Sports Night fiction written for Yuletide 2009: The Heart is in the Home
Title: The Heart is in the Home
Fandom: Sports Night
Characters: Dan Rydell, Esther Jaffee, Isaac Jaffee, Dana Whitaker, Dave, Natalie Hurley, Jeremy Goodwin, Kim, Casey McCall
Rating: PG; mostly gen, some slash subtext
Summary: Home is the place that, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. And families are the people who live there - in all their infinite varieties.
Notes: Written December 2009 for Yuletide from a prompt by aderam: ... I love all the characters on this show. But Dan is my favourite because of his hilarious lines and serious woobie moments. And I love how he's made his own family out of the people at Sports Night, especially Natalie as substitute sister and Isaac as father-figure. I'd love a story about Dan and family (both biological and chosen). If you choose to go sad please at least include some good banter and a happy ending. Bonus points if you include stuff about Hockey because it's my favourite sport. Many, many thanks to kmousie, for beta reading and advice, and for everything else.
When Dan's absence becomes too big an elephant in the room for even the blindest man to ignore, even taking into account the fact that the hotel ballroom's large enough to hide any number of wild jungle animals, Esther takes it upon herself to go in search of him. She eventually runs him to ground back in the restaurant. He's alone in there, not even a busboy to keep him company, his elbows on the table amidst the discarded napkins and wine stains and all the other debris of what had been a generally excellent evening out, his head in his hands, his fists pressed against his temples. There's a glass of seltzer water slowly going flat in front of him, and beside that's a dry bread roll crumbled into … well, into crumbs. She doubts whether any of it has actually passed his lips. Like all of Dan's friends, she's well used to this scenario.
She pulls out the chair opposite him and sits down. He glances up, meets her eyes, smiles wryly, then looks back down at the scarlet stain between his elbows. From her angle it looks a little like a map of South America, truncated somewhere around the tip of Argentina.
"What I've never quite understood," she observes, disinterested and non-judgemental, "is how in the world you cope when you have to go out in public. All those network parties and gala dinners and awards shows - Danny, do you spend your entire life throwing up?"
He looks back up then and manages another smile, almost a real one this time.
"That's different," he tells her. "Those things don't matter. It's only when I'm with people I like, people I care about - with my friends …"
"Lucky friends," Esther says dryly, and he nods.
"Tell me about it." He sits up straight, reaches for his glass, takes a sip of the stale water and grimaces.
"Is that as nasty as it looks?" she wants to know. He nods again.
"But it helps settle my stomach," he says. "Unfortunately, it's pretty much the only thing that does."
"Ginger root?" she suggests. "Peppermint tea - oh. Never mind." Beneath his faded showbiz tan, Dan has gone an interesting shade of pale green. This thing, this condition, this phobia - whatever it is that plagues Dan so, there's no doubt that it's real. And Esther sympathises, really she does. It's just that it's also so - not to sound heartless, but, well, so inconvenient. It's their thirtieth wedding anniversary, hers and Isaac's, and can you blame her if she wanted the night to be special, for nothing to happen to spoil it?
As if he can hear her thoughts, Dan murmurs, "I'm sorry, Esther," and reaches across to touch her hand. He smiles again, rueful and sweet and, as he must have known she would, Esther forgives him instantly. There is not, she suspects, a heart in all the world that could not forgive Danny Rydell when he smiles in just that way.
But it wouldn't do to tell him so. Likeable, even lovable as Dan is, he also has rather a high opinion of himself, and the last thing he needs is her swelling his ego. Besides, she's not about to let him off the hook that easily. She draws on her years of experience as a stern but loving mother, and scowls.
"So I should think. In between you and that partner of yours -"
His head jolts up. "Partner?" Then, evidently, the coin drops. "Oh - Casey. Yes. I'm sorry about that, too, but you know how he gets. He's been trying to get this woman, this Annelise, to go out with him for weeks, now, and tonight just happened to be the night the breakthrough came. He was," he says, with mock gravity, "Torn."
Esther snorts unbecomingly.
"Really!" Dan insists. Now that he has something else to think about he's starting to look a little better; his eyes are brighter, and there's some colour back in his face. "Never come between Casey and the pursuit of love. Believe me, that's not something that'll ever end well."
Esther wonders how he knows, but she doesn't ask. She has never quite understood the relationship between Casey and Dan, their closeness, almost codependence, and she suspects that the answer lies in murky waters best unfathomed by man. Instead she stands, letting her chair scrape across the polished wooden floor.
"Do you think you might grace us with your presence again this evening?" she asks, her tone less sarcastic than the words. She really is very fond of Danny - of all the Sports Night crew who have, somehow, become less her husband's employees and more his ramshackle and dysfunctional adopted family. "Or are you going to stay out here, turning green, all night? Isaac's worried about you," she adds, which is fighting dirty if ever there was; she knows that Dan adores Isaac and would rather die than distress him. Or perhaps something a little less dramatic along the same principle.
"I'm sorry, Esther," Dan murmurs again. His fingers go to his mouth, pressing lightly. Like the elephant, it appears, he's not out of the woods yet. His gaze drops back to the table. "I'll be along soon. Tell him I'm fine, will you?"
She stands very straight, and looks him up and down. "I never lie to my husband," she says sternly.
He turns his head to meet her eyes. "Then tell him I will be fine. Okay?"
She steps forward, lays a hand on his shoulder, bends to brush a quick kiss across the crown of his head. "I know you will, Danny," she says softly, and she leaves him to his thoughts.
***
It's Dana's turn to host Thanksgiving for the Whitaker clan, which seems to have come back round awfully quickly - surely in a family as large as hers you should only end up playing hostess once every decade or so? - but, this time around, she's determined to give her mother no grounds for complaint or criticism. She still flinches when she remembers her first attempt at holding a family gathering in the tiny apartment she lived in back then. Her oven hadn't been large enough to hold the turkey, she had nothing like enough pans or serving dishes, and her noble attempt at home-made pie crust had ended, as it was bound to really, in unmitigated disaster. And her mother had said things like "Never mind, dear" and "Well, at least you made the effort" and somehow that was worse than if she'd scolded or lectured.
Not this time. No sooner have the family called up on the intercom than Dana's pulled her coat on, skimmed downstairs, and swept them all off in a fleet of hired cars (specially booked) to Aurelia on the Upper East Side (again specially booked, in this case 364 days in advance) where a gourmet three-course Thanksgiving dinner is served quickly, efficiently, deliciously, and with style. And when her mother says "This must have cost a lot, dear," Dana just smiles and says, "It's okay, Mom. On my salary, I can afford it."
She'd balked at promotion - she'd loved producing Sports Night, she'd thought she could never be better at anything than she was at that job - but, it turned out, a step up the ladder to become Isaac's deputy manager was all it had taken to give her wings. She isn't just comfortable in her new role; it fits her like a glove, as though it had been made for her.
Which, in some ways, thank to Isaac's input, it had been. But in other ways, many ways, most ways, it's all down to Dana herself. And she's proud of herself, and of the strong, capable, competent, wonderful woman she's finally, fully become.
Even if she does still occasionally spill stuff on herself and mislay her shoes.
Her dad grins at her from the end of the table, and raises his wineglass in a toast. Dana's mother blinks but, for the first time in her life, finds herself speechless.
***
Dave's father was the best cook in the world, a gifted amateur chef who could produce a cordon bleu meal out of the most improbable and unpromising ingredients imaginable. He was a good man, too, a kind husband, a loving father, a conscientious man who worked hard every day of his own life to make a better life for his family, and he was taken from them far too soon.
After his death Dave's mother went back to Trinidad, where her own mother still lived in some style with husband #3 - and, a year or so later, husband #4. Grandmother and all the husbands are gone now too, but Dave's mother's still out there, busy as ever but happier now, basking in sunlight, than ever she was in their cold, grey, New York apartment. Dave makes a point of flying out there once or twice a year, more when he can - for her birthday and the anniversary of his dad's death, at the very least - and, when he does, he takes over all the cooking duties, trying hard to live up to his father's standard.
He knows he falls far short, but the smile on his mother's face when he pulls her chair out for her and sets a loaded plate in front of her is all the reward he'll ever need.
***
It's difficult for any young couple, maintaining family equilibrium, and for Jeremy and Natalie it's doubly so, most especially at the end of December. Natalie's parents are offended by generic 'holiday' cards; Jeremy's mom by any mention of Christmas. Jeremy's father, gentle and easy-going, doesn't care much one way or another, but Jeremy has never quite forgiven his father for cheating on his mother - Jeremy's mother, that is - certainly not enough so to spend the holidays with him and definitely not enough to spend any time at all around the Evil Stepmother.
So they compromise. The moment Sports Night wraps for its three-day holiday break, they bundle into Jeremy's tiny, second-hand excuse for a car and they're headed north, to a cabin with their name on it and to a sheer slope of snow: no phone, no neighbours, no-one to bother them but themselves.
No electricity either, it turns out, and, that same night, they creep back under cover of darkness, hole up in their own apartment with a stash of tinned goods and the last turkey in the shop, and they make their own festival, call it what you will.
They tell no-one about this, no-one at all, but the arrival into the world of small Nathan Goodwin-Hurley in September the following year (ten fingers, ten toes, 8 lb 3 oz and the spitting image, poor child, of his father) tells its own Christmas story.
***
All his life Jacob Rydell had tried to do the right thing. He'd been a dutiful son, loving husband, caring father; a hard worker, a good provider. And where did any of it ever get him? His parents, now long gone, never had a good word to say to him; his wife's locked away in her own sad, solitary world; the only one of his children who can stand to be around him is never in the country, always flying out to Europe or the Far East on business, sometimes without even a phone call to say he'll be gone. Karen's in California, living with a woman Jacob has never met and never intends to meet, and only comes back east when Dan calls her for help with their mother. Even then she never stays long, just long enough to say something cutting and fly out again. Dan … well, Danny turned out okay after all, in spite of all the worry he'd caused as a kid, but it's too late now, there's a wall in between them and neither of them knows how to break it down. And Sam, his beautiful, gifted, wonderful boy; Sam's gone forever, and it was all for nothing.
Children don't listen.
***
Not many people know that Isaac was married once before. Maybe if somebody sat down and did the math it would occur to them that Esther is much younger than he is and that he was well into his forties when both his daughters were born, but even if they did they might think nothing of it. And, in any case, it would be none of their business.
He'd been a different person back then, had thought altogether too damned much of himself: believed he knew everything, deserved whatever came his way, coveted what he didn't have. He was brusque, callow, impatient, often angry, bitter, resentful. An older, wiser Isaac has to admit to himself that what his younger self really needed was a good, hard kick in the ass - but then, it's the privilege of youth to believe yourself the centre of the universe. It's the privilege of old age to know that you're not, but not to care.
He hadn't been the best of husbands, either. Then again, in the interest of fairness and full disclosure, Diane hadn't exactly been the best of wives. But, between them, they'd made Bobby, and he was the best of both of them, and then a little bit better than that. A lot better than that.
The only people who know all this are the people who need to know, plus the few still remaining who were around at the time. Isaac himself, one or two old friends. Esther, of course. Kathy and Ellie were told about it when they were children, but that was so long ago that it's taken on the air of a fairytale now, or a dream.
Isaac doesn't speak of it any more. Now that Diane herself is dead, there's no-one but him to remember Bobby: so smart, so handsome, their pride and their joy; the cute kid he was, the serious student, the dedicated doctor-in-training.
No-one else to remember how Bobby always cared more for others than for himself, would always go without question where he was most needed. And how, one day, he didn't come back.
No, Isaac never speaks of it. But he still misses them both, his wife and his boy. And he never forgets.
***
Kim got married last year. Nobody saw that one coming. To add to the general surrealness, she did so in traditional style, wearing a full-length white satin gown (very low, mind you, in the bust department), with a flowing train and a billowing lace veil. Dan took one look at her and commented that he'd be amazed if the church didn't burst into flames when she stepped over the threshold, at which she just smiled sweetly and ground a spiked satin heel into his instep. But Kim, for all her scowls and snarkiness, is far from immune to the Dan Rydell charm, and when it came time for all her girlfriends to gather on the lawn she cheated outrageously and tossed her bouquet in quite the wrong direction, straight into Dan's hands.
Nobody was more surprised than Dan himself, and he was very quick to laugh and throw it back. But Kim had seen that split second when his face lit up like a little kid's at Christmas, and was proud of her handiwork.
***
When Dan gets back to his apartment he finds Casey outside the door, sitting on the floor, knees jacknifed against his chest. His eyes are shut, but they snap open when Dan says, quietly so as not to disturb the neighbours, "Hey."
Casey smiles up at him and Dan's heart lurches, but he's long been accustomed to that, and to the many ways in which he can disguise it. "Hey," Casey says back, and starts to scramble to his feet. He's a little unsteady, probably not entirely sober, but Dan's seen him worse. A whole lot worse. The opposite is, to some degree and to be perfectly fair, also true.
As to what Casey's doing here, slightly drunk on Dan's doorstep, rather than being safely tucked up in bed in his own apartment - or his date's - well, Dan's reasonably certain he's about to hear all about that. Although it's not as if he couldn't take a fairly good guess. Casey routinely washes up here any time he feels the world's done him wrong (which is altogether too often for a grown man, but never mind that for the moment), and why shouldn't he? After all these years of working together the two of them are almost like family - no, closer than family - and they share pretty much everything.
Pretty much. Everything.
Dan unlocks the door and waves Casey on in before him. "You couldn't use your key?" he asks, a mere formality. Casey's had a key to his apartment - to water his plants, in case of emergency, in case of … in case - since forever, and they've been having this same conversation for almost as long a time.
"It's impolite," Casey says, as he invariably does, "to use it when you're not around."
This doesn't even merit an eyeroll any longer. "There's no point," Dan says, as he invariably does, "using it when I am." He shuts the door, tosses his own key into its customary resting place in a retired ashtray from Anthony's, and drops the subject until the next time. There will always be a next time. "So," he goes on, getting in a pre-emptive strike, "The date. Annelise. Not good?"
Casey flops onto the couch, whose cushions do their level best to swallow him up, and tilts his head back. Dan turns away from his view of that long, lickable throat, and busies himself at the refrigerator, only turning back when he's sure it's safe to do so. He tosses Casey a beer, and grabs a bottle of still water for himself and his still less-than-happy innards.
Casey is manfully struggling to sit upright, but no-one has ever fully mastered Dan's couch and eventually he lets it have its way. He pops the lid on his beer and takes a healthy, heartening swig, after which he appears to brighten visibly.
"Would I be here if it'd been a good date?" he asks. It's a rhetorical question - or at least, one that requires no answer, which, as Casey himself would tell you, is not quite the same thing - and so Dan just perches on the arm of a wing chair and waits.
"The thing is," Casey goes on, "you and I, Danny - we're a couple of smart guys, right?"
"Pretty smart, yeah," Dan agrees. It would be rude not to.
"We know our jobs?" Casey doesn't wait for Dan's agreement, takes it for granted and ploughs on, "Who knows more than we do about sports?"
Mentally, Dan sighs. He can take a fair guess where this is going. But he plays along. "Sportsmen," he suggests. Casey glares at him. "Um - umpires?" And, three strikes and you're out: "Sports fans?"
Casey's glare becomes laser-like in its intensity. "Sports. Fans," he hisses - hissing an 'f' sound is quite the achievement, but somehow he manages it. "Or they think they do. Hockey," he snarls, retires to the comforting embrace of the couch cushions, and takes further solace in his beer.
"You like hockey," Dan reminds him mildly. "So do I. In fact - "
Casey cuts him off abruptly, and not a little bit rudely. "We may like it, Dan, but we're not obsessed with it. Believe me - " and he sets his empty bottle down with a thump - "I've heard more about hockey tonight than I ever want to hear again for the rest of my life."
Dan smiles to himself. Knew more about it than you do, did she? No: Casey would not like that. If the unknown Annelise had played hard to get before tonight, after tonight she'd find the tables well and truly turned. She'll be lucky if she ever sees Casey's face again - other, that is, than on the TV. And maybe not even that. If Casey had reacted badly, as Casey does, regrettably, tend to do, he may well have lost Sports Night yet one more of its hard-won viewers.
Dan's never had the same problem. He has himself occasionally been known to sleep with someone who knows more about sports than he does. There was the college quarterback in St Louis, the rookie catcher - who'd turned out to be more of a pitcher - in Reno, even a hockey player or two, or three, or four or five along the way, both ice and field, American and Canadian and once a homesick visiting Swede. But these were all professionals, or nearly so, or at least experts in their fields (was that a pun? Casey so hates puns), and maybe that's what makes the difference.
Furthermore, they were all men. But this is not something that he ever has, ever wishes to, or ever will discuss with Casey.
Casey wouldn't understand.
Aloud, he only says, "Well, that's going to make things interesting, since, as I understand it, it's our job, from time to time, to report fully and frankly on the latest developments in the crazy, rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred world that is professional hockey."
"Huh," says Casey. He twists himself sideways on the couch, pillows his head on one arm, and stretches his body out along its, fortunately generous, length. "How about this? I take all the soccer games from this day forward, and you report on the hockey. Deal?"
"Deal," Dan agrees. He may as well. It saves on argument, and Casey won't remember a thing about this conversation in the morning.
He never does. And sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it's a bad.
Dan levers himself upright, goes to the hall closet, and pulls down the spare quilt that he keeps stashed there for just such nights as these.
"You sleeping there?" he asks over his shoulder, but his only answer is a snore. Which, really, is an answer in itself.
"I guess you are," Dan murmurs to himself, and spreads the quilt carefully over Casey's sleeping body, pulling it up to his shoulders, mindful to tuck it around his feet. Casey's still wearing his shoes, but these Dan leaves where they are. There are limits to even the closest of friendships.
He lets himself touch Casey's shoulder - only a touch; that's as much as he dares - steps back and stands for a while, just listening to the gentle sound of his best friend's breathing.
It's not enough. It never will be enough, but Dan Rydell long since gave up fooling himself that there would ever be anything more than this. Family, he reminds himself: family. Isn't that, when you come down to it, better - deeper, stronger, longer-lasting? The other thing - that's just a fantasy; a dream that could never stand up to the harsh light of day.
But it doesn't matter any more anyway. When he was a kid he'd thought it would break his heart, but hearts don't break that easily, and, if they do, they mend. There have been other men, other lovers, and some of them he's cared for very deeply. Never quite deeply enough, but one day … one day.
He turns away, and shuts off the light.
***
Fandom: Sports Night
Characters: Dan Rydell, Esther Jaffee, Isaac Jaffee, Dana Whitaker, Dave, Natalie Hurley, Jeremy Goodwin, Kim, Casey McCall
Rating: PG; mostly gen, some slash subtext
Summary: Home is the place that, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. And families are the people who live there - in all their infinite varieties.
Notes: Written December 2009 for Yuletide from a prompt by aderam: ... I love all the characters on this show. But Dan is my favourite because of his hilarious lines and serious woobie moments. And I love how he's made his own family out of the people at Sports Night, especially Natalie as substitute sister and Isaac as father-figure. I'd love a story about Dan and family (both biological and chosen). If you choose to go sad please at least include some good banter and a happy ending. Bonus points if you include stuff about Hockey because it's my favourite sport. Many, many thanks to kmousie, for beta reading and advice, and for everything else.
When Dan's absence becomes too big an elephant in the room for even the blindest man to ignore, even taking into account the fact that the hotel ballroom's large enough to hide any number of wild jungle animals, Esther takes it upon herself to go in search of him. She eventually runs him to ground back in the restaurant. He's alone in there, not even a busboy to keep him company, his elbows on the table amidst the discarded napkins and wine stains and all the other debris of what had been a generally excellent evening out, his head in his hands, his fists pressed against his temples. There's a glass of seltzer water slowly going flat in front of him, and beside that's a dry bread roll crumbled into … well, into crumbs. She doubts whether any of it has actually passed his lips. Like all of Dan's friends, she's well used to this scenario.
She pulls out the chair opposite him and sits down. He glances up, meets her eyes, smiles wryly, then looks back down at the scarlet stain between his elbows. From her angle it looks a little like a map of South America, truncated somewhere around the tip of Argentina.
"What I've never quite understood," she observes, disinterested and non-judgemental, "is how in the world you cope when you have to go out in public. All those network parties and gala dinners and awards shows - Danny, do you spend your entire life throwing up?"
He looks back up then and manages another smile, almost a real one this time.
"That's different," he tells her. "Those things don't matter. It's only when I'm with people I like, people I care about - with my friends …"
"Lucky friends," Esther says dryly, and he nods.
"Tell me about it." He sits up straight, reaches for his glass, takes a sip of the stale water and grimaces.
"Is that as nasty as it looks?" she wants to know. He nods again.
"But it helps settle my stomach," he says. "Unfortunately, it's pretty much the only thing that does."
"Ginger root?" she suggests. "Peppermint tea - oh. Never mind." Beneath his faded showbiz tan, Dan has gone an interesting shade of pale green. This thing, this condition, this phobia - whatever it is that plagues Dan so, there's no doubt that it's real. And Esther sympathises, really she does. It's just that it's also so - not to sound heartless, but, well, so inconvenient. It's their thirtieth wedding anniversary, hers and Isaac's, and can you blame her if she wanted the night to be special, for nothing to happen to spoil it?
As if he can hear her thoughts, Dan murmurs, "I'm sorry, Esther," and reaches across to touch her hand. He smiles again, rueful and sweet and, as he must have known she would, Esther forgives him instantly. There is not, she suspects, a heart in all the world that could not forgive Danny Rydell when he smiles in just that way.
But it wouldn't do to tell him so. Likeable, even lovable as Dan is, he also has rather a high opinion of himself, and the last thing he needs is her swelling his ego. Besides, she's not about to let him off the hook that easily. She draws on her years of experience as a stern but loving mother, and scowls.
"So I should think. In between you and that partner of yours -"
His head jolts up. "Partner?" Then, evidently, the coin drops. "Oh - Casey. Yes. I'm sorry about that, too, but you know how he gets. He's been trying to get this woman, this Annelise, to go out with him for weeks, now, and tonight just happened to be the night the breakthrough came. He was," he says, with mock gravity, "Torn."
Esther snorts unbecomingly.
"Really!" Dan insists. Now that he has something else to think about he's starting to look a little better; his eyes are brighter, and there's some colour back in his face. "Never come between Casey and the pursuit of love. Believe me, that's not something that'll ever end well."
Esther wonders how he knows, but she doesn't ask. She has never quite understood the relationship between Casey and Dan, their closeness, almost codependence, and she suspects that the answer lies in murky waters best unfathomed by man. Instead she stands, letting her chair scrape across the polished wooden floor.
"Do you think you might grace us with your presence again this evening?" she asks, her tone less sarcastic than the words. She really is very fond of Danny - of all the Sports Night crew who have, somehow, become less her husband's employees and more his ramshackle and dysfunctional adopted family. "Or are you going to stay out here, turning green, all night? Isaac's worried about you," she adds, which is fighting dirty if ever there was; she knows that Dan adores Isaac and would rather die than distress him. Or perhaps something a little less dramatic along the same principle.
"I'm sorry, Esther," Dan murmurs again. His fingers go to his mouth, pressing lightly. Like the elephant, it appears, he's not out of the woods yet. His gaze drops back to the table. "I'll be along soon. Tell him I'm fine, will you?"
She stands very straight, and looks him up and down. "I never lie to my husband," she says sternly.
He turns his head to meet her eyes. "Then tell him I will be fine. Okay?"
She steps forward, lays a hand on his shoulder, bends to brush a quick kiss across the crown of his head. "I know you will, Danny," she says softly, and she leaves him to his thoughts.
***
It's Dana's turn to host Thanksgiving for the Whitaker clan, which seems to have come back round awfully quickly - surely in a family as large as hers you should only end up playing hostess once every decade or so? - but, this time around, she's determined to give her mother no grounds for complaint or criticism. She still flinches when she remembers her first attempt at holding a family gathering in the tiny apartment she lived in back then. Her oven hadn't been large enough to hold the turkey, she had nothing like enough pans or serving dishes, and her noble attempt at home-made pie crust had ended, as it was bound to really, in unmitigated disaster. And her mother had said things like "Never mind, dear" and "Well, at least you made the effort" and somehow that was worse than if she'd scolded or lectured.
Not this time. No sooner have the family called up on the intercom than Dana's pulled her coat on, skimmed downstairs, and swept them all off in a fleet of hired cars (specially booked) to Aurelia on the Upper East Side (again specially booked, in this case 364 days in advance) where a gourmet three-course Thanksgiving dinner is served quickly, efficiently, deliciously, and with style. And when her mother says "This must have cost a lot, dear," Dana just smiles and says, "It's okay, Mom. On my salary, I can afford it."
She'd balked at promotion - she'd loved producing Sports Night, she'd thought she could never be better at anything than she was at that job - but, it turned out, a step up the ladder to become Isaac's deputy manager was all it had taken to give her wings. She isn't just comfortable in her new role; it fits her like a glove, as though it had been made for her.
Which, in some ways, thank to Isaac's input, it had been. But in other ways, many ways, most ways, it's all down to Dana herself. And she's proud of herself, and of the strong, capable, competent, wonderful woman she's finally, fully become.
Even if she does still occasionally spill stuff on herself and mislay her shoes.
Her dad grins at her from the end of the table, and raises his wineglass in a toast. Dana's mother blinks but, for the first time in her life, finds herself speechless.
***
Dave's father was the best cook in the world, a gifted amateur chef who could produce a cordon bleu meal out of the most improbable and unpromising ingredients imaginable. He was a good man, too, a kind husband, a loving father, a conscientious man who worked hard every day of his own life to make a better life for his family, and he was taken from them far too soon.
After his death Dave's mother went back to Trinidad, where her own mother still lived in some style with husband #3 - and, a year or so later, husband #4. Grandmother and all the husbands are gone now too, but Dave's mother's still out there, busy as ever but happier now, basking in sunlight, than ever she was in their cold, grey, New York apartment. Dave makes a point of flying out there once or twice a year, more when he can - for her birthday and the anniversary of his dad's death, at the very least - and, when he does, he takes over all the cooking duties, trying hard to live up to his father's standard.
He knows he falls far short, but the smile on his mother's face when he pulls her chair out for her and sets a loaded plate in front of her is all the reward he'll ever need.
***
It's difficult for any young couple, maintaining family equilibrium, and for Jeremy and Natalie it's doubly so, most especially at the end of December. Natalie's parents are offended by generic 'holiday' cards; Jeremy's mom by any mention of Christmas. Jeremy's father, gentle and easy-going, doesn't care much one way or another, but Jeremy has never quite forgiven his father for cheating on his mother - Jeremy's mother, that is - certainly not enough so to spend the holidays with him and definitely not enough to spend any time at all around the Evil Stepmother.
So they compromise. The moment Sports Night wraps for its three-day holiday break, they bundle into Jeremy's tiny, second-hand excuse for a car and they're headed north, to a cabin with their name on it and to a sheer slope of snow: no phone, no neighbours, no-one to bother them but themselves.
No electricity either, it turns out, and, that same night, they creep back under cover of darkness, hole up in their own apartment with a stash of tinned goods and the last turkey in the shop, and they make their own festival, call it what you will.
They tell no-one about this, no-one at all, but the arrival into the world of small Nathan Goodwin-Hurley in September the following year (ten fingers, ten toes, 8 lb 3 oz and the spitting image, poor child, of his father) tells its own Christmas story.
***
All his life Jacob Rydell had tried to do the right thing. He'd been a dutiful son, loving husband, caring father; a hard worker, a good provider. And where did any of it ever get him? His parents, now long gone, never had a good word to say to him; his wife's locked away in her own sad, solitary world; the only one of his children who can stand to be around him is never in the country, always flying out to Europe or the Far East on business, sometimes without even a phone call to say he'll be gone. Karen's in California, living with a woman Jacob has never met and never intends to meet, and only comes back east when Dan calls her for help with their mother. Even then she never stays long, just long enough to say something cutting and fly out again. Dan … well, Danny turned out okay after all, in spite of all the worry he'd caused as a kid, but it's too late now, there's a wall in between them and neither of them knows how to break it down. And Sam, his beautiful, gifted, wonderful boy; Sam's gone forever, and it was all for nothing.
Children don't listen.
***
Not many people know that Isaac was married once before. Maybe if somebody sat down and did the math it would occur to them that Esther is much younger than he is and that he was well into his forties when both his daughters were born, but even if they did they might think nothing of it. And, in any case, it would be none of their business.
He'd been a different person back then, had thought altogether too damned much of himself: believed he knew everything, deserved whatever came his way, coveted what he didn't have. He was brusque, callow, impatient, often angry, bitter, resentful. An older, wiser Isaac has to admit to himself that what his younger self really needed was a good, hard kick in the ass - but then, it's the privilege of youth to believe yourself the centre of the universe. It's the privilege of old age to know that you're not, but not to care.
He hadn't been the best of husbands, either. Then again, in the interest of fairness and full disclosure, Diane hadn't exactly been the best of wives. But, between them, they'd made Bobby, and he was the best of both of them, and then a little bit better than that. A lot better than that.
The only people who know all this are the people who need to know, plus the few still remaining who were around at the time. Isaac himself, one or two old friends. Esther, of course. Kathy and Ellie were told about it when they were children, but that was so long ago that it's taken on the air of a fairytale now, or a dream.
Isaac doesn't speak of it any more. Now that Diane herself is dead, there's no-one but him to remember Bobby: so smart, so handsome, their pride and their joy; the cute kid he was, the serious student, the dedicated doctor-in-training.
No-one else to remember how Bobby always cared more for others than for himself, would always go without question where he was most needed. And how, one day, he didn't come back.
No, Isaac never speaks of it. But he still misses them both, his wife and his boy. And he never forgets.
***
Kim got married last year. Nobody saw that one coming. To add to the general surrealness, she did so in traditional style, wearing a full-length white satin gown (very low, mind you, in the bust department), with a flowing train and a billowing lace veil. Dan took one look at her and commented that he'd be amazed if the church didn't burst into flames when she stepped over the threshold, at which she just smiled sweetly and ground a spiked satin heel into his instep. But Kim, for all her scowls and snarkiness, is far from immune to the Dan Rydell charm, and when it came time for all her girlfriends to gather on the lawn she cheated outrageously and tossed her bouquet in quite the wrong direction, straight into Dan's hands.
Nobody was more surprised than Dan himself, and he was very quick to laugh and throw it back. But Kim had seen that split second when his face lit up like a little kid's at Christmas, and was proud of her handiwork.
***
When Dan gets back to his apartment he finds Casey outside the door, sitting on the floor, knees jacknifed against his chest. His eyes are shut, but they snap open when Dan says, quietly so as not to disturb the neighbours, "Hey."
Casey smiles up at him and Dan's heart lurches, but he's long been accustomed to that, and to the many ways in which he can disguise it. "Hey," Casey says back, and starts to scramble to his feet. He's a little unsteady, probably not entirely sober, but Dan's seen him worse. A whole lot worse. The opposite is, to some degree and to be perfectly fair, also true.
As to what Casey's doing here, slightly drunk on Dan's doorstep, rather than being safely tucked up in bed in his own apartment - or his date's - well, Dan's reasonably certain he's about to hear all about that. Although it's not as if he couldn't take a fairly good guess. Casey routinely washes up here any time he feels the world's done him wrong (which is altogether too often for a grown man, but never mind that for the moment), and why shouldn't he? After all these years of working together the two of them are almost like family - no, closer than family - and they share pretty much everything.
Pretty much. Everything.
Dan unlocks the door and waves Casey on in before him. "You couldn't use your key?" he asks, a mere formality. Casey's had a key to his apartment - to water his plants, in case of emergency, in case of … in case - since forever, and they've been having this same conversation for almost as long a time.
"It's impolite," Casey says, as he invariably does, "to use it when you're not around."
This doesn't even merit an eyeroll any longer. "There's no point," Dan says, as he invariably does, "using it when I am." He shuts the door, tosses his own key into its customary resting place in a retired ashtray from Anthony's, and drops the subject until the next time. There will always be a next time. "So," he goes on, getting in a pre-emptive strike, "The date. Annelise. Not good?"
Casey flops onto the couch, whose cushions do their level best to swallow him up, and tilts his head back. Dan turns away from his view of that long, lickable throat, and busies himself at the refrigerator, only turning back when he's sure it's safe to do so. He tosses Casey a beer, and grabs a bottle of still water for himself and his still less-than-happy innards.
Casey is manfully struggling to sit upright, but no-one has ever fully mastered Dan's couch and eventually he lets it have its way. He pops the lid on his beer and takes a healthy, heartening swig, after which he appears to brighten visibly.
"Would I be here if it'd been a good date?" he asks. It's a rhetorical question - or at least, one that requires no answer, which, as Casey himself would tell you, is not quite the same thing - and so Dan just perches on the arm of a wing chair and waits.
"The thing is," Casey goes on, "you and I, Danny - we're a couple of smart guys, right?"
"Pretty smart, yeah," Dan agrees. It would be rude not to.
"We know our jobs?" Casey doesn't wait for Dan's agreement, takes it for granted and ploughs on, "Who knows more than we do about sports?"
Mentally, Dan sighs. He can take a fair guess where this is going. But he plays along. "Sportsmen," he suggests. Casey glares at him. "Um - umpires?" And, three strikes and you're out: "Sports fans?"
Casey's glare becomes laser-like in its intensity. "Sports. Fans," he hisses - hissing an 'f' sound is quite the achievement, but somehow he manages it. "Or they think they do. Hockey," he snarls, retires to the comforting embrace of the couch cushions, and takes further solace in his beer.
"You like hockey," Dan reminds him mildly. "So do I. In fact - "
Casey cuts him off abruptly, and not a little bit rudely. "We may like it, Dan, but we're not obsessed with it. Believe me - " and he sets his empty bottle down with a thump - "I've heard more about hockey tonight than I ever want to hear again for the rest of my life."
Dan smiles to himself. Knew more about it than you do, did she? No: Casey would not like that. If the unknown Annelise had played hard to get before tonight, after tonight she'd find the tables well and truly turned. She'll be lucky if she ever sees Casey's face again - other, that is, than on the TV. And maybe not even that. If Casey had reacted badly, as Casey does, regrettably, tend to do, he may well have lost Sports Night yet one more of its hard-won viewers.
Dan's never had the same problem. He has himself occasionally been known to sleep with someone who knows more about sports than he does. There was the college quarterback in St Louis, the rookie catcher - who'd turned out to be more of a pitcher - in Reno, even a hockey player or two, or three, or four or five along the way, both ice and field, American and Canadian and once a homesick visiting Swede. But these were all professionals, or nearly so, or at least experts in their fields (was that a pun? Casey so hates puns), and maybe that's what makes the difference.
Furthermore, they were all men. But this is not something that he ever has, ever wishes to, or ever will discuss with Casey.
Casey wouldn't understand.
Aloud, he only says, "Well, that's going to make things interesting, since, as I understand it, it's our job, from time to time, to report fully and frankly on the latest developments in the crazy, rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred world that is professional hockey."
"Huh," says Casey. He twists himself sideways on the couch, pillows his head on one arm, and stretches his body out along its, fortunately generous, length. "How about this? I take all the soccer games from this day forward, and you report on the hockey. Deal?"
"Deal," Dan agrees. He may as well. It saves on argument, and Casey won't remember a thing about this conversation in the morning.
He never does. And sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it's a bad.
Dan levers himself upright, goes to the hall closet, and pulls down the spare quilt that he keeps stashed there for just such nights as these.
"You sleeping there?" he asks over his shoulder, but his only answer is a snore. Which, really, is an answer in itself.
"I guess you are," Dan murmurs to himself, and spreads the quilt carefully over Casey's sleeping body, pulling it up to his shoulders, mindful to tuck it around his feet. Casey's still wearing his shoes, but these Dan leaves where they are. There are limits to even the closest of friendships.
He lets himself touch Casey's shoulder - only a touch; that's as much as he dares - steps back and stands for a while, just listening to the gentle sound of his best friend's breathing.
It's not enough. It never will be enough, but Dan Rydell long since gave up fooling himself that there would ever be anything more than this. Family, he reminds himself: family. Isn't that, when you come down to it, better - deeper, stronger, longer-lasting? The other thing - that's just a fantasy; a dream that could never stand up to the harsh light of day.
But it doesn't matter any more anyway. When he was a kid he'd thought it would break his heart, but hearts don't break that easily, and, if they do, they mend. There have been other men, other lovers, and some of them he's cared for very deeply. Never quite deeply enough, but one day … one day.
He turns away, and shuts off the light.
***