Chapter 7
7.
Fifty-two minutes later, Birdie was back home with Liz at Belvedere Inn, tucked into the enormous squishy sectional in the family room, steaming bowls of mac and cheese balanced in their laps. A fire crackled in the stone hearth opposite them, filling the room with warmth and a hint of woodsmoke. Over the speakers, Ella Fitzgerald crooned “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in her silvery, sultry voice.
In between forkfuls of cheesy noodles, Birdie recounted Winegate to her sister. The floaty-freaky panic of the gallery was starting to dissipate, but Birdie was still struggling to understand the cost, which she’d only been able to cover by maxing out all three of her credit cards. “Is it legal to charge that much for a painting?”
“I don’t understand.” Liz blinked in slow motion, chewing a noodle. “Why did you tell her that her art was a scam?”
“Because I didn’t know she was the artist!” Birdie exclaimed, hating herself. “I was shooting my mouth off, trying to be ‘funny,’ when instead I was exposing myself as a total loser who has no business co-existing with cool artists with shaved heads!” She rubbed at her chest, trying to alleviate the pain in her heart. “Feeling this bad is giving me major Stanley flashbacks.”
Stanley Green, Birdie’s biological father, Babs’s second husband, wasn’t about to win any Father of the Year awards. Not only because he was dead. Stanley’s emotional negligence had always cut Birdie the deepest.
“Where is it?” Liz asked. “The painting.”
“She’s dropping it off sometime this week.” Birdie let out a groan. “How am I going to make this right and scrounge together eleven grand?”
Liz slurped some wine. “How much do you usually make at a show?”
“Fifty bucks. Or just drink tickets.”
“I think I’ve figured out the flaw in your business plan, Squeakie,” Liz said, giggling.
Her sister sounded tipsy. Birdie peered at her. “How many glasses of wine have you had, Liz Fizz?”
“Two,” Liz replied, indignant, before frowning, unsure. “Maybe three.”
Birdie’s smile was fond. “You are such a lightweight. Okay, what gives?”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean, you’re toastier than a freaking Pop-Tart and you only drink alone when something’s wrong. What is it?”
Liz covered her face. “Nothing.”
Birdie put their bowls aside, prying her sister’s fingers away and hazarding her best guess. “Is this about your writer’s block?”
Her big sister’s voice came out the size of a single macaroni. “Sort of?”
Remembering the way Liz had glitched at seeing the Sweet billboard on the ride up, Birdie guessed again, “Is this about…Violet?”
At the sound of her name, Liz bit her lip until it turned white, looking away. Liz Belvedere didn’t just keep her cards close to her chest. They were vacuum-sealed in a locked box, inside a vault, inside Fort Knox. Birdie only found out Liz had dated a woman a few years ago after it ended.
Birdie understood that this situation—whatever it was—was delicate. Top of a crème br?lée delicate. Tiny tap: “Do you have a crush on Violet?”
“I can’t tell you,” Liz whispered.
“You can tell me anything.” Birdie patted her sister’s thigh. “We have sister-sister confidentiality, and that will stand up in a court of law, maybe.”
A tight, shuddery breath and then: “I— we …crossed a line.”
“You hooked up with Violet?” Birdie couldn’t keep the surprise—and, frankly, admiration—out of her voice. “I didn’t know she was a lady of the labia.”
“She dated girls in Portland, before she moved to L.A. It’s not a secret, it’s on the internet.” Her sister was vibrating with queer drama—Dickinson, Colette. “We’ve become sort of…close.”
“Ladies who lunch?” Birdie guessed. “Or ladies who text each other every hour and wear each other’s denim overalls—that ‘sort of close’?”
Liz blew out a breath. “The latter.”
“The classic obsessive friendship.” Birdie nodded in understanding. “How I’ve bed many a lover.”
Liz’s expression was tortured. “It was the last day of the press junket, in Rome. We were alone, at the hotel, and somehow…”
Birdie leaned forward. “Somehow?”
“Somehow, we…kissed.”
Birdie inhaled theatrically, shoving her sister’s shoulder. “Mamma mia ! You necked ?!”
“Just once. One kiss.” Her sister’s eyes went dreamy, lost in the memory before snapping back to reality. “I haven’t spoken to her since.” Liz’s skin had paled, but her eyes burned with intensity. “I don’t know what to do.”
If this was how a crush was supposed to feel, Birdie definitely felt like she was doing them wrong. “And that’s all that’s happened? One kiss? You haven’t taken V.G. to pound town? Thrown your hot dog down her hallway?”
Liz’s eyes went wide. “No! Of course not!”
“Why not?”
“It’s not professional.” Liz flapped her hands around, looking like she was literally grasping at straws. “I have to set a good example.”
“For who?”
“Just…everyone!”
Ah, Liz. Forever the perfect student even when school was long done. This “professional” argument was as flimsy as a spring break bikini, and Birdie wasn’t buying it. “Isn’t getting down with a stone-cold fox in Italy setting the best example?”
Liz let out a frustrated breath. She ducked her eyes to the carpet. “Vi’s twenty-seven. Ten years younger than me.”
At this, Birdie actually laughed. “Um, Ellen and Portia,” she said. “Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles, never forget. Also, pretty sure if you were a straight guy in Hollywood, you wouldn’t legally be allowed to date anyone less than a decade younger than you. A ten-year difference, at your age, definitely isn’t a thing.” Birdie had met Violet at a group dinner when visiting Liz in L.A. this past summer. Violet and Liz had seemed close—inside jokes, a subtle codependence—but Birdie’s gaydar had not been activated. Maybe Violet was as skilled as Liz at hiding her feelings. “Wait—do you actually want to date Violet?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want!”
Birdie had long maintained that “type A” stood for “type anal” (not the fun kind), but this was a new level of ludicrous. “Riddle me this, Batgirl: Have you porked anyone at work before?”
Liz looked offended. “No.”
“If it didn’t work out, would you treat Violet like shit? Get her written off the show, generally be a massive dick?”
“Birds.” Liz made a disgusted face. “Of course not. But—”
“But nothing!” Birdie took her sister’s hands, making her voice as earnest as possible. “Since you bounced to L.A., you’ve been crushing this TV stuff. And from the sound of it, you really like this chick, hashtag Roman-Holiday, hashtag Italy-is-for-lovers. You can have both! What am I missing here?” Birdie pushed. “Not to sound too woo-woo, but why are you getting in the way of your own happiness, blah blah blah chakras?”
Her sister refused to meet Birdie’s eye.
“Liz?” Birdie prompted softly. “What are you not telling me?”
Liz let out a long, broken sigh. “It’s too much. The idea of being hurt again. After everything with…Noah.”
Okay, Liz was definitely drunk, because she never brought up her ex-husband. Of course Liz was nervous to date again—her divorce era had been extremely painful to witness, let alone live through, especially for someone who craved stability and routine. Birdie’s heart squished like a lemon in a lemon squeezer. “I hear you,” she said, gentling her voice. “Noah the Fuckface can suck my dick forever. I know I’m not the pinup girl for romance or good decisions, but I think trying something with Violet is worth the risk if you’re, y’know…”
Liz stared back blankly.
It seemed so obvious. Her big sister was never this worked up. “…if you’re in love,” Birdie finished.
Liz spluttered into a strangled coughing fit, face blooming Christmas-cracker red. “In love? In love? She hasn’t spoken to me for two weeks!”
“I thought you hadn’t spoken to her.”
“I don’t know!” Liz flung up her hands. “You saw how long it took me to get over Noah. So much therapy, so much work. And I’m happy now, finally! I can’t throw it all away to become a footnote in Vi’s life! I need to protect my own happiness, and so it’s. Not. Happening.”
There was a noise. From inside the house, maybe the foyer. A muffled thunk.
The sisters whipped their heads toward the front door. Liz’s voice was low. “What was that?”
Birdie didn’t reply, her senses sharpening. The only sound was the ticking second hand of the retro black-and-white Kit-Cat Clock hanging in the far corner. “Hello?” Birdie called.
The nothing they heard now sounded ominous.
Liz kept her voice quiet. “Did you lock the front door?”
Birdie couldn’t remember; she’d been so distracted by the gallery drama. Sweet bébé Jesus: What if one of her mother’s insane fans had wandered in again, an occurrence Babs was far too forgiving of? Or a raccoon? Those things could get vicious.
Birdie slipped off the sofa, extracting an iron poker from the set of tools by the fireplace.
“What are you going to do with that?” Liz whispered.
Birdie sliced the poker through the air, narrowly avoiding knocking over a vase. “What are you going to do with that ?”
Liz mimed stabbing someone with the fork in her hand.
“Perfect,” Birdie whispered back. “Saved by the world’s tiniest pitchfork.”
They crept through the kitchen, toward the foyer, ready for a horror-movie jump scare. The front door was open.
Birdie rushed into the foyer with a “Gahhh!”
Someone spun around and yelled in fright.
Liz yelled. Birdie yelled. They were all yelling until Birdie recognized the man with the mop of dark curls and light purple hoodie. “ Rafi? ”
He pulled an earbud from his ear, spilling Adele’s “Someone Like You.” He gaped at Birdie, then at Liz. “What the hell are you doing here?”
They gaped back. Rafi’s big brown eyes were wet and wild. A five o’clock shadow stubbled his boyish face.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Birdie parroted back. “Why do you look like the downfall of society?”
“Why aren’t you in Philly?” Liz followed up.
Rafi wiped his nose with the sleeve of his hoodie, his expression stunned. “I just detonated my entire life.”