Page 91 of College Town

Dad’s parked in front of the TV, as usual, looking fairly alert, his head up, his hands resting on his thighs. Lawson usually helps to dress him, and clearly Leo or Dana or both gave Mom a hand this morning: chinos, shirt, sweater vest, just as he had dressed before the stroke. His hair is clean and parted neatly on the side, the lenses of his wire-framed glasses polished. He turns his face from the TV as they enter, and his brows notch slowly together when he sees that Lawson isn’t alone.

“Oh,” Mom says, jerking upright in her chair. “I didn’t know you brought a friend.” She rushes to stand, to tidy her hair, to smooth the wrinkles from the front of her dress.

“Mom, Mom, don’t…”

But she has always been someone who cares what others think of her personal presentation, and so she comes around the table, skirt swishing, and addresses Tommy. “Hello, I’m…” She sticks out her hand, and then trails off when she’s face-to-face with Tommy. Her eyes blow wide, and her mouth forms a shocked O. “My God,” she breathes.

Tommy, miraculously, shrinks. Notliterally. But all that mob boss posture, his air of authority, melt off of him, and leave him with rounded shoulders and a half-ducked head; his expression goes sheepish, his eyes big and puppy-dog brown, and Lawson remembers a first meeting years and years ago, a scrawny kid in a too-big sweater with a mop of brown ringlets, shy and uncertain.

“Hi, Mrs. Granger,” he says, taking her hand, and then cupping his other around it gently. It’s a tender and affectionate gesture, and it puts a twist in Lawson’s chest. “Long time no see, huh?”

“Oh my – oh, Bill,” she says to Dad. “It’s Tommy! Little Tommy Cattaneo! Oh, I’m sorry, dear.” She presses her free hand to her chest. “I don’t mean ‘little.’ You’re all grown up now.”

“He’s still little,” Lawson says, rather than anything sincere, because the twist is rapidly becoming full-on heart palpitations.

“Tom…mee?” Dad says, slow and careful.

Mom’s face threatens to crumple, and Tommy squeezes her hand and smiles softly at her before turning to Dad. “Hi, Mr. Granger.”

Lawson holds his breath, heart rabbiting in his chest.

Tommy walks right up to Dad, no hesitation, and doesn’t reach for his hand until Dad lifts his left with shaky effort. “Good to see you again.” He doesn’t do the two-handed press like with Mom – doesn’t want to make it seem like he’s coddling a grown man – but his grip is sure and careful. Considerate. He holds on to it, still, as he turns to look between the two of them. “I wanted to apologize for stealing Lawson away from you without notice the other day. I’m only in town for a short while, and I had an emergency I needed his help with.”

“Oh, well, that’s quite alright,” Mom says, recovering from her initial shock, sliding into hostess mode. “My, but this is a surprise! I had no idea you were coming home.”

Tommy’s smile tweaks toward pained. “Me either.”

~*~

Mom tries to get Tommy to stay, hostess muscles twitching. Insists he call her by her name – “Oh please, dear, none of that ‘Mrs.’ stuff. I’m Lisa” – and bustles into the kitchen to see about defrosting a coffee cake. But Tommy waves her off politely, and Lawson points out that Tommy is wearing a suit, because he has a job – “A real job, Mom, not like my shit,” to which Tommy frowns rather adorably – and that he can’t stay.

Mom invites him to dinner, and Tommy promises he’ll try to make it by. He clasps Dad’s hand one more time, steps into Mom’s hug graciously, and then Lawsonfinallygets him out into the driveway.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters as they walk toward the mailbox, and the Town Car idling there. He wipes a hand across his face and feels the glaze of nervous sweat on his upper lip. “Kill me now.”

Beside him, Tommy shoves his hands in his pants pockets and kicks a stray pebble with his fucking two-thousand-dollar shoe like it’s nothing. Like his whole ensemble couldn’t have made two mortgage payments on the house behind them. “Were you really freaking out that bad?”

Lawson does an overdramatic double-take until Tommy glances over and meets his gaze. “Uh” – he points at his face, which he knows looks crazy; he canfeelit – “can’t you tell?”

Tommy snorts. “Okay, you are. But you shouldn’t be.”

“‘You shouldn’t be,’ he says. Pffft. Sure.”

“I thought it went well.”

“Of course it did.” Although Lawson hadn’t know that it would at all. “They always loved you. You were a polite kid,” he adds, “in front ofadults.”

“Are you saying you wanted me to be polite toyou?” Tommy teases.

Lawson finds that he can’t tease back, and shrugs instead. He changes the subject. “My shift starts at noon. If I’m still employed.”

“You are,” Tommy assures. They reach the end of the driveway, and the Town Car crawls forward to meet them. Tommy turns to him, expression serious. “Be safe.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Sure.”

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