I am supposed to not know that Rivi, Boone, and Tina are coming to pay us a visit in our house in the woods, and so when I open the front door to them after they knock and the dog barks the arrival of someone at the porch, I make sure that I am wearing my most authentic surprised face.
“That’s a bullshit look if I ever saw one,” Rivi says. “Somebody told you we were coming.”
“Shut up and hug me,” I say, wrapping her in an embrace.
“It’s still bullshit,” she says. “It was Tina, wasn’t it? Boone is too afraid of me to go behind my back.”
“I’m not copping to anything,” Tina says. She pushes Rivi out of the way and hugs me. “I’m glad to see you, Bastian. Where’s your lovely wife?”
“In a Zoom meeting in her office. She’ll pop out once that’s over.”
Boone steps into the hallway and gives me a quick man-hug. “I’m completely afraid of Rivi,” he says. “She’s gotten worse since you’ve been gone.”
Rivi elbows him in the stomach. “Shut your filthy lying mouth. I am an angel and shining beam of sunlight, so don’t make me have to cut you.”
“A delicate princess,” I say. “So say we all.”
“Damn right,” she says. “Much too much of a princess for that dirt road coming in here. What the hell is that about?”
“Don’t blame me. If I’d have officially known you were coming, I could have told you to ignore the GPS and which way to actually drive in. The GPS lies.”
Rivi throws a glare at Tina. “If you had officially known, obviously.”
“Give us a tour?” Tina says, ignoring Rivi’s look. “Or you want to wait for Hunter to get out of her meeting?”
“May as well wait. She wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to show off the stately manor. Follow me though and I’ll point out the bathroom and the living room. We don’t have to stand in the hallway like barbarians.”
“I’m a feral princess,” Rivi says, “but I wouldn’t mind sitting on something that isn’t an airline seat for a while. Or the backseat of that rental car. Your road is bumpier than the turbulence over the midwest.”
“Should have told me you were coming,” I say, leading them deeper into the house. “Could have saved you some butt bruises if I’d have known.”
Rivi growls. Feral princess, after all.
We walk through the house and settle onto the pair of sofas in the living room. Boone and Tina sit together and immediately hold hands, which is nice to see. It was a long time with them in the Before Times when they were trying so hard to just be friends, for whatever reasons people do things like that. If anything good came from the pandemic, it was that it drew them closer together instead of driving them apart.
“This is the part where I’m supposed to ask how your flight was,” I say.
“Nightmarish,” Rivi says. “Screaming babies. Filthy toilets. Monsters on the wing of the plane.”
“I didn’t see any monster,” Tina says. “No matter how many times you made me look.”
“It was a smart monster. It always waited until you went back to your book before it looked in the window at me.”
“That’s why I didn’t want to give her the window seat,” Boone says. “You know how she gets on planes.”
“I am familiar,” I say. “Last time I flew with her, I had to put three packages of Double Stuff Oreos in my carry-on so she could have something to snack on that wasn’t airplane food.”
“I didn’t want to get hungry,” Rivi says, crossing her arms.
“It was a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Rivi. It was an hour in the air.”
“We could have crashed,” she says. “You would have been glad I had cookies if it was a choice between eating them to survive or eating you.”
“We would have crashed in Fresno, not the Andes.”
“Pays to plan ahead, Sebastian.”
“Says the queen of spontaneity,” I say, poking her in the leg with my finger.
She slaps at my hand. “Feral princess of planning. Make a note of it before I put you in the dungeon. You do have a dungeon here, don’t you? I figure all old farmhouses have them. Somewhere to keep all the inbred relatives that got a little too inbred back in the olden times.”
“We have a basement, if that counts.”
“I’ll make it work,” she says. “I’m a feral princess of improvisation.”
“See what I mean?” Boone says. “This is what we have to put up with, now that you’re gone. She’s gone up to eleven.”
“I agree,” Rivi says. “Ten was never high enough to encapsulate the totality of my hotness. Eleven might not even be able to hold it, honestly. Might have to go up to fifteen, to allow for a margin of safety.” She pauses and looks at me, her head tilted at a slight angle. “Sebastian, why are you looking at me like that? Are you having a stroke?”
“I’m not having a stroke,” I say. “I’m just happy to see you. To see all of you. I’ve missed you freaks. It feels really good to have you here.”
“Same,” Boone says.
“It’s been weird without you,” Tina says. “The dynamic has been completely thrown off.”
“I’ve had to pick up your slack,” Rivi says. “It’s a lot of work. It’s very exhausting being you when you’re not actually around.”
Tina leans in toward me and stage-whispers, “We’re about to have Rivi put in a home. She’s gone full Sunset Boulevard since you’ve been gone.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Rivi says, “but I should probably be insulted, right?”
“Possibly,” Tina says. To me, she says, “We’ll talk later, when Rivi’s asleep. Figure out your share of the expenses. She doesn’t need top care. Some gruel and a hosing down every week or so should do it.”
“You’re going in the basement dungeon, too,” Rivi says. “Boone is the only one not on my feral princess list.”
“I always knew I was the favorite,” Boone says.
“Only until you do something stupid,” Rivi says. “Shouldn’t take very long, really.”
“You’re talking about the man I love,” Tina interrupts.
“Thank you,” Boone says.
“He’ll be in the dungeon in about an hour,” Tina continues.
If there are words that can convey just how pleased I am to be seeing these people in my home, I don’t know what they are. The smile on my face hasn’t gone away since they walked in.
“He’s having another stroke,” Rivi says, looking at me. “Fetch my feral doctor. He’ll have to bring the leeches. Unless you have some in the fridge, Sebastian? You do live in the woods, after all.”
“It’s good to see you guys,” I say. “Like, really good.”
“You say that now,” Rivi says. “Wait until the leeches are done sucking and see what you think.” She leans in close to my face and puckers her lips, making a wet ssssssstttthp sound.
Some things never change.