Autoboyography
Page 30

“Yes, sir. Palo Alto.”
Sebastian takes some meat, and holds the platter for me, giving me an encouraging smile. My pinky finger grazes against his. I’ll feel that brush of contact for hours.
Abe leans in, catching my eye. “California to Utah? That must have been quite a change.”
I laugh. “It was.”
Tanner’s mother looks at me sympathetically from her end of the table. “I can’t imagine going from sun almost all year long to gloomy winter and snow.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” I say. “The mountains are beautiful here, and we would get a lot of fog at home, anyway.”
“Do you ski?” Judy asks.
“A little. We usually go up to Snowbird or the Canyons at least once a year.”
His mom jumps back in. “With your whole family?”
I nod, reaching for a bowl of cheesy potatoes and scooping some onto my plate. “Yeah. There’s just the four of us; I have a younger sister, Hailey.”
Sebastian’s mother hums. “Beautiful name.”
“My parents are both pretty outdoorsy,” I tell them. “My dad loves to bike and my mom runs.”
Sebastian’s dad swallows his food before asking, “What do they do, exactly? Sebastian said you moved here for your mom’s job?”
That Sebastian has been chatty.
I take a sip of ice water and set down my glass. “Yes, sir. She is the CTO for NextTech.”
Various sounds of interest pass around the table.
“When they opened a satellite office here, they wanted her to run it.” More pronounced sounds of interest. “She writes computer software. She’d worked for Google in California, and left to come here.”
“Wow,” Dan says, impressed. “It must be quite a job for her to have left Google. I hear they’re very good to their employees.”
“And his dad is a physician at Utah Valley,” Sebastian adds. I look over at him and grin. He sounds braggy, like he’s proud.
Judy’s eyes go wide. “I volunteer there every Wednesday! What’s his name?”
“Paul Scott. He’s a cardiac surgeon.”
“I know exactly who he is! I don’t spend much time on that floor these days, but he is the nicest man. The Jewish cardiologist, right?” she asks, and I nod, surprised that she knows him but also that her identifier is that he’s Jewish. “So attentive, and the nurses love him.” She leans in and whispers dramatically, “And quite handsome, if I do say so.”
“Grandma! Do you love Tanner’s dad?” little Faith asks, scandalized, and the entire table laughs.
“Now, you know I only have eyes for your grandpa. But I’m not blind, either,” she says with a wink.
Faith giggles into her cup of milk.
“That’s right,” Abe says. “She saw me at a church dance and hasn’t looked away since.”
“Mommy, you and Daddy met at a dance, too, right?” Faith asks.
“We did.” Sebastian’s mom looks across the table at Dan. “I asked him to Sadie Hawkins.”
The little girl shoves a bite of food in her mouth before asking a garbled, “What’s Sadie Hawkins?”
His mom goes on to explain, but all I can think about is what she just said. When she’s finished, I turn to his dad. “You guys dated in high school?”
“We did,” Dan says, nodding. “We met when we were seniors and married shortly after I came home from my mission.”
My brain screeches to a halt. “You can do that?”
“We’re told not to keep a girlfriend while we’re on our missions,” he says, smiling at his wife, “but there’s no rule against writing letters once a week.”
“As if you could tell these two anything.” Judy looks at the younger children and adds, “Your dad won’t like me telling you this, but you should have seen the love notes he used to write your mom. He’d leave them in his pocket and I’d always find them in the wash. They were crazy about each other.”
The rest of the conversation blurs around me. All the other complications aside, if we could keep in contact while he’s gone, that wouldn’t be so bad. Two years isn’t that long, and I’ll be at school anyway. Maybe by then the prophet will have had a revelation.
It could work, couldn’t it?
For just a moment, I feel hope.
Dan pulls me out of my fog. “Tanner, does your family attend synagogue in Salt Lake?” He looks over to Abe. “I’m trying to remember where the closest one is.”
This is awkward. I don’t even know where the closest synagogue is.
“Well, let’s see now,” Abe says. “There’s Temple Har Shalom in Park City—”
“Too far.” Dan shakes his head as if he’s decided himself it’s unsuitable for us.
“Right, and the city has a handful—”
I decide to nip this in the bud. “Actually, no, sir. Sirs,” I amend, to include Abe. “We don’t attend temple services. I would say my parents are more agnostic at this point. Mom was raised LDS, and Dad isn’t very Jewish anymore.”
Oh my Jesus, what have I said?
Silence swallows the table. I’m not sure which gaffe was more artless: that I admitted my mom is ex-LDS, or that I so casually referenced dropping a religious faith like a hot potato.
Sebastian is the one to break into the quiet. “I didn’t know your mom was LDS.”
“Yeah. She was raised in Salt Lake.”
His brow is drawn, his mouth a gentle, wounded line.
His mom jumps in brightly. “Well, that means you have family locally! Do you see them?”
“My grandparents are in Spokane now,” I tell them. I have the foresight to not mention that I’ve never met them in my eighteen years, and mentally high-five myself. But it means my mouth is left unattended and is off running: “But my aunt Emily and her wife live in Salt Lake. We see them at least once a month.”
The only sound at the table is the vague shifting of uncomfortable people in their chairs.
Oh my Jesus, what have I said again?
Sebastian kicks me under the table. When I look at him, I see that he’s struggling to not laugh. I barrel on: “My dad’s mother comes to stay with us a lot. He’s also got three siblings, so our family is pretty big.” I lift my water, fill my mouth with it so I’ll shut up. But once I swallow, one more bit of mania manages to escape: “Bubbe still attends synagogue weekly. She’s very involved. Very spiritual.”
Sebastian’s heel lands on my shin again, and I’m sure he’s telling me to calm the hell down, maybe even that I don’t need to be connected to religion to be accepted. Who knows. But it certainly feels that way. Everyone here is so put together. They eat neatly, napkins in lap. They say “Please pass the . . .” and compliment their mother’s cooking. Table posture is across-the-board impressive. And, maybe more importantly, rather than asking me more about my parents’ backgrounds or about Emily, Sebastian’s grandparents deftly move away from my verbal diarrhea, asking about specific teachers and upcoming sports events. The parents offer gentle reminders to their kids to keep their elbows off the table (I swiftly pull mine back too), to go easy on the salt, to finish their vegetables before they ask for more bread.
Everything stays so aboveboard, so safe.