The Smart One by Jennifer Close

Author:Jennifer Close
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307962324
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2013-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Thanksgiving started weeks before it actually happened. It was the way it always had been. There was shopping to get done, the house needed to be cleaned, silver needed to be polished. There were logistics that had to be figured out—who was coming, who was staying where, who was a vegetarian this year, who was lactose intolerant. There were phone calls to be had with Maureen, to complain about their mother and her absolute refusal to cooperate with anyone on anything. “She doesn’t want to come?” Maureen said every year. “Great, let’s leave her in Michigan. I’m good with that, are you?”

Years ago, when they were both first married and had little babies in the house, they used to switch off hosting Thanksgiving. This didn’t last long. Weezy ended up doing all of the cooking anyway, and most of the cleaning, and honestly it was just easier to have it at her own house in her own kitchen.

The past few years had gotten more complicated, since they started to think that Bets shouldn’t travel by herself. Cathy and Ruth had taken on the responsibility of driving almost three hours from Ohio to Auburn Hills to pick up Bets and fly with her from Detroit. It wasn’t convenient, but none of them could think of a better alternative. Bets, of course, still thought she was fine to travel alone, so Cathy and Ruth had to think of excuses for why they were going to be up that way anyway. “We’re visiting friends,” they always told Bets. She acted like she was doing them a favor, letting them stay at her house for a night before they all flew to Philadelphia.

“Cathy’s coming again this year,” she told Weezy. “I guess some of her lesbian friends live up this way.”

“Great, well, that works out for everyone.” Weezy didn’t know how many more years they could realistically keep asking Cathy and Ruth to escort a crabby old lady on a plane.

Weezy and Maureen still alternated who Bets would stay with, and unfortunately this was Weezy’s year. “Tough break,” Maureen said. She didn’t mean it. Bets was a horrendous houseguest. If Will emptied the dishwasher, she commented on Weezy’s lack of housekeeping skills. Once, Weezy put out cocktail napkins and Bets had called her hoity-toity. There was no winning.

They used to invite their cousins the Nugents from Pittsburgh, but thankfully that had stopped after Bets’s sister, Linda, died and all of the children’s children had reproduced so many times that it was impossible to fit everyone in the same house. They were an odd bunch. Linda had once brought a basket of stuffed reindeer to the house, and Weezy assumed (as one might) that she’d brought them for the kids. “How nice of you,” she said. “I’m sure Martha and Claire will be thrilled.” She tried to take the basket away from Linda, who held on tight.

“These are my pets,” she’d said. “Our last dog died and we’re too old to get another one, so now these are my pets.

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