The Boy Who Wore Boat Shoes

21⎜The Lunch

21⎜The Lunch

           “We’re going back home.”

           “I thought we were stayin’ here, babe?”

           “No, we’re going home. I am not missin’ a holiday this substantial!”

           “What about you, Scotty? What’re your plans?”

           “Eh. Probably stay out here.”

           “Do you want to come over my house? You’re family and Eli loves you.”

           “Uh, who’s Eli?” I finally elected to speak, breaking the dialogue of the four intertwined friends with a question that must’ve seemed trivial to them.

           “My dad,” Ari answered with a soft smile, prodding her food with a metal fork. Scott’s eyes were glued to her plate, for he had already devoured all that he had ordered. In one swift motion, he snatched the fork from her fingers and then stabbed the remainder of Ari’s chicken breast, bringing it up to his mouth and taking a large bite.

           “Scott! Where’re your table manners?” Kay Rodgers gasped, covering her mouth with her hands for added effect.

           “Sorry,” he mumbled, in the midst of digesting a mouthful of poultry. “Oh, and you’re right, Ira—Eli does love me. I’m his favorite. Hell, I’m everyone’s favorite!”

           A small smirk played at Ari’s lips as she said a quiet yet audible, “That’s debatable,” to the Pennsylvania native.

           “Yeah, you’re sure as hell not my favorite!” Houston laughed, slapping his best friend on the back with a gleeful grin and too much force.

           “That hurts,” Scott pouted, pointing to his chest as he went on to say, “right in the heart…and on the back.”

           Completely ignoring Scott’s antics, Kay turned to me and gave me one of her best monogrammed smiles. “So, Eric,” she began in that sugar-drenched tone of hers, “where are you going for Thanksgiving?”

           I processed the question for a moment, though it had been the topic of discussion for the past few minutes at the table. As it turned out, Thanksgiving was actually considered a “real” holiday around here, unlike Halloween. Unlike back home, everything didn’t get decorated to the max with orange and black and green and purple and pumpkins and spiders and ghosts when the thirty-first of October hit. It was just a minimal time on the Stanford campus, and I had basically just slept through it, even if I had been invited to party at the frat. As for the current inquiry at hand regarding the nationally acknowledged day about turkey and pilgrims, well, everyone else had a perfectly legitimate answer, and then there was me. Boring, average, and lame. “Well, I was either going to stay on campus or Seth asked if I wanted to spend the weekend at his house…”

           “Seth? Sweetie, no. You are not spending Thanksgiving at Seth Newman’s house,” Kay retorted, frantically shaking her head in a way so that her blonde waves moved concurrently.

           “My parents are going to be out of town, so I don’t really feel like going back to New York,” I said. It was the truth, though an abridged version. Technically, my parents were actually going out of town, and in the next town over to my grandparents’ house, and technically I didn’t really feel like going back home, though that was because New York didn’t feel like home to me anymore. My friends were away and not speaking to me. I felt like a stranger in the town in which I had grown up. My life wasn’t there anymore. I couldn’t go back.