Mickey - 17. Chapter 17

“Do you think that she’ll like me?” Drew asked, looking out the passenger window.

“I hope that I haven’t caused too many problems for her.”

“Of course she will!” Mickey answered. “You’ve talked to her on the phone, and she’s always been really friendly, right?”

“That’s true, she has been really nice every time,” he said before pausing. “But still, I can’t help thinking about all the shit that my family has caused in her life. My stepmother continues to have her writers try to find dirt about all the stuff that happened, they always spin whatever they find in the worst ways. That can’t be very enjoyable for her.”

“Well, I think it has really died down recently,” Mickey answered. “In the end, her reporters have dug up nothing other than that which has already been in the papers back home.” His comments were made as casually as possible.

“I know,” Drew replied, “but going through it all again has to be really bad. All the insinuations that my stepbrothers have made in their new editorial columns, courtesy of their mother, are on top of all that.”

“My mom realizes that they’re both morons, so no worries there,” Mickey said

“What about Nate? Will he be OK?” Drew asked.

Putting his hand on Drew’s thigh as his eyes stayed fixed on the road, he replied. “They’re both going to be great. Because you’re great!” Mickey proclaimed as he alternately squeezed and stroked the firm muscle beneath the loose-fitting jeans.

Drew was silent for a moment, continuing to look out the window. He glanced at Mickey, then looked out again.

“What if she realized how I defiled you this past weekend? What would she say then?” Drew asked with a sly grin.

Mickey chuckled, then gave him a quick look and a smile. Feeling Drew struggle with all the consequences of their relationship weighed on him far more than any of the real fallout. It would just take time and a great Thanksgiving to get them both over some of those things.

At least the humor seemed like a bit of a good sign.

Looking at the old neighborhood as they approached home, he again realized just how small and fragile everything was, from the streets to the buildings. Compared to what Drew was used to, the narrow lots with weathered clapboard houses, some even vacant, gave the impression that even modest prosperity was something that last touched this neighborhood too many years ago.

He knew that it didn’t matter to Drew, and it didn’t matter to Mickey himself, of course. But with all the titanic forces unleashed by their relationship he couldn’t help but realize how vulnerable all of them could be.

As they pulled into the driveway, Mickey saw the kitchen curtains quickly fall back into place.

“Well, here goes,” Drew said as he reached for the door handle.

Before he could pull the metal lever, Mickey quickly grabbed him by the neck and pulled him close as he planted a soft kiss on his left cheek. “They both are going to love you,” he whispered into his ear.

Drew gently bumped his head into Mickey and sighed, then called out to Daisy in the back seat, “Are you ready back there, girl?”

Heavy panting was the only response. Drew could sympathize.

Mickey’s mom quickly emerged through the storm door onto the porch, its metal frame clanging behind her. But then she paused at the edge, like she was trying to figure out exactly what should be the next step

She looked a little older to Mickey. When he was at Middlefield, he was almost too preoccupied to notice. But as the years went on, he couldn’t help but be aware. One of the side benefits to moving back, he sometimes thought, was the hope that he wouldn’t notice her aging, at least in a sudden and jarring way.

She had draped a light-colored sweater around her shoulders, obviously a temporary fix for the nippy autumn air. Beneath it she was dressed in what Mickey thought was her standard uniform, slacks and a flowered blouse.

It was great to see her. And he hoped that these periods of separation would soon be over.

As Drew emerged from the car, it seemed like she let impulse take control and quickly stepped down the rickety wooden stairs.

“Drew” she said as she opened her arms. “I’m so, so glad to meet you!”

“Me, too,” Mickey heard him reply as his mother, despite her diminutive size, seemed to smother the much taller Drew in a hug.

He seemed surprised at first, like he could almost not absorb the enthusiasm. But he quickly returned the gesture with both arms.

It was surprising how long they held each other, and Mickey suspected it was his mom’s doing as much as anything else. There was no anxiety or doubt in her greeting, and he couldn’t help but feel how much good it was probably doing for him as well as his mom and Drew

“Hey, don’t we get to say hi, too?” Nate asked as he and Midori quickly followed down the stairs.

“I didn’t mean to keep him all to myself, but I guess I did,” Mrs. Deringer said, smiling and laughing, as she introduced them.

“We’ve heard a lot about you,” Midori said as she also gave him a hug.

“And some of it was good, too!” Nate quipped.

“It was all good!” Mrs. Deringer replied, arching her eyes at him.

Despite the teasing, Nate also gave Drew a warm embrace and then seemed to whisper something in his ear. Mickey couldn’t hear what he had said, but Drew smiled as they released their hug and started chatting.

Unlike his mom, who almost had to get on tip toes for Drew, Nate was more than his equal in size and height. Mickey surmised that their handshake was firm and warm. ‘So far so good!’ he thought to himself.

“By the way, there is someone else that you need to meet, too,” Drew said as he stepped back to the car and opened the back door.

“And this is Daisy,” he said. Before the words left his mouth she had leapt out of the car and into the middle of the crowd, sniffing each new person in succession but paying special attention to Mrs. Deringer.

“Can I give her one of these?” She asked as she pulled a piece of chicken jerky out of the loose pocket of the sweater.

“One of her favorites!” Drew enthused as he looked down at Daisy. Her head darted up and she went to sniff Mrs. Deringer’s outstretched hand.

“But then again, just about every food and treat out there is one of her favorites,” he confessed

Suddenly, Drew called out “Sit!” and she quickly sat back on her haunches as Mickey’s mom approached her.

“Good girl!” Mrs. Deringer finally said and then gave her the treat, which almost instantaneously disappeared.

‘She was really prepared,’ Mickey thought to himself. ‘She might be as nervous as I am.’

                            ***

After the guys had unpacked, Mickey gently pushed Drew back onto the bed. His legs planted next to the edge, hands outstretched behind him, Drew’s look almost dared him to follow through and pin him completely back to the edge.

His mother had put them in the room that Mickey and Nate had shared as kids, so it only had two small twin beds. After unpacking, they moved the beds together. Drew was at first a little squeamish, thinking that it might be a bit ‘in your face’ to his mother.

“She’ll be OK,” Mickey reassured him.

“Are you sure?” Drew, asked, hopeful but still unsure.

Putting an arm on either side of him, Mickey leaned over as Drew smiled. He reached up and gently stroked the torso that was offered to him.

“So far so good?” Mickey asked.

Drew shook his head. “Yeah, very much. Your mom, she was, like really, really nice. I felt, um…”

“Relieved?”

Drew thought for a moment. “I’m not sure that’s the right word…but maybe it is. I guess that I just felt good, that’s all. Really good.”

“What about Nate and Midori? Do you feel OK with them?”

“Oh yeah,” he replied. “I thought they'd be great. I was really happy finally to get to meet them.'

“I know how you feel,” Mickey replied. He thought to himself “Someday maybe I'll get to meet his dad. Someday.”

‘But not the right time,’ he told himself.

Mickey put his hands on Drew’s ears. “So, what did my brother whisper to you out there?”

Drew just looked up at him. “You really want to know?”

“Sure!” Mickey replied, eager to hear his brothers’ welcome, especially since it seemed like he didn’t want anyone else to know.

Drew looked directly into Mickey’s eyes. “He told me that if I ever hurt you that he’d hunt me down and beat the crap out of me.”

“What!” Mickey cried out, pulling back from Drew. “Why did he say that?!”

Angered, Mickey tried to get up off the bed, but Drew suddenly had a firm grip on his shoulders, not allowing him to escape.

“You’re lucky to have a brother like him, Mickey,” he said, his eyes blinking rapidly. “I wish I did.”

                                 ***

“You’re going to make Pizza?” Mrs. Deringer asked incredulously.

“Yeah, Mom. I’m not bad, ask Midori,” he replied. “I have this unusual recipe that I want to try on you guys, I learned it at school from a French guy. You cook it in the oven kind of like a normal pizza, but then add raw eggs at the end. Because it comes out of the oven so hot, the eggs actually cook on the pizza.” It sounded like one-half recipe explanation and one-half sales pitch

“Well, he’s usually successful. But I’ve suggested that he provide no warranties and not set expectations too high,” Midori added

“Besides, you work hard, Mom. It’s time that we pick up the load. We’ll cook tonight and Mickey and Drew can cook tomorrow,' Nate said.

“I don’t provide warranties, either. But I’ll think of something,” Mickey replied.

“That’s a great idea, we’d be glad to,” Drew said. “I like cooking.”

“That’s actually more of what will happen, Mom. Drew will actually be the master and I’ll be the assistant. I think the French call it a ‘sous chef,’ or under chef. That will be me.

“Do it any way you like,” Nate interjected. “Just remember that tomorrow night belongs to you. And we expect nothing less than what we have tonight.”

As he assembled all the ingredients, Nate seemed to relish the theatrical aspects of cooking. He did a play by play of each step of the process, from slicing salami and cubing little morsels of ham, to scraping the tomato paste out of the can for his sauce. It wasn’t a short performance, but it seemed to get everyone in the mood for a memorable meal.

Mickey noticed that Drew seemed to be paying special attention to the cooking. It looked like he was also ensuring that Mickey wouldn't be bothered by any small flames by sometimes stepping in front of him. In truth, Mickey thought, the home stove didn’t bother him much at first, his phobia seemed to grow only later. Yet now, he always felt safer with Drew.

After nearly an hour the assembly and cooling were complete. As he placed the hot, steaming red dish on the table, his mom noticed the eggs. “It looks like they aren’t quite cooked through,” she said. “Are you sure that they’re OK?”

“Oh yeah, they’ll be fine. It’s supposed to be just like having eggs cooked sunny side up, with the insides a little watery. I’ve done it this way before and its great!” he replied, his enthusiasm undiminished. “It’s a nice contrast in texture and flavor. And a surprise, seeing egg on a pizza.

“We’ll start with the first course a nice pasta salad from Midori. Dig in!” Nate called out as she passed the wide wooden salad bowl to his mom.

After everyone had received their salad, he cut a slice of the rapidly cooling pizza for each person, trying to make sure that everyone got at least some of the cooked egg.

“Hey, this is pretty good,” Drew exclaimed. “With that ham, it’s almost like having a ham and egg breakfast on your pizza.”

“I never thought of it that way,” Nate replied. “Originally, it had pineapples, and so it was sort of Hawaiian. But I wanted to experiment so it’s kind of morphed into something else.”

“There’s no denying that it’s pretty tasty, Nate. So let me pay the highest compliment and ask for one more slice. And not one of those little slivers!” Drew added

After they had all stuffed themselves with the pizza, the family sat around the kitchen table, gabbing about the meal, their individual trips back home and what they planned to do for Thanksgiving Day itself. Mickey’s mother couldn’t have looked happier, having her sons- and their partners – right there in front of her eyes.

While they were talking, Mickey started to feel something in his stomach. He didn’t want to say anything distracting and disturb the conversation, so he tried to just ignore it. Until Drew noticed.

“Mickey, you’re looking pale. Are you OK?” he asked, as his arm gently stroked Mickey’s shoulder.

“mmm…I don’t know, something is wrong, it doesn’t feel right.”

“Do you need to lie down?” Drew asked.

“No, ummm…Let’s just see how it goes, no worries,” he replied, then turned to his mom. “Do you have any antacid or anything. Maybe I’m just anxious or something, I don’t know.”

Mrs. Deringer practically jumped out of her chair. “You used to get upset stomachs a lot, so I think I still have…” she said rummaging through what looked like a sort of ‘First Aid’ cabinet, which had aspirin, cough syrup and all the over-the-counter meds that Mickey remembered being there his entire life.

“Ah! Here’s something that should help. Just chew a couple of these, then let me know how you feel.”

He took the small colored pills from her, but instead of trying to chew them, he just clutched them in his hand as he trembled and started to sweat.

“Mickey?” Drew asked, trying as hard as he could to remain calm. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

With the mention of that word, he just couldn’t hold it in anymore. All he knew was that his stomach was really hurting and that he needed to get up.

Suddenly pushing out his chair, he blurted out, “I need the bathroom,” and got up and practically ran to the only bathroom in the house, at the end of a long, narrow hallway. Drew was on his tail, while Nate, Midori and Mrs. Deringer were right behind.

When they got to the end of the hall, Mickey was on his knees, throwing up into the toilet, with Drew right alongside. Rather than grabbing the edge of the cold porcelain bowl with both hands to steady himself, Mickey’s right hand was clutching a wad of Drew’s shirt, practically pulling it off him.

“Get it all out, Mickey,” Drew directed him calmly. “You won’t feel good unless you do,” he said.

Mickey sounded like he had just completed a marathon, his breathing quick and deep. He looked at Drew. “More?” he said, his face pale and white.’

“One more time, Mick. Sorry, but it’s the only way. Don’t worry. I’m here.”

Mickey glanced at Drew, then looked again into the bowl, and with a painful effort emptied out what looked like his complete dinner. But the remnants of the meal went not only into the bowl but also onto the front of Drew’s shirt.

“Are you sure you got it all out?” Drew asked.

“Um, yeah,..I…um think so,” he replied, clutching his stomach.

“Ohhh…that feels better,” Mickey sighed.

“Just rest here for a sec, OK?” As Drew was saying this, he grabbed a small cloth from the towel bar and started wiping Mickey’s mouth. With the other hand, he flushed the toilet.

“Here, give me that,” said Mickey’s mom, gesturing toward the towel after Drew had wiped all around Mickey’s mouth. She reached over Mickey, took if from Drew’s hands and rinsed it out in the adjacent sink. Then she handed it back to Drew, who continued cleaning up Mickey’s face and hands.

As Drew helped Mickey get back on his feet, his brother said, “I can help him back to the bedroom. You’d better clean yourself up, Drew.”

“No, I’m OK, no problem” he replied. “I want to take him back to bed and make sure he’s OK. Then I’ll deal with this stuff,” he said, glancing down at his own shirt.

Following right behind, they saw Drew helping Mickey into bed, fluffing all the pillows behind him as he helped Mickey swing his legs onto the sheets.

Looking up at him, Mickey said in a weak and raspy voice, “Change that shirt, OK?”

“I will, as soon as I have you settled in.” After getting Mickey’s legs firmly onto the bed, he pulled the covers over him.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when Mrs. Deringer presented him with one of his own shirts, which she had quickly fished out of the nearby closet. “Here, put this on and take that one off, OK?” It sounded like a question but was unmistakably an order.

“Thank you,” he replied as he quickly pulled his shirt off and rolled it into a ball with the stains wrapped inside, and finally exchanged it with Mrs. Deringer. He barely took his eyes off Mickey during the entire process.

“Do you have anything else that might help his stomach? Something that would be gentle, helping to settle it?” He was buttoning his fresh shirt as he spoke.

“Let me go look,” she said as she quickly went back to the kitchen. They could all hear the various bottles clang and scrape as she rapidly searched the shelves, before she sighed. “He’s been so good for so long that the only thing I have is two years out of date.”

“Thanks for looking, Mrs. Deringer. I’ve got a couple things in mind, so let me go get something. Is there a drugstore nearby?' he asked

“Yeah, there’s one just two blocks away. I can go…” Nate volunteered.

“After what you did to me tonight,” Mickey countered, still weak.

“It wasn’t on purpose!” he protested. “It worked before!”

“No use pointing fingers now,” Drew countered. I just want to get something soothing into your stomach,” he said before glancing at Midori. “Do you know where this pharmacy is?”

“Yes, and I can take you there,” she replied reaching into Nate's pocket to extract the car keys.

“That’s great, thanks,” Drew said.

He turned to Mickey. You are not to get out of that bed unless it’s to pee or poop? And Nate has to help you if you do either of those. Is that clear?'

“Yeah, but…um you know, I think that I’m feeling a bit better, I thought that maybe I could go with you, too,” Mickey said weakly.

Drew would have none of it.

“There will be big trouble if you don’t do as I say. Do you understand that? You’ve had a real shock to your system and need to take some time and rest,” he ordered.

He turned to Nate. “You’re the enforcer.”

“Pee or Poop. That’s his only excuse. And in either case, he always has an escort. I got it.” Nate responded, with a certain guilty tone.

“Um, Drew …” Mickey started, trying rise, before getting a withering stare from Drew.

His head dropped back onto the pillow. “Thanks for doing all this,” he said as he finally capitulated.

After Drew and Midori had left the brothers were alone in the room. Nate brought a kitchen chair into the bedroom and squeezed it into a small space between the foot of the bed and the wall. “Boy, he really laid down the law,” Nate said. “I feel like I’m on guard duty.”

“Better than kitchen duty,” Mickey answered. His voice was weary, but he wanted at the very least to give Nate one more dig about his kitchen misadventures.

“Sorry about that, bro. I really have made it before, and there weren’t any problems. Maybe we just had a bad egg.”

Rubbing his stomach, Mickey tried to raise himself on the bed.

“Hey, no going anywhere, I’m in enough trouble with him as it is,” Nate said, raising his hand into the air like a traffic cop.

“Just getting a bit more comfortable, that’s all. But nice to see that you’re taking the job seriously,” he quipped.

His Mom came into the room and offered him a cup of lemon tea. “Try this.” she said, handing him a hot bluish mug. At one time, it probably had some kind of logo stenciled onto the side, but the many washings and age had long ago obliterated almost any traces of it.

“Mmmm…this is good, very soothing…” Mickey responded after his first sip. “You know, you always made this for us when we were sick or something, especially in winter when we came in from the cold. I’ve got to pick up some of this on the way back. I think Drew will like it.”

“I asked him to get some more while he was there, that’s the last packet,” Mrs. Deringer said as she sat down on the edge of the bed. “He asked me if there was anything that worked well for you when you had an upset stomach. I tried to find the commercial stuff in the cupboard, but this is the old standby. Your grandma even made it for me.”

“Who could forget this, right Mickey?” Nate said. He made a motion to give up the chair for his mom, but she declined and stayed where she was.

Nate was about to continue, when Daisy suddenly jumped up into the bed, landing right on top of Mickey.

“Oomph!” he blurted out as she almost stepped on the family jewels. But he smiled and couldn’t bear kicking her out, especially as Drew was gone and he was the only one that she knew.

“Are you OK?” his mom asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he responded as he gently guided here toward Drew’s side of the now adjacent beds where she settled herself on his pillow. “I’m surprised that she could get up here. Old age is creeping up on her and these days she sometimes can’t quite make it.”

“But she looks happy up here,” Mrs. Deringer said. She reached over and stroked Daisy’s back.

“For Drew, a person is golden if they pass the Daisy test,” Mickey said softly. “And she’s been a very good judge of character so far.”

Drew finally returned to the room with a small bag packed with identical boxes. He was breathless as he unloaded them onto the bed.

“You know, after looking at everything else that they had available, I think that lemon tea is probably the best. I picked up one other thing but got tons of the lemon tea. We can leave some here and take some back with us.”

“That’s a good idea,” Mickey responded. “I want you to try some, too. Even if you’re not sick, it’s just a very soothing feel in your throat and stomach.”

“Here, I’ll make you some right now,” Mrs. Deringer said as she took one of the small cartons off of the bed.”

“I can do that, Mrs. Deringer, I…”

“No problem, Drew, I’ll take care of it. It will only take a sec, I’ll be right back,” she said as she quickly stepped out of the room.

“Thanks! Drew called out after her.”

Then he turned to Nate.

“Has he been out of bed since I left?”

“No, I think he got the message, Drew,” Nate replied, smiling.

As his mom returned with a piping hot mug for Drew, Mickey scanned the room. It held all the people most important to him in one place.

'How can I make this permanent.' Mickey thought to himself.