Page 55 of Best Woman
“It’s so fucked-up, girl.”
Aiden had given her a sketch of the details, but I fill in the lines with every miserable moment: how good the sex with Kim had been, how conflicted I’d felt about it after, the triumph of feeling like I’d won the wedding, and the realization of how hollow that victory was when my mom destroyed it so easily. Not being able to accept Kim’s support, lashing out at her. The way she’d looked at me as she realized how mean and ugly I was, the way I’d used her to prove something to myself that was, essentially, unprovable. How I’d probably irreparably damaged my relationship with Aiden.
“I thought this was my commencement ceremony, my graduation, my fucking bat mitzvah,” I admit, cleaning off my face with a makeup wipe while Daytona gives me sloppy French braids. “When I walked into that restaurant last night with Kim on my arm I feltcomplete. I’d aced the test, won the race, stuck the landing.”
“I can always tell you’re hungover when you use too many analogies,” Daytona says from behind me.
“This was supposed to beit,you know? I was at my brother’s wedding in a designer dress with my lesbian high school crush on my arm. You don’t get more unclockable than that! And then my mother…”
“Clocks you harder than Big Ben?”
I start to giggle, then laugh, until finally, I’m cackling loudly, uncontrollably. It’s not even remotely funny in context, but right now it’s either laugh or cry, and I’ll take the less painful option.
By the time I laugh myself out, Daytona has finished mybraids and is unpacking the duffel bag I’d noticed sitting by the door. She begins pulling items out and finding a place for them with military efficiency: a makeup case, blow-dryer, Spanx, and a giant mason jar of Sour Diesel.
“A very cute Asian boy dropped a bag off right before you woke up,” she says. “He said you keep some stuff at his place and might want it. He told me to say hi.”
“Hi,” I say, crushed by their kindness: Rachel, Aiden, Ben, Daytona. My dad.
Unsurprisingly, there are no calls or texts from my mom. A heart emoji from Randy, missed calls from River and Kyle. Even the twins had sent me a photo in our group chat: an image they’d photoshopped years ago of Mom, edited so that she was falling into an erupting volcano.
Daytona’s back is to me as she spreads her tools out on the dresser, so it is easy to say: “Thank you. I love you.”
She turns to face me, face softer than I’d ever seen it. “I love you too, bitch. Now get your ass out of bed, I’m going to make yousickening.”
Dad left whileI was still getting ready, so Daytona drops me off in her SUV at the beachside restaurant where the farewell brunch is being held, windows down with Britney blaring from the speakers. I manage to exit the car without falling face-first onto the pavement, so things are looking up.
I shut the door behind me and face my sister through the open window. “Have fun in Fort Lauderdale,” I say. “Use a silicone-based lube in the pool.”
“You think I’m fucking stupid?” she asks. “Knock ’em dead, kid.” She pulls away, singing loudly for all to hear that oops, she’d done it again.
The restaurant looms ahead of me, an upscale seafood place where we always used to go on Mother’s Day when I was growing up. The lobby is empty when I enter, I’m early, and the hostesses are still setting up an easel with a giant photo of Aiden and Rachel on it. Beyond them, Aiden sits alone at a table whilewaiters deposit napkins onto place settings and busboys light the wicks of burners under tureens of eggs Benedict.
I sit down at the table beside him and he locks his phone, his air of tired happiness shifting to something more cool and neutral. The tension is thick in the air between us. I wonder if he’s going to yell and tell me to leave. Or worse, tell me he’sdisappointed. But what he does is grab my right arm, lift it to his mouth, and bite.
“Fucking OW!” I shake him off and cradle my arm in my other hand. “You broke the skin!”
“You deserved it!”
He’s got me there.
This is how we’ve settled every major fight since childhood. When we moved in with Randy and I got the bigger room. When he pulled my pants down in front of the girl I liked at sleepaway camp. When I started sleeping with Ben. Every disagreement has been settled this way, and I understand that this one is a little too big to be solved with a chomp, but it’ll have to do to get us through today.
“There’s just one thing I need to ask,” Aiden says, resolve hard on his face. “Is that…what you told Kim, is that what you really think of me? Is there some part of you that believes it?”
“No,” I gasp, horror blocking out the throbbing pain in my arm. “Never. I mean,” I concede, “I always expected the other shoe would drop someday. And it did, with Mom. But never with you.”
And because he’s my brother, he takes me at my word and the doubt clears off his face. That settled, Aiden throws his arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Jules.”
“I know,” I say to his shoulder. “It sucks. Thanks. I’m sorry too. I was…not very nice.”
He lets out a huff. “Yeah, I think that’s an understatement.”
“I apologized,” I tell him. “I don’t think there’s much more I can do. I don’t think she wants to talk to me.”
“But you don’tknow,” he says. “You know what happens when you assume.”
“OK, Grandpa.”
