Around Our Heads

On Wednesday after work, Chris came to get me with Avery. He'd given me a ride in the morning, so I wouldn't have to drive all the way back home just to drive back the same way to meet with Gazarra and his family.

The house was in an even nicer neighborhood than my brother's. It still had the same kind of makeup, built on a hill, and every home had no space between them and no front yards. But they were all white, and the only color came from the shutters and green lawns. It was pretty much the cream of the crop for San Francisco dwellers. Chris parked the car on the curb out front and got Avery out of the backseat. It was starting to get a little chilly, so we were all wearing hooded sweatshirts.

I felt kind of grimy in the neighborhood. Chris made a lot of money as a baseball player, but we were raised dirt poor, so we didn't really know how to deal with that money. We just kind of shoved it all into the bank and still lived off of a budget. We weren't in our comfort zone in places with specified color schemes and columns on the front porches. And any place that had more than one floor seemed like a mansion. This place seemed to have more than two. I didn't know what anyone could use that many floors for. Unless one was an attic, but still, that was a lot.

We rang the doorbell and waited for a moment. It wasn't like our doorbell. Ours was a loud and annoying buzzing sound. This one was a soft chiming song. Finally, a woman answered and looked out at us. She had brown hair that was cut short but stylish. She had one of those fancy gray stripes in her hair and looked like she was a fashion designer or something. But she smiled genuinely when she saw us.

"Hi, you must be Marley," she said. I stuck my hand out to shake hers.

"Hi, yeah. I'm Marley. You must be Diane," I replied.

"I sure am. Come in. Get warm. It's cold out." She let us into the foyer and closed the door behind us. The floors were wood, and everything was all white panels and pale yellow paint. The stairs curved at an angle. Not quite spiraling, but definitely cool. "And this must be Christopher and little Avery." She smiled at our daughter.

"It's nice to meet you," Chris said, shaking her hand.

"You too. I'm so glad you guys finally got in touch with Jacob. He's been anxious to see the little one. Come on in, and I'll show you around."

One thing I noticed about fancy people is that they loved showing off their houses. Claudia was like this too. The first time she invited Olivia and me over, she gave us the grand tour. And every time she did something new to her house, she had to show us before we could do anything else. Whenever people came over to my house, I shrug and say, "You'll figure it out." But of course, I lived in a single-story two-bedroom apartment with only one bathroom.

She led us into the large living room with overstuffed furniture and a TV that was bigger than my kitchen window. The back wall was lined with bookcases. They were partially filled and mostly decorated with things like small statues, picture frames, and potted plants. Gazarra was on the couch, leaning on his elbows and playing with a tiny little girl who looked just like me. She had big green eyes and scraggly brown hair. She was handing him something like a fluffy block.

"Honey, Marley is here with Chris and the baby," his wife told him. He smiled up at us and stood to shake Chris's hand again.

"I'm glad you guys could make it," he said.

"Thanks for inviting us," I replied.

"This is Iris." He motioned toward the baby.

"She's cute."

"And this is Avery, I'm guessing."

"Yeah, this is Avery. Say hi, baby." She just smiled and hid her face in Chris's chest. "She's shy."

"That's alright. But we have plenty of toys. Come in and have a seat. Dinner should be ready soon. Iris and I were just watching Lord of the Rings." He motioned toward the TV.

"I noticed that. I'm impressed." We all sat down, and Avery stayed on Chris's lap, refusing to let him go. But she was looking curiously at Iris's collection of toys.

"Are you a Lord of the Rings fan?" Gazarra asked.

"You're talking to the mother hen of the nerds over here," I said. Chris laughed softly.

"You must get that from me. Diane hates these kinds of things. I like to tell her she has no imagination." I laughed.

"It's an art form that only a few of us lucky ones can appreciate."

"What about you, Chris? Are you much of a Lord of the Rings fan?" He smiled and gave a slight nod.

"If I can manage to not fall asleep, that is," he replied.

"Star Wars fan," I explained.

"Ah, well. I grew up on Star Wars, so it holds a special place in my heart," Gazarra told me.

"It takes a special kind of nerd to appreciate both."

"I'm a nerd of all trades."

"Then I definitely got it from you. My mom's family never really understood me. I tried to get them to play Dungeons and Dragons with me when we were kids. But, they didn't have the patience for it."

"Ah, D&D. I used to play that in high school."

"No way?"

"Oh yeah. Your grandmother forbade me from it after my grades started failing. Well, there was that, and she thought dragons were the devil." I laughed.

"I've heard that argument."

"We should play sometime. I'd like to try it out again."

"I'll invite you to my friends' next tournament. Chris's friend Josh is our DM. He's a comic book writer, so his campaigns are wild." He laughed and looked over at Chris.

"So, Chris, what do you do for a living?" Chris tried to move Avery's head so he could see us, but she had her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

"I play ball, actually," he said.

"What kind of ball?"

"Baseball." Gazarra's eyebrows rose.

"Really? Professionally or…"?

"I play for the Giants."

"Really? Impressive. How do you handle seasons? I know you guys play out of town a lot."

"Oh, that's the roughest part of the job. I hate being so far from home, but luckily I get to come back every few weeks or so. And the off-season games are kind of annoying. But I love playing, and we make a lot of money. So I can't complain too much. Just wish I could be with my family more."

"He's really great," I told him. "Chris is—phenomenal. He was just playing with like a group of friends when he got contracted. And they love him. His friend Josh that I mentioned is on the same team."

"That's really cool. How did you two meet?" he asked.

"Um—we moved into apartments right next door to each other. We just sort of became friends and then eventually more than friends. We were off and on for a while until Avery came into the picture." I decided to leave out the details. Like the fact that Chris and I weren't really dating at the start but just screwing each other senseless when our partners weren't around.

"How long have you been engaged?" he asked.

"Since August? I think we were pretty much engaged anyway. We already knew we were going to get married. It just hadn't been made a definite plan until then."

"Is it hard for you during baseball season?"

"We miss him a lot when he's gone, but we deal with it. It's always worth it when he comes home again because he gets showered with affection." Iris waddled over to me and handed me the fluffy pink block. I focused my attention on her and couldn't believe how much like me she looked. She actually looked more like me than Avery did. I guess Avery had a lot of Chris in her too.

"Eee?" she said, holding the block up. I smiled and took it in my hand.

"Oh my gosh. This is the prettiest block I've ever seen," I told her. She gave me a grin with only four teeth showing.

"Dinner is ready, you guys," Diane told us as she returned to the room.