Page 89 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“But it wasn’t the same,” Asher said.
I looked at him in the rearview mirror and smiled. “No?”
He shook his head. “I want to see it right when it happens.”
“Well, you have to keep yourself awake then. I seem to remember trying to keep you up last year, and you got mad at me because you were tired.”
“I won’t fall asleep this year. I’m older now. I can stay up.”
“Okay,” I said in a bemused, skeptical voice.
“I can! You wait and see.”
“Okay,” I said again, smirking.
Asher spent the rest of the drive talking to himself, and I overheard the words “awake” and “sleep” and “must” several times over before I pulled into the driveway.
My father’s car was already there. Asher and I grabbed the grocery bags and headed straight inside for the kitchen, where we found my father pouring himself a glass of water.
“Hello, you two,” he said, wandering over and peering into some of the grocery bags. He spotted the dip I’d bought him right away and plucked it out of the bag. “You remembered!”
“Of course we did. It’s a tradition. The chips should be in one of the other bags, too.”
My father clapped his hands together and rubbed them back and forth. “It’s going to be a good night. Plenty of food. Good entertainment. And celebration. I can’t believe it’s already the end of the year. Time has flown!”
“Sure has,” I said. “It sure has.”
Asher helped us put away the groceries, and as my father and I started to prepare the pasta, he ran upstairs to change into his pajamas. When he came back down, he set the coffee table in the living room, where we would be spending the rest of the evening. Then, all full of energy, he came into the kitchen and asked to help us cook.
It was perfect timing. My eyes were watering like crazy from cutting the onion he picked.
“Dad, are you okay?” Asher asked with concern.
I nodded. “Yep. I just got onion juice in my eyes, and it burns a little.”
“Oh. Do you need a tissue?”
I smiled and shook my head. “No thanks, Ash. I’m good. Do you think you could help me put the chips in a bowl? And put the dip out?”
Asher nodded and went about preparing the appetizers.
“How are you doing, Cal?” my father asked me as he chopped some red peppers and added them to the pan I had of simmering onions on the stove.
I shrugged. “Been better. Been worse.”
“That’s fair. Have you spoken to Kelli since you called her? You know, the night Lina left?”
I shook my head. “No, and I don’t plan to. I gave her the information. It’s up to her how she decides to act on it. I just hope Lina is okay and Kelli can move past the accident. They both deserve to still have each other as best friends. Those two have been inseparable for as long as I’ve known them. I’d hate to think I played a part in breaking them up.”
My dad nodded. “They’ll be all right. Kelli’s one of the good ones.”
“I think so too.”
We carried on cooking, and soon, we had a pot full of simmering pasta sauce, and the whole house smelled like tomatoes and Italian spices.
We went out into the living room to chow down on the appetizers. Asher bounced back and forth between the two sofas and played with his truck for a while. Then the New Year’s Eve special started around eight o’clock, and we sat down with our piping-hot spaghetti.
My father nodded at Asher. “So, you’re going to be a big boy and stay up all the way until midnight tonight?”
