Together at Midnight Read online

  “So what should I do?” I ask.

  She thinks about this. Shrugs. “Not sure.”

  “You can’t break this wide open without an alternative.”

  Kendall laughs. “Okay. How about you do the opposite of what you’ve been doing?”

  “You mean, call him out on his bullshit.”

  There’s the smile again, plus the eyes-on-fire. This girl kills me little by little. “Yes!” she says.

  Calling Big E out on his bullshit is really appealing. Which feels so wrong. “I don’t want to upset him.”

  “I’m sure he can handle it. He seems pretty tough.”

  As soon as she says that, I realize I’m full of crap. Because of course he’s tough. Duh, he can handle it. We’re not doing anything out of respect for his delicate feelings. I’m his yes-man because I’m terrified of the guy. We all are.

  “Maxie!” bellows Big E from the other room.

  “Go!” says Kendall, giving me a little push.

  “You’re coming with me!” I whisper-slash-beg.

  We walk back toward the living room and I linger in the archway. Kendall gives me another push.

  “Max!” he calls again.

  “Hey,” I say, walking into his line of sight. “What’s up?”

  “Suze was going to make me coffee, but she vanished.”

  “Suze left hours ago.”

  “Without saying good-bye?”

  “You were asleep.” The S sound for “sorry” forms in my mouth, but I silence it.

  “Did she tell you about the parade of idiots that came through here?”

  “Why do you think they’re idiots?” I ask.

  “Why?” he echoes.

  “Did you talk to them long enough to gauge their intelligence level?” I smile, to let him know I’m not trying to be a dick. This is just a friendly challenge. Between a grandson and grandfather who aren’t friendly at all.

  Big E raises his eyebrows. “Maxie, I’ve lived a long time. I know when someone’s an idiot.”

  “Well, Suze hired one of them to start in a few days.”

  “She what?”

  Oh, crap. Sorry, Aunt Suze.

  “Figures she’d run away without talking to me about this,” sputters Big E.

  I’m suddenly full of reasonable explanations. He was asleep, the snow is coming, she had to leave. Then I glance behind me at Kendall. One nod from her is all it takes.

  So I say: “Maybe if you didn’t make everything so unpleasant, she wouldn’t want to run away.”

  Big E laughs. Actually opens up his mouth so I can see the gold fillings in his teeth. Goes ha-ha-ha.

  “What do I make so unpleasant?” he asks.

  “Uh . . . everything?”

  Shit. That just came out. But Big E laughs again. Definitely not the wrath-of-the-ages reaction I’d imagined.

  “You’re a kid, Maxie. Only kids use words like unpleasant. You have no idea.”

  Something breaks loose in me now.

  “And you have no idea! Suze has a life! Don’t you see what it’s doing to her, trying to take care of you?”

  My grandfather stares at me as if he’s never actually seen me until this second. I open my mouth again, and this is what spills out:

  “Why are you bothering to keep living if you’re going to spend all your time being a jerk to everyone? Don’t you think Nanny would be heartbroken to see that?”

  I can’t have uttered that. It’s not possible.

  Big E doesn’t laugh at this, but he does grin. Shows so much of his teeth, the white glows in the half-dark room. He drops his head back, stares at the ceiling. He seems to be traveling miles away.

  “If she could see me,” he says after a few long moments, “Nanny would be relieved that I haven’t changed much.” Something comes over him. Sadness and calm. “I made nothing easy for her. She made nothing easy for me. That’s how we worked.”

  Memories of my grandmother come rushing in. I remember her laugh and the way she loved to tickle-fight. Her glasses sliding down on her nose when she read to me. How her hair looked right after she dyed it, slightly purple in the sun.

  Rolling her eyes at Big E. Shaking her head at him as she said, “Wrong again, Mister.”

  Holy shit. This is what he wants. He wants someone to challenge him at every turn. He needs it and misses it. Without it, he’s all alone.

  “Okay,” I finally say. “You’re a jerk. You want us to treat you like one.”

  Big E takes a deep breath, lowers his head to look right at me. Into me. Like he’s seeing me for the first time. “Exactly.”

  Kendall leans against one of the elevator’s wood panels. Sighs. It’s been an epic day and she must be as exhausted as I am. Still, I’m a little sad to see her go.

  The elevator doors open onto the lobby, and Tony, the night doorman, gives me a look.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You guys think you’re going somewhere?”

  “I was going to put my friend in a cab.”

  He proceeds to laugh his ass off.

  I step closer to the door. Oh.

  It’s white outside. Like, all there is and ever has been, is white. I step closer still, and I can’t even see the street.

  “Looks like you’re staying a while,” I tell Kendall.

  Before she can respond, her phone starts making a racket. A bunch of texts coming in at once.

  “My brother’s been trying to reach me,” she says, scanning the screen.

  “Cell service must be spotty, with the storm.”

  Kendall walks a few feet away from me and makes a call.

  “Hey,” she says. “I just got your texts now. I’m okay, I’m at Max’s . . . Yes, him . . . He says I can stay here . . . I’ll call you in the morning . . . No, it’s fine, really . . . Emerson, shut up, I said it was fine.”

  She ends the call and looks sheepishly at me. “He feels guilty about making me wander around the neighborhood in a snowstorm. Maybe I’ll get a gift card out of it.”

  The elevator ride back up is short, but feels long.

  I say, “Think of Big E’s as a kitschy boutique hotel.”

  Kendall smiles. “It’ll be an upgrade. At Emerson’s, I have to sleep in a closet.”

  Back at the apartment, I show her Aunt Suze’s old bedroom and find some fresh sheets. By “fresh,” I mean just “clean.” The sheets look like they were purchased in 1981. The frolicking rainbow unicorns on them have faded to gray.

  “What does your aunt do?” she asks, looking around.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, as a job.”

  “Oh . . . she used to be in finance. But at the moment, she’s a mom.”

  Kendall nods, as if this information affects how well she’ll sleep. We stand there, awkwardly. I’m still holding the sheets because I haven’t been able to figure out how to make the bed for her without it feeling ridiculously intimate. Finally, thankfully, she takes them from me.

  “There are blankets in that chest,” I say, pointing.

  Kendall nods again, then drops the sheets on the bed. “Are you tired? Because I’m not.”

  I’m not either. I may not be tired ever again.

  “We could watch a movie,” I suggest.

  I show her the den, the walls lined with bookshelves and an old TV in one corner. She runs her finger along the spines of all twenty-two volumes of the 1977 World Book Encyclopedia. Then she scans the wall of DVDs and VHS tapes. Yes, we have VHS tapes. Dating back from the dawn of the format. She pulls one off a shelf.

  “Labyrinth?” she asks. I’m not sure where she’s going with this. Labyrinth is one of my favorite movies ever. Possibly because I watched this particular videotape every time I visited my grandparents.

  “Is that what you want to watch?” I ask, keeping my voice neutral but my guard up.

  “Are you kidding?” replies Kendall, totally deadpan. “David Bowie and Muppets? What could possibly be a more awesome way to spend a blizza
rd?”

  I exhale and for the first time, this sensation of awkward oh shit horrible is replaced by fun cool fun.

  Microwave popcorn happens next. We each take a cream soda from Big E’s supply in the fridge. “This is the boutique hotel minibar,” I tell her. “We replace them before my grandfather notices, then we don’t get charged.”

  As I’m setting up the movie, Kendall goes to the window and draws aside the curtain.

  “Whoa,” she says. It’s really coming down. Wind whips through the alley and rattles the window glass. Kendall presses a single palm to the pane. “So cold.”

  “Come on,” I say, patting the other end of the couch. When she sits, I toss a crocheted blanket at her. She draws it up under her chin.

  “I love how everything in this apartment manages to be old, but classy,” she says, smelling the blanket.

  “It comes automatically with the Park Avenue address.”

  And my grandmother. She made that blanket. I’m really glad Kendall doesn’t say anything snarky about it.

  We watch and eat and drink. And make sarcastic but affectionate comments about the movie. Every few minutes, the window shudders against another gust from the blizzard. Whenever I need to shift position on the couch, I’m careful to make sure there’s still a few feet between us.

  When the movie’s over, Kendall heaves a loud, dramatic sigh.

  “God, I needed to see that again,” she says. “My oldest brother, Sullivan, introduced me to that movie. It’s like, the only thing we have in common.”

  I turn off the television, and we can hear the wind screeching. It’s a high, nefarious sound.

  “The snow’s going to look really cool tomorrow,” I say.

  She nods, but looks pained. Bites her lip. “I worry about anyone getting stuck out there.”

  “You mean, the homeless?” Kendall nods. “I’m pretty sure they’re escorted to shelters if they don’t go on their own.”

  “Stuff happens, though. People get missed. Or they think they can stay in their cars. Also, I think about animals. Stray cats. Squirrels.”

  “I really wouldn’t worry about the squirrels. They’ll survive the apocalypse.”

  “Okay. But cats . . .”

  “They find places. They know how to survive.”

  We’re quiet for a moment, listening. I can’t remember the last time I sat, just listening, to anything.

  Then, suddenly, Big E’s voice from the other room. “Maxie?”

  “Be right back,” I tell Kendall.

  My grandfather has adjusted his recliner so it’s in the most upright position, and he’s staring out the window. His blanket has fallen to the floor. There’s an infomercial blaring on TV.

  “Here,” I say, grabbing the blanket and draping it over him.

  “The Weather Channel says we were getting over a foot,” he says.

  “It’ll be more than that. There’s probably a foot already.”

  “I hate this snow bullshit,” says Big E. “I should be packing for Florida.”

  “I know,” I say, out of instinct. Then I remember. “Wait. No. You said Florida was boring. And you love the snow. You skied until you were seventy-nine!”

  Big E looks at me sideways, like it was a secret about himself he didn’t want anyone to know.

  “Well, I hate it now that I can’t ski anymore.”

  I look at him there in his recliner, his legs small and meek under the blanket. It’s hard to imagine he ever skied. Or moved around in the world as a participating member of society.

  “What does the weather matter to you?” I ask. “It could be eighty degrees and sunny out there, and you’d still be sitting in this chair watching a commercial for . . . antiaging skin cream.”

  He looks mad. Then, he smiles. “Point well-taken, Maxie. Well-taken.”

  “Do you need anything else? I’m going to bed.”

  “Eh. I’ll be asleep again in a minute.”

  I turn to walk away, then stop, turn back. “Kendall’s staying in Aunt Suze’s room tonight. She couldn’t get home through the storm.”

  Big E closes his eyes and nods. “That’s gentlemanlike. That’s good.” Then his eyes pop open. “Can she cook us breakfast in the morning?”

  “I’ll cook us breakfast in the morning, you sexist relic.”

  He smiles. The eyes close again. “Wake me when it’s ready.”

  When I return to the den, Kendall’s asleep with the I volume of the encyclopedia spread open on her stomach. I gingerly remove it and place it on a nearby table, but not before noting what page she was on: the entry for Ireland. I wonder if that’s one of the places she visited on her trip.

  It’s been a week-long day, but I’m still wired. I sit down on my end of the couch and grab the remote. Turn the volume down low. Find the same infomercial that was on Big E’s TV. I can see the appeal. On infomercials, problems are universal. Solutions are easy.

  Everyone’s happy in the end.

  DECEMBER 30

  Max

  WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, THERE’S LIGHT COMING through the window. It’s not normal morning light. Not sun, exactly, but illumination.

  I’m not in a bed. I’m in the den, still. On the couch. My neck stiff and the throw pillow under my face wet with drool.

  My feet are tangled up in something.

  Another person.

  Even though my head and Kendall’s head are on opposite sides of the couch, our feet and ankles have clearly made their own arrangements.

  I try to withdraw mine, slowly, so I don’t wake her up.

  This wakes her up.

  “Huh!” she yelps.

  “It’s okay, it’s just me,” I whisper.

  She looks confused, then relieved. Then she glances down at our legs. Now she’s confused again.

  “Did we both sleep in here?” she asks.

  “Yes.” Then I add, “Not on purpose,” which sounds so incredibly dumb, I wince.

  Kendall extracts her ankles from mine. Curls her legs close to her body and wraps the blanket around herself.

  “Is it over?”

  “What?”

  “The blizzard.”

  “Oh. I think so.”

  I get up and go to the window, open the curtain. Holy shit, there’s a lot of snow out there. Hence the super-neon quality of morning light.

  Kendall joins me at the window. Down below on Eighty-Second, the plows have come through, leaving a mountain range of snow piles where sidewalks used to be. Two figures dressed in head-to-toe orange are slowly shoveling the entrance of a building. A person-bundle walks their dog down the middle of the street.

  “Let’s go outside!” chirps Kendall.

  “Now?”

  “Why not? This is the best time.”

  “That’s not snow. That’s a big F-U from Mother Nature.”

  “All the more reason to enjoy it.”

  I grab the remote and try to turn on the TV, but it just clicks. I reach to turn on a lamp. More clicking.

  “Power’s out,” I say. “There’s a generator, though. I should go check on . . .”

  “Maxie!” comes the bellowing voice from the living room.

  “Oh my God,” I say as reality dawns on me. “Big E has nothing to watch. Nothing to watch means he has nothing to do, which means end-times for us all.”

  Kendall rolls her eyes. “Oh, please.”

  She marches out of the room. Willingly toward Big E. I follow.

  “Good morning, Big E!” she says.

  “Is the power out?” he asks. He seems to be sitting up straighter. His eyes actually have some energy in them. Maybe this means he’s worried. I’ve never seen him worried. I don’t think I could handle it.

  “Yes,” says Kendall.

  “I’m sure the generator will kick in any minute,” I say.

  Kendall gives me a mischievous look. Then she grabs a stack of magazines off an organized but barely touched mail pile.

  “In the meantime,” she tells Big E,
“here’s some super-interesting reading.” She places them on his end table, resting his glasses on a National Geographic at the top.

  He looks at her, amused. Kendall not being a family member does grant her some immunity. Some.

  “Sit and read with me while Maxie makes us breakfast,” he says to Kendall. “He said he would.”

  Big E shoots me a grin. It’s unnerving. I might have liked him better when he was scaring the crap out of me.

  I’m more than happy to flee to the kitchen to pour cereal and orange juice.

  Kendall

  BIG E FLIPS THE PAGES OF AN ARTICLE WITH VIVID, glossy pictures of forest fires, and also of the people who fight them. They’re determined looking and ash covered.

  “Tell me,” he says, pointing to a photo of a man posing next to a helicopter. “Do you think he cheats on his taxes?”

  I lean over for a closer look. “He does seem angry.”

  “Hmmm,” says Big E. “Maybe that’s what I’m picking up. This is what a law career will do to you. You never trust anyone.”

  “Does it matter? If your mountain’s in flames, he’s there. Honest or not.”

  Big E nods. “I’ve known enough FDNY guys in my time. They have it where it counts.”

  He gets a faraway look that’s not directed at the TV, so he must be thinking. Maybe about the “time” he mentioned, or about the firefighters he’s met. There must be a lot of characters in his past. My own grandparents were all gone by the time I was eight, so I never got a chance to mine their memories for interesting stories and people. I know Max would tell me not to waste my efforts on this one, but I can’t help it.

  “Have you ever been in a fire?” I ask. It’s the first Thought Worm to squiggle loose.

  “No. Can’t say that I have. My mother survived the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, though. When I was a kid, I heard about it so much that it felt like it had happened to me, too.”

  I look at Big E’s legs under the blanket, his feet in socks, looking so useless they might as well be flippers.

  “What would you do if there were a fire in this apartment?” I blurt out. “If nobody could help you, would you try to escape?”

  Big E looks at me. Confused or amused, I can’t tell.

  “Or would you just be all, Okay, I’m old and this is a good way to go. Then you’d, like, inhale lots of smoke on purpose or drop out the window.”