Authors: Lauren Gilley
Beth’s face fell at the mention of her eldest and it was a sharp kick to Jo’s bellyful of guilt. “It is,” she said, and her eyes lifted across the table up to Jo, who cringed at their touch, who hated that her mom somehow didn’t blame the family rift on her, even though she was responsible. “But Gwen’s bringing the boys by tomorrow, so that’ll be nice.” Beth gave her a small half-smile that made her squirm.
“That is nice,” Delta said primly, and put another miniscule bite of quiche in her mouth. “Tam.” Her smile looked anything but true as she glanced in his direction. “How’s school going?”
He didn’t respond right away and Jo wanted to stretch her arm down the table Mr. Fantastic style and smack him in the back of the head.
“I told him all the best profs to take,” Mike said when the silence had become uncomfortable. “And you’ve got Jordie for HPS, right?”
“Right,” Tam said, and Jo swore she could see the wheels spinning in his brain. When he picked up his head and began to answer Delta’s question, Jo could tell he was putting on a show. He’d realized that if he played too much of an ass in front of Mike, Delta and their parents, he’d get called on it. And even if Mike couldn’t see the false glimmer in his friend’s eyes, Jess did, and she kicked Jo under the table to get her attention.
Jo shook her head at her sister and mouthed
later
.
Later came once the dishes had been cleared and all that would fit into the washer were stowed away. Jessica plopped her three-year-old, Tyler, down in front of his dad in the living room and then snagged Jo’s sleeve. Satisfied that the menfolk were engrossed in the TV, Tam talking to Randy and Mike like nothing in the world was wrong, Jo let her sister tow her down the hall to the now-empty dining room and fell into the first chair she came to.
“What in the hell is up with Tam?” Jess asked as she sat down beside her. The incoming sunlight glinted off her golden locks and highlighted her elegant features in a way that was pure art. “It’s like, well, he’s acting like he did in Ireland.”
“Like when we weren’t together,” Jo said miserably. “I know.”
“And
why
is he acting that way?”
Jo stared at the table and traced an old water stain with her fingertip. Making admissions to Jess wasn’t much better than making them to Mom. Jess’s unswerving perfection was enviable and frustrating, and her perfect husband and perfect toddler made Jo’s plight seem ridiculous and, somehow, insurmountable.
“I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
“I know what caused it, but do I know what’s going on in his head? No. Not a liar.”
Jess had her mouth set at that angle that meant she wouldn’t be avoided. Her green eyes were so like Mom’s it was scary. “I haven’t ever seen you this worked up over some stupid spat about who kicked who out of bed.”
“It’s a little bit more complicated than that.”
“So explain it to me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I’m your only sister.” Jess sounded a touch defensive. “Who else are you going to talk to if you can’t talk to your ‘Tammy’?” Jo lifted her brows and her sister sighed. “Okay, that sounded bitchy. I’ve got PMS or something.
But
, my point is, you can’t bottle, so spill.”
“I could talk to Jordie,” she said to stall. “We’re both the mailman’s babies, you know.”
“Jordie has gone from romantic suicide to serial love homicide, so no, you can’t talk to him.”
She knew she couldn’t, there were things you didn’t discuss with a brother, but it had been worth a shot. Jo heaved a sigh. “Fine.”
“Okay.”
“I haven’t verified it with my OB yet, but I took six tests last night and I’m late.”
Jess’s eyes widened. “You’re pregnant?”
“Oh my God.” Delta’s voice from the threshold sent a shot of adrenaline to Jo’s heart. Her head whipped in that direction and she found the brunette frozen in her tracks, a steaming mug held in both hands, tail of a tea bag dangling over its rim. “Jo, you’re
pregnant
?” Her dark eyes were big as half dollars. “Oh my God!”
“Please,” Jo said, desperation rallying in her belly. “I haven’t been to the doc - ”
“Oh, gosh,” Delta continued. “I wasn’t going to say anything because it’s so early - ”
“Delta,” Jo pleaded. “Don’t - ”
“ – but I’m pregnant too!” she said with a happy squeal, eyes crinkling to slits as a rare, honest smile sliced across her face.
“Do not say anything,” Jess warned, but Delta didn’t hear them.
“This is so exciting, girls! We can be pregnant together – oh! Tandem baby showers!” She scowled. “You better not have yours before mine. It’s bad enough you got married first. When are you due?”
“That’s the thing.” Jo’s pulse had accelerated to an alarming rate. She lifted her hands in a
slow down
gesture. “I haven’t verified with the doctor yet, so - ”
“But you took more than one test, right? God, Jo, isn’t this just the most exciting thing ever? Baby!” she yelled, and started backing out of the room. “Michael! You’ll never guess!”
“Oh shit,” Jess and Jo said in the same breath, and were on their feet, scrambling after their new sister-in-law.
“Delta, no!” Jo hissed as she hurried down the hall toward the living room, cursing how much taller, and longer legged, the brunette was. “
Delta
!”
She made a dive, hand closing over empty air instead of Delta’s blazer, and lost her balance. Jess snagged the back of her t-shirt and kept her from falling. In the moments between losing her balance and finding it again, Jo’s eyes went to the floor that was rushing up toward her, and her panic shifted.
The baby
. What if she fell? What if –
But then she realized Delta was in the middle of the living room, everyone staring at her, and that stupid smile was still stamped across her face.
“What?” Mike asked, staring up at his wife with veiled patience as she blocked his view of the TV.
Like something out of a slow motion nightmare, Jo felt like her feet were rooted in cement as Delta announced to the room, “Jo’s pregnant too!”
For a handful of heartbeats, the rumble of the TV was the only sound. Jo watched every pair of eyes sweep toward her, all of them full of shock, all but Tam’s. His were accusatory. Betrayed.
How could you?
They said, and then he glanced away from her and that was the hardest blow of all.
**
Ellie loved the upstairs windows in her grandmother’s old house. The sills were wide and deep enough to sit in, and despite the lack of insulation, something about the way they radiated heat and cold, the way they steamed and fogged, was a homey and comfortable sort of imperfection. The back yard was wooded and she had the sense of being in the trees – long, leafy branches beckoning to her through the glass. With a view of the driveway where it fed into the garage, no one ever surprised her, and on Saturdays, with the house to herself, she sat “on her perch” as Paige liked to say, and wrote.
Her current project had begun as a short story, but slowly, with a careful, breath-held kind of certainty, she was expanding the lines of it in long, novel-like brushstrokes. She was as thrilled as she was discouraged, because she was filling her pages with the scents of antique wood and old books, the tastes of overripe fruit and first kisses. Try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to write the vampire porn that was flying off the shelves at Barnes & Noble, and she knew that the world of literary fiction was competitive and about as easy to break into as the Federal Reserve. But she loved her characters, and she loved breathing life into them; throwing a net of stars over their heads, adjusting their dials, and then stepping back to watch what happened.
The night was indigo velvet
she wrote, and then reached for her coffee on the sill beside her. Her eyes lifted, out through the window and over the mossy soil beneath all the trees in the yard, to the drive where a red VW Bug sat and…
Oh, shit
. She knew that car. Her younger sister Nikki had begged and pleaded and wallowed on the floor with a tear-streaked face until their parents had caved and brought her home a Volkswagen. “Just like the one in the brochure,” Mom had said with one of those adoring Nikki-only smiles. It had a yellow plastic lei dangling over the rearview mirror, a sticker on the back window that declared its driver
Too Cute for You
, and, Ellie noted as the passenger and driver doors opened simultaneously, it appeared to come complete with boyfriend. The only way Nikki’s presence could be made worse was if she had Kyle in tow, which she did.
Ellie closed her laptop and eyes, sucking in a deep, rattling breath that didn’t fortify her in the least. What in the hell could Nikki want from her? It didn’t matter, because in only a moment, she’d be coming up the front walk, the King of all Assholes at her heels.
Her bedroom was as tidy as always, but that was irrelevant, because they
were not
coming upstairs. Ellie got to her feet and went to the mirror above her dressing table, frowning at what she saw. Her eyes were bloodshot from staring at the computer and the bags beneath them were puffy. She dabbed concealer over the dark rings and hit them with a quick dusting of powder. A smear of lip gloss and a quick tousling of her hair, her fingers raking her chunky bangs into order, and she was as ready as she could be given the time frame. Her shorts were worn old terry cotton with holes forming at the corners of the pockets, and her slouchy white tank top showed too much of her pink bra, but there was nothing to be done about that. She was at the top of the stairs and heading down when the doorbell rang.
And thus my day turns to shit
.
On the front stoop, Nikki twirled a strand of peroxide blonde hair around a manicured finger, little nose scrunched up as she examined the big orb weaver and web above the door. Paige and Ellie had affectionately dubbed the spider “Charlotte” and neither of them had the heart to take a broom to the thing. Nikki looked like she might gag.
Kyle looked just like she remembered, only more blonde, if that was possible, and even more like a surfer than he had in high school. He’d slicked his hair down over his ears and those big, dilated-looking brown eyes of his. His broad shoulders didn’t seem so broad, his biceps not so bulging. His Salty Dog Café shirt and cargo shorts were rumpled like he’d slept in them, and the overpowering smell of cigarette smoke came rolling across the threshold and smacked her in the face. Ellie could look at him now and say, honestly, she had no idea what she’d ever found so wildly attractive about him once upon a time.
It took Nikki a full five seconds before she realized the door had been answered. Then she pinned a wide smile to her face. “Hi, Ellie belly.”
It was a nickname she had long loathed, mainly because it wasn’t true and she’d never had so much as a pudgy stomach, but also because it made her feel about twelve. Though almost two years younger, Nicole had a wonderful way of making herself sound superior. And in the eyes of their parents, she
was
. Varsity cheerleader, class treasurer, junior prom queen and a shoe-in for senior homecoming queen, she had been voted most popular and best personality, brightest smile and most likely to succeed by the yearbook staff. She loved fashion – LV purses and Michael Kors dresses – and her obsession with color was taking its toll on her over-processed hair. Little Miss Popular, Nicole Grayson was the favorite sister and enjoyed lording it over her sister’s head at every opportunity.
“Oh, if only I had a sweet name like that for you,” Ellie said through her teeth. She swept the door wide and made a gallant motion with her arm. “Do you want to come in, or is this a drive-by assault?”
Kyle made an insulted sound in the back of his throat.