Page 16 of The New Year's Party
“Is this the bar?” She lifted the vodka and swiveled on her feet. Damn, her ass looked good in that deep crouch. “Do you have another bottle? This isn’t enough. Are you doing a spiked punch? That would be fun, right? And Jell-O shots. You have to have those.”
“So, I do have a bar cart in the dining room,” said Phelps, shifting his weight. “This is the reserve. And I wasn’t planning on Jell-O shots. This isn’t a frat party. We’re old. Why waste our limited drinking capacity on something you swallow whole and barely taste?”
“Phe-elps, don’tbelike that! Jell-O shots are delicious. I’ll make them! Don’t worry. You won’t have to do a thing. I havea recipe and everyone willloveit, promise. You have to let me contribute something!”
“I don’t know if I have Jell-O on hand...” Now could be a good moment to drop in that smartass comment about strong suck—
“Here’s some,” she said brightly, pulling two powder packets from one of the shelves. She stood and reached up to boop his nose. “Your place is a dump.”
He laughed. “Did you just boop me?”
She grinned and punched her fists into her waist, thrusting her chest out. “Damn straight, cowboy.” She inched forward until their bodies were touching. “And don’t test me, or I’ll do it again.”
“O-kay,” said Phelps, heat rushing into his groin.
Just as suddenly as she’d aroused him, she pushed past him, out of the pantry.
“Gloves?”
He gestured to the yellow pair from the sink. “All yours, princess.”
And she was gone.
Phew. He needed a second to cool down before he got to work on the chocolate mousse. He made for the kitchen’s big sliding doors, slipped on the moccasins he kept there, and stepped onto the snowy back deck, where two wet lawn chairs kept the covered grill company.
It was overcast and gray, but bright, and at least the sleet had let up. He filled his lungs with cold air and stretched out his back. Jokes about age aside, hewasfeeling old. Pains in his back and legs. He was working for Novak Plumbing, a bottom-of-the-chain job that was way too physical for his mid-thirties body. Digging literal holes in people’s yards and basements. Hauling away buckets of busted-up turf or cement. He’d never sleep through the constant dull throb of pain if itweren’t for smoking weed. He was thinking of quitting the job. Maybe after the holidays. Maybe after the grill was paid off.
In fact, maybe while he was out here, he’d have a little smoke, just to set the mood, to relax... He already had a joint rolled and ready in his back pocket. He pulled it out and lit it, cupping his hand around the stub to protect it from the breeze. There was an unpleasant queasy feeling in his stomach. Huh. Where had those nice feelings of nostalgia and excitement gone?
It’s not that he was nervous about the party. Phelps didn’t get nervous. It was more like... an unease. Let’s be honest—as excited as he was about tonight, the party could easily turn into an in-your-face reminder that, of the old crowd, Phelps alone had been left behind. Bennett had his dream, living the posh life in Chicago with Olivia; Will was living the suburban dream in Indy as Mr. Family Man Himself; even Bunny, who he’d invited on a whim just minutes before Allie showed up, had a whole grown-ass life in Nashville. And here was Phelps, in a crappy rental house in the country, just outside the same crappy town where he grew up, divorced, with a crappy job and not enough time with his own kids.
Of course, there was one consolation: Doug. You couldn’t sayhewas living the dream. But who wanted to be in the same camp as Fuckup Doug?
Phelps took his first drag, filling his mouth and holding the smoke in.
He didn’t get mad in a big way very often. Little ways? All the time—when his kids missed the toilet, when they spilled their LEGO shit everywhere, when his back hurt, when his boss acted like an asshole, when the rent went up, when his ex-wife, Kylie, was being unreasonable—but the temptation would arise every so often to be really, really destructively angry, and he could feel the edges of that now, because he, too, had a dream once upon a time: his restaurant.
Six years ago, encouraged by his friends, Phelps decided to buy the Rock the Clock Diner, a Michigan City legend. The owner, Eddie, was in his seventies and wanted out of the biz. The place was so ancient Phelps’s own father had worked there as a teen. Despite the diner’s long history, it had been sitting on the market forever with not even a hint of interest, possibly due to Eddie’s zero-upkeep policy and the inch of grease that lay over everything, saltshakers included. That suited Phelps just fine; it meant the price was right.
It was scary how what started as a pipe dream grew so quickly, until it felt like the only thing he was living for. It pained him to think of it now—not just the grunt work he’d done to put together the business plan and the loan application, which Will helped him with, but the recipe testing, the notebook he’d filled with instructions on how to make a proper gravy and how to cook a proper egg, which he imagined himself using to train his line cooks. Then, contrary to popular opinion and the opinion of Kylie, who’d still been married to him at the time, he actually got the funds together. He made an offer. Old Eddie accepted his offer. Then—
Phelps laughed out loud, choking out some smoke. Hehadto laugh.
The place had burned down.
Like God struck it on purpose. Phelps wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a God, one who hated Phelps. Who enjoyed targeting him in some special, sadistic way.
Well, no worries, because Phelps hated him right on back.
Phelps coughed out the last of his laughter. Theirony. Phelps had been voted Most Likely to Be President for their senior class, and now, the person Phelps was most similar to—and this fuckingkilledhim to admit—was Doug.
Phelps had managed to avoid him since he and Hellie moved back. Doug meant drama, and Phelps was adadnow for fuck’s sake, which Doug didn’t seem to get when he called at two inthe fucking morning wanting to talk about some new music he’d heard on some obscure radio station or some bizarro podcast he’d found through Twitter. It pained Phelps to think about how naive he’d been during the intervention he’d organized so many years ago. How naive about the capacity of people to change. Doug’s. His own. Poor Hellie deserved so much better, and Phelps would have counted himself lucky to have a girl like that, a rock, someone who didn’t waver even when you went through rehab twice and to prison twice and wrecked her car and stole her money. But you didn’t disinvite anyone to New Year’s. The crowd was the crowd. That was their vow, that first New Year’s, when they were all twenty and stupid and pricked their fingers with the tip of the wine opener and rubbed their blood together like it was some kind of cheesy coven.
He took another slow drag, deep down into his lungs. He held the smoke until it burned, then released it slowly. He surveyed the large mud-and-snow-filled backyard. To the left was the cornfield that had been too moist to harvest. The tall wintering corn gave a nice feeling of privacy. He squinted toward the shed, which sat at the end of the yard, among the host of pine trees that blocked their property from the next. He should probably clean the shed up before the party too. Maybe hide the weed, since Jenn would disapprove. He’d never forget the New Year’s when she smelled the weed they were smoking in the back bedroom, and left with Will in the middle of the night. Phelps wondered at the time if that was the end of their friendship. But no, they’d come back the following year and all drug usage had been done in secret. Will didn’t approve either, but at least he didn’t try to control everyone else.
One hoped Jenn would have loosened up with age, but you never knew. She wasn’t Phelps’s favorite person. Too conservative. Too Christian. Cute, he gave her that wholeheartedly. And, judging by social media, an enthusiastic wife and a devoted mother to their three girls. It was a little stomach turning,how saccharine she was about Will and the girls. She didn’t just post on their wedding anniversary, but on their date-iversary, their engagement anniversary, their baptism anniversaries, the anniversary of their fucking first kiss. Phelps pulled out his phone and navigated to her Facebook page. Sure enough, the Christmas post.
So thankful on this Christmas day for our Lord and Savior who saved us from our sins!! So thankful for my beautiful family, and William, who will always hold my heart!! Thank you babe for being my rock, the leader of our family, an incredible father and husband! We all just love you so much! Looking into the New Year with so much hope in my heart for our family’s beautiful future!
