Page 42 of The Goode Girls of Maple Lane
I have to laugh at that. He has a point. And as I imagine the people on our floor gathering together to share a holiday meal in a way I’ve only ever seen on TV—with cheerful toasts, plates of food being passed around, and boisterous, overlapping conversations—I find myself smiling.
CAMERON:Let’s do it
THE ROBOT TURKEYisn’t happening. Khalil’s heading to Iowa to spend the break with his family, but Regina and Tegan are excited to come, and while Minh Ha’s initially reticent, saying she doesn’t want to impose on “a young people’s event,” she soon comes around.
Despite the obvious route of reaching Phone Girl, I don’t have her number, so I knock on her door. When she doesn’t answer, I leave a Post-it on her door with the key info. The Post-it’s gone when I pass by later to meet Everett, so I assume she got the invite thoughI’m skeptical she’ll join us. Still, I hope she’s only alone tomorrow if she wants to be alone, not because she thinks the best she can do is a microwaved frozen dinner and a marathon of rom-coms about overworked city girls who return to their small hometowns to fall in love while saving turkey farms and pumpkin patches, which I happen to know from experience can fill an entire day.
At the grocery store, Everett and I improvise a mostly vegetarian menu and fill a cart with food.A cart.I haven’t used a cart since I lived with my parents. I rarely even have reason to use a basket. We also pick up wine and cute napkins printed with autumn leaves, though I talk Everett out of fancy candles. I get enough of those on weekends.
On the way home, seduced by a chalked ad on a sandwich board outside Havisham & Harrison’s, we head inside to buy a tin of their limited-edition pumpkin-spice chai. While waiting in line, I give Everett an abbreviated version of Diana’s stories about her beloved wire fox terriers: the digger, the chaser, the snuggler. When I finish, he encourages me to go use the restroom. I tell him I don’t need to pee. He tells me I’ll understand when I get there, and I do.
While the interior of the shop is all classic dark wood against deep green walls, and tastefully decorated with whimsically arranged British antiques, the single unisex restroom is covered wall to wall and floor to ceiling in wire fox terrier art: paintings of both the impressive and comically bad varieties, framed news clippings from dog shows, hammered-tin terriers, ceramic-plate terriers, a terrier street sign, several dog-head brass door knockers. The soap dispenser and wastebasket have terriers on them. There’s a chandelier made of tiny crystal terriers. I take it all in with the awe it deserves, and when I return to find out Everett has invited Arthurand Diana to join our dinner, and they’ve agreed to come, I’m delighted.
Everett insists on paying for everything and I don’t fight him on it since we both know I’d be lucky to cover the cost of the potatoes. We haul everything home, drop it off at his place, and I pick up Aggie, who wobble-trots down the hall with only a little bit of help. The sight fills me with joy, and I know it won’t be long until she can do the walk entirely on her own.
As Everett and I spend the next few hours peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables to prepare for tomorrow, and while Aggie brings us her ball and we discuss where everyone will sit in an apartment that’ll be a tight fit for ten, I think back on all the times my mom said happiness was a choice anyone could make at any time by having a positive attitude and a little perspective, as if we all have a switch in our brains that only requires flipping. That never rang true to me. I don’t think happiness is only about attitude and perspective, and it’s definitely not as simple as flipping a switch. Sometimes it’s really hard-won. Sometimes it finds us by accident. Sometimes it’s out of reach for days or years at a time. But right now? For me? Happiness is a dog, a ball, a paring knife, a bowl of bright orange sweet potatoes, a sentimental Joshua Radin song playing at low volume in the background, and a man in antique glasses and a cast-off sweater, telling me a story about a blanket fort he made with his sisters when they were kids.
Tonight, I don’t need to wonder what happiness is or how I’ll achieve it.
Tonight, I just know.
Chapter Sixteen
Thanksgiving at Everett’s is loud and chaotic in ways that both fill my heart and wear me out. Everett manages the kitchen while fielding holiday greeting calls from his family members. I set the table, answer the door, and find places to put the food, drinks, coats, and bags. Diana holds court on the sofa, an endless well of funny stories about her dogs, the tea shop, and her unruly childhood as one of fourteen siblings on a Vermont dairy farm, rattling on without pause while Arthur smiles at her fondly and barely says a word. Minh Ha sets up a DIY spring roll station and promises to talk us all through the process while Pilot runs circles around our ankles or tries to get Aggie to chase her, running off with Aggie’s toys only to return and drop them on her blanket before curling into Aggie’s side for a two-minute power nap and then leaping up to play again.
Everett’s work colleagues—a Mandy and Mindy I can’t keep straight and a beefy blond guy named Brandon who introduces himself as Everett’s fiercest competition, earning eye rolls from the others—discuss various marketing accounts they’re working on, from a local cheese company to an emerging singer-songwriter toa tech startup exploring AI, before Everett pops over to refill wineglasses and begs them to talk about anything but work.
Regina and Tegan arrive with champagne and charcuterie in hand, wearingLove like an adopted rescue dogbaseball tees. The shirts are printed in crisp black text against a pink body, with maroon sleeves and neckline ribbing, and a really cute line drawing of Aggie below the text. Regina says they’re only samples and she can make changes, but I love them as is. They bring one for Aggie, too, withGoodeprinted across the back like a real baseball uniform. Everyone cheers when I put it on her and she makes a slow, stumbling circuit around the room, collecting praise and pets as she goes. I can’t resist sharing something that brings so much joy, so with a little wrangling help from the others, I get a ten-second shot of her with Pilot and post it to our account with a brief caption that saysHappy Thanksgiving, with love from the Goode Girls.
Shortly before we sit down to dinner, my mom texts me a screenshot of her Facebook post with a photo-perfect meal she prepared and a description about how she and her wonderful husband are spending the day being grateful for each other. Rather than text back, I call right away to wish them a happy Thanksgiving. My mom tells me my dad can’t join the call because he’s out playing bridge at his club and she’s not sure when he’ll be back. She goes quiet for two seconds—just long enough for me to peek at her screenshot again—so I ask if she’s okay.
“Of course!” she says with her usual cheer. “I’ll get all the pie to myself.”
I stifle a sigh. She changes the subject by asking how I am. I debate telling her about Everett but decide against it, to avoid her getting unnecessarily invested. We don’t stay on the call for long.
Being surrounded by noise, energy, and activity is an adjustment, but not being alone for the holiday feels amazing. The ten of us sit in an assortment of borrowed chairs, crowded around three small tables pushed together end to end, where I let others carry the conversation while I listen, laugh, make heart-eyed smiles at Everett, and eat like I need to tide myself over until Christmas, which is entirely possible given the desperate state of my finances.
Regina tells us how she and Tegan met—showing up for app dates with other people but hitting it off while they were waiting and leaving together instead—while Tegan reenacts the scene with foil-wrapped chocolate turkeys that serve as a low-effort centerpiece.
Minh Ha describes some of the funniest student emails she’s received, begging for extensions for hangovers or excused absences for “not being a morning person.”
Everett and his coworkers compare stories about the worst things they’ve found in the communal fridge, from expired cottage cheese to barely recognizable moldy egg salad.
Diana tells us her terriers were all renamed after Irish writers—Seamus, Beckett, Oscar, Joyce—post-adoption, a tradition her parents started and she continued after leaving their farm. This launches a conversation about what everyone likes to read, and we discover I’m the only one who hasn’t readJane Eyre, leading to a chorus of demands that I fix this immediately.
We talk. We toast. We laugh. We drink. We eat. It’s so ordinary. It’s so magical.
As forks get set aside and mostly empty plates get nudged toward the center of the table, Aggie stumbles over to sit between Everett and me, and we both pet her head while sneaking in little caressesof each other’s fingertips. I’m sated, happy, and a little fuzzy-headed from three glasses of wine I’m not used to, so I’m unprepared when conversation at the table turns to Aggie’s recovery, and Mandy—or maybe it’s Mindy—asks about hydrotherapy.
Everett notices me stiffen and scoots his chair closer to set a hand on my back, giving me a look that says I don’t have to talk about this and he’ll change the subject if I need him to. I’m grateful for the support, but it’s a reasonable question, asked with good intentions, and one I’ll clearly have to keep fielding, so I might as well get used to answering it.
“I looked into it,” I say. “But it’s very expensive.”
“Easy,” Brandon says. “That account’s going gangbusters. A little polish and you can double it by Christmas. You hit a hundred K and the offers will start rolling in, if they haven’t already. And Redmond can talk you through branding and sponsorship in his sleep.”
I force a smile but my hands roll into fists in my lap. Brandon was already my least favorite person at this dinner, full of quick opinions stated like indisputable facts. Now, I kind of want to punch his smug face. From the looks Mandy and Mindy are exchanging, they do, too.
“I’m not interested in polishing my dog,” I tell him.
