’t had two seconds with the boy myself, and you are hogging him.”

“And the cookies…” Sterling pipes up.

“The cookies must not be ignored,” you say, despite the fact that the game is tied in the first and is probably going to be a barnstormer. Behind you guys, Cal moves through the house with your bags, and out a back door.Hmm. Strange.“You got another apron?”

Noemi is ready to just give you hers before she abandons the ship, but Margo insists that she has one bigger. You are a little afraid of what she’ll pull out, and it turns out your suspicions are correct. The apron she triumphantly hands you is a voluminous thing with a gigantic cartoon turkey on it and, in Comic Sans:Thanksgiving calories don’t count!!!

The large kitchen island is groaning under the weight of enough baked goods to feed an army, all in various stages of preparation: no fewer than four fruit pies are cooling on one end, along with racks of spritz cookies, raspberry crumble bars, and macarons filled with fluffy white icing. A large bowl of what smells like gingersnap dough issitting beneath a stand mixer.

“That really is alotof cookies,” you comment, overwhelmed.

“We’ve been going since six this morning!” Ster enthuses with a manic glint in his eye. “We did all the chopping of veggies and savory prep first, so that we could do all the baking after.”

“Y’all expecting a big crowd for dinner?” you ask, confused.

“No,” Margo laughs. “Just us five.”

Noemi leans over the banister from where she was obviously beating an escape upstairs. “If you let them, they’re gonna make cookies until midnight!” Her voice trails in volume as she ascends. “It’s not too late to leave.”

You are impressed by how outgoing and comfortable she seems in the company of her family.

“Not untilmidnight,” Sterling scoffs. “We’re basically almost done. We just have the chai cookies…”

“And the whoopee pies…” Margo adds, looking as if she’s ticking off a list in her head.

“Yup. Oh, and the oatmeal chocolate chip!” Sterling concludes. “They’re Kai’s favorite.”

In all honesty, all the cookies sound amazing, but you are charmed that Sterling remembers what he was baking the day you guys met. It’s a struggle to keep the dopey smile off your face.

“Like she said,” Burt calls from the other room, “you’re going to be baking ‘til midnight.”

“Well,” you say, tying on the atrocious apron, “I guess we’d better get moving, then. How can I help?”

***

You don’t bake until midnight, but it does take until 10 PM. By the time you help Margo finish doing dishes and packing away the delivery pizza you guys ate standing up at eight-thirty, you are so sick of the sweet smell of cookies that you are pretty sure you won’t be able to eat a single one the next day. It’s sunk into your clothing and the stubble of your hair. But Sterling is as happy as you have ever seen him. Ten Tupperware containers of delicate cookies are layered in parchment, and he keeps gazing at them with a pride that you would have assumed he reserved for his Grammy Award statues. He comes up behind you when you are elbow-deep in the sink and wraps his arms around you, sinking his nose into your back.

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