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“Are you saying Portland is embedded in their DNA?”
“Or their soul.” He grins, a cheesy, toothy thing. I flutter my lashes as I roll my eyes. “Is it really so silly? To be from somewhere else, but to feel at home here?”
No, it’s not silly. Not at all. But I don’t say that, I just close my lips in a smile around another square of chocolate and enjoy the shift from dusk to dark set to the soundtrack of Portugal. The Man and the call of the swifts with a boy who I think I want to be my boyfriend, for real.
31
faye
“Perhaps you should go home?”Lule glares at me from the back of the store.
I’ve spent my shift at the Knitty Kitty organizing and then reorganizing the shop. In the hot September sun, nobody wanted to knit. I had shifted our lighter weight yarns toward the front of the shop, but they weren’t as fluffy and stackable. They just sort of looked limp and sad. Nobody wanted limp and sad. But limp and sad was preferable to anxiously awaiting my parents’ arrival.
My parents announced their visit with the flourish of the British royal family. Dad had a conference in San Francisco, and they decided to “hop up to Portland” for the night when Mom couldn’t get thecasitathey wanted at some spa in Taos. There was no hiding the fact that I, their first-born, was runner-up to a spa.
I confirmed our plans last night. My parents would go straight to The Heathman from the airport to freshen up. Then I would pick them up at six for a walk along the waterfront before we enjoyed a five-course meal at Portland City Grill, and then a nightcap at the Whiskey Library. It wasn’t my version of Portland that they came to see, so I didn’t take it personally that they planned it all. But that didn’t mean I was looking forward to it.
“I’ll just drive myself crazy if I go home,” I say.
“Yes, but then you will not be driving me crazy.” She stares me down and I can see I’ve crossed a line with her.
“Are you sure you can manage it?” I ask, re-knotting my sweat-slick hair on top of my head.
She flaps her hand at the empty shop. “I think I can handle the crowds.”
It would actually give me a chance to go home and take a cool shower, and then maybe stand in front of my box fan, spritzing myself with water. Aly and Caro might make fun, but it’s the same principle as air conditioning.
I scoot into the back to grab my purse and text the girls that I’m heading home early.
“Let me know if you need me to come in early—” I say and then stop when I come around the corner.
“So, this ‘American Dream’? Is it really just to own a house and spend your weekends cutting grass?” Lule says, her smile protruding from her face—to my parents.
Sure enough, Jack and Maureen Benington of the Vermont Beningtons are standing in the middle of the Knitty Kitty on Hawthorne Street wearing tennis whites.
“Faye Ellen!” Dad says, holding his arms out and flashing his bright white teeth.
Lule admires them and I want to tell her he paid full price for them, just so she can feel like she got the better deal.
“Dad,” I say, still taking it all in.
“We decided to surprise you with an earlier flight,” he says. My mother picks up a flaccid skein of red polyester silk and watches it flop backward from her grip.
“We went to your house—your doorbell is broken, by the way. You must let your super know about it.”
“Her super is very super,” Lule says, still studying Dad’s teeth as he hooks his sunglasses between the buttons on his bright white polo shirt.
“I’m at work,” I say, motioning around.
“Yes, and we wanted to see where you work,” Mom says, stepping closer and folding her Brooks Brothers linen blazer over her arm. “Is it so wrong that we take an interest in how you’re living your life these days?” She smiles, exposing the dimples in her cheeks, her chocolate brown eyes glistening.
“The timing is perfect!” Lule says, hands on hips, exposing the tattoo that covers her right rib cage.
Dad’s eyes flicker to it. My dad shouldn’t be staring at any tattooed ribcages.
“Lule, it’s okay—”
“I just told her to leave early! She is all yours!” Lule says with an even bigger grin. I’m really concerned that her teeth may actually fall out at this point.
