An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England_ A Novel - Brock Clarke [108]
"Hey, bud," I said to him. Christian smiled at me uncertainly; he raised his hand to his hip, gave me a shy, surreptitious wave, then took his seat next to his grandmother.
"Hello, Mr. Mirabelli," I said to my father-in-law, as though I were introducing myself for the first time. And as far as my father-in-law was concerned, I was.
"Coleslaw!" Mr. Mirabelli said, then sat next to Christian. Christian gave me a sudden look of blank panic, the way children do when they don't know whether something is supposed to be funny or frightening.
"Who?" I said. "What?"
"Please join us, Coleslaw," my father-in-law said. "It's dinnertime."
"Boola, boola, boola," Thomas said as he entered the room and sat at the end of the table, where I normally sat. It was hard to miss the symbolism, and I didn't; but I couldn't focus my full attention or outrage on it just then, either.
"Did you just call me Coleslaw?" I asked my father-in-law. If this was my nickname, I'd never heard it before. The Mirabellis had never been much for nicknames, not even shortened versions of their own names, maybe because Anne sounded all wrong without the Marie, and because Mrs. Mirabelli's name ― Louisa ― would be a man's if you shortened it, and because Mr. Mirabelli's name was Christian, and if you shortened that, it might be seen as disrespectful to his Savior.
"What else would I call you besides Coleslaw, Coleslaw?" Mr. Mirabelli said. He gave me a big, mirthless smile and then gestured toward a place at the table, opposite them, complete with plate and fork and napkin. I guessed the place setting had been intended for Anne Marie and not for me.
"Where's Anne Marie?" I asked, dropping to the floor with a creak of knees and a crash of ass. As I did, the gas fireplace in the room suddenly flared to life, as though my sitting down were Moses and it was the bush. Mr. Mirabelli held up the remote control that worked the fireplace, tucked it inside his green army jacket as though it were his sidearm, and then said, "Pass the couscous, please, Coleslaw." The couscous ― which was actually rice, Uncle Ben's, the five-minute kind ― was closer to Thomas than to me, but I did what I was told: I got on my knees, put my left hand on the table for balance, and then reached across with my right. But my weight was too much for the quadruple amputee the table had become: before I'd reached the couscous, my corner of the table slipped off its supporting building block and onto the wood floor, causing the plates, serving dishes, glasses, everything except the couscous, to come rushing at me as though I were the castle and the table settings the siege.
"I'm so sorry," I said, fumbling around until I found the building block, stuck it under that corner of the table, and then pushed the dishes, glasses, et al. back from where they'd been displaced.
"No problem," Mr. Mirabelli said. "That's life in the Casbah!"
At this, Thomas said a few more "boola, boola's" and Mrs. Mirabelli rang her finger cymbals and then fondly recalled the time in Morocco when Mr. Mirabelli had paid too much money for each family member, one by one, to ride on what had been advertised as a camel but apparently wasn't.
"I'm so sorry for everything," I said, once the hilarity had died down a little. I said this to Mr. Mirabelli, but loud enough for everyone to hear, in case Mr. Mirabelli had told them what he'd seen me do in New Hampshire. And in apologizing for everything, I was also apologizing to everyone except Thomas, who was sitting at his end of the table, spooning the rice into his mouth, a pleased look on his face. I was wishing now that I'd asked him a few questions ― about what he'd told the Mirabellis, about what they knew and didn't know about my past and present ― before I'd rushed into the house.
"I have no