The invite in Stuff

Mercer baked some pumpkin cookies. He’s the baker in the family. The part of his brain that loves rules and order I think really appreciates that there are specific rules to baking. Everything he makes is great and these cookies were no exception.

So when I got home from work yesterday I suggested to him that we take some cookies over to Megan and at the same time invite her to spend Thanksgiving with us. He seemed eager to do just that, but I waited and waited for him to be ready and I finally just gave up. I have a bit of short patience for stuff like that. If you say you are going to do something, do it. I’m not going to wait around or send all kinds of reminders.

I took several of his cookies and put them on a plate and covered it with cling wrap. Then I walked over to Megan’s place.

I knocked on her door and waited. I hadn’t texted to see if she was home, but she seems like she’s ALWAYS home. And her car was in the driveway. So I felt optimistic she’d be there. But I waited for a while. I started thinking how weird it was that I’ve lived next door to this house for more than 20 years and I’d never been inside.

Finally she answered the door. She clearly hadn’t looked out the window or a peephole first because she seemed genuinely shocked to see me standing there. The first words out of her mouth, in typical Megan awkwardness, were, “Sorry it took me a while to answer, I wasn’t wearing any clothes.”

“Hanging around the house naked?” I asked. Mostly I was being silly. If I lived alone I’d probably be naked much of the time myself. But there was also part of me that was asking in an innocent way of trying to confirm I hadn’t interrupted something.

She said, “I usually do. Although when I’m naked I turn the heat up a few more degrees than I would if I had clothes on, and to be honest the gas bill is getting out of control.” And then after a pause, “Sorry, is this all TMI?”

I laughed and said it probably would be if I had been a total stranger, but it was fine with me.

I offered her the plate of cookies and told her Mercer had made them. I may have implied that Mercer specifically made them with the idea in mind of us sharing them with Megan, which wasn’t true, but I wanted her to feel like we think about her. She seemed reluctant to take them and then explained that she really doesn’t ever eat cookies and didn’t want to have them go to waste. She made this whole production out of assuring me she was really grateful but she is obsessive about her diet because it’s a necessary part of her career.

She invited me inside. I was hoping she would because I wanted to see what her house was like. The first floor was an awesome open floor plan of kitchen and living room and nothing else (other than a bathroom tucked in the corner). The back wall was all windows and it offered only a slight view other than trees. We live on a hill but the trees are all taller than the houses, so for most of us our views are blocked. Nonetheless, the windows made the room very inviting and she motioned in that direction for me to sit.

I thought she was going to give me a tour of the place but instead she just described it to me, which was weird. She said the second and third floors were both set up almost like separate apartments because the house had once been shared by her two sisters. I think I remember when they both lived there. She said she has a bedroom on the third floor but often goes days without going up there and lives mostly on the first floor where we were sitting. She said she likes to sleep on the couch.

Then she started talking more about the cookies. She said she’s been crazy about maintaining her body almost her whole adult life, going back to when she was a “performer” (her word) to now that she’s a personal trainer. She finally settled on the idea that she would keep one cookie because she wanted to try them, and then send the rest back with me. I wasn’t offended.

I kept wanting to make the Thanksgiving invite but she was talking so much that I just let her keep going. On the previous times we’d spent together there’d been so much awkward silence it was nice that she had things she wanted to say now.

She pointed out to the yard and said she was seriously considering putting in a hot tub. I told her if she did that I would probably be over her place all the time in the tub with her. Her eyes lit up and she said she was serious about this and was going to really start calling contractors if I meant what I said. I laughed and confirmed I’d really love to use her hot tub if she was going to do it, and it felt like I’d really just made her day by saying that.

I finally asked her if she wanted to come over and join my family on Thanksgiving. She said she was so grateful for the invite because she was STILL pondering traveling to California for the holiday but knew it was going to cost a fortune. Well, yeah. You don’t buy plane tickets a week before Thanksgiving. So she said I made up her mind for her and she’ll spend it with us instead. I was actually at least a little surprised. I was expecting her to turn me down.

She hugged me as I was leaving and told me to come over whenever I wanted and we could talk about “our new hot tub.”

You know when you show up at someone’s house uninvited and you feel like you’re really unwelcome? This was the exact opposite. She seemed SO HAPPY that I was there that it felt like I was hurting her feelings by finally going home.