Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
FRANKIE
P retty sure Danny wouldn’t be so gung-ho for coffee if he’d tried my sister’s brew before. We sent a sample to the poisons control center for testing – purely out of scientific curiosity, you understand – and apparently, it is fit for human consumption. It just happens to look and smell like it crawled out of the La Brea tar pits after 50,000 years of being entombed in pitch. Those who know call it The Black Death. Those who don’t better have a defibrillator handy.
Nate stands well back while he fills Danny’s cup.
“Bro, don’t be stingy,” says Danny. “Fill it to the brim!”
“This is Shelby’s coffee,” says Nate. “Not Starbucks.”
“Hey!” Shelby protests.
She’s at the stove making pancakes, bless her. I offered to, but she refused, saying she had to do something productive, even if it was only whisking milk into original fluffy texture pancake and waffle mix.
Danny’s puzzled. “What’s wrong with Shelby’s coffee?”
“Nothing!” Shelby brandishes the whisk, scattering milky drops.
“Technically nothing,” agrees Nate. “And yet…”
Danny takes a sniff, and then a cautious sip. “Woah!” He takes another sip. “This is incredible!”
“Seriously?” Nate and I are a disbelieving chorus.
“It’s like a coffee bean survived a nuclear explosion and mutated to have superpowers.”
“ Thank you!” Shelby calls from the stove.
“You know your pupils are soup-plate sized,” Nate observes. “If I were you, I’d steer clear of operating heavy machinery.”
“I could lift up heavy machinery!” says Danny.
“My point, exactly,” says Nate. “No second cup for you.”
Nate carries the ancient, possibly cursed, stovetop maker back to the safety of the kitchen counter. I glance at Danny – who winks at me over the top of his coffee mug. Normally, I’d be instantly ready to counterpunch unwanted gestures from men, but either I’ve been mildly sedated by the smell of pancakes cooking or the gesture isn’t as unwanted as it might be.
As usual, when I’m caught on the hop, I suppress all reaction. Which, so I’ve been told, gives me resting bitch face.
“Let me guess,” Danny says, with a sigh. “Winking is sexist.”
“It’s in the same ballpark as being told to smile,” I say. “One of the gauntlet of microaggressions we women run on a daily basis.”
Danny looks glum. “My sister, Izzy, talks about microaggressions all the time. You get a lot of them when you’re a woman in science, apparently. Macro ones, too.”
“Law’s the same,” I confirm. “As is any field that used to be dominated by men. Which is pretty much every field.”
“My sister, Ava , on the other hand,” Danny goes on, “is a can of whoop-ass waiting to be opened. When she’s pissed at you, she lies in wait, then leaps out and gives you a snake bite arm burn. Her technique is exquisitely painful.”
I need to clarify. “You mean, she did this when you were kids?”
“Last Christmas!” Danny says. “I ate a piece of gingerbread that she’d earmarked for a midnight snack. I wasn’t to know this, seeing there was no note, but I paid the price nonetheless.”
He rubs his upper arm, like it still hurts. Shelby talks about Ava a lot, but I’ve only met her in passing. While I’m here, I must get to know her better.
“Pancakes are ready!” my sister calls. “Come and get ’em!”
Hot damn. I’ve been looking forward to these all morning. There’s a huge stack, and I help myself to four, which I douse with maple syrup and top with a half-stick of butter. I see there’s fresh fruit on offer as well. Someone will enjoy that.
When you grow up as the youngest of four, especially with two older brothers, you don’t wait to be told to eat. Mom used to try to say grace, or some hippy words of gratitude that were her version, but it was hopeless. Soon as food was on the table, we’d grab it. I completely understand Ava wanting to hurt someone for stealing her gingerbread. Jackson snatched a chicken drumstick from my plate once and I would have stabbed him with the carving fork if Dad hadn’t caught my hand.
So, I’m back at the table and happily munching away, licking the occasional trickle of buttery syrup off my fingers, when I notice Danny staring at me. He hasn’t moved. Still sitting there with his coffee gently glooping away like a primordial mud pool. Of all the things that rile me – yes, obviously, there’s a long list – being stared at while eating is near the top. Above it sits comments like, “Are you really going to finish all that?” and “No salad?” and the best one of all, “Good to see you enjoying your food”, which translates as “Oink, oink”.
“What?” I demand. “You’ve never seen a girl eat a pancake before? Have carbs and sugar finally been outlawed in L.A.?”
My god, he blushes. He actually goes bright red. And springs out of his chair to leave the table. Is he embarrassed because I called him out for being bad-mannered yet again? Or because he got caught staring? If the latter, why was he staring? Perhaps he never has seen a girl eat a pancake before? Rich people are weird about food, so it’s possible.
Nate and Shelby are both at the table now, eating, though I do notice that Nate first checks his pancakes for any lumps of mix that haven’t quite been incorporated. I know from experience that my sister’s cooking, indeed her whole life, can be a mite haphazard. I also know that Nate cooks, and I assume he does it like he does everything else, with finicky perfectionism.
Danny slinks back into his chair, avoiding my eye. I get busy giving him a good hard payback stare. He senses it because he hunches lower over his plate, but he still won’t look at me.
Nate, however, misses nothing.
“Frankie,” he says, quietly, “you promised.”
I did, didn’t I? And I am a woman of my word. Damn it.
“After breakfast, I thought we could get our heads around the next couple of months,” Nate says. “Agree roles and responsibilities, set goals, align our expectations, etc.”
Unexpectedly, Danny flashes a glance my way. He’s grinning again.
“Are we going to throw stuff against the wall and see if it sticks?” he asks his brother. “Or run it up the flagpole and see if it salutes?”
“I’ll throw you against a wall,” says Nate. “What’s wrong with what I said?”
“Nothing,” says Danny. “If you studied business at Harvard. The real world, however, is a little less … uptight.”
“Are you going to be an asshole the whole time? Or just every second day?” Nate’s getting hot under the collar.
“Please don’t fight!” says Shelby. “I’m an invalid, remember!”
Danny looks sheepish. “Sorry, Shelby,” he says. “It’s an ingrained Durant habit to bust each other’s balls. Apologies, bro. I’ll do better.”
“Apology accepted,” says Nate, still tight-lipped.
“How about I run the discussion?” I suggest. “I’ve got a special pen, just for meetings.”
“For taking notes?” says Shelby, my faithful stooge.
“For threatening to jab in people’s eyeballs if they get off track. It’s a fountain pen. Pointy nib.”
“Sounds good to me,” says Nate. “Give me twenty minutes to clear up, and we’ll get started.”