Page 35 of This Is How It Started
“But we have a permit.” I’d hired an expediter for that very purpose. Josh used to call them schmoozers. Basically, it’s government corruption at its finest. These expediters all work for the city planning department by day and moonlight as “construction consultants” by night. All you have to do is write them a big fat check, and they grease the wheels to get your permits through the system with no fuss or muss. Believe it or not, this is a perfectly legal and accepted practice in San Francisco. Meanwhile, on Planet Earth, it’s called bribery.
Kyle The Unportly shrugs as if to sayShit happens.
Well, it better not,I say to myself because I’m tough that way. “Alrighty then.” I bob my chin for them to carry on and walk back to the house, where Brooke is eating gluten-free toast at the center island. The only reason I know it’s gluten-free is because I’ve seen the package. Maybe she has celiac disease or is a health nut. I watch her nibble around the burnt edge of her toast, and in that moment it strikes me that I know very little about my stepmother. Not where she’s originally from (although I think somewhere in the Midwest) or even her birthday. Until I moved in, I didn’t even know she was an emergency room nurse. I’d always assumed her specialty was in cosmetic surgery.
“Hey,” she says, noticing me for the first time as I come further into the room. “You’re up early.”
I’m not sure if it’s a veiled jab or just a conversation opener. Our cohabitating together continues to be awkward. Thank goodness we rarely see each other.
“I was in the pool house, talking to the contractors.”
“I heard them.” She pulls a face, and I realize she’s still in her pajamas. White flannel with little scottie dogs.
Weird, because I would’ve taken her for a negligee girl. The kind from Victoria’s Secret with scratchy lace, plunging decolletage, and a hemline that comes up to herpupik,as my mother would say. There are a few streaks of gray in her mussed hair I hadn’t noticed the last time we talked. And her eyes are puffy and bloodshot.
“How long before your shift starts?” She should go back to bed and catch a few more hours of sleep.
“I’m off until Friday.”
It’s the first time Brooke has had time off since I moved in. Either that or she’s staying elsewhere on her days off. We, as in the Golds, have always assumed that without my dad, she’d move on with the next man who came her way. So far, though, there’s been no sign that she’s seeing anyone. No new car parked in the driveway, no strange voice coming from her bedroom, no extra coffee mug in the sink in the morning. But who knows, she could be going to his place, and I’d be none the wiser.
“I’m having a few people over tonight,” she says. “Want to join us?”
Her invitation catches me by surprise, and I feel like a deer caught in a pair of high beams. No, I don’t want to join a group of strangers. But it’s not like I can lie about having other plans and then hang out in my bedroom all night. I don’t have anywhere to go. But the idea of spending the evening with Brooke and her friends...well, I’d rather have a colonoscopy.
“I don’t want to be rude, but I’m not quite ready to socialize yet.” It’s the truth, though lately I’ve been venturing out more. Yesterday, I even went on a broker’s caravan to check out new listings. Lord knows why, since I don’t have any clients. But it felt good to at least pretend to be working again.
“That’s fine,” Brooke says. “There’s no pressure. Just know that if you change your mind and feel up to it, you’re always welcome.”
It is beyond generous of her, and I’m filled with guilt for resenting her for it.
* * * *
I can hear them downstairs. Out of curiosity, I loiter in the hallway just outside my bedroom door and peer over the banister, hoping to catch a glimpse of Brooke’s friends. Presumably they’re from the hospital where she works. I wonder if she’s sleeping with any of their husbands, which is wholly unkind but where my mind wanders when it comes to Brooke.
Their conversation is coming from the direction of the dining room, which means I’ll have to go downstairs if I want to spy. I deliberate on whether to snoop or stay cloistered in my room. Ultimately nosiness wins out. Brilliantly, I’ve come up with the excuse of needing a drink of water, transporting myself back to when I was eight years old, trying to crash one of my parents’ fancy dinner parties.
I find them gathered around my parents’ old Duncan Phyfe dinner table. My mother used to brag that she spotted the mahogany table at an estate sale and knew instantly it was an original. Always shined to a high polish, that table saw the Golds through many a holiday and celebration. Not so much tonight. The wood finish is dull and the lion feet dusty. And some of Brooke’s guests look as old as the table.
For some reason, I was expecting a rowdy group of nurses. Instead, it’s a diverse crowd of about a dozen people, drinking coffee and eating bakery-bought pastries, wearing solemn expressions like their dog just got run over by a truck.
“This is my stepdaughter,” Brooke announces to the gathering, making my cheeks heat. She looks more like my older, thinner, blonder sister.
“I just need to make a pitstop in the kitchen and will be out of your hair in a minute. Sorry for the interruption.”
“You’re not interrupting, dear,” says an older man with an Indian accent. “Brooke says you’ve lost a spouse too.”
The wordtoois momentarily lost on me. I’m too busy reacting to the knowledge that Brooke has shared my personal tragedy with people I don’t know. People I’ve never seen before. Then, like remembering an early clue in the mystery book you’ve been reading, thetooword comes floating back to me. And it becomes clear. These are not Brooke’s work friends. They’re a bereavement group here to grieve the loss of a husband or wife.
“You should join us,” says a woman who can’t be more than forty.
I feel cornered. I don’t want to be impolite, but I also don’t have the capacity to share my heartache with strangers. The same goes for advice. I have nothing to offer, except to tell these people that the pain of losing the most important person in your life never goes away. It festers like a gaping, infected wound. Which I’m sure is not helpful. Not helpful to anyone.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Brooke says, making me think she’s telepathic. “You can just listen.”
Now I’m stuck. If I leave, I look like a total bitch. One of the members of the group, a brawny guy with sad brown eyes, drags over an extra chair from the wall and makes space for me at the table. A cup of coffee magically appears, and someone slides me an almond croissant with an assurance that “it’s from Tartine.”
The room goes momentarily silent. Then the woman—Vivian someone else calls her—says, “I’ll go first.”
