17
The Dateless Evening
DOING YOUR HOMEWORK? Check.
SALVAGING THE DECREPIT REMAINS OF YOUR HOCKEY FANTASY LEAGUE? Check.
COMPLETING ALL THE CROSSWORD PUZZLES IN MOM’S LATEST STACK OF MAGAZINES? Check.
DOING SUDOKU? Hard pass. It’s freaking math disguised as entertainment.
BINGING TWO BACK SEASONS OF DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION? Check.
@Eric53 is online.
@Norrtorious—Hey, how’s it going?
@Eric53—What’s wrong?
@Norrtorious—Why do you think something’s wrong?
@Eric53—“Hey, how’s it going?”
@Eric53—Bitch, plz.
@Norrtorious—M’fine. Just bored here.
@Eric53—I’m just going to keep saying Bitch, plz.
@Norrtorious—What are you up to tonight?
@Eric53—Date with M-A. He’s picking me up and shit.
@Norrtorious—Chivalrous.
@Eric53—He made a point of telling me his parents are away. . . . Was that a code for sex? Am I about to have sex tonight?
@Norrtorious—¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Eric53—Do I want to have sex tonight?!
@Norrtorious—Lol, how am I supposed to answer that?
@Eric53—This is really stressful. Where’s Aarti?
@Norrtorious—Some fashion show she’s photographing. I’ll join her in a few.
@Eric53—She sounds way too cool for u, lol.
@Eric53—Is everything ok?
@Norrtorious—Of course. Go spread the gay agenda.
@Norrtorious—I’m fine, really.
@Eric53—If u say so. International text it up if ur having a meltdown or something.
@Norrtorious—No meltdowns, lol. Go.
@Eric53 is offline.
Norris wasn’t sure why he had lied to Eric, exactly, but he didn’t want to get into the Aarti stuff. Instead, Norris scanned his small list of contacts for some alternative to this entirely unwelcome feeling in his chest.
His dad hadn’t been online in five days, according to the time stamp next to his grayed-out icon. Of course he hadn’t. On an impulse, Norris clicked Edit and changed the icon’s name from “Dad” to “Canadad.” He stared at the name for a moment before saving the change that felt both important and completely insignificant.
A few days ago, Norris could not wait to be back in Austin. Now he was saddling up for another Saturday evening on his own, confused by Aarti’s sudden coldness.
He scrolled through his phone and unearthed a two-day old email from Maddie. Upon closer inspection, it contained a forwarded invitation to a movie event at the Alamo Drafthouse by some “Oliver McMahon” for Saturday . . . which was tonight. She’d highlighted the last line of the email in yellow:
Invite your Canadian. He was chill at Mer’s.
Had he even talked to an Oliver at that thing? The swim team guy with the Rick and Morty T-shirt, maybe?
Either way: hard pass. Hanging out with a bunch of jocks smuggling brown-bagged bottles of tequila into a Rocky Horror sing-along sounded entirely too exhausting at the moment.
“There’s actual dinner on the stove,” Judith noted from Norris’s doorway, putting on sparkling red earrings. She nodded to the empty microwave cup sitting on Norris’s desk and raised a disgusted lip at the processed cheese glue around its rim. “Soup Joumou.”
“With noodles?”
Let it be known that—antislavery insurrection against French colonial rule aside—the best thing Haitians had ever done was spicy pumpkin stew. Norris’s favorite recipe on earth, right over a standard La Belle Province poutine without too much gravy.
“Dumplings,” she corrected with a smile, feathering her hair in his mirror. She had a new wig on: one with auburn highlights that, while obviously still a wig, also gave her a sharp modern look. Norris’s mom never favored hair extensions or wigs that could pass for real hair like some of her Haitian friends preferred. For Judith they were hats, and strictly matters of fashion. Some days her natural short, natty gray hair fraying around the edges was her go-to look; on others, she would wear a replica of Beyoncé’s pixie cut. To say nothing of the headscarves. His mother was kind of a boss when it came to self-assurance on that front.
New wig. New earrings. Her dress, an old one from Canada normally saved for family events and weddings, was freshly pressed. And nails painted a glossy dark purple that matched her lips.
“Are you going on a goddamn date?!”
“Language,” she warned.
“Shouldn’t I be—I don’t know—consulted?” Norris sputtered. Emotionally fragile child of divorce, et cetera. He knew it was coming but figured he had at least a year before she asked him to install a dating app on her phone.
“That’s quite the thesis statement, babe.” Judith snorted. “Want to break down that argument for me?”
“No, it’s fine.” Norris quickly reconsidered. “Have a good time.”
Norris didn’t really mind. She definitely deserved a nice guy after the northern gap-toothed bimbo situation. Judith, however, was still looking at him, as if she were counting the typos on his face.
“What?” he asked.
She smiled, stepped into the room, and kissed his head, wrapping her bare arm around him. “It’s just dinner. I met him at a panel for new faculty. No one is taking you on a family bonding fishing trip yet, babe.”
She smelled like perfume. He could never decipher the specific scents past that first whiff. They all smelled the same to Norris: alcohol, softly lit commercials, and old magazines.
“Hmm, want to talk about it?” Judith asked softly. “The mystery girl that this is definitely not about? I can postpone.”
“I really don’t, Mom,” Norris assured her. “Go.”
“Text if you go out. I’ll be back by midnight.”
“Cool.”
“Or,” she continued, “at the latest, eleven a.m. tomorrow morning, if he doesn’t have his kid this weekend.”
She blew him a kiss before closing the door.
#@&*$Y)#Y#$()$&)#???!!!!
Screw Rocky Horror. Short of a full lobotomy to erase his mother’s parting blow from his mind, Norris thought of the next-best Saturday evening plan.
“Hey,” Liam’s voice answered after four rings. “Welcome back.”
“She didn’t look twice at the snow globe,” Norris explained as best as he could, his frustration echoing around the empty rink as he missed the net for the third time in as many tries.
“So your relationship with Aarti Puri is doomed because . . . she didn’t look twice at the snow globe?” Liam repeated verbatim, chin on his hockey stick as he watched the wayward puck glide to a stop across the rink. Norris skated backward to make space for Liam at the pucks they had lined up for drills.
“When you say it that way, you make me sound like a moron.” He groaned.
“Apologies,” Liam said quite unapologetically, skating forward to ready himself at the nearest puck.
Liam’s original Saturday night plans had involved “working on his night garden,” which he had not minded postponing. Once at the ice rink, they had fallen pretty seamlessly into the regular pattern of their practices. It was nice to spend time with an Austinite who seemed to vaguely enjoy his presence. His stance had definitely gotten better.
“If I may,” Liam started after clearing his throat as if he was about to jump over a blinking land mine. “You and Aarti seem to be . . . very different people.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Norris asked. Him, bad; her, good? Her, pretty; him, something fished out of the bottom of the lagoon? Her, life of the party; him, neighbor who calls the cops with noise complaint at exactly nine thirty p.m.?
“I just mean that you might have different expectations for relationships, based on your personalities. That’s always either really easy or really messy.”
“Loosen your back; it’s not golf,” Norris casually instructed, taking in Liam’s posture as he aligned his stick with the second puck.
“Maybe you giving her a gift turned her off,” Liam continued as he followed Norris’s advice. “Because she had different expectations for where you are.”
“Don’t you have any advice?” Norris sighed. “I was really kind of hoping for some sage wisdom here!”
“Distractions distract,” Liam eventually offered, letting his second and third pucks fly. This time, they only narrowly missed the net.
“And practice pays off,” Norris noted. “Dang, dude! Your stick control is a lot better.”
“Thanks.” Liam smiled proudly. He had shed most of that fear of the ice that kept beginners tiptoeing. “I basically did nothing else for all of spring break. Well, I wrote half a musical, but that doesn’t really count.”
Norris circled the ice, absentmindedly collecting stray pucks they’d shot all over the rink and sending them into a single corner.
“Who have you been practicing with?” He kept his voice casual.
“Patrick and a couple of the guys,” Liam admitted. “I told you in the email. People are interested.”
“You mean Hairy Armpits?” Norris scoffed.
“Patrick,” Liam gently corrected. “He seems decent. Austin has plenty of hockey fans as it turns out.”
“Well.” Norris whistled. “It looks like you don’t need me anymore.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t say that. . . . Even if there are enough players interested to form a team, we’ll still need, y’know, a captain. Someone to run drills and all that stuff.”
Norris turned to find Liam staring at him.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“A team?! We don’t have enough players, for one.” Norris hedged. “By the sound of it, you’ve only got a handful of players, which isn’t actually enough. And as for the captain thing, forget it. This is just for fun. . . . I’m not an actual jock, dude.”
“You’re a little bit of a jock,” Liam mused. “If we’re going to boil individuals down to a single label that encompasses the whole of their being . . . between the hockey and the skiing and the fact that you spend a lot of time with cheerleaders trying to figure out how to successfully date ‘hot chicks,’ your closest category is, well, jock.”
“You’re a very mean person.” Norris sniffed. “Like, cruel.”
Liam smiled and resumed his pitch.
“We need an actual captain and it can’t be me. I can barely stand in these things. If we had eighteen players . . .”
“Twenty.” Norris sighed. “Two rotating goalies.”
“If we had twenty players,” Liam continued undeterred, motioning to the open rink, “then you’d be okay with opening this up?”
“Sure, dude,” Norris relented. He couldn’t stare at that naive optimism and self-starter-ish-ness too long without getting blinded. “Find twenty Anderson High guys that want to join a hockey team and yeah, I’ll teach them to lace up their skates.”
“Bless your little jock heart.” Liam grinned.
Norris couldn’t help but laugh. He’d meant to issue an impossible challenge, but he was beginning to think that Liam was a few steps ahead of him and already had a full team recruited. He knew Norris too well.
But that was okay by him, he realized. Liam was going to be his teammate, and that was one label Norris was actually comfortable with.