That was the thing about Theo, though. His enthusiasm was contagious. There was something so genuine and honest about how pumped up he got over the smallest things. I’d seen glimpses of it with the milk crate at Gert’s, as well as him meeting Clyde the day of the Big Club Big Moment. Now that we were together regularly, however, I understood it to be a core part of his personality. He didn’t play it cool. He didn’t play at anything. He just was, and it made me want to be, too. Even if I sometimes felt a bit guilty doing so.
“Okay,” he said now, holding out a plastic cup of wine to me. I walked over to him, taking it, and sat down at the table. He cleared his throat. “A toast. To the Best Summer Ever. And to you.”
“To you,” I repeated. We clinked glasses and drank, with me wincing a bit at the taste. I was used to watered-down keg beer, and Theo’s love of wine, red in particular, was something I was still adjusting to.
“Oh! Almost forgot.” He put down his glass and reached forward for the folded paper bag. “I brought snacks and apps, as well.”
“Snacks and apps?”
“Cocktail food,” he explained, opening the bag. “That’s what my parents called it. Every night between five and six, they had drinks, snacks, and apps. Usually martinis, olives, and either herring or salmon dip with rice crackers.”
I had not eaten one of these things, ever. Instead of sharing this, though, I said, “Really.”
He nodded, taking a carryout box from the bag. “But don’t worry. That’s not what I brought. I know it’s not exactly for everyone.”
I smiled, watching as he removed two other small boxes from the bag. While he opened and arranged them neatly in a row on the table, I tried not to think of my dad and the two cold beers he drank most evenings. But it wasn’t like I’d envisioned our families being similar. Nothing else was.
Theo had grown up in both New York and Connecticut, attending private schools. His father was a psychiatrist, his mother an editor at a publishing house that specialized in travel and art books. They’d had him late—he claimed “our pleasant surprise” was his family nickname—and he’d been raised making the rounds of art openings, symphony performances, and operas. They did not have a television when he was a kid, and never kept junk food in the house. He’d actually had his first Cheez Doodle a few days earlier, with me.
It wasn’t like I’d planned on indoctrinating him in the orange delights that were my favorite snack food. I’d just picked up a bag from the Gas/Gro after a hard day at work and brought them with me when I went to pick him up. That was the other thing: Theo didn’t drive, at least not confidently. He had a license, but because he spent most of his time in the city, he didn’t use it much, and was much more comfortable riding shotgun than behind the wheel. Which didn’t bother me, since I was the exact opposite. Riding made me nervous. It had been a running joke between Luke and me how uncomfortable I was in the passenger seat, always looking both ways in tandem with him and eyeing the speedometer when it crept higher than I thought it should be going.
That day, when I pulled up to Sand Dollars, Theo came out and got in the car, then leaned over to kiss me. When we finally broke apart, he eyed the Doodles in my lap. “Is that your dinner?”
“Nope. Just a snack,” I said, popping one into my mouth. “You want one?”
“Okay.”
I held out the bag, then watched as he carefully extracted one. After examining as if it was an artifact from another civilization, he finally popped it into his mouth. Then he chewed, a pensive look on his face, before swallowing and saying, “Huh. Interesting.”
“What is?” I asked, putting the car in reverse.
“That . . . whatever it is,” he said, gesturing to the bag. “Cheese Bomb?”
“Cheez Doodle.” I glanced over at him. “What, does it taste weird or something?”
“I don’t know. It’s the first one I’ve ever eaten.”
This statement warranted a full stop of the car. I turned to face him. “You’ve never had a Cheez Doodle before?”
“Well, I have now,” he said.
“You’re twenty-one years old,” I said slowly. “And that was your first?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “What? Is that weird?”
Yes, I thought. Out loud I said, “Not weird. Just uncommon. These things were, like, part of our regular diet in our house when we were kids.”
“Really.” He glanced at the bag again. “Wow. They’re, um, awfully orange.”
I looked at the bag. “That’s the cheese.”
“Oh, right. Of course.”
We backed down the rest of the driveway, and I ate another Doodle, surprised at how self-conscious I suddenly felt. Now, though, with this mention of the herring dip and olives, it made more sense. His life was a long way from mine. But we were getting closer. One piece of junk food and glass of wine at a time.
“Okay,” he said now, with the voice I’d come to recognize as his ceremonious one. “Snacks and apps. These are all from the Reef Room. We have their homemade wasabi peas and peanuts mix, shrimp puffs, and, your favorite, the chicken satay.”
“Wow,” I said, looking across the spread. Actually, I was more a shrimp burger girl and hated horseradish in any form. Still, as he fixed a little plate for me on the top of one of the containers, I didn’t say any of this. “This looks great.”