Page 5 of Brenna, Brat

Campbell didn’t appear affected in the least, as if hauling dirty wood boxes was a normal task for him. It wasn’t, not in that suit. He dusted off his gloves against each other and then wiped some streaks from his gorgeous coat. “Dinner, then?” he said.

I looked at him for a moment, considering, and he nodded as if he understood. “You have a boyfriend,” he stated.

“No,” I answered. “I’m single.”

“You just don’t want to go out with me?” he asked, and he was smiling as he said it. It seemed as if he was amused by the idea, and not offended at all.

From the time he was born, he probably hadn’t heard the word “no” very often. His parents, the wealthy spendthrifts? They wouldn’t have thought to say it. I imagined him gliding through the years as teachers and professors helped him, girls and women gushed over him, and employers hurried to open doors for him like Dion should have when we’d carried out the crate.

He was charming and handsome, and I didn’t know what he was doing right now—I didn’t get it anymore, and I was uncomfortably out of my depth. I paused, and then said, “Exactly. I just don’t want to go out with you.”

Campbell Bates took that in stride. “Fair enough,” he said. “Thanks for helping me pick out the sculpture.” He closed the back door of his SUV and started to walk toward the driver’s side, and suddenly, I didn’t want him to leave like that.

“Wait! Don’t go,” I told him. I hurried to the stupidly low counter in the gallery and grabbed some scraps of paper, scribbling briefly on one and then stapling them all together before I went back out into the darkness. He had followed my instructions and still stood there.

“I forgot to give you your receipt,” I announced. “I attached some information about the artist and also a business card.”

He took the papers and nodded. “Thanks.” Then he said, “Bye,” and he got into the car, and that was it. The SUV drove away and I busied myself with the closing procedures that I’d devised when I’d started working here after college, two years before. I’d typed up a list of how to open, too, and everyone was supposed to follow the routine, checking off each item as it was accomplished. Prior to my arrival, Alecta had sometimes forgotten to even lock the door—at least, that was what her nephew Dion had reported to me, but he’d been angry when he’d said it. It had been an unusual day when she’d made him stay to actually do his job in the hours dictated by the generic contract he’d signed when she’d hired him (it was a document they’d found on the internet and that still said “[business name]” instead of “Alecta Alberne Gallery” as the employer).

In any case, it didn’t take too long to shut everything down, not even with the extra mess I’d created when I’d packed the sculpture. I wondered if that girl, Campbell’s sister, would like it. Carrington, I repeated in my mind, and wondered again why it seemed familiar.

When I got home, back to the building that housed my studio apartment, I ran upstairs and quickly flicked on the overhead light. Then I turned on three table lamps and a floor lamp, too, because it always felt dark in here and I hated that, I hated the dark. The apartment itself was small but I didn’t mind the size. When we’d grown up, all six of us girls had shared a room with bunk beds while our brother, the prince, had a single next to it. I got used to making do with just a little bit of space, and while my other sisters had been thrilled to get their own places and moveout, I hadn’t really minded us being together. Recently, my big sister Juliet had temporarily lived with me and no, she and I didn’t get along, but it had been fine except for when she was rude and thoughtless.

Without the bustle and noise of all my sisters, this room always felt empty, except that Cleo was there waiting for me. “Hi,” I told her now. “It’s better with the lights on, isn’t it?”

She was a good listener but in terms of conversation, she fell a little short.

“It was a more interesting day than I usually have,” I continued. “I splurged and got a really good sandwich at the deli for lunch but I grabbed salt and vinegar chips by mistake. That’s not the interesting part, obviously.” She was patiently waiting. “This afternoon, a guy came in to buy a present. Isn’t that funny? He came to the gallery to buy something. We haven’t sold squat since the Ione Szczupakiewicz-Hughes exhibition and she’ll never show with us again. Alecta was so late in paying her that she almost had to sue to get her money.”

Cleo stayed silent.

“Anyway, this guy came in and bought a sculpture for his sister. It was our nicest piece and also the most expensive. When I get that commission, I’ll definitely have enough for the new sewing machine.” In my mind, it was “when” and not “if” I got the money.

“He asked me out,” I mentioned, then I looked over at her. “I said no. Clearly I didn’t go, since I’m here and not eating dinnerwith him. I’m not interested in someone like that, some frat boy whose life is dependent on his dad’s big wallet.”

I knew that she agreed with me, even if she didn’t actually say so.

“Yeah, it was a good decision not to get involved with someone like him. He probably has a different woman for every night of the week. And what’s today, Wednesday?” I snorted. “I don’t want to be someone’s Wednesday girl.”

It turned out, however, that I was no one’s girl on any day of the week. No matter.

I picked up my phone and looked at the messages that had piled up on it. “I don’t want to hear another word about diaper rash and teething,” I announced to my siblings in our family group chat. My oldest sister Nicola was married and had a baby, and Sophie was engaged and was helping to raise our brother’s kid. Both of those sisters were totally engulfed by motherhood and relationship stuff. Addie, the next oldest, was recently married and had lately been walking around smiling like a ninny. But when she was asked what was up, she always answered, “Nothing! I’m not smiling.” I was pretty sure that her secret was that she was pregnant, and JuJu—Juliet—was cozying up to her boss in a very inappropriate manner, so I felt that she wouldn’t be too far behind the rest of them in terms of wedding and baby stuff.

That left me and Grace as the only sisters without partners and kids, and neither of us was cut out for that kind of thing, anyway. Grace definitely wasn’t, because she was so flighty and useless that she couldn’t be trusted to take care of herself, let alonemonitor a relationship and possibly raise a helpless human. And as for me?

I wasn’t that way. “I’m not,” I told Cleo, and I was sure that she agreed again although she still didn’t say anything back. Speaking was actually impossible, since she didn’t have a head. Also, her body was made of plastic, foam, and fabric—dressmakers’ dummies certainly weren’t the best companions.

Maybe I should have gone out with Campbell Bates. At least he had a working mouth and it was a nice one, too, full of perfect teeth and with lips that smiled a lot. I looked at Cleo and imagined that she had told me no, I had made a good decision. I was right to have returned to my little room, alone.

Chapter 2

“That is so stupid, it hurt my ears to hear it. It’s crazy.”

Sophie looked over at me, exasperated. “Brenna, don’t be a brat!”

Our oldest sister Nicola agreed. She shifted her baby onto her other shoulder and smiled at her but then frowned at me. “You need to apologize,” she informed me coldly.

No, I wasn’t going to do that, because I wasn’t sorry. Also, because I made it a habit not to—if you apologized once, you were stuck doing it forever. I ignored them and continued talking to our other sister, Juliet. “Did I hear you right? You’re really rushing into marrying this guy?” I asked her. “You don’t even know him.”

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