Page 2 of The Lovers
I stow my computer, pack up my tarot deck, and climb out of the car, waving Robbie over with a smile. He beams as he takes my keys, and I press a Hamilton into his palm as a thank-you. I flip my sunglasses up like a headband and check my watch. Mom and Dad are due any second.
Should I wait here for them?
Should I go ahead inside and get in front of this “reservation for four” drama?
My phone buzzes. I don’t have notifications turned on for any of my apps—a mental health boundary my therapist and I set up after my channel reached five hundred K. It’s a text from Nina. I told her about splitting with David before I begged to crash on her couch last night.
consider this a hug from the universe and a reminder that fate doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle
Nina is an actress, mostly bit roles on TV and a few in movies, but with lucrative prospects on the horizon and a lot of faith in her divine path; she’s going places. I may be the one with the spiritual brand who gives spot-on readings, but she’s a lot better at discerning her intuition for herself than I am. When it comes to my own inner compass, I get lost more often than I get where I’m trying to go.
I send her a heart emoji plus the sparkly stars I associate with cosmic magic.
“Kitten.” I hear my mom’s nickname for me and look up to see she’s stepped out of the driver’s side of her Mercedes and is dropping the keys in the hands of the other valet attendant.
Seeing her driving herself to her birthday brunch, where she always, without fail, ends up on the other side of toasted, is an unnerving plot twist. Mom is a mediocre driver at her most sober. This does not bode well. I’m about to ask what’s up when she reaches me, smacks air kisses to both cheeks, and tugs me in, saying, “Let’s grab a selfie together before your dad arrives.”
She attempts her normal toothy smile, but her newly “refreshed” (code: Botoxed) face is still a little light on dynamic movement. She raises her phone and begins searching for an angle that flatters both of us—mostly her—and settles on an above, left-of-center position. Her good side, but it’s the side I part my hair toward, which means my cheek is shadowed by a curtain of blond waves.
She pulls the phone back to examine the shots. “The light is atrocious, but we can add some filters. Make it work.” I regret encouraging Mom to get on social media. She needed it to build her life coaching biz, but she uses it to stalk me—tag me and then passive-aggressively prod until I reshare—almost as much as she uses it to sell her coaching programs and packages.
Dad’s Mini Cooper pulls up next. Just a few minutes behind Mom. Were they coming from different locations? On her birthday?
The moment Dad steps out, I see tension etched into every one of his normallyrelaxed to the point of sleepyfacial features. He shoves a hand in his pocket to pull out some cash for a tip, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose, and walks over with stiff shoulders. His eyes flick to Mom and then me before he leans in for a quick hug.
“Hey there, cupcake,” he says, his voice tight. It’s easy to read the energy racing back and forth between them. Easy anduncomfortable.
I swallow a few times. Clear my throat.
Keep it breezy, Kit.
“Did you have an emergency at work?” I ask Dad, letting my eyes trail to his car, which is now pulling away, driven by Robbie.
“They never call me on my day off,” he says. It’s not an answer. “You know that.”
“Right,” I say, no less confused.
My parents are the Nancy Meyers embodiment of Dad’s long-deferred Hollywood dreams, right down to the kitchen in their South Pasadena Spanish Colonial and eccentric elderly neighbor with an Oscar hiding in his cluttered, dusty office. I’m the twenty-something daughter perpetually in need of guidance (and financial assistance) that they are somehow still ridiculously proud of anyway.
We each have our role, and we’re all really fucking good at playing them.
We never go off script.
Am I somehow responsible for this improv session?
I rack my brain. They couldn’t know about the breakup yet—it just happened. But neither one of them has asked about David, either. They may be too pissed at each other to notice my missing significant other.
“Shall we?” Mom asks, but she doesn’t wait for our answer. Her chunky espadrilles hit the red carpet that forms the pathway into the hotel. She doesn’t look back at either of us; Dad doesn’t get any less chilly.
My parents have had plenty of spats over the years, and a lot of them have taken place in that Nancy Meyers kitchen over a bottle of merlot. I know they fight, thrive on it in some ways, but the ice always thaws quickly. Like rising ocean level thaw-out rates.
Dad exhales through his nostrils. “Too late to skip out, I guess.”
Skip out?My thoughts want to untether, but this isn’t my first rodeo, and I won’t let my bucking bronco brain win.
He offers a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes before following behind her. I inhale a sharp breath, pushing it out with extra force. I’ve been handling my anxiety for years. I refuse to be weird at brunch no matter what sensations are happening in my brain and body.
No matter how unhinged my parents are acting.
