To all my US Friends, family and readers, Happy Thanksgiving!

 I've written a couple of Thanksgiving scenes in my books over the years, and really enjoyed crafting them. I think family gatherings are always fascinating, frequently infuriating, and endlessly funny. They seem to evoke the best and worst in interactions with our nearest and dearest, so they're an excellent way for a writer to show family dynamics and the undercurrents of anger, resentment and love.

Here's the Thanksgiving scene from The Law of Tall Girls, my best-selling Young Adult novel. Peyton, who comes from a very different family background, celebrates Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, Jay, and his family. I hope you enjoy it!

P.S. Jack is a girl :)

 

On Thursday, I presented myself at the Young house at eleven-thirty precisely. Mrs. Young opened the door and ushered me inside, calling upstairs for Jay. When I’d visited for the read-through, I’d thought this house was perfect, but now — redolent with the mouthwatering aromas of cinnamon, fresh bread and roasting turkey — it was perfection on steroids.

Jay came bounding down the stairs in skinny black jeans, a plaid shirt over a white T, and his Phantom socks.

“Hey,” he said, giving me a hug.

“Hey.”

We were at an awkward stage of our relationship — if I could even call it that. We had, after all, only had one date. We’d “kissed” and embraced and confessed our love a hundred times on stage, but not done more than hold hands in real life. I wanted more contact. Right then I wanted to kiss his cheek, touch his full lips, feel the growing beard on his jaw — but I kept myself in check.

Mr. Young joined us, held out his hand to shake mine, and said, “I’m Jay’s father, Jeffrey. You must be Peyton?”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” I said.

“Hey, you,” plus a solid punch on my upper arm, was Jack’s welcome.

“Jacqueline, ladies don’t punch,” said Mr. Young.

“Good thing I’m not a lady, then, Joffrey,” Jack said.

“Lady or not, your mom needs some help in the kitchen.”

Jack drew an outraged breath and began, “And why is it just me that —”

“You can both help,” Mrs. Young said, looking from Jack to Jay.

“I’d like to help, too,” I said.

“Thank you, honey. The kitchen’s this way. Would you prefer to make the pastry, or mix the pie filling?”

Pastry? Pie filling? She may as well have asked me to prove E=mc2.

“Um, is there something easier I could do? I’m not too handy in the kitchen.”

“And why should you be?” Jack defended me. “Just because you’re female doesn’t mean you should know how to cook.”

“Give it a rest, Jack,” said Jay.

“Fine. Dibs on making the potatoes.” Jack grabbed a potato-masher from a kitchen drawer and began bashing down on the contents of a large pot on the stovetop.

“How about topping and tailing these?” Mrs. Young suggested, passing me a mound of green beans on a chopping board.

“Sure,” I said, staring down at the beans, and feeling like a fool.

Topping and tailing sounded like something Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers would do. Or possibly wear.

“Like this,” Jay said softly. He took a sharp knife and chopped off the stalky top and pointy bottom of a bean. Oh, top and tail, got it.

While I trimmed the green beans, intent on not cutting off the tip of one of my clumsy fingers — that kitchen knife was psycho-sharp — Jay pressed pastry into a pie dish, and Mrs. Young stuck golden-yellow and orange flowers into a low floral arrangement with a giant sunflower at its center. The moment she left to place it on the table, Jack sidled up to Jay and handed him a piece of paper with some kind of grid printed on it.

“Let the games commence!” she said.

“I think we should backdate it by twenty minutes, because I’ve already got two,” said Jay tapping two of the blocks on the grid. I peered around his shoulder — a novelty for me, usually I was peering over shoulders — and saw that there were phrases written in the blocks of the grid. Jay was indicating the two which read: Dad calls J Jacqueline, and J says, “Just because she’s female doesn’t mean …”

“No backdating, no way,” said Jack firmly. Then she asked me, “Do you want to play? I can get a new one printed off in a minute, if you’d like.”

“Play what?”

“Family bingo,” Jack and Jay said together.

“What’s family bingo?” I was starting to think I didn’t understand anything in this house.

“It’s like normal bingo,” Jay explained, “except you fill the blocks with the things that always happen or get said at family gatherings. Then you put a check in the blocks when that thing happens, and the first to get a line of five has to take the other one out to lunch.”

“You’ve never played?” said Jack, sounding amazed.

“We don’t really have family gatherings,” I said lamely.

Just then, Jay’s parents came into the kitchen, and the bingo sheets disappeared faster than brownies at a full-cast rehearsal. Mrs. Young set about checking whether the turkey was done (“Another forty minutes should do it,”) and Mr. Young poured himself a glass of wine (“It’s one o’clock somewhere in the world!”), at which both Jay and Jack surreptitiously checked their bingo sheets.

“Are you going to change before lunch, Jack?” Mrs. Young asked, eyeing the work jeans and old sweatshirt her daughter was wearing with disapproval. Mrs. Young herself was wearing a pretty mauve dress with matching kitten-heeled shoes.

“No,” said Jack, energetically whipping butter into the potatoes.

When all the food was cooked, transferred to blue-and-white patterned serving plates, and laid out along the center of the table, we took our seats — Mr. Young at the head, Mrs. Young at the end closest to the kitchen, Jay and I together on one side, with Jack opposite us, on her father’s right.

Mrs. Young said a simple grace and wished us, “Bon appetit.”

Mr. Young said, “Past the lips and over the gums, look out stomach — here it comes!” and poured himself more wine.

~ 30 ~

I

 eyed the Youngs’ beautiful lunch table uneasily. It was set with a bewildering collection of china, silverware and condiments in fancy containers. Which of the confusing collection of forks, knives and spoons arranged around my plate was I supposed to use to eat my spicy crab salad starter? I glanced sideways to check which utensils Jay picked, and then followed suit. I’d copy him for the rest of the meal.

The main course was succulent turkey and gravy with creamed potatoes, warm hush puppies (with whipped butter served in a tiny silver dish), green beans and baby carrots. Jack took a double helping of potato, as though to compensate for Mrs. Young who, with a comment about watching her waistline, had none. We all agreed the spread was feastworthy and paid Jay’s mom so many compliments, she turned pink with pleasure.

Mr. Young made a show of sharpening the carving knife on a steel rod with ridges down the side, and then handed the knife and a long-pronged fork to Jay, saying, “It’s about time I passed the carving tradition down to my son.”

“I thought you were supposed to hand over the family rituals to your firstborn?” complained Jack.

“Be my guest,” said Jay, handing her the carving knife and fork. “Just make sure I get dark meat.”

Mr. Young frowned and then redirected his attention to opening another bottle of wine, red this time.

“Don’t butcher it so, Jack,” said Mrs. Young as her daughter plonked a roughly hewn chunk of bird down onto Jay’s plate. “And you really should serve our guest first.”

“Sorry, Peyton. Do you want white or dark meat?” asked Jack, her hands poised over the huge, crispy-skinned bird.

“Anything is fine.” I wasn’t fussy. It was treat enough to have this delicious home-cooked meal.

Jack’s face broke into an evil grin, and she chopped off the obscenely big turkey butt bit and dumped it onto my plate.

Okay, then. Hoping my revulsion didn’t show on my face, I mumbled a polite, “Thanks.”

Jack and Jay burst out laughing. Soon I had a few roughly sawn slices of breast on my plate, and the disgusting bit was back on the serving plate, hidden under a mound of parsley. When Jack had served everyone, she took her seat but peered at something under the table and grinned again. Her hands disappeared for a few seconds, and I guessed that pranking someone with the turkey butt-flap was something of a Young tradition.

We were on to our dessert, a rich pumpkin pie with a crispy sugar top, when the conversation turned to sport.

Mr. Young clapped his hands together and announced, “The Ravens are playing the Rams this afternoon. Who’s going to watch the game with me?” He directed an expectant look at Jay, but it was Jack’s face which lit up at the mention of football.

“I’m in. We have got to beat the Rams, or my life back on the rig is going to be harder than a bridegroom’s baloney-pony on his wedding night.”

I choked on a sip of water, Mrs. Young tilted her head and frowned in puzzlement, but Mr. Young thumped his hand down on the table and yelled, “Jacqueline Young!”

Jay grinned and ticked off an item on his family bingo sheet. Jack thumped my back until I stopped coughing, explaining that her boss was from St. Louis and would love an excuse to give her a tough time.

“Why would he want to do that?” asked Mrs. Young.

“He doesn’t believe women belong on oil rigs.”

“Neither do I,” muttered Mr. Young, earning himself a scowl from his daughter. “You watching the game, too, Jay?”

Jay turned to me and asked, “Would you like to watch the game? There’s a Fellini film festival running all day on the classic channel if you’d prefer. We could watch it on my TV upstairs.”

“It’s Thanksgiving!” protested Mr. Young. “And the all-American way to spend Thanksgiving is eating turkey and watching football, not watching some frog film.”

“Italian,” Jay said, his mouth tight with some emotion I couldn’t easily read. Anger? Embarrassment?

“Whichever, it still has subtitles. And it’s still not a sport.”

“Not everyone likes sports, Dad. I was just offering our guest a choice.”

“Well, let’s give her a choice then. Peyton, would you rather watch the game or some old Italian movie?”

“Um,” I said, playing for time, because there was no good answer to that question. I might not have a clue about pastry-making or family bingo, but I knew all about arguments. And I didn’t want to be in the middle of one in Jay’s house.

“Let them do what they want, Dad. I’ll watch the game with you,” said Jack eagerly.

But Mr. Young appeared not to hear her. He tossed his napkin onto the table and spoke directly to me.

“What do you think of that, Peyton? I have a daughter who likes football so much she tried to join the boys’ team at high school, who can beat her brother at arm-wrestling” — Jack mouthed the words true story at me — “and who can work a rig with the best oilmen out there, but won’t be seen dead in a dress and doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘ladylike.’”

“Damn straight!” Jack said proudly, while beside me, Jay surreptitiously checked off another two blocks on his bingo sheet under the table.

“And …” Mr. Young paused to sip his wine, noticed that his glass was empty, and reached for the bottle.

“Dear, how about some apple juice instead?” Mrs. Young said softly.

“Aaanndd” — Mr. Young poured himself another full glass — “I have a six-foot-four bruiser of a son, built like a fullback, with hands made for catching a ball and shoulders wide enough to power through any defensive formation. But what does he want to be? An actor!”

Jack’s hands slipped under the table again.

“He wants to prance about on the stage — he won’t even try to play sports.”

“A, I don’t prance,” said Jay, sounding angry now. “And B, it’s not true that I didn’t try sports. I gave both football and baseball a shot in junior high, and I was hopeless at both. Besides, I work out at the gym, and I run.”

“That’s exercise — not sport,” said Mr. Young, waving a dismissive hand in the air. “It’s not a sport unless it’s a competition, unless there’s a winner and a loser!”

So, Tim’s report was inaccurate on at least one “confirmed fact.” Jay hadn’t played football at his last school. I wondered if he even had an Achilles tendon injury, or whether that was just the excuse he used to get people off his back about trying out for sports.

It didn’t seem like there was any getting his father off his back though. Lunch at the Young house had been delicious and fun, but it had also made me anxious and a little sad. The family that had appeared so happy and content had turned out to have its own set of tensions and conflicts.

I’d always felt like my excuse for a family was freakishly bad, but maybe no family was perfect. Even though Jay’s parents were married, and they all lived together in this beautiful house, there were deep strains running through their relationships like riptides below a seemingly calm sea. Jay had his own pressures to deal with.

Maybe everybody did.

It was almost three o’clock by the time we’d cleared away the lunch remains and helped Mrs. Young with the dishes, so when Jay’s father asked again whether I wanted to watch the game or a film, I tactfully declined both.

“It’s getting late. I really should be getting back to my mother.”

“I’ll give you a ride,” said Jay.

“You kids be sure to put on your coats and hats, now. It’s freezing outside, and I don’t want anyone catching their death of pneumonia,” said Mrs. Young.

Jack punched Jay in the shoulder and smirked. “Bingo!”

* * *