Free Be Safe I Love You by Cara Hoffman Page A

sentimentality the uncles wanted to see catch on, and that was fine. She wasn’t interested in being the idea they tried on for meaning, or righteousness, the new vessel into which they poured all the excuses for their intemperance.
    As she put down the glass she saw Holly coming out of the kitchen, wearing a white shirt with poofy shoulders, black polyester pants, and Converse sneakers. She was a short, slim-hipped, coltish woman with a long neck and broad shoulders. A body that had been made fun of in elementary school, at once stubby and blunt but long armed, fit.
    Holly took a breath, smiled, said nothing, and walked directly to her—as if she’d just seen her yesterday—put her arms around Lauren and squeezed her hard, rested her head on her friend’s shoulder. She smelled like fried food and Prell shampoo and coffee. They stood that way long enough for some drunk to call them dykes. Uncle Gerry turned and slapped the man hard in the face, pulled him by the shirt until he broke free and hunched his way to a back booth to sit with his drink. Had it been later in the afternoon the drunk’s response wouldn’t have been good enough and the uncles would have followed him to his seat to discuss it.
    Holly stepped back and smiled. “You look good,” she said simply. Lauren grinned and admired the spaces between Holly’s teeth and the one twisted incisor that she’d wanted for herself when they were girls. A smile that was pretty and messed up at the same time.
    “Thanks.”
    “You here to meet your boy?”
    She shook her head. “I came to see you. How’s Grace?”
    “She’s over at Asshole’s parents’. I’m picking her up in a coupla hours. I seen Danny walking the other day—from the back I thought it was you for a minute, he’s so tall now.”
    Lauren smiled proudly. “I know it. Boy’s a champion.”
    “How’s your dad?” Holly asked.
    “He’s been replaced by an impostor while I was gone,” she said, and for a hundredth of a second felt it might be true. There was nothing about the way her father behaved in the last day that she could recognize.
    “Prolly should get a blood sample.”
    “That might be hard—he gets up and does stuff now. You’d have to catch him first.”
    Holly’s mouth twisted into that crooked smile. She shook her head, trying to stifle a laugh, and hunched forward a little. “Shouldn’t joke about it,” she said. “Your father’s a good man.” Then she looked into Lauren’s eyes and laughed. “He still wearing that robe all day?”
    “No, I’m telling you!” she said. “The robe’s gone, he apparently has an office over at the Nabe with PJ, it’s weird. He’s all doing laundry and shit. How’s Gracie?”
    “She’s good, she’s good. She’s real good.” Holly put one hand on her hip and turned her foot out to the side, lost in thoughts about her daughter. She nodded to herself. “Asshole’s paying for her to take some karate lessons, so . . . that’s one thing. I got her signed up for soccer comin’ up this year. You’d be proud of her, Ren.”
    She pulled out her phone and opened it, scrolled to a picture of Grace.
    “No way!” Lauren shouted at the screen.
    “Way!” Holly said, smiling with reluctant pride, rolling her eyes. “She tore right into everything at four in the morning. She woke up at three and came in to tell me Santa’d been there and I managed to keep her in bed a little longer. Course, I’d gotten back from here around midnight. God knows Shamus and Gerry and Patrick gotta have somewhere to spend their fucking Christmas Eve, right?” she yelled over to the bar.
    “You want to ruin a sacred tradition?” Gerry asked her.
    Lauren laughed again at the picture.
    “Let’s see it, now.” Shamus turned and gestured for her to bring the phone over to the bar and then they all peered at Grace on the tiny screen, exhausted in her footie pajamas, clutching red Christmas ribbon, struggling to keep her eyes open.
    Holly