I was late for Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmother’s this year. My family left without me. I was upstairs getting ready when I heard the front door open. A man’s voice said hello to my dog. The voice belonged to our next-door neighbor, John Powers, who we refer to as Daddy Powers, though not to his face of course. Shit, I thought to myself, what the hell is Daddy Powers doing in our house, three minutes after he saw my family leave? I’d been reading too many Raymond Carver stories recently and convinced myself I was about to learn something about Daddy Powers that I didn’t want to know—that I’d come out in the hall and find him in my mother’s nightgown.
Daddy Powers is one of those disarmingly friendly guys, who makes it his business to know the name of every person and pet in our neighborhood. He’s the epitome of the Good Samaritan, shoveling people’s driveways after snowstorms, bringing their papers up to their front stoop every morning. As far as middle-aged men go, he had always seemed completely benign, and I dreaded discovering otherwise.
I wanted to let Daddy Powers know that someone was in the house before he got himself into trouble. Before he indulged in some fetish involving my younger sister’s dolls. On this puritan holiday, my imagination was running wild with puritanical paranoia. Daddy Powers was pervert. I shut my bedroom door. Loudly. Daddy Powers didn’t leave. I increased the volume on my CD player until the doors rattled. Still Daddy Powers didn’t leave.
For a moment I wished it were an armed robber instead of Daddy Powers in my house. In that case I could cut through the pleasantries, jump out my window, and scream bloody murder. The neighbors would call 911, and that cute boy who used to be in my gym class would show up, clutching a nightstick and clad in his adorable uniform.
But Daddy Powers was no robber. And my heart was beating, not out of concern for myself, but for him and what he was about to lose: his credibility, dignity and job, possibly his family. I could see him in the back seat of a cop car, waving a sober goodbye to his family, while neighbors craned their necks out of second story windows to watch the scene unfold, shaking their heads muttering about how normal he always seemed.
I considered my options. There was only one. Go downstairs. So I did.
Daddy Powers was sitting at our kitchen table reading my sister’s copy of “US Weekly.” (Fine, it was mine.) I looked at him. He looked at me. The dog looked at us both, aware that some awkward exchange was about to happen. From the heavy silence, words would materialize, what the words would be remained a mystery.
“Hi Kate. How’s school?” Daddy Powers asked, casually looking up from the magazine.
“It’s fine.” I said, groping for an appropriate question to respond with. How’s work? How’s your family? How’s life?
“I’m reading about this girl named Paris,” he explained, “she was caught in a compromising position.”
As are you, Daddy Powers, I thought to myself.
While fumbling to initiate a conversation that would lead to an explanation of why Daddy Powers was in my house, I eyed a pie cooling on the stove. Suddenly it made sense—what he was doing here, in my kitchen. He was borrowing our oven, as the Powers’ did every Thanksgiving. It was me who was the creep, the one who possessed the weird thoughts. My thoughts were as absurd as the cashmere sweater worn by Paris Hilton’s dog, Tinkerbell.
There is a section of Us Weekly that shows celebrities going about their daily lives, performing basic chores like grocery shopping. It is called “Celebrities Are Just Like Us.” Standing here in the kitchen, I realized Daddy Powers is not that different from me. For a brief moment, we were talking like any two people with common interests talk. We were on the same page—or at least we’d read one. We were both stalling before a taxing family holiday, one for which we’d have to endure an extravagant amount of tedious conversation, while excessive mounds of food accumulated in our guts. But right now we were empty. Furtively consuming junk for our minds to chew on all day.
Something remarkable happened in my kitchen that morning. While our families waited for us to be where we were supposed to be—with them—Daddy Powers and I lingered in the kitchen, catching up on the latest celebrity gossip. Shooting the shit, laughing, indulging in invasive glimpses into other people’s lives while neglecting our own. For a few minutes we were partners in procrastination. And for a fleeting moment, I could see how we could be friends.
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