The City of Rossford

Two

All of Our Friends

IN THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE, Father Daniel Malloy pressed his hands to the desk and said, “You can’t do that, Fenn!”

“He set my boy’s project on fire!” cried a man almost identical to Tommy. He looked like a fatter, slightly older version of the Peterson boy, but not much older, and Fenn suspected he’d brought Tommy into the world young.

“You already know what Tommy did to Dylan’s volcano,” Fenn said.

“So you thought you would just step in and retaliate?” Dan said.

“Obviously,” Fenn nodded.

“How could you?”

“You’ve known me for what? Thirty odd years? And you ask me that?”

Dan clapped his hands to his head.

“You’re gonna apologize to my boy,” Mr. Peterson said.

“I’ll set your shit on fire too,” Fenn said.

“Whaddit you say?”

Fenn looked at him strangely.

“I said…” he repeated. “I’ll set your shit on fire too.”

“Fenn,” Todd said.

“I’m a lion when it comes to my kids, you have to understand that.”

“Well, I’m a lion too,” Mr. Peterson said.

“No lion ever had an ass like yours,” Fenn declared, “and if you bothered raising that boy as much as you do feeding him, then maybe he’d have some manners.”

Mr. Peterson opened his mouth, but Fenn said, “Um um, that’s all. We’re through. And I have to get home and get Thanksgiving on. We got a wedding come Saturday too. And then Advent and Chanakuh. I’m a busy man, Daniel.”

Mr. Peterson stood up, yanking his son’s hand and pulling him toward the office door.

“You haven’t heard the last of me,” he said.

“I bet I have,” Fenn told him and turned around.

Frustrated, the boy’s father opened the door, and dragged him out of the room.

“Fat ass,” Fenn murmured.

“Fenn!” Dan snapped.

“Daniel?”

“What are you teaching your child by doing things like… what you did?”

“That I’m crazy.”

“You say it like it’s a good thing.”

“It is a good thing,” Fenn said. “Leroy wasn’t much of a father for a lot. But one thing me and Adele knew was he was crazy. And if someone messed with us, well, they had him to deal with. And that’s what Dylan knows. And that’s what everyone here knows now. Cut up, and his crazy daddy will set your shit on fire.”

“He’s got a point,” Todd said.

Dan sighed and put his spiky, slightly graying head in his hands.

“Just go, Fenn.”

“Dinner’s at three,” Fenn said, rising.

Dan muttered something.

“I love you too,” Fenn replied.

“That’s not what I said.”

“I’m pretending you did.”

As they came out into the hall, Paul, who had been waiting for them, said:

“I don’t like the children here… I’m going to tell Kirk to send our kids to Montessori.”

As they walked into the house, Fenn was rubbing his cheeks and muttering:

“Shaving. Get the house ready for Mama, Lula and Adele to come over. Get the last bits of Layla’s wedding ready. And shave.”

He turned to Todd. “Did you place your bets yet?”

“Neither one of us did,” Paul said shutting the door behind him. “And don’t you think that’s a little bit immoral?”

“You’ve become so good,” Fenn said with a stress on the word good that was not positive. “I know the old Paul would have bet in a heart beat.”

“The old Paul would have been too drunk and too high to bet at any minute. When Paul’s bad,” Paul Anderson said, “he’s really, really bad. I gotta call Kirk.”

“Oh, good. As long as you don’t go see him.”

Paul, reaching for the phone looked at Fenn.

“Well, once you all get home, you never come out, and we never see you,” Fenn explained. “Which means I never see you. And that’s not fun.”

Paul traced circles on the rotary phone and said, “I got three kids, Fenn.”

“That,” Fenn Houghton said, “was goddamn overkill.”

The door flew open while Bryant and Chad walked into the kitchen.

“I’ll save you the ritual,” Bryant put up a hand. “You say ‘Does anyone ever knock?’ and then I say ‘I’m not just anyone.’”

Chad set down a great domed silver platter, and Bryant said, “We’ll need this back, but it’ll look nice for the Thanksgiving table.”

“We thought since we couldn’t be here, our food could,” Chad explained. And then he said, “Is it true that you set some kid’s science fair project on fire?”

“It might be,” Fenn murmured, tracing a finger around the shiny dome.

“Oh, it’s totally true!” Paul said from the phone where he was talking with Kirk.

Chad gave a little grin. He looked unshaven which, Fenn noted, worked for him. There was something Tom-like in Chad, though he had straight hair and no Latin blood. Chad and Tom and Bryant all shared a likeness. Chad North was the smallest of them. He blinked through his spectacles and said, “You can open the lid.”

“Oh,” Fenn said absently. “I was just thinking how much you all look alike.”

“You think so?” Bryant said, even though they were both in dark coats and scarves.

Chad looked at Bryant fondly and said, “Well, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Meanwhile Fenn lifted up the lid and said, “What the hell is this?”

“It’s…” Bryant said.

“It’s Lebanese,” Chad explained. “Todd and Bryant both have a litte Middle Eastern blood.”

“A very,” Bryant said, closing his fingers, “little Middle Eastern blood. I’m basically just a white guy.”

“Truer words were never spoken,” Fenn said, surveying the food critically.

Todd thundered down the stairs. He was still as gangly and large footed as ever, and in forty years he had never managed the art of walking quietly.

“Um,” he said, coming behind Fenn, “what’s that?”

“It’s your roots.”

Bryant explained: “It’s… ”

“It’s Lebanese,” Fenn interrupted.

“Wow,” Todd said. “I never tried that.

“Neither have we,” Chad said.

Fenn and Todd both looked at them.

“Montessori, you know Montessori!” Paul was saying into the phone.

“When you say you’ve never tried it,” Fenn said, “What you mean is, you never tried it until you tasted it before bringing it over here.”

“No,” Bryant said at the same time Chad said: “Yes.”

Then they switched the yes and the no, stumbled between the two a few times and finally, Chad said, “We didn’t really have time.”

“Oh, in that case,” Fenn said, “this shit will definitely be at the far end of the table.”

“Don’t be like that,” Bryant took off his hat and slapped Fenn on the shoulder.

“I guess you think I like it when you do that.”

“Oh, you do,” Bryant said in a mellow voice, “only you don’t know it.

“Well, we gotta go. We’ve got a long drive and I’d like to be in Erie before it’s too dark.”

“We’ll see you guys this weekend,” Chad said.

Bryant had become a hugger, which meant Chad North had become a hugger, which meant that Todd and Fenn, but not Paul, who was just getting off of the phone, had to be the hugged, which they bore. And then when their friends were gone, Paul put down the receiver and came to the counter.

“What was that all about?” he said.

Fenn put a spoon in the dish and lifted it to Paul’s mouth.

“Taste this,” he said.

“Okay, this has been great, but I’ll slap myself in the face if I don’t get up and go see Robin,” Meredith said, rising from the table in the sunlit restaurant.

She walked around the table, kissed Layla on the cheek and told her, “You look fantastic in that dress, Lay. I’ll see all of you guys tomorrow, right?”

“Be there or be hungry,” Layla said.

“Alright.”

She kissed Dena on the cheek and squeezed Claire’s shoulder, and then was gone.

Layla waited until Meredith had left the restaurant, and then she said, “Alright. Howabout one of you bitches tell me what’s going on?”

“Going on?”

“Dena Reardon—”

“Affren.”

“Dena, don’t play. You either, Claire.”

“I’m your sister-in-law. Would I hide anything from you?”

“Well, considering you married a brother who was hidden from me for eighteen years—”

Radha came back to the table from the bathroom and said, “Where’s Meredith?”

“She had to go.”

“And why’s Layla looking crazy?”

“I’m not looking crazy.”

“She’s being paranoid,” Claire said.

“I am—” Layla started. She stopped. She said, “You all don’t seem happy for me.”

“Now see,” Dena slapped the table. “That’s a classic case of paranoia. Of course we’re happy for you.”

“I’m not,” Radha said, leaning forward and taking a long slurp of her margarita. “I think marriage is a bourgeousie trap.”

“That’s why you and Mark are still living together?”

“That’s why we will always live together.”

“Have you ever thought of polygamy?” Claire leaned forward.

“You’re changing the subject,” Layla said.

“I know,” her sister-in-law told her. “Paul once told me about these guys back in California. Well, they weren’t polygamous… cause that means many wives. But they were a foursome. They all lived together, slept with each other, sometimes had four way and three way sex, shared their income.”

“I don’t think I like that shit,” Layla realized.

“I think it’s a little hot,” Dena admitted. “The only thing is I’ve only been with two men in my life, and I don’t really want to be with any others.”

“Two?” Claire said. And then she remembered: “Brendan. That’s so weird for me.”

“That’s because he’s been out and with Kenny as long as you’ve known him.”

“Kenny is fine,” Radha said flatly. “I don’t know him, but I always think it would have been neat to have gotten a hold of him before he found out about himself.”

“I used to have a crush on Kenny Mc.Grath,” Dena admitted. “I super, super had a thing for him even when I was dating Bren. And then to find out—”

“That Bren had a thing for him too,” Layla shook her head.

Dena burst out laughing. “I did not handle it well at all.”

“This bitch,” Layla began, “went to Martin’s back when Kenny was still working there. Got in the checkout line, put a whole bunch of food down on the conveyer belt and then when he asked her ‘is that all?’ she said ‘one more thing’ made a fist and knocked him out.”

“Did you really hurt him?” Claire said. “Oh, I don’t remember this.”

“Well, Layla just said it,” Dena told her. “I knocked him out.”

Radha Hatangady’s eyes had been open with amazement and now she said, “I didn’t know you had it in you. I should have known,” she realized. “But I didn’t.”

“I was kind of pissed off,” Dena said, chuckling.

“She got arrested,” Layla remembered.

“Did you really?”

“Yes, Radha. The cop was actually kind of hot. I almost wish I’d slept with him.”