Chapter Five
“Cranberry sauce comes in cans?” Rachael asked, raising an eyebrow and examining the can in her roommate’s hand.
Laura nodded and placed it in their shopping cart. “Yeah, but I don’t think it can actually be classified as a sauce. It’s really more of a jelly type thing. Disgusting stuff, but it’s a Thanksgiving tradition.”
“Maybe you’re supposed to heat it up so it isn’t all jelly like,” Rachael suggested as the two girls pushed their cart down the aisle.
Laura frowned. “That never occurred to me, but I suppose it makes sense. How is it that in all your years of Thanksgiving experience, you have never come into contact with a can of cranberry sauce?”
Her friend shrugged. “My family can’t stand the stuff and whenever we did Thanksgiving dinner with Justin’s family his grandma always made homemade cranberry sauce.”
Laura pulled a face. “Homemade cranberry sauce? That’s so un-American. Cranberry flavored jelly crap that keeps the shape of the can when you take it out, that is American. None of this homemade stuff.”
Rachael snorted, stopping the cart in front of the turkey selection. “That’s disgusting, yet so very true. How big of a turkey do you think we should get?”
“Well, seeing as it’s only you, me, and Brian, my initial reaction would be to get a really small one. But Brian eats enough for about twenty people and their dogs, so maybe a really big one would be in order.”
Rachael laughed. “How about this one?” she suggested, holding up a fairly good-sized bird.
“Works for me.” Laura nodded as Rachael set the turkey in the cart and they set off down the aisles once again, this time in search of pie ingredients. “Speaking of Justin,” Laura continued. “What’s he doing for Thanksgiving?”
Rachael shrugged. “I think he’s going home to Millington.”
“And he didn’t offer to buy you a plane ticket so you could go back too? That’s shocking.”
“Well, he doesn’t exactly know that I’m staying here,” Rachael replied, trying to sound nonchalant.
Laura raised an eyebrow as she stopped the cart and picked a few bags of sugar up off the shelf. “When’s the last time you two talked, Rach?”
“I don’t know. The last time he was here, I guess.”
“Holy shit, woman! That was like a week and a half ago!”
“So? Do you talk to all of your friends every week?”
Laura gave her a “Do-I-Look-Stupid-To-You?” sort of look. “He’s your best friend, Rach. Not a week has gone by in the past few months when he didn’t call you at least two or three times, or vice versa. Something’s up.”
“Nothing is up!” Rachael protested, adding a bag of flour to the shopping cart. “We’re both just really busy. You know, I’ve been working two jobs and going to school, and he’s just started rehearsals for the tour. We don’t have time to talk on the phone.”
“Mmhmm…something’s up.”
Rachael rolled her eyes and continued down the aisle. “Oh, what do you care anyway? I thought you were keeping your focus on trying to get me to date Lance.”
“Oh, I am. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to remain friends with Justin. So, what’s wrong? I thought things were good between you two now. Are you having issues again?”
“I told you nothing’s wrong! Can you drop it?” Rachael grabbed a couple of cans of pumpkin filling and dropped them into the cart with a little more force than she really intended.
“Whoa, careful there. You’ll put a dent in the cart. And we both know you’re going to tell me what’s wrong anyway, so why don’t you just save us both a lot of time and effort and tell me right now? But before you do, do we need anything else?”
Rachael bit her lip and surveyed the contents of their shopping cart. As she did so she couldn’t help but wonder how in the world three people would ever consume so much food. “No, I think we’re good. We can always come back between now and Thanksgiving if we realize we missed something.”
Laura nodded. “Indeed. To the checkout it is then. Tell me about the Justin issues,” she added as the two girls made their way through the crowds of shoppers and to the front of the store.
“There are no Justin issues!” Rachael exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration before quickly realizing this wasn’t such a good idea and reattaching them to shopping cart.
“Just tell me!” her friend groaned in response. “Seriously, Rach, this is going to annoy me forever if you don’t fess up to the Justin issues. Besides, wouldn’t it be nice to talk to someone about it? You know, get it out of your system.”
“I already talked to Brian about it,” the interrogated replied absentmindedly as they approached the line at the front of the store and she eyed the tabloids with amusement.
“A HA! So there are Justin issues!” Laura cried triumphantly.
“Hm? No…” Rachael flipped through the National Enquirer with interest. “Look, Laur, baby alligators with three heads. I wonder what makes them think anyone will believe these things.”
“You’re trying to change the subject.”
“What subject?” Rachael replied, looking up and flashing her roommate an innocent smile.
Laura rolled her eyes. “I hate you.”
***
“Are you sure you’re doing all right, Justin? You aren’t over exerting yourself with rehearsals are you? Did the doctor say it was all right for you to be dancing again?” Lynn’s worried tone drifted across the phone line to her son’s home.
Justin sighed. He appreciated his mother’s concern, but ever since his accident a few months earlier, she’d been extremely over-protective and there were times when he couldn’t help but get a bit annoyed. “Yes, Mom, I’m fine. The doctors said it was fine for me to go back to work, I just have to be a little more careful than usual. You know, shorter days and stuff.”
“Well at least Thanksgiving is coming up soon and you’ll be able to get a little rest,” his mother pointed out.
Justin nodded absentmindedly. “Yeah, speaking of that, I was thinking…do you know what Rachael’s family is doing? Because I was thinking maybe we could do a joint Thanksgiving dinner. You know, with all of the O’Brien’s and everything.” He still hadn’t talked to Rachael since he’d last visited her. He wanted to see her again, and he’d decided that convincing their families to do Thanksgiving together was a good way to do this. That way, he could work on rebuilding their friendship, but would be too distracted by other family members for any unsettling thoughts or desires to work their way into his head.
“Well we could, sweetie, but Rachael isn’t coming back to Millington for Thanksgiving. Didn’t she tell you?”
Justin sat straight up in his chair. “What?!” he exclaimed loudly into the receiver, causing his mother to pull her phone slightly away from her ear. “Why not?”
“She can’t afford the plane ticket home and Katie can’t afford to buy her one. So she’s just staying in San Francisco. I thought for sure she’d have told you.”
Her son shook his head, too dismayed to consider the fact that Lynn couldn’t see him. “No, she didn’t tell me. But that’s no problem, I can just buy her a ticket.”
Lynn sighed. Her son had always been a generous person and she had no problem with him helping Rachael out in that way. But she knew Justin’s best friend almost as well as she knew him and while Rachael would allow him to pay for her to do things every now and then, she tended to get uncomfortable when he spent too much money on her. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if Rachael stubbornly refused to allow Justin to buy her a plane ticket. “Well, I think you should talk to her about that, J. She’s probably already made plans in San Francisco.”
Justin waved a hand dismissively. “She’ll want to come home. Why don’t you just call her mother and see if all the O’Briens want to come to our place for dinner and I’ll call Rachael to let her know I’m getting her a ticket so she can come home.”
Lynn sighed. “Can I least make a suggestion, dear?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t tell her she’s coming home, ask her if she wants to. I think we both know Rachael well enough to know she doesn’t take kindly to being ordered around.”
***
Rachael stared at the tremendous amounts of food covering her and Laura’s kitchen counters. “How the hell are we going to eat all of this?” the petite auburn-haired girl wondered aloud.
“Brian,” her tall brunette friend answered succinctly as she slid into a chair at the kitchen table. “I think the more important question is how long is it going to take us to cook all this crap?”
“I’d say pretty much all day. By the time we’re ready to eat, it’ll be around midnight, which means it will no longer be Thanksgiving and our dinner will have lost all of its meaning.”
“We’ll have to start the Wednesday before.”
Rachael nodded in agreement. “Indeed.” She opened her mouth to comment on the extensive amount of attention they should pay to pie preparation but was cut off by the ringing of the phone. “City morgue. You stab ‘em, we slab ‘em,” she answered and was greeted by laughter on the other end.
“Hey, Rachael, it’s Lance.”
“Hey, Lancey! What’s up?”
“Actually, I’m just calling because I’m coming to visit some friends in San Francisco the week after Thanksgiving and I was wondering if you-“
“Hold that thought, Lancey, I’ve got another call coming through,” Rachael interrupted him as the call waiting on her phone made the presence of another caller known.
“Okay, sure.”
Rachael pushed a button on the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey, Rach, it’s Justin!”
“Justin! Hi!”
Laura looked up with interest as her friend uttered this enthusiastic greeting. On the drive home from the store, she’d finally managed to get Rachael to admit that Justin had been acting strangely lately and that she didn’t want to call him, but was rather waiting for him to call her. Strangely, Laura got the feeling that Justin had probably been doing the exact same thing and therefore had not expected her friend to be receiving a call from him so soon.
“Do you have a minute to talk, Rach? I have something I wanted to ask you,” Justin said.
“Hold on a second, I’ve got Lance on the other line.” Rachael pushed another button and returned to her conversation with Lance. “Lance? That’s Justin on the other line, do you mind if I call you back?”
“No, not at all.”
“Great. Oh, wait, what was it you wanted to ask me? You said you were wondering if I…something.”
“Oh. Um…nothing, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just talk to you later,” Lance stammered. He’d been all ready to ask her if she’d go out with him, but somehow his courage was now failing him. Why this was so difficult, he didn’t know. He was a grown man, not a pimply faced junior high schooler.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay, well I’ll call you back in a few minutes, I promise. Talk to you later, Lancey.”
“Bye, Rach.”
Once again, Rachael pushed a button on the phone and returned to her conversation with Justin. “J? You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
Rachael slid into the seat next to Laura at the kitchen table. “So what’s so important that you need to ask me?”
“Well, I was talking to my mother today and it seems that you forgot to tell me a little something about your Thanksgiving plans, Miss Rachael.”
“Oh. Yeah. Hey Justin, I’m staying in San Francisco for Thanksgiving,” his friend replied with a feeble laugh.
Justin laughed. “What if I told you there was a way you could go back home to Millington so that you could spend Thanksgiving with both my family and your family?”
“I’d say you were about to offer to buy me a ticket home to which I would so thank you, but I already have plans and I am fine staying here,” Rachael replied matter-of-factly, after which Laura kicked her sharply under the table and started mouthing, “Go!” over and over.
“Don’t be stupid. Come home. You miss it, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, but I can’t have you paying for things every time I’m short on money, Justin. I’m sure that has to be psychologically damaging to both of us in one way or another.”
Justin groaned. “Why is this sort of thing always so difficult? Why can’t I ever just offer to do something for you and have you say, ‘Why yes, Justin, that would be lovely.”
Rachael snorted. “I already told you, it’s psychologically damaging. And the fact that you just imitated me saying ‘that would be lovely’ proves my point quite well.” By this time, Laura was banging her head on the table and her cry of “Go!” had become audible.
“Okay, so what if I said that I’m not doing it as a favor for you, I’m doing it as a favor for myself. I want you there, Rach. I never see you or talk to you anymore and I want to spend Thanksgiving with my best friend who also happens to be the most wonderful person in the world. Then would you let me buy you a plane ticket home?”
Rachael sighed. Okay, so how could she say no to that? How could she say no to the one person who could say those things to her and actually mean them? How could she say no to the only person that could spend a week and a half giving her weird vibes and not calling her, but then still be the same amazing friend when she actually did talk to him again? Ass. “I’d say that you’re a terrible liar and I hate you, and yes I will come home for Thanksgiving.”
“Thank you! I knew you’d say yes!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rachael muttered begrudgingly. She could almost hear him grinning triumphantly on the other end. God, how she hated him.
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