He turned on the heat and set his laptop to play Bach’s Cello Suites. He made a vegan pumpkin pie and a cream pie on a cookie crust held together with mashed banana, and then prepared a regular crust for a cherry pie to be finished the next day. He moved around the kitchen feeling the fluff of the robe shift on his skin, his bare feet slapping against the beige-tiled linoleum.

It was nice he had that quiet day to himself. Because actual Thanksgiving the next day at Leah’s place? Freakazoid Town. David got up after Iris left to study for the morning (that school—seriously, how did Reedies sleep?). He made the cherry pie and stuck it in the oven, took a shower, and changed into a black dress, did his makeup, took the pie out and wrapped it, and then sank feckless hours into cleaning the living room. Iris came back and he apologized for his messy apartment and Iris waved the apology away. They loaded the pies into shopping bags and walked over to Leah’s in the rain, getting fucking soaked. The second they got inside, Leah shrieked with a beer in her hand, “David! It’s time to play Who’s the President!”

“You start!”

Iris rolled her eyes and took the pies to the kitchen.

“Okay, here we go. Who’s the president?”

“Fuck, fuck.” David pretended to think. “Oh, I’ve got it! Not George Bush in fifty-four more fucking days!”

The room roared. Leah explained that on election night they had invented the best game at a house party way up in North Portland, David and Leah then yelling, “Hey everyone, who’s the president?” out the windows on the car ride home, the entire city loud and alight. They didn’t pass a single quiet block, not one.

“Where’s the beer?”

“The fridge, you faggot! Where do you think it is?”

“Watch it, I’ll jizz on you!” David laughed and flipped her off. Leah spun around to the horrified guy watching. “It’s cool,” she said. “He’s my best friend.”

David forgot their kind of talk could shock people. But that’s just how David and his friends talked! Plus, with Leah, like, she was Native, and David sometimes said similar words to her in kind. David and Leah had both told each other very earnestly that it was totally whatever, these words used in jest by friends were equally meaningless. They weren’t uptight or politically correct, and these words did not hurt them, did not hurt them at all.

Everyone was drunk by dinnertime. Leah’s sweet-as-hell boyfriend had made a true fucking feast that everyone gobbled in twenty minutes, the crowd then demolishing David’s pies as he revelled in one bearded guy hoovering up the cherry. One of the older girls was exasperated about a hookup, a guy so deep into Democratic canvassing he had a poster of Dennis Kucinich on his ceiling. David thought it had to be a joke and the girl said, “OH BOY, DO I WISH.” Leah said it was time for Leah’s Peppermint Patties, and the dudes asked, just what were Leah’s Peppermint Patties? And Leah yelled, “Stop asking questions, you pussies! Just get on your knees!” They did. In David’s mind, the dudes would’ve done anything Leah said. In this instance, what Leah did was stand over you with a bottle of peppermint schnapps in her left hand and a bottle of chocolate syrup in her right. She poured them into your mouth, and you had to shake your head to mix them, then swallow. They were fun. The peppermint schnapps was soon gone, and so was the beer. Iris led the charge with David to go for more. When they came back, there was puke in both sinks and the couch was somehow broken in the middle. A weary Leah said, “I’d rather drink these outside,” which they did under a tarp the house had put up for smoking, as rain breezed over them, gentle Portland rain. “I like you, Iris,” Leah said goofily. “Thanks for taking care of my boy.” Everyone loved Iris. Everyone who loved David loved Iris.