Thanksgiving 2009 was a big deal for my parents. Julie came home for the first time in two months after moving three hours away to study haute cuisine (her words) at the fanciest cooking program in the upper-middle part of the lower peninsula.
I loved finally having hot showers (she was an hour-shower girl), but Mom and Dad were all, Boo hoo, our girl’s grown up and stopped leaving her sweaty sports bras on the couch.
They were stupid excited to have her back (“Just like the old days!” – my dramatic mother) and to taste the haute cuisine their little master chef would prepare.
She drove in the night before, and it was like she’d returned from an Antarctic expedition. Mom cried (she always cries). Dad gave her a hug, if you can imagine such a thing. And tail-wagging Odin peed all over the hardwood in a long, curving S. I was the only one who treated her like normal by barely acknowledging her presence. Then she hugged me, and I froze in her arms like the turkey defrosting in the fridge.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked.
She shrugged. Weirdo.
“So,” Dad asked Julie, “what’s the big dish?”
She explained her horrible plan to boil egg noodles in gravy.
“That’s a joke,” I insisted, to which she said of course not, and Mom chirped, OMG, so innovative!, and Dad was like, Saves water!, and I had to storm off.
They always did that kind of stuff with Julie. Her weird ideas were quirky cute. Combat boot on her left foot and orange converse on her right? Oh, how silly, tee hee. My one comic about the genocide of a koala clan after a kangaroo military coup? Oh, it’s grounds for a psych eval by the school therapist. First-born privilege.
I spent the rest of the night in my room watching medical soap opera reruns.
Then Thanksgiving morning. On the TV, Washed-up singers sang poorly auto-tuned Christmas jingles at midsize-city parades. Mom made me and Dad set the table four hours early while she and Julie cooked. I almost helped them, but then Julie set the gravy boiling and cracked noodles into it, and I almost fainted.
We sat at the table at one o’clock, Odin beneath us whining pathetically. Julie scooped soggy brown paste onto our plates. I swallowed my scream.
Mom twittered happily. Dad said, “Haute cuisine!”
“Well?” Julie asked me.
I glared over the potatoes at her dumb face and—
Her hair was shorter. She’d gotten it cut. And I didn’t know. I used to always know.
So, who knows, I guess it was nice to see her again. I shoveled the mass into my mouth. I choked down a gag, because I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how bad it was. Gave her a thumbs up, and she smiled. I slipped my serving to Odin, but I’ve never let Julie know.
INSTANT NOODLES 