Happy Turkey Day

For the third time that hour, the doorbell was ringing. I had no clue why Twiggy and I were hosting Thanksgiving for John, Ginger, and Pogo, but somehow, we’d gotten sucked in. Thankfully, Twiggy owns as many cookbooks as most small bookstores, so we hopefully have something edible to serve our guests.
“Twigs! Door!” I yelled, putting on the oven mitts to take the pumpkin pie out. I had wanted to buy the pie, but oh, no, Twiggy had to go and make one. He wanted us to cook everything we served, even if I wasn’t much help. Not that he hadn’t done a wonderful job mostly on his own.
“Is this done?” John asked, staring down at the gravy he was whisking on the stove.
I shrugged. “Looks dead enough.”
John gave a small laugh, and turned the burner off, moving the pan to an unheated element.
The doorbell rang again.
“Twiggy!” I shouted, taking off the oven mitts.
“I’ll get it,” Ginger offered, abandoning the cranberry sauce he’d been working on. I don’t know what kind of slave workshop we were operating here, putting our guests on kitchen duty, but I was too thankful for the help to be embarrassed for more than a minute or two. Besides, it wasn’t like they minded. We were all like family, and family pitches in and helps when necessary.
“Marilyn!” Twiggy bellowed from the entryway.
“What are you doing?” I shouted back. “You were supposed to get the door for Pogo!”
“I did!” He yelled back.
And so, into the kitchen came Pogo, Twiggy, and a live turkey on a leash, held by my bassist.
“What is this?” I asked tiredly, watching the bird skitter around on the tile floor on its short leash.
“It’s Thanksgiving, so we have a turkey,” Pogo explained as if any idiot would know that it was customary to bring a live turkey to the table.
“Can we keep it?” Twiggy asked, his eyes sparkling.
“Twigs, it’s a turkey. Where would we keep it?”
The bassist pouted, sitting down in the back corner on the floor, pulling the turkey into his lap. I expected to see it bite him, but it was surprisingly tame. He leaned over to it, whispered something, and when it gobbled back, nodded. Poor, delusional Twiggy honestly believed that he could communicate with animals, particularly birds. Chickens were his specialty, but then, turkeys aren’t really all that different from chickens in a lot of ways.
“This is hilarious!” Pogo told John, who was watching Twiggy’s antics. “I knew bringing that thing would be funny.”
“Funny to you. You’re not the one who’s going to have to break his heart by telling him that he can’t keep him and actually getting rid of him.”
“Oh, relax. He can cook him. That’s what turkeys are for.”
Equipped with excellent hearing, Twiggy looked up at Pogo and glared at him. “You’re not going to hurt Tenley.”
“Tenley?” Pogo asked, looking confused.
“Well, that’s his name. Tenley.”
I sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of my nose. I adored Twiggy, but sometimes, he was too much to deal with. Now was one of those times.
“All right, Twiggy. That’s enough. You need to get back to your cooking. You can take your friend outside and tie him to the elm tree.”
“Outside? But, Marilyn, it’s raining!”
“Oh, brother!” John laughed, speaking mostly to Ginger.
“Fine. Take him in the bathroom, then.”
Twiggy got up, and smoothed out his cocoa colored dress, readjusting his burnt orange tights. He gently led his newfound friend out of the kitchen.
As soon as he was gone, everyone burst into laughter. Everyone except for me. I was used to this kind of thing. I lived with Twiggy. The others didn’t often see this side of him.
“I’m gonna kill you,” I hissed at Pogo.
He raised an eyebrow, and chuckled.
I started arranging bowls, plates, and platters to take to the dining table while the rolls finished heating in the oven.
When Twiggy finally returned just in time to take them out, he had a feather pinned into his hair. I didn’t ask. I didn’t particularly want to know.
Twiggy and I finished up in the kitchen while the others took their seats at the table, and we started taking the food in. We’d fixed enough food for a small army. There would be leftovers for weeks. I hoped this stuff was at least edible.
“Shouldn’t we say Grace?” John asked, as if it were obvious.
“All right, John, you may say Grace if you’d like,” I told him. I hadn’t said Grace before a meal since I’d lived with my parents.
John waited for everyone to fold their hands and bow their heads before he would begin. Thankfully, he kept it short and to the point.
Pogo, always the comedian, raised his glass at the end of the prayer. Twiggy happily clinked glasses with him.
We dug in. I noticed that Twiggy didn’t have much on his plate. I hoped that he wasn’t on another one of his strange flash diets. I honestly had no idea why in the world he would ever need to watch what he ate. He was a beanpole.
We talked and laughed while we ate. I had to admit, as much as I’d given Twiggy grief over offering us up as hosts for this shindig, it was actually really nice to have a real Thanksgiving.
“Twiggy, what are you-?” Ginger was eyeing the bassist, bent over at the side of the table.
I leaned over to get a peek. “Twiggy! I said take him to the bathroom, not hide him under the table!”
Busted, Twiggy picked the turkey up, sitting him down in his lap. He was feeding him bites of stuffing.
“You’re gonna make him sick with that. Turkeys don’t eat stuffing,” Ginger protested.
“Well, I don’t have bird seed!” Twiggy countered. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. We had a twenty pound bag in the garage from that spring, when he’d insisted that he was communicating with the pigeons and that they were starving to death.
“Twigs, please take your turkey out of the dining room. We’re trying to have dinner.”
“So’s he.”
I sighed. I was losing my patience. I didn’t want to make a scene, so I decided to let it go. I’d have a stern lecture with him once everyone else had gone home.
To my surprise, after dinner, everyone curled up on the couches and chairs in the living room, watching TV. Home Alone was on, and even I couldn’t help but laugh. Not that I couldn’t just as easily have been laughing at the sight of Twiggy sitting there on the couch, the turkey in his lap, being petted.
“Aren’t turkeys mean?” Ginger asked me quietly on a commercial break.
“I thought so.”
“That thing pecked me twice just getting it out of the car,” Pogo interjected.
“Maybe he really can communicate with it,” John suggested.
I was starting to wonder if John was right. Maybe Twiggy wasn’t crazy. Maybe, in a past life, he’d been a turkey or a chicken. Who knew?
As the night dwindled down, our band mates left, and Twiggy and I were finally alone with the turkey.
“It’s not raining now, Twigs. Please take Tenley outside.”
“Do I have to?” He was whining, never a good state in which to be negotiated with.
“Yes, you have to.”
“But he can stay?”
“For now.”
“Please? I don’t have any pets.”
I had to laugh at that one. “What about those two cats? And the goldfish? And the chinchilla? And the turtle?”
Twiggy sighed. “The cats were strays, I won the goldfish at the fair, you gave me the chinchilla, and I saved the turtle from being run over. They’re not my pets.”
I rolled my eyes dramatically. “Well, you’re taking care of them, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“We honestly can’t keep a turkey. It’s not intended to be a pet. You know that. We can keep him for now, but he has to go by the end of the weekend, okay?”
He nodded, carefully dropping Tenley to the floor. He led him out the back door. I was sure that he’d bring him back in, but he didn’t.
“Let’s do the dishes!”
I groaned, but Twiggy was just as excited about the clean up as he had been the cooking. He snapped on a massive set of yellow vinyl gloves, and started scrubbing the plates. While he washed, I dried. By the time we were finished, it was time for bed.
“’Night,” Twiggy smiled at me, heading for his room.
“’Night,” I answered back.
So, Thanksgiving was over. We’d hosted the dinner, and we were all still alive. It had actually been one of the best days I could remember having in a long time. The only downfall was that I was undoubtedly certain that we’d acquired a new family member.