Chapter 33: Thanksgiving

“Whatever happened to ‘Team Belle’?” I unenthusiastically pumped my right fist into the air while glancing back at Mari.

The bare-naked, beautiful, buxom brunette beside me sighed and sadly shook her head while staring out the open door. “I’ve always been Team Belle, and I’m still being Team Belle right now. I want what’s best for her.”

I frowned. “By telling her she’ll never be more than my ‘little sister’? By feeding her neuroses that she’ll never measure up to girls like Sam and Neevie?”

Mari sighed again and turned to glare at me. Wait, that wasn’t quite right. Mari’s eyes were hard and cold – utterly devoid of the welcoming warmth I was used to seeing in them – but she wasn’t glaring at me. Rather, her expression was one of infinite sadness. She looked ... resigned. And specifically, she looked resigned to an outcome that – while disappointing – was still an outcome that simply could no longer be disputed.

If Belle had once worn the expression of a baseball fan witnessing the final out of the World Series, Mari wore the expression of that same baseball fan riding the subway home in silence after the game.

“All I’ve told Belle is the same truth she already knows,” Mari stated quietly. “She’s not tall and never will be. She’s not built like Sam or Neevie or even me, and she never will be. The sooner she accepts those things as fact and moves on, the better off she’ll be.”

I pursed my lips and shook my head. “You said those things in the same breath as saying she’d never win a head-to-head with Sam or Neevie.”

Mari shrugged. “That sentence is as equally factual as Belle never being able to grow another eight inches in height.”

I scowled, “You don’t know that.”

“I DO know that. I’m not saying you don’t love her. I know you do. She knows you do. She will always be your little Annabelle, and no matter where your lives take you, that will continue to be equally as factual.” Mari raised her eyebrows and studied my face. “I mean, would you love her any less if she hooked up with another guy?”

My eyes flared, my spine straightened, and I involuntarily clenched my teeth together in much the same way I’d done just yesterday when Skylar asked me a similar question.

And Mari reacted in nearly the same way, raising her hands and stating apologetically, “I retract my question.”

“No, no,” I muttered defensively. “I shouldn’t be jealous over Belle.”

“Why shouldn’t you be jealous over Belle?” Mari eyed me curiously. “She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she? Girlfriends usually like it when their boyfriends are jealous over them.”

I read a note of disappointment in Mari’s voice, and she didn’t seem to be disappointed with my reaction over Belle. I winced and said, “You wish I was more jealous over you, don’t you?”

Mari shrugged and waved me off. “It’s not like I ever expected you to be jealous over me. The fact that you assumed I would’ve moved on and slept with some other guy in the past three months proves that well enough. But ... I mean ... yeah, right at this very moment I think I’d be happier if you rescinded your permission for me to move on and find some other guy and asked me to save myself for you instead.”

“That would be completely unfair to you: asking you to save yourself for me in SoCal while I’m up here.”

“But it would mean you still cared.”

“I DO still care. I care about what’s ultimately best for you,” I insisted. “And I sincerely hope that you find some really sweet guy who will worship the ground you walk on as the singular most important woman in his life and will take care of you in a way I simply can’t from Berkeley.”

Mari’s eyes narrowed. “And what about Belle? What if SHE found some really sweet guy who would worship the ground she walks on as the singular most important woman in his life, had a slightly smaller dick that wouldn’t hurt her, and would basically be utterly pussy-whipped by her sheer force of personality? Would you be jealous and try to stop her?”

“I...” My voice trailed off before I could continue that sentence, unsure of how I really wanted to finish that sentence.

“It’s understandable that your initial, knee-jerk reaction is to get jealous and defensive. I saw the way you reacted at first when Gerald started flirting with me. I heard about how you freaked out when you thought Sam went out on a date and it turned out to be a law school thing.” Mari took a deep breath. “But I know that when you really stop and think about it, your feelings for ALL of the girls finding happiness are much the same as your feelings for me. If being with another guy is ultimately what’s best for us in the long run--”

“Then letting you go would be the right thing to do,” I finished for her, taking a deep breath and nodding while exhaling slowly.

“I AM Team Belle. I’ve always been Team Belle. Maybe what’s best for her is staying with you. But maybe what’s best for her is finding a lifelong partnership with someone else. It’s really too early for any of us to be settling down or thinking about marriage, but it’s ALSO too early for any of us to completely dismiss the possibility.”

“I agree.”

“I don’t want Belle locking herself into a Matty-or-nothing mindset, and I don’t think you want her doing that either. I’ve told her that if she does end up finding a great guy who would treat her right and take care of her for the rest of her life, that you would be nothing but happy for her and merely hope that she’d bring her kids over to visit every now and again to play with your kids and call them ‘cousins’ or something.”

I knitted my eyebrows together while processing all that, took in a deep breath, and then let it out slowly through my nostrils. Pursing my lips, I waggled my head while conceding, “If that was what Belle really wanted...”

Mari snorted. “Belle doesn’t know what she really wants right now. If I’m being perfectly honest, even when she DOES know what she wants, that knowledge only lasts for a couple of weeks before she changes her mind and decides she wants something ELSE that’s basically the total opposite of what she wanted previously. I love her to pieces, and she’s always been there for me, but good lord that girl has never been a model of consistency.”

“Understatement of the year,” I drawled.

“A few weeks ago she told me she was perfectly fine being your ‘little sister’ for all eternity and really didn’t need a girlfriend title. The next time we talked, she confessed she might be falling in love with Lily. And she spent like three hours talking my ear off about how perfect things would be after she found lifelong partnership with another girl where they could both share intimacy with you and whichever girl you ended up marrying.”

I winced. “And then she went and broke up with Lily.”

Mari shook her head and sighed. “Not entirely unexpected from Belle, especially after she told you she wanted to marry you.”

“She told you that?”

“Of course. She tells me everything.”

“Well apparently not everything. You seemed pretty peeved to find out she’d broken up with Lily a week ago.”

Mari waggled her head before conceding, “Well almost everything. And even that, she would’ve told me eventually. Part of that was my fault, actually. I was really busy over the last week trying to wrap up all my work before Thanksgiving so that I could just enjoy myself and not get all angsty thinking about school.”

“Instead you’re getting all angsty thinking about Belle.”

“I’m never NOT angsty thinking about Belle; it’s par for the course. You have no idea how many times I’ve listened to her bemoaning her tiny stature and how she’d never measure up.”

“Well I think I have some idea.”

Mari sighed. “Probably the same number of times I’ve tried to talk her into accepting that (A) her physical stature is immutable, (B) freshmen year of college is NOT the time to be worrying about getting married, and© even IF she truly believes she wants to marry you, in MY humble opinion she’s likely to change her mind again before Christmas.”

“Clearly, she took all of those points to heart,” I drawled sardonically.

“She’s a passionate, hormonally driven, irrational teenage girl with abandonment issues and a few loose screws in her noggin.” Mari tapped the side of her own head for emphasis.

“You don’t have to tell me.” I sighed and shook my head. “She scares the hell outta me. She’s impulsive and reckless and ... I mean ... Did she tell you about the time she tried to rape me?”

“She tried to what?!?”

“Long story. You’ll have to ask her about it.” I held up my hand to forestall further questions. To be perfectly honest, I wished I hadn’t brought it up, because it only reminded me of how Belle had ultimately gotten away with it by manipulating me into hate-fucking her, and I still wasn’t sure how to deal with my own guilt over that.

“If you say so...” Mari drawled, her eyes narrowed and her expression inquisitive.

“I worry about her. I worry about how she’d be with another guy. I worry about other guys taking advantage of her impulses,” I said with a grimace. Fuck, I worried about letting myself take advantage of her impulses again if she ever got into the same kind of ‘punish me’ mood as last time. Taking a deep breath, I finished, “She’ll always be my ‘little sister’, you know? I don’t want just any swinging dick to ... to ... well... despoil my little sister.”

“That actually makes perfect sense.”

“And I’ll always have a hard time trusting anybody else to take care of her.”

Mari arched an eyebrow. “And is THAT why you’re so hesitant to let her go?”

“I dunno. Maybe?”

Mari mused on that. “I wonder if she feels the same way. I wonder if she knows she’s reckless and impulsive, and scared to trust anybody other than you. I do know she’s scared to death of being separated from you, and how that fear has always driven her neuroses. I warned you right before college that I was afraid she’d commit suicide if she couldn’t be with you, and I made you promise to take care of her.”

“And I told you I didn’t need to promise. You’re right: her forever being my little Annabelle is as factual as anything else. I’ll protect her with my life, if it comes down to it.”

“I know you will. She knows you will.” Mari took a deep breath and gave me a severe look. “And that’s why she needs you as her ‘big brother’ more than she does as her boyfriend. I think you already know that.”

“I’m committed to being whatever she needs me to be. ‘Boyfriend’, ‘big brother’ ... there isn’t a really big distinction for me. I’m her Matty. She’s my Annabelle. Any titles beyond those aren’t that important to me.”

“Even if she ultimately decides she wants the title of ‘wife’?”

I shrugged. “Like you said: she’s likely to change her mind two weeks later.”

“Ammonium chloride can decompose into ammonia and hydrogen chloride gas under heat and then reform into ammonium chloride as it cools, but most other chemical reactions are irreversible.”

I blinked twice and gave Mari a confused look at her non sequitur. “Um, what?”

“I was thinking about what you said about not wanting just any swinging dick to ‘despoil’ your little sister.” Mari took a deep breath and sighed. She looked thoughtful for a moment, clearly composing her words. But eventually, she posited, “If I tell you we’re broken up and I’m going to try dating other guys, and maybe even sleep with one or two of them, but ultimately tell you I want to be your long-distance girlfriend again so you can fuck my brains out over the holidays when I come home, you’ll accept me back, won’t you?”

“Of course,” I assured her. “I’d simply welcome you into my arms and thank my lucky stars for bringing my Angel back to share a part of herself with me, no questions asked.”

“But if Belle told you she’d met a nice guy and wanted to try dating him, maybe even slept with him, but ultimately told you she loved you and only you, and that she wanted to be your committed girlfriend, would you accept her back in the same way?”

My eyes narrowed as I got a bit of a danger alert in the back of my head. And I replied somewhat suspiciously, “Yes...”

Mari’s eyes tightened. “Sam had other lovers before you. Neevie had Conor. If Holly showed up on your doorstep saying she’d just broken up with some guy and wanted you to be her boyfriend for a while, you’d welcome her back with open arms, wouldn’t you?”

“Where are you going with this?”

Mari’s eyebrows went up. “Do you hear the difference in your voice? I’m not your little sister. I’m not your Baby Belle. Right here, right now, you’re still the only man I’ve ever had. You’re my one and only. But you made clear – and I heard it in your voice – that it wouldn’t hurt your heart if I moved on and tried to find love from someone else. But Belle...”

“It’s not that I wouldn’t let her--”

“I’m not saying you’d stop her. But she would be irreversibly... despoiled ... in your mind. If she actually went ahead and slept with some other guy, if she let some other man’s penis into the most intimate parts of her body, from that moment on she would never again be ‘only yours’. Can you really say she wouldn’t be forever tainted in your mind?”

“I don’t like this word ‘tainted’. OR ‘despoiled’, for that matter.”

“‘Despoiled’ was your word.”

“And I wish I could take it back. I already told you with your whole bit about her kids and my kids treating each other like cousins: if that was what Belle really wanted, I would support her decision and love her no matter what. If Belle’s ultimate happiness lay with some other guy--”

“I know you’re trying to say you wouldn’t mind, but your voice doesn’t lie,” Mari insisted. “The reaction would be irreversible. Once that line is crossed, it can never be UNcrossed.”

“I’m serious,” I insisted. “Forever being Belle’s only man is NOT a requirement for my love.”

“But isn’t it?”

“At the end of the day, all I want is for you to be happy. The same goes for Sam, Neevie, Holly, AND Belle.”

“I believe that: for me and for Holly. Sam? I’m a little less sure about that. Same goes for Neevie.” Mari skewered me with her stare. “And I KNOW you don’t honestly believe that about Belle. Not right now, at least. If she ever DID hook up with someone else, Belle would be tainted in your mind. Thing is: she WANTS you to think that way.”

“No she...” I began defensively before my voice trailed off beneath Mari’s steely stare. I could see her willing me with her eyes to see what she’d seen, to understand what she already understood. While I’d been distracted trying to juggle my myriad relationships from Sam and her absence to Naimh’s growing presence to Lily’s effervescent infatuation to Eva’s heartbreaking mysteries, Mari had been able to focus for the past three months on the best friend she’d been watching struggle from a distance.

And when I couldn’t find my own voice, Mari found hers. “You know I’m right,” she told me plainly.

“I know you are,” I admitted with a sigh. “Belle wants me to be jealous of her. Belle wants me to want to keep her all to myself. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but Belle wants to believe she’s on another level of ... well... importance to me than you are. And if she ever lets herself believe I’m actually willing to let her go...”

Mari grimaced. “Then she’ll truly feel abandoned.”

Eventually, Mari and I cleaned ourselves and got dressed. We emerged from my room to discover that Belle had left the house entirely, and Mari immediately pulled out her cell phone to call her BFF.

The doorbell rang exactly twice just then, signaling Eva’s arrival. I’d actually made a copy of the key by now, so she was able to let herself in. But she still always rang the doorbell just because.

“Howzit, cowboy?” Eva greeted me with a warm smile as soon as she came around the corner into the living room. But she stopped in surprise at the sight of an unfamiliar busty brunette standing beside me.

Mari held up an index finger and flashed Eva an apologetic smile before averting her eyes and saying into the phone, “Hey B? I’m sorry about earlier, but we’re done now. Call us back or come home, alright? See you soon.”

Meanwhile, Eva gave me a questioning glance, likely about Belle, but I gestured for her to be patient.

Her voicemail recording complete, Mari put away her cell phone and then flashed a more welcoming smile at the newcomer. “Hiii. You must be Eva. The girls have talked a lot about you.”

“I’ll bet. Complaining about the bitchy Hawaiian girl who kept banging Matty when they weren’t around?” Eva gave her a lopsided grin while she walked up to me and gave me a side hug. Then, still with one arm wrapped around my lower back, she added, “You’re Mari ... Matty’s ‘Angel’. There are photos of you everywhere.”

Mari glanced around the living room. Indeed, there were quite a number of BTC photos scattered around. My personal favorite was a big 11x14 on the wall featuring all seven of the OG BTC at the beach in their bikinis from our Fourth of July barbecue. Mari then smiled and said, “Don’t worry about the complaints. The girls said everything is cool now, and even if they whined a bit, it was only because of how important Matty is to all of them.”

“He’s a truly special human being,” Eva agreed before favoring me with a rather warm smile of her own. “So I guess we’re not gaming this afternoon?”

“Ah, unfortunately not,” I apologized. “Mari came up early to visit and--”

“Oh, no. This is your regular video gaming time, isn’t it?” Mari interrupted. “Please don’t mind me. I’m not a gamer myself, but I’d be perfectly happy to hang out in the corner and let you two do your thing. Believe me, I know how important it was for Matty and Alice to have their bonding time.”

“No, really, it’s cool,” Eva stated with a shrug as she let go of my midsection and sauntered over to drop down into her usual armchair with both legs flung over the left armrest. “We play often enough that it’s no big deal to skip a session, especially at a time like this. We’re on Thanksgiving Break and I’m perfectly happy to just hang out, too. Besides, it sounds like something’s up with Belle?”

“Minor tiff. You know how she gets,” I said by way of explanation, taking Mari by the hand and leading her over to a couch. After we sat down together, I patted Mari’s knee and then looked back at Eva. “She’ll come around.”

Eva nodded her understanding and then looked up at Mari. “Are you sticking around for the night?”

“Unfortunately not,” Mari sighed. “I flew into Oakland this morning and promised my parents I’d be home in time for dinner. But I’ll be back on Saturday to hang out with everyone. Did Matty tell you we’re getting almost the entire BTC back together this weekend?”

Eva nodded. “Almost everyone. Zofi isn’t flying back from Princeton.”

“Will you be here this weekend?” Mari asked.

Eva nodded again. “For sure. Much like Princeton, Kaua’i is a little too far away to fly back for only a four-day weekend. I’d spend half my time traveling. Not that there’s much of anything for me to fly back to.”

I frowned as Eva’s expression darkened, but I then gave her an encouraging look as I explained to Mari, “Eva won’t be alone. Mother’s in New York, remember? So I’ll be here the whole Thanksgiving Break myself.”

“But you’re still going with Belle down to Mr. K’s place for Thanksgiving dinner, right?” Mari queried.

“Right,” I confirmed with a grin. “But I’m bringing along a couple of guests.”

“So that over there was my house growing up.” Keeping my left hand on the steering wheel, I raised my right hand into the gap between the two front seats of the minivan so that my passengers could see me pointing out the windshield to the left as I drove up onto the Kramers’ driveway and parked the van. “But my mother is leasing it out to tenants, and I haven’t been inside since going to Cal.”

Through the rear-view mirror, I could see Skylar in the middle row looking off to the left towards my house. “I knew you two had grown up together, but I don’t think I quite realized you and Belle were literal next-door neighbors,” she remarked.

“Best friends and basically siblings since birth they said,” Eva drawled from the very last row on the right with her long legs stretched into the empty space before her. It wasn’t that she was opposed to sitting next to Skylar or anything; she was just more comfortable in her usual seat, that’s all. “Although of course we all know Belle and Matty do things with each other that normal brothers and sisters aren’t supposed to do with each other.”

Everyone laughed at that, including me and Belle. My pint-sized pixie beamed at me from the shotgun seat and reached an arm across the aisle to rub my leg, murmuring, “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I patted her hand and then opened the door to step outside.

Having anticipated our arrival, Mr. K was standing in the open doorway as we four turned the corner of the house and strode up the walkway, and he called out to us in greeting. Belle skittered forward ahead of us to go hug her dad. I then met him with a handshake and a quick thump on the back. And finally, he stood back to admire and assess the two beautiful young women with us.

“Welcome, ladies,” Mr. K said warmly. “I’m so glad Belle and Matty brought home two of their friends to come join us tonight. Not to say that our previous Thanksgiving dinners were too small, but I’ve always believed that more is merrier when it comes to the holidays.”

Both Skylar and Eva replied politely, and we all went into the house. It was still early afternoon and Belle and I went directly to the kitchen to start our usual process for prepping Thanksgiving dinner. Mr. K had bought everything necessary but hadn’t actually cooked anything. By tradition, the preparation of dinner would be left to me and Belle, dating back to our first disastrous attempt at age twelve (which had resulted in a broken serving plate, a turkey hastily washed off in the sink, half of the cranberry glaze gone, and two blushing tweens).

Thankfully, we’d gotten better since then.

Also tradition was to have the Star Wars marathon running on the USA cable TV network, but Belle’s dad muted the screen while sitting down with Skylar and Eva in the living room. Since Belle and I were able to move about the kitchen in near silence on autopilot, I could hear their conversation as he went through the usual polite interrogation asking both girls about how they became friends with us, what their majors were, where they were from, etcetera, etcetera.

Both girls kept their answers to these questions simple and to the point. But my ears cocked a bit to listen when Skylar admitted that at first she wasn’t inclined to join us today.

“What changed your mind?” Mr. K asked.

“Belle changed my mind, actually,” Skylar explained. “I’ve been somewhat estranged from my family for a few years now and became accustomed to being alone. When Matty first invited me along, I told him I’d be just fine on my own. Get some Chinese food and curl up with a book, you know?”

Mr. K stretched his arms out to gesture around the room. “My wife is long gone, and my only child is off to college. I can certainly relate to being alone. That’s what makes it so special to have a day like today when I don’t feel so isolated and instead feel like there’s... life in my house again.”

“That’s why I keep telling you to find a girlfriend, dad!” Belle hollered through the doorway.

“I think she’s a little young for me!” Mr. K called back.

“Not what I meant!” Belle squealed, sounding scandalized. But everyone laughed.

I poked my head through the doorway to look and found Skylar smiling at the joke and even blushing a bit. To my surprise, I thought I even saw a bit of admiration in her eyes, and that made me pause to think.

Empirically, I knew that Mr. K was a handsome man (for an old guy), and in addition to being a successful surgeon, he would be a prize catch amongst older single women. I’d often wondered if he did date, but simply never brought his dates back home where his daughter could see. Since he was away so often being on-call for the operating room, we’d never know the difference if he did. Regardless, I didn’t think he was about to start hitting on Skylar or anything. So I merely shrugged and then pulled back to resume my meal preparations.

“In any case,” Skylar continued, “when Matty called to invite me again, I told him I really didn’t think you or Belle would want a total stranger to intrude upon your family holiday meal. But then Belle snatched the phone from him and told me otherwise.”

“Oh really?”

“What she said really stuck with me,” Skylar remarked. “I’m paraphrasing here, but she said if there was one thing she’d learned growing up, it was that not everybody gets to have the traditional nuclear family you see in the movies, and that true family is what you make it. She’d lost her mother, and Matty grew up without a father, but they found each other and built a family together ... with you, Mr. Kramer. And even beyond that, they formed a very special connection with their circle of friends as well.”

Belle and I both went to the kitchen doorway to look outside, and Mr. K turned to smile at us. “They did indeed.”

Skylar turned to smile at us as well. “Belle told me that I could choose to remain by myself if that was what I really wanted. Or, I could choose to accept their invitation to take one step forward in making a connection. Belle, Matty, Eva, me ... and even you, Mr. K ... we’ve all lost or been disconnected from our family members. So Belle told me that when it comes time for the holidays, it’s important that we make the effort to share the love and be around each other instead of hiding out by ourselves.”

“Aww ... my sweet Annabelle...” Mr. K intoned with a smile, and he opened his arms to her.

Belle walked out into the living room and went to give her dad a hug.

“Looks like I should’ve held out for the big, saccharine speech,” Eva remarked dryly. “When Matty asked me to come along, I basically just said, ‘Sure. I’ve got nothing better to do.’”

Everyone started laughing at that.

“Seriously, though,” Eva added a moment later. “Thank you all for inviting us into your home. Thanksgiving isn’t a widely celebrated holiday on the islands. Mostly it’s just a crowded time when all the tourists come over from the mainland. But I know it’s typically a family tradition, and it’s pretty cool that you all are welcoming us into yours. Mahalo ā nui.”

Mr. K smiled. “Anytime. And I mean that: anytime.”

“Hey, Matty?” Belle called. “Can you get the fancy plates out?”

Glancing over my shoulder, I nodded to Belle, set down the romaine lettuce I’d been shredding for the salad, and went to the sink to wash my hands. Heading out to the dining room, I opened the china cabinet and pulled out the “fancy plates” as Belle put it, along with the matching serving platters, gravy boat, and crystal stemware. Out of habit, I originally pulled out four sets of everything, but caught myself halfway through and went back to get a fifth set.

I brought everything back into the kitchen for a quick rinse. Belle and I shared the space on autopilot, working in silence. Midway through rinsing, she bumped my hip with her elbow, and I automatically slid out of the way so she could clean her hands.

“Anything I can do to help?” Eva asked, meandering away from the Star Wars marathon to poke her head into the kitchen.

“Nope,” I replied immediately without looking up while I hand-dried the china. “You’re a guest and you’re supposed to sit down and chill out while we slave away for your leisure.”

“Whatever happened to ‘True family is what you make it’? And shouldn’t honorary family pitch in to help?”

“You’re both ‘honorary family’ and ‘guest’,” Belle announced from over by the oven, “subject to the convenience of whichever title best suits my needs.”

“Well THAT I can readily expect from you, Miss ‘Little Sister’ AND ‘Matty’s Girlfriend’, whichever title most conveniently suits your needs.”

Belle chuckled and shot Eva a grin. “Oh good. I don’t have to convince you. Now go sit down... guest.”

Eva laughed and went away.

Setting down the last dry china plate, I sidled up to Belle and bumped her hip, murmuring, “I wouldn’t have minded a couple extra hands helping me carry this stuff back out to set the table.”