Page 6 of Little Gray Dress

I down half the glass of wine and set it on the table. “Fine. But he gets five minutes. Drive me?” I ask Lily who nods and grabs her purse and keys from the chair next to her. I swallow down the rest of my wine as quickly as possible. Hopefully the buzz will hit me before I have to have this chat.

Jack and I live in a high-rise building on the river downtown. We are on the fifteenth floor and our apartment was originally overlooking the river, but after we moved in they started construction on an apartment building next to ours and now our view is the living room of the elderly couple next door. Thankfully, they keep their curtains closed most of the time and when they don’t they spend a lot of time waving every single time we walk into the room.

I feel like a girl running from the law as I glance in every direction before swiping my key card after getting in the elevator to get to my floor. When the doors open, I hear it: Jack’s voice.

“Greta? What are you doing here?”

I lean out of the elevator trying to see around the corner without getting caught.

“I heard you’re newly single and thought you might need someone to talk to.” She runs her finger down the front of his t-shirt before standing on her tiptoes and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m a great listener.”

He doesn’t say anything and instead motions for her to come in as he steps aside before closing the door behind her. What in the holy fuck? He’s screwing Madison and he’s got Greta on the side? The one girl on the planet whom I hate, and he’s let her into our apartment?

For a split second a scene flashes through my mind that involves an ax, some lighter fluid, and a lot of screaming – but considering there are five hundred people who live in this building I quickly shove it aside. Plus, I know I won’t look great in prison issue jumpsuits or stripes.

When I get into Lily’s car the tears stream down my face like a waterfall, uncontrollably. “Can I stay with you for a while?”

“What did he say?” she asks before answering me.

“He has Greta in there with him.” It comes out of my mouth in-between sobs in a language that even I can hardly understand.

“Greta? That bitch!” Lily growls it over to me and throws the car in drive. “You can stay with me as long as you need.”

Chapter Three

Present Day

Portland, Oregon

The Arrival

“You probably should have stopped at two glasses of wine on the plane.” Lily scolds me as we walk across the ugly green carpet that is famously known as Portland Airport.

This could possibly be one of the most stressful weeks of my life. If I choose to go into it with a little liquid courage, so kill me. I don’t really want to face Jack for the first time in two years at all. Doing so in front of a room full of people who were also invited to our wedding is making me a little crazy.

“Don’t listen to her.” Josh winks at me before grabbing Lily’s hand with a sympathetic look on his face.

“This week might be miserable enough already. I just don’t think she should start it buzzed.” Lily defends herself to Josh and the two of them argue back and forth as we pull our carry-on bags behind us, heading towards the non-ticketed area of the airport where my brother Evan is meeting us.

“There he is.” Josh nods in the direction of my brother.

Evan and I look a lot alike. We’re twins, so looking at least a little alike was kind of in the stars. We both have dark ash-brown hair, blue-gray eyes and pasty white skin.

We are adopted. We’ve known since we were old enough to understand it. Our parents waited so long in life they couldn’t conceive naturally. Back then they didn’t have the technology of today, so while they knew they were getting a baby, boy and girl twins weren’t on their radar. I can’t imagine having one baby, let alone two, and yet my mother was a picture of grace for our entire childhood.

Evan is standing in front of the schedule boards with a homemade sign that says Esmeralda the Great like I’m some sort of gypsy palm-reader coming to read him his fortune. I’m not sure why my mother chose a name straight from a circus side show act, but she did.

I’m the 2-minute younger twin sister of my brother Evan. Actually, that’s not even his full name, and my name isn’t really Emi. Our mother was older when we came along and she insisted we have unique old school names. She succeeded in naming us after Romanian gypsies, even though she wasn’t Romanian. I know nothing about our birth parents, so maybe she knew they were Romanian; who knows? My full name is Esmeralda Erin Harrison, and my brother is Evangelo Eron Harrison. The different versions of Erin are because we are twins and our mom thought we needed twinning names. We insisted on being called Emi and Evan but our parents never would cave in and use them.

“You know I hate it when you call me that,” I say as I approach him.

He wraps his arms around me and lifts me off the floor in a giant bear hug. “Exactly why I do it. It’s what brothers do.”

“Fine then, Evangelo.” I say it in the most annoying sisterly tone available, and watch his face scrunch up and his eyebrows rise.

“Whoa now, OK, I won’t call you Esmeralda anymore if you’re gonna use Evangelo.”

“Good. Let’s go grab my bags.” I point over at the baggage claim sign and watch Evan give me a disapproving look.

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