Winter Town

Chapter One: A Day In The Life

                                                                                       Today 

Back home if you're free. Evan looked at Lucy's text message as he sat in the bathroom. It was the only quiet place in the house. The last text from her had been in April, about eight months ago, and read quwerty texting is a B****! Before that had been Will be busy for the newlxt few days. He also had a text message from his friend Marshall: So where is this girl already? That one was from yesterday.

"Where's the box with the wires?" Evan's dad yelled from the living room. "I need the box with the wires and lights," he repeated louder, though no one seemed to be listtening. Evan's dad liked to be heard, a trait Evan had never fully picked up. Evan walked to the sink and washed his hands. Just twenty minutes agi, Evan had been enjoying himself, drawing  at the kitchen table and talking with his grandmother, but those five words, Back home if you're free, had turned his day around. Now he felt stuck here, trapped in his own home.

The house was overrun with guests, which made it a Sunday. Family Sunday to be exact. Meaning stay home with your family, not go out with your friend you haven't seen in twelve months. It was also mid-December, which meant his dad's winter town was being put on display. His dad was constantly fiddling with it, trying to make it just right.

"There's still a few boxes we haven't opened, hon," Evan's mom said. "It could be in one of those."

Evan stepped into the living room, where his neighbor Ben immediately began to follow him. Evan was used to being followed around the house, if not by Ben then by one of the children. Followed, talked about, or called from across the room in loud fashion. He had a close family, and that's what close families did.

There were twenty-three people in the house at the moment and one dog. The kitchen was full and the living room was full, and the couch and all the chairs were taken, with some family members watching the game, while others were talking and eating. Evan hugged the living room wall as he navigated his way toward the front of the house. The scene was especially active here as an assortment of Evan's family members were helping his dad get all the town pecies up and running in their proper places. Evan made his way into the dining room, where several unopened boxes were stacked, and he and Ben each brought one back to Evan's dad. Evan sat his box down by the large window display his dad was working on. Maybe he could get out early on good behavior.

"Thanks, son," Dad said in his baritone voice. His voice and his brow were his two most impressive features. He had the appearance of a deep-thinking philosopher. Even on Sunday Fun-day he wore a tie.

Conversation over the next few minutes quickly turned to Dad's topic du jour, Evan's upcoming excommunication to college. Evan was over it. He'd already spent his fall applying to ten different colleges with his dad looming over him every minor decision. The problem was trhat Evan still didn't know what he wanted to do, or where he wanted to go, For all his effort and for all his good grades, Evan Owens was a man without a plan.

"What do you think about trying for an Ivy League or two?" Dad asked. "We still have a couple of weeks." He dropped and picked up a tiny Christmas tree. "You've got the grades and the extracurricular activities. If you took up a sport, you could mention it during interviews." He lined up the trees up on a shelf in a perfect row around a small pond. There was a handful of boys and girls skating on the ceramic ice.

"I haven;t played a sport since sixth grade, Dad. Why brother if it's not going to make the application anyway?" Evan said. The part he didn't say was that he hadn't enjoyed sports even then. Taking a baseball to the side of the head had something to do with it. Since then, he'd participated chiefly in what he called anti-sports. Invisibility was an admired trait in anti-sports. The trick was to make it look like he was having a good time, while avoiding the ball, the goal, and his teammates.

"You're in good shap," Dad said, looking Evan over as if to fact-check. "You'll pick it up fast."

Evan tried to center his eyes, which wanted so badly to rol in their sockets. His dad had to focus on sports, and not, say. Evan's advanced classes, homework, set-building for the theater department, tutoring, debate club, and Wednesday afternoons volunteering at SARAH, a community that helps disabled people. He had friends, he had girlfriends he did everything right. But he didn't play sports.

"There's no time, Dad," Evan said, wondering how soon he could get to Lucy's. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He hoped his father didn't realize he still had Saturdays and Mondays free.

"It'll really add another layer to your transcript." Dad stood up and scratched his head. "You've got Saturdays and Monday afternoons open still," he said, amd Evan wondered if he was thinking too loudly. Would he need one of those tinfoil hats?

"Dad, you're gonna kill me." Evan plotted a quick escape to the kitchen to avoid further college talk, but his mom cut him off with a plate of cheese and crackers in hand.

"I was just looking for you," she said 

"Thanks, Mom." Evan relented and took the plate.

She gave an isn't-he-the-sweetest? smile and patted his head. Now he had to take the time to eat. Evan's mom had medium-length hair and red-framed glasses and what Evan would call a soccer-mom-lite look. She thought Evan was the most wonderful person to ever walk the earth and let him know it every day. With her, Evan was rocketing over the moon, and with his dad, he couldn't get off the ground. Evan imagined himself somewhere in the middle, floating along the troposphere, airplane-level. Moms coddle their children. It was nice, it was fine.

"Barb," Dad said, "what do you think about Evan taking on a sport?"

"Dad..." Evan groaned. "Enough with the sports."

"It's for school, Ev."

"Oh, you're going to suffocate him, Charlie. Let him go out eith hid friends every now and again. He hasn't met a girl in months, not since that awful Jessica," Mom lamented, exaggerating her frown. If Evan's dad was predictable in his speeches on education, then his mother brought up his social life like that it was a soap opera. Not that it was salacious or even interesting; she just had a need to get her daily fix of it. Jessica was Evan's late-spring girlfriend. It had been, in all fairness, a disaster. She was the pretty, redheaded version of the baseball that had hit him on the side of the head. That was spring, though Two seasons had passed entirely. He was over it.

Evan fidgeted some more. This talk, too, had run its course, and being the center of attention wasn't going to help Evan get out of the house.

"She could have been a lot more tactful in breaking up with you. She didn't realize how luckly she was to have you in the first place." Mom adjusted Evan's collar and brushed his sweater, as if the act of talking about relationships would lead to a date for him in the next four minutes.

"That's not that important right now anyway," Dad said with his hands raised. He'd heard enough of this gang-up on his son, or at least enough without his participation. "You can go out and have fun when the opportunity arises, but..."

"What does that mean?" Mom asked in sort of an accusing whine.

"Well." Dad collected his thoughts and firmed his stance.

"It means he should date. He's a normal teenage boy, but maybe don't fo falling in love, necessarily."

College and girls. At least Dad was about to pull some of the heat off him now. Evan wondered if he needed to be present for this conversation at all and decided he did not. 

There were two crackers left on his plate.

"And why shouldn't he fall in love?" Mom asked, drawing the interest of others nearby. Evan's family made a habit of talking about him as if he weren't there. "What if he meets the right girl?"