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Mostly I just ate and listened. Charles brought up the origins of Thanksgiving, spitting out his research in a tone with which I was intimately familiar. Milton’s dad and Skya, who were sitting closest to him, nodded as he talked about the hypocrisy of celebrating genocide, and I could tell Charles was excited to talk about what he’d learned.
But rather than either dismissing him or praising him, Skya asked Charles what he did to advocate for Native American issues on a daily basis, and told him gently but firmly that while it was all well and good to trot out a critique on a holiday that people have developed a sentimental attachment to for reasons far removed from its origins, it’s another entirely to actually do the work to make any kind of difference relating to that critique.
If I’d been Charles, I’d’ve been mortified, but he just nodded and said that he would look into it. And I was sure he would too. Skya patted his arm affectionately and told him that she could help him with some resources if he wanted.
The food was delicious. There was a turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes and gravy, but it was all fancy. The stuffing was made with cornbread and figs, the mashed potatoes were velvety and had a flavor I couldn’t place. There were also baked macaroni and cheese with truffle oil, and a shaved brussels sprout salad that managed to make a vegetable my mom usually served boiled to disgustingness taste like fluffy magic. For dessert there was a pecan pie, a blueberry pie, and a chocolate cheesecake with some kind of salted caramel sauce that tasted like liquid gold and that I basically wanted to drink out of a water glass.
After dinner, we sat in the living room having whiskey (the adults) and hot apple cider (the rest of us) and speaking at half speed because we were all too full and relaxed to muster the energy to form complex sentences. I was so satisfied that I was even drifting off a little. If I let my eyes cross slightly, I could make my vision double so that it looked like the Beales’ tastefully decorated Christmas tree was also sitting in Prospect Park.
Charles was deep in conversation with Skya about the implications of gender self-determination in the legal system, and Milton was in his element, charming Clarice’s friends. I was warm and full and at peace with the world. I nuzzled Will’s sweater and replayed the moment when he’d rested his chin on my shoulder.
My phone chirped with a text reply from Will, almost like he’d felt me thinking about him. I grinned. It was a picture of himself, taken in the mirror of a bar. He looked as beautiful as ever. Then I turned my phone over to enlarge the picture and saw that over his shoulder were all men, some of them shirtless. His text said Gonna be giving thanks pretty soon myself *leer*. My heart instantly plummeted into my stomach and I blinked hard, swallowing, the taste of all that delicious food gone sour in my mouth.
Chapter 6
December
THERE WERE only a few days of classes left before Reading Day and finals period, which was also when my Great Books paper and my dreaded physics final project were due.
Gone was the camaraderie of the week before when, in an attempt to distract myself from the knowledge that Will chose to spend Thanksgiving in a sleazy bar with some other man instead of with me, I’d gone impromptu sledding with Milton and some of his theater friends—including the mysterious Jason, on whom Milton’s crush had reached hero-worship levels.
And I kind of understood why. Dude was cool as hell. He was loud and confident and intense, but genuinely nice when you could get him to slow down enough to engage. He liked being the center of attention, but it was natural, not obnoxious. He just had charisma. Everyone, guys and girls alike, seemed to be totally into him. Hell, I couldn’t help but stop whatever I was doing to listen when he monologued.
He wasn’t handsome exactly—in fact, he was kind of funny looking. His nose was too big for his face and his smile was crooked, and his eyes and hair were a dirty-looking medium brown. But he was compelling. Engaging. All reaction and micro-expression and intense gaze.
We’d taken trays from the dining hall and gone to Prospect Park during the first snowfall that stuck. It wasn’t great sledding, but Milton had done it since he was a kid. Besides, I quickly realized that being from Michigan set my expectations of snow much higher than other people’s. One girl, a hilarious premed student from Louisiana called Sasha, had only seen snow once before in her life, and she was a riot, reacting to the modest hill we found like it was a black diamond ski slope.
