Page 26 of All These Beautiful Strangers
Maybe I should have called ahead or something to tell them—warn them—that I was coming.
“You brought cookies! How thoughtful of you, Charlotte,” Grandma said warmly as she took my pathetic cookie tray and led me into the kitchen.
Grandma rearranged my store-bought cookies onto a platter and set them on the counter, which was crowded with all sorts of delicious, homemade food—a giant pot roast, gleaming buttered ears of corn, potato salad, and sourdough rolls.
Two of my younger cousins ran through the room, and my great-aunt Jane, my grandma’s sister, who was balancing a tray of chips and dip on her hip, yelled after them to not run in the house. Someone called in from the den for another Bud Light.
This was how my grandparents’ house always was, how I remembered it as a child: full of people, constant motion, everyone talking all at once.
“These are your grandpa’s favorite,” Grandma said, plucking a few of the cookies I had brought and putting them on a small plate. She smiled at me as if I had known this and bought those particular cookies on purpose, though they’d just happened to be arranged at the top of the kiosk in the bakery section.
Someone threw an arm around me and gave me a little squeeze. When I turned and saw who it was, I stiffened.
“How are things, doll?” Claire Rhodes asked.
It’d been years since I’d last seen Claire. When I was little, she’d been one of my favorite adults because she always talked to me like I was one of the grown-ups, or “one of the girls.” She was always at the house on Langely Lake during the summers, and she and my mom spent a lot of time together. She still sent me and Seraphina cards on our birthdays. But for all of her charm and ease and well wishes, I couldn’t help but be wary of her now. I knew Claire knew more about my mother than she was letting on. If anyone would have known that my mother was planning to leave, or if anyone was in contact with her now, it would be Claire.
Claire leaned forward on the counter and scooped some potato salad onto her plate.
“Things are good,” I said. How did one sum up the last ten years of one’s life cordially in a few sentences? “I’m going to boarding school up in New Hampshire now. Just started my junior year.”
“How’s the boy situation?” Claire asked as she took a bite of the potato salad. “And the parties? God, tell me about the parties.”
“Claire,” Grandma said, chastising her. “I’m sure Charlotte takes her studies very seriously.”
“Yeah, but a girl can live a little,” Claire said. “You miss things if you always have your nose stuck in a book. I remember how Grace and I were at your age, Charlotte. The things we got up to.”
“Grace had her rebellious moments as any teen does,” Grandma said. “But you don’t want to give Charlotte the wrong idea. Grace was a good student.”
“I’m not saying Grace wasn’t smart,” Claire said. “Grace was sharp as they come. But she wasn’t satisfied with being stuck in a classroom or sitting still. Charlotte, your mother, she wanted to be out there, living life. The adventures we had together. This one time, sophomore year, we stole this pack of hall passes from the principal and we left school in the morning and drove down to the boardwalk in Seaside Heights. We spent all day on the beach, our toes in the sand, drinking warm beer we’d gotten from a stranger in a parking lot.”
“Charlotte,” Grandma interrupted. She handed me a plate of the store-bought cookies. “Why don’t you take these to your grandpa in the den?”
“Sure,” I said, taking the plate. Behind my grandma’s back, Claire smiled at me and mouthed, We’ll talk soon.
The den was dimly lit. My grandpa was in his recliner, a beer in his hand and a bag of Lay’s potato chips in his lap. He sat up suddenly and raised his beer angrily at the TV. Some of the chips spilled out of the bag and into his lap.
“You call that a fumble?” he yelled. “Get your damn eyes checked!”
My uncle Lonnie, the youngest of my uncles, sat on the couch, next to Greyson and Greyson’s younger brother, Ryder, who was a teenager now. I guessed he was around Seraphina’s age. My cousin Patrick, who was a few years younger than me, was sprawled out on the floor in front of the TV, and my uncle Hank sat at the card table behind the couch. The color drained from Uncle Hank’s face when he saw me, and I quickly looked away. I knew he probably hadn’t told them about coming to see me up at Knollwood, or about the pictures he had found in his little breaking-and-entering stunt at the lake house. He’d probably thought I would never actually show up when he invited me.
“Um, hey, Grandpa,” I said.
Grandpa’s eyes flickered away from the TV to my face for a second, and then he glanced back quickly, looking slightly alarmed. I knew what it was. I knew for a second, he thought I was her, my mother. I had always taken after her but lately, the resemblance was uncanny.
“Charlotte,” he said after a moment. “What are you doing here?”
He gave me a smile but there was a sadness lurking there behind his eyes, and I remembered again why it was so hard to come back here, to be around them. He heaved himself out of his recliner and wrapped his arms around me. We Calloways were not ones for physical displays of affection, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I awkwardly tried to hug him back with the cookie plate still in my hands.
“I brought you your favorite cookies,” I said when he released me.
I held out the plate as proof.
“Don’t tell your grandma,” he said, taking the plate and giving me a conspiratorial wink. “She thinks all this sugar is making me fat.”
He patted his large gut.
“It’s not the sugar that’s making you fat, it’s that chair where you sit all day,” my uncle Lonnie said with a laugh. He stood to hug me and I stepped around the coffee table so he could. “It’s good to see you, kid,” Uncle Lonnie said. “Hank, look who’s here.”
