Page 35 of A Storybook Wedding

It’s true what I told her. I’m not mad. I’m upset, but more at the idea that it would be a problem if we had kissed on purpose and people found out, because we’re, like, two years apart in age, and we’re both consenting adults. The sound of her last sentence reverberates in my brain. You too, Pen. I like that stupid nickname, damn it. And I don’t like lots of things.

My train pulls into the Woodbridge station, and I walk to the door, steadying myself. The sun is shining, but I can feel the cold trying to push its way through. I get out onto the platform and immediately head toward the front car, knowing exactly where Dad will be waiting. It’s like muscle memory; I don’t even need to think consciously about the moves I make. My body just knows where to take me.

My parents moved to Woodbridge when I graduated from high school. I grew up in the city, on 88th and Amsterdam, not far from where I live now. Dad worked for Memorial Sloan Kettering in the accounting department, and my mom was a commercial actress—meaning an actress who specialized in commercials. Before I was born, she’d star in advertisements for department stores, mostly Macy’s and Nordstrom. Then, after she had me, she really thrived in the laundry circuit. She became “the Tide Lady” for about four years, and that included print ads as well as TV spots, before she moved on to Dreft and, finally, All. She must have really given off that I can’t wait to wash other people’s underwear vibe. When my sister, Katie, and I were teenagers, Mom used to complain that the industry was really shifting to the online market, and the pay wasn’t great for the work she was getting, so she wanted to move out of the city and learn how to garden. My dad—a workaholic who swore he’d never retire—agreed that once I graduated from Regis (a pretty big deal Jesuit high school in Manhattan boasting alumni such as SNL writer Colin Jost and COVID master Anthony Fauci), he’d be willing to move to Jersey, land of Wawa gas stations and no left turns.

I was not thrilled.

I decided to go to NYU for my undergrad, and because we were still just a commute away, my father and I took the train into the city together most days. Katie, who’s twenty months older than me, was attending school in Philly; my folks’ move to Woodbridge gave her a reason to ask for a car, so she was psyched. She ended up moving in with my parents once she graduated. You know, like most kids do, to try and figure out her life now that she had a bachelor’s degree in communications, one of the most vague fields out there. She celebrated this degree by working at Applebee’s, where she met a guy who promptly knocked her up and then “agreed” to marry her, real romantic-like. They lived in my parents’ finished basement with my niece, Lila.

Rent free. For four years.

True to her word, my mother was doing her gardening thing. She excelled at it, really. She joined a gardening club and worked on town beautification projects and at farmers markets on the weekends. My father continued to work in the city—until a few days shy of Lila’s fourth birthday, when he had his heart attack. They called it “the big scare,” because evidently it could have been much worse. He was fifty-eight but had made more than enough money to retire. So my mom convinced him. Dad liked the warm weather, so they bought a condo in Florida, and they gave their house in Woodbridge to Katie, Johnny, and Lila, with the caveat that if they ever wanted to come back and visit, the basement would be available for them to stay in as a guest space.

And now we have Thanksgiving here every year. Just my parents, my sister, her husband, Lila, and me.

As I’m sure you can imagine, my brother-in-law is not exactly a go-getter. He’s an assistant manager at a Dollar General, and Katie runs the after-school program at Tyler Avenue Elementary School. (How’d she get there with a communications degree, you wonder? Hell if I know.) Lila’s twelve now, and she’s becoming a bit of a handful, according to my sister. Don’t get me wrong; I love my family, but we just don’t have all that much in common. Katie’s more concerned with my relationship status than with anything I’ve done professionally, and Johnny just likes to have another guy around to watch football with (or maybe just someone to drink beer with). When Work took off, they didn’t come to any of the events or signings—although Katie said that if I did anything in Woodbridge, she’d show up for it (that’s right, folks—Woodbridge, New Jersey, a.k.a. the literary capital of the world)—and when the film comes out, they said they’d watch it on Netflix. I never heard another word about it. Family is funny like that, I think. I’m pretty sure Katie and Johnny don’t even own a copy of the book.

I’m not bitter about it though. Really. It’s actually kind of refreshing to have a handful of people who just see me as Nate, with zero pressure attached.

My parents are a different story. I am definitely a combination of the two of them: creative like my mom, strong work ethic like my dad. We get along well, except now that I’m a name (some) people have heard of, my mom is forever trying to pretend she’s my publicist. She was bragging about an interview I did with Time magazine while in line at the grocery store, and she made the lady who she was talking to open up her phone and buy my book on Amazon right there on the spot. When she recounted the story to me later that night on FaceTime, she was all giddy and kept saying, “ABC! Always be closing!” while I made a mental note that if any hate mail comes in from a woman in Florida, that’s just the fallout from my mother’s trip to buy chicken cutlets at Publix.

My father, meanwhile, has found his new passion for life on the golf course. He gets out there at least five days a week, and I think he believes it’s his new job. He now likens everything to golf, which is interesting at best and a real stretch at worst.

So when I get to the car (to be clear, this is Johnny’s car, a sputtering Camaro from the 1990s with a rust-lined undercarriage that has easily 150,000 miles on it—“I’m restoring it,” Johnny insists), it’s no surprise that the first words out of my dad’s mouth are, “Hiya, son. Sorry I had to pick you up in this old thing. Makes my cart look good by comparison.”

Because yes, of course he owns his own golf cart.

We drive back to the house, and he asks how the new book is coming along. I tell him the truth—it’s hard work and I’ve pushed back the deadline a few times—to which he responds, “Just like the great Lee Trevino once said: ‘Putts get real difficult the day they hand out the money.’”

“Yup,” I say.

“What about this singing competition on TV? Was it like some new version of The Voice or something?”

“God, Dad, no.”

“Well, forgive me. Every time your mother looks at it, she cheers so damn loud that I can’t hear over her.”

I laugh. “That sounds about right. It wasn’t a singing competition. It was just a bit where someone from The Tonight Show goes out to do stuff among unsuspecting regular people. In this case, karaoke,” I add.

“I didn’t know you were a big singer,” he says.

“I’m not.”

“I also didn’t know you have a girlfriend. I think that’s the part your mother is most excited about.”

“Oh. That. Well, she’ll have to calm down. That’s just CJ. It’s complicated.”

“Like putting from the rough.”

“Yeah, Dad. You took the words right out of my mouth.” I shake my head.

Thankfully (or not, depending on how you look at it), we’re at the house. Dad opens the front door, and I’m overcome with the scent of home cooking. My mother is in her full glory, with an apron on (I can say with absolute confidence that Katie has never worn an apron, as the self-proclaimed queen of Taco Bell), her hair pulled back, and red and gold oven mitts that intentionally resemble the hands in Iron Man. She shrieks when she sees me. “Nate the Great!” she yelps, setting down a large Pyrex dish and power walking over to give me a hug.

“Hey, Mom. Smells delish in here.”

“Honey, I am so sorry. If we had known that you were seeing someone, we would absolutely have invited her to dinner! Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Wow, waste no time.” I chuckle under my breath. “I’m not, Mom. You’re fine.”

---