The False Flat

CHAPTER 5

LIFE REALIZATION #3: MUSTACHES ARE RIDICULOUS

On Friday night, my hand shook as my finger was poised over Deanna’s Ring doorbell. I’d written and erased so many texts backing out of tonight that my thumbs had calluses, but I needed a distraction from the haunting conversation with Chad. I also needed to try to get over my fear of social events. So I’d decided to come, a box of Cap’n Crunch stuffed in a purple gift bag with lavender tissue paper that complemented my dress. I pushed the button, hearing the tones announcing my arrival from somewhere behind the opaque oval pane of glass.

When Deanna opened the heavy mahogany door, she waved me inside. “You look amazing! Purple is your color.”

My favorite color was purple, the color of royalty, power, and ambition. The color of my dress silently whispered my first impression before I ever uttered a word. The real reason was because of the royal purple Princess Diana Beanie Baby my brother gave me, the last gift I ever received from him.

I handed her the bag. “Thank you.”

“You didn’t need to bring anything.” She peeked inside and squealed. “This is perfect.”

Deanna sparkled. From afar, everything about her was medium—her hair color, her skin tone, her height, her weight—but as soon as she opened her mouth, it was like she transformed into a princess who charmed wildlife and conversed with common household items. Just like the other night at the grocery, she was the number two, a swan floating on a glittering pond.

I didn’t look half as good as she did, because she had something I didn’t: real confidence. I spotted it because I knew what trying looked like.

“Come back to the kitchen with me.” Her eyes were alive with excitement behind her black plastic frames. “Dinner’s almost ready!” She slapped her forehead. “I’m not thinking. You need to meet William and Grant. They’re in the living room, discussing some ‘hot article’ in Popular Mechanics.”

I nodded politely, like I knew what she was talking about, but I think my face gave me away.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I heard the words ‘tiny nuclear reactors’ and got the hell out of there.”

She grabbed my arm and pulled me to the living room like we were old friends.

What did this woman see in me? Now that I was here, standing in her warm house with brightly colored paint on the walls and monochromatic photographs scattered around like a professional gallery—a far cry from my own place—I wasn’t sure why I’d ever agreed to come.

Oh yeah, Chad. And his wife. And I liked Deanna. She had a way of making me feel comfortable, even though I knew tonight was about distraction, not about lasting bonds.

Two men turned as we entered the room.

The taller, with skin the rich color only biracial people have, came forward first, his hand extended. “It’s nice to meet you ... Pen, right?” His eyes—I couldn’t tell if they were green or blue—hid behind glasses that matched his wife’s. I tried not to imagine him on a billboard in an underwear ad, but he’d be perfect for it. I instantly liked him, and as he smiled at me, I relaxed a fraction.

Why do humans act this way? I didn’t know William at all, but the fact he was a mix of Black and White, like me, made me feel less alone, like this hadn’t been a gigantic mistake. And maybe he knew, just a little, how it felt not to belong, to be caught between two groups and not really identify as either one. Maybe I’d met Deanna in the grocery store for a reason.

I focused and turned off the sappy voice inside my head. William, in his orange T-shirt and dark-wash straight-leg jeans, was a nine, the shape of a helium balloon at the circus. No, not the circus—I hated the circus—but maybe a fair, with colorful lights and cotton candy. Yeah, William, with his vivid eyes, was a number nine at the fair.

As the other man moved forward, Deanna said, “And this is my brother, Grant, and his mustache.”

Grant extended his hand to me. The polite smile that was affixed to the bottom half of my face faltered as our eyes met. If William was a balloon, Grant was the fork that popped him. All my hopeful positivity was skewered by this Grant, the number four, and turned upside down, hence the balloon-popping thing.

His devastatingly blue gaze shot through me, like he saw past my perfectly positioned facade, and I didn’t like it. It wasn’t possible, at least I didn’t think so, for him to be able to read as much as his eyes seemed to suggest he could, but I swallowed and struggled not to rip my hand out of his.

“Grant,” he said, pointing to his dark-blue-button-down-covered chest. “And this is Henry,” he continued, gesturing now to the perfectly groomed line of facial hair under his nose. A faint, amused smile bloomed under Henry.

“Grant,” Deanna sighed. “You named your mustache?”

“Of course not. You’re the one who made it awkward if I didn’t provide a formal introduction.”

I forced myself to smile. I hated mustaches. They reminded me of overconfident, sleazy Sal, who had referred to his facial hair as “Stache.” I’d spent the first fifteen minutes of our one and only date learning about Stache and Sal’s morning routine: special stache shampoo and conditioner, followed by application of either stache oil, stache balm, or, if he was feeling frisky, stache wax, all either applied with or activated by a set of stache-grooming tools.

There was nothing more pretentious than a man with a mustache.

Grant, with his solicitous stare and hideous lip fur, was already starting from behind. Though he did look, ironically, like Henry Cavill, during his mustache days of course.

“How do you know your mustache isn’t female?” I asked, hoping I’d covered my scrunched-nose disgust.

He cocked his head, considering. “You’re right. It’s entirely possible I’m sporting a Henrietta.”

William threw his arm over Grant’s shoulders. “Male, female, nonbinary, can we all agree either way it’s ridiculous so we can go get some food?”

“I’m going to apologize in advance for the two of them,” Deanna said, then clapped her hands together. “I hope you don’t mind being my guinea pig tonight. I’m practicing for an event I have coming up.”

“Whatever it is, it smells heavenly,” I said.

“Everything D makes is heavenly.” William winked at his wife.

“Grant, take Pen to the dining room,” Deanna instructed. “William and I will serve.” William absently ran his hand over Deanna’s back as they walked to the kitchen.

I wondered what it would be like to have what they obviously had. I tried to picture Chad rubbing my back. Then I wondered why I was thinking about him at all.

I’d been in this house for less than five minutes, but I felt it already, that closeness, that ease people have with each other when they’re family and they belong to each other, that knowledge of no matter what happens, I got your back. I braced myself. I’d definitely made a mistake in coming here. I was way out of my league. These people knew how to do family, and maybe William and I shared a racial background, but the three of them shared history, pleasant history. I was an outsider.

Was it too early to feign a stomachache and head out the door?

Alone in the dining room with Grant, I felt the warm golds and burgundies curving around my shoulders like a straitjacket. This was one dinner, I told myself, breathing the herbed air into my nostrils and counting the lights in the chandelier. One dinner. I could do this. I needed to do this. Because maybe they could be friends and distract me from the thing I definitely wasn’t going to do: date. Growth, right? But having friends meant making friends, and making friends was hell. I sat straighter, pulled the linen napkin tightly over my lap.

“So, you ride, Penelope?” Grant steepled his hands, elbows on either side of Deanna’s creamy, gold-rimmed place mats. Everything matched here.

And why is he calling me Penelope?I mean, that was my name, but my mother was the only one who called me Penelope, and maybe the occasional person, like Marketing Lynn, but Grant only knew me as Pen.

“Sort of. I’m not a professional or anything, but I started about ten years ago. I don’t like being stuck in a gym.” If I worked out in an enclosed space, all those feelings bounced around the room and came right back to me. I went to the gym anxious and left tired, sweaty, and ... anxious.

“Once I started, I fell in love with it,” I continued, talking to fill the uncomfortable silence. But I seemed to be the only one finding the silence uncomfortable. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. His shirtsleeves were rolled to expose his forearms, and I ignored the muscle definition and the smattering of hair that matched his mustache as he looked at me as if what I was saying was the most fascinating thing in the world. My leg bounced. I manually stopped it, determined to appear as he did—absolutely fine.

Where are Deanna and William?

“Here we are,” Deanna said in a singsong voice as she and William entered with loaded plates. Did I ask that out loud? “I hope you like it.”

I picked up my fork.

“William, would you say grace?” Deanna asked.

I put down my fork.

When it seemed appropriate, I picked up my fork again and filled my mouth with a huge piece of tenderloin, an excuse not to talk. Plus, the faster I ate, the faster dinner would be over. And I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be here or whether I wanted to leave.

“They’re always trying to get me to go on a ride,” Deanna said. “That’s what you and Grant were talking about, right? Cycling?”

I nodded; then my phone buzzed in the pocket of my dress, startling me because I didn’t remember the dress had pockets. I peeked at the screen. A number I didn’t recognize. The call went to voicemail, and then I immediately got a text from the same number.

Can we please talk? I miss you so much. And I had a conversation with Vicki, we’re on the same page. Did you get my email? I sent it this morning.

I rolled my eyes. Blocking Chad hadn’t stopped him. I’d been thinking of unblocking him anyway because he was a client, a client I needed because I had so few. Several of my previous clients had chosen to stay with Houston, who’d convinced them that working with a company was safer than a solo adviser. There was nothing I could do about that. If those clients didn’t trust me, then I didn’t need them, but I needed who I had.

I hadn’t talked to Chad since he’d materialized by my car window, but I had read his email, a well-thought-out list of why we belonged together using lawyer lingo that concluded with a picture of his divorce papers.

“Riding is my adventure,” Grant said. When I looked up, he was looking right at me. “The thing I do for myself.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Deanna said. “Cycling may be number one, but he loves any kind of adventure.”

“Like our Quebec trip with Chuck.” William pointed at Grant. “Sleeping in an ice hotel was Grant’s idea.”

Grant nodded, the hairs of his mustache standing out around his grin as he continued to look—at me.

“Aww, Chuck!” Deanna stuck out her lower lip. “Have you talked to him recently, Grant?”

Finally, his gaze shifted. Antsy for the seat of my bicycle, I struggled to keep the smile on my lips as my muscles jumped. How awkward would it be if I hauled my own stationary bike into Deanna’s home? It could be my thing. Other people carry a purse; I would roll in exercise equipment. I could set it up beside the cherry dinner table, maybe even attach a rudimentary tray, then feverishly pump my legs and talk about this Chuck with ease as I moved through imaginary space.

“Yeah, yeah. Chuck’s great, but we were talking about the Quebec trip!” William turned to me and said in an impressive accent, “We rode P’tit Train du Nord. Have you heard of it?”

I shook my head.

William explained the bike trail, sounding authentic as he pronounced other French names.

I tried to be conversational. “Your accent is amazing.” Maybe instead of the bike, because it wouldn’t be as freakishly weird, I could start talking to them like clients. I was comfortable explaining the market. What would happen if I started spouting financial terms—“fiduciary,” my favorite—or maybe I could explain the difference between traditional and Roth IRAs. No, then I’d be like Sal with his stache, his own eyes alight with glee while the other person thought of creative ways to use the steak knife just to end the conversation.

“Merci beaucoup. Ma mère est fran?aise.”

“His mother is French,” Deanna translated.

“Oh really?” I asked. “I was in Paris for a semester in college.” That was the spring of Javier, a no-strings distraction from life and my parents’ issues.

“Nice, and yeah.” William nodded. “My grandmother, aunt, and cousins still live there, but my mom was traveling in the US when she met my dad here, then never went back. Except to visit, of course.”

“His cousin Atticus has been asking us to come.” Deanna pushed her chair back, walked to one of the two twin white recessed shelving units in the dining room, and picked up a four-by-six picture frame. “William’s French family is a story for another time.” She extended the frame to me, the glass glittering in the light of the chandelier. “This is us at the H?tel de Glace.”

A winterized William, Deanna, and Grant stood with a heavily bearded man with flannel peeking out from under his coat in front of glowing translucent pillars while holding shot glasses that appeared to be made of rough-hewn crystal.

“All the structures you see around us are made of ice.” I jumped at the voice. Grant was unexpectedly behind me, so close his scent—somehow capturing a crisp spring day—curled around me, intensifying as his arm extended and he pointed to one of the columns, cast in blue light.

I nodded. No big deal that his body heat was warming the side of my arm. No big deal.

He returned to his seat diagonally across the table from me, and I tried to listen to him describe the intricately carved ice sculptures and snow domes, like the architect I’d learned he was, but my mind wouldn’t stop picking at the details of this night. The crinkle at the corner of Grant’s eye, the uncensored way in which Deanna’s head was tossed back in levity, William’s hand reaching for his wife’s. This was what normal looked like. All little things—all things they likely took for granted but I couldn’t stop paying attention to, because I’d never had this.

I’d misjudged Grant, though. He’d morphed from a forky four to a ten. Not a “ten” in the sense that he was hot—a “one” could be a runway model; my numbers had no hierarchy—but he was the kind of “ten” who wore a sophisticated monocle, which I’d heard was making a comeback. Even under the shadow of his mustache, he lit up the room with every story he told, propelling the conversation forward. And he looked at everyone with interest, not just me. If someone was talking, his monocled eye was on them, making them feel heard and important, and he didn’t look like he was pretending. It filled me with a mix of admiration and jealousy.

Worst of all, being here in this room made me think of family, which meant, despite my best efforts, I thought of my own. What if Brandon and I had had the life Grant and Deanna had? What if my brother had lived to see his late thirties? Would I be more like Deanna then?

How many times had I fantasized about a situation like this? But instead of William, Deanna, and Grant, it was always me sitting across from Brandon, laughing with the girl he’d brought home, evaluating her suitability for my big brother, the man I admired most in the world.

Family. A part of me wanted to keep watching, while another part wanted to run because my mind kept circling like a vulture hungry for decaying memories.

I excused myself as dinner transitioned into dessert, asking Deanna to point me to the bathroom.

I pressed my palms into the wooden vanity, around the white bowl sink, and observed myself in a mirror framed by distressed pine. Rosy cheeks, sparkling hazel eyes, not a hair out of place, a deep-purple dress that fit all my curves. That’s what I wanted everyone to see. In reality, my cheeks were red because I constantly bit the soft flesh inside, my eyes sparkled because they were always on the brink of tears, my hair was pulled into a bun to keep me from pulling it out, and the dress was there to distract onlookers from the moments I slipped.

I ran my hands under the cold water as it cascaded down from the waterfall sink, then pressed them to my cheeks.

What was I doing here? I didn’t belong here. Even William wasn’t like me, not really. Our similarities ended at skin tone.

I wanted what these people had, but I was never going to have this. I wasn’t equipped for relationships like these. My inhales chased the heels of my exhales as I contemplated the unthinkable: Chad. I thought about the divorce papers and what he’d said.

I’m leaving Vicki whether you take me back or not. I want us. I think I love you.

I looked back at my phone, at the last text he’d sent me, and I realized I’d missed another message from him, a wall of words that filled the screen.

Chad: Vicki said she knew we’d made a mistake by getting married. She told me she’s had feelings for her best friend for a while, but, unlike me, never acted on them. She’s upset, and I don’t blame her. But she’s also relieved. She’s felt trapped for a while and didn’t know what to do about it. I thought she was happy, which tells you how wrong we were for each other. We’re telling our families tonight. And I told her about you, that I came to Nashville to see you, and she asked me if I loved you.

I do love you. I love you, Pen. And I meant what I said the other night. I want it to be us.

I flicked the screen away and made it go black as my breath struggled in and out of my lungs. It was as if he’d felt my doubts and pounced on them.

I was so tired of being alone. Being in Deanna’s warm house tonight was making me realize how lonely I was. No matter how much I tried to convince myself I was better off without the complication of people, the thought of a life completely alone scared me as much as having someone did. But I didn’t know how to be with anyone, except I’d had something with Chad.

I had the sudden urge to call him, to pick up the phone and hear the voice of the man who’d told me he loved me. Who else was going to love me?

I took several deep breaths. I’d spent too much time in the bathroom. They were going to start thinking I was having an intestinal issue if I didn’t get back out there. I blotted my face with a tissue—pulled from a rustic wooden box—took one final deep breath, and opened the door, tripping over thoughts of what to do next.