12. Piper
12
PIPER
Crap. Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
The brightness of daylight shocks me when I walk outside. After spending so many hours in his dim apartment, the light is almost blinding. I have been such an idiot.
I might throw up. I have a stalker, and I slept with him. I spent a whole day, fucking him and cuddling him and coming for him.
I cried in front of him. I don’t remember if I ever cried like that in front of Colin.
Ant was nice and kind and funny and cute, and my heart squeezes while I literally run from his condo. Crap. This is what I deserve for trying to be casual. Trying to enjoy one night of fun. Letting my hopes raise, just so I can fuck a guy who has apparently been following me for weeks.
Crap, crap, crap.
I walk at least ten blocks in a blind rage before I calm down enough to take in my surroundings and realize I have no idea where I am. It’s a beautiful fall day. Quiet. Chilly. Crisp. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as a shadow passes overhead. My stomach leaps into my throat. I duck under a building’s awning and search the sky for a Mothman-shaped figure. It’s just a flock of geese.
He wouldn’t follow me again, right? Not in the daylight. Not after we fought.
I don’t know anymore. He seemed so nice, trustworthy, not like the kind of person who stalks you. Under the safety of the awning, I pull out my phone and order a lift home. During the ride, I text my squad.
Me: I have so much I need to tell you.
Me: Stuff got crazy.
Me: Ant isn’t who I thought he is.
I stare at my phone, waiting for a response. Nothing comes. They must be busy, I know they’d answer if they saw my text. It’s still early on a Sunday and my friends have lives. Anam is probably sleeping late after a wild night out. Kelly and Jeremy are probably having brunch together like the adorable couple that they are. I hate the idea of interrupting either of their mornings to complain about my ridiculous mistake.
The car is pulling up outside my apartment before I realize this might be a terrible idea. Ant knows where I live. He has my address. This might not be the safest place.
Another wrench in the matrix—a familiar car waits in front of my apartment. My Mom is here.
Crap. It’s still my niece’s birthday. Mom was going to give me a ride to the birthday party. She wanted to make sure that I actually left the house. What am I going to do? I cannot say out loud, to my flesh and blood mother, that I spent a weekend fucking and sucking a potentially dangerous stranger.
“Where have you been?” Mom exits her car when she sees me on the sidewalk.
“Good morning, Mom! How are you?” I announce pointedly, while tucking my wrinkled shirttails into my wrinkled skirt, hoping to make my disheveled appearance less obvious.
She purses her lips. “You’re late.”
I push past her toward my door. “I just need a couple minutes to change, and then we can leave.” I fumble with my key, finally jerking them from my pocket and jamming it into the lock.
“You need to hurry,” she says as my door swings open.
“You can just take the present and go without me.” I point to the nicely wrapped gift that I left sitting on the front table, so I wouldn’t forget to bring it.
“You aren’t going to wear that are you?” She ignores my suggestion.
“No, Mom. I just need to change. It’ll be quick.”
“Let me come upstairs! I’ll fix your hair while you do your makeup.”
“It’s fine.” I smooth the loose bun I have my curls piled into. Still damp. I washed it at Ant’s. At the time, I thought it was really convenient that he had all my favorite products. He said he’d been experimenting with his fur, and now I’m realizing he must have known which brands I used. Has anyone I’ve dated paid that much attention to what I like? It’d be sweet if it weren’t so creepy. Crap. I’m such an idiot. “I just want to put on a clean change of clothes.”
Mom follows me into the apartment and up the stairs to my bedroom. “Oh, this is such a nice apartment, Piper. Shame you’ll have to move now.”
“I’m not moving,” I tell her. “I like it here.”
It’s a great location—two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a perfect little backyard, lots of cute details, hardwood floors, central air, and decent-sized closets. Everything you could want in an apartment. Except that a deranged Mothman knows I live here, and has been watching me closely enough to know what kind of shampoo I buy. Maybe I should move.
“You can’t stay here, darling,” Mom casually insists.
“Wait, why do you think I can’t stay here?” I ask.
“Men don’t like it when you have a nicer place than them.”
I freeze in the middle of my bedroom. I’m definitely not getting a new apartment now. “Men?”
“You know what I mean, dear.” Mom’s voice pitches higher. “I know you make plenty of money on your own. You are so gosh-danged accomplished. I’m so proud of you! But whoever you’re with, they’ll want to feel needed. And you’ve got less time, now that you're single and?—"
“Getting older?” I ask, knowing exactly where my mother is going.
“I didn’t make the rules! It’s a timing issue for women. I know you want a family. Kids and a husband—" Her voice comes from my bathroom.
"A husband?" My exhausted sigh is covered by the distinctive sound of her rummaging through my bathroom drawers.
"You know what I mean—" She stops herself mid sentence. She tries to be understanding of my sexuality, but never quite gets it right. "A spouse!"
I poke my head around the corner to see that she’s plugging in the curling iron she’s pulled from my vanity.
I slip a ‘Bookmarks are for Quitters’ shirt out of my dresser, and move to the bathroom to unplug the curling iron.
Mom looks at the shirt clutched in my hand. “Maybe, wear the yellow dress? The one you wore for Easter last year.”
“I don’t need to wear a dress like that to a child’s birthday party.” It’s one of the few Mom approved outfits in my closet because she bought it for me for family photos. I do look really good in it, but it’s much fancier than this event calls for.
“Never hurts to look your best, dear.” She’s already moving to my closet.
“It’s dirty, Mom. It needs to be dry cleaned. ? ? 1 ” I discard my dirty Halloween costume on top of my overflowing hamper, and pull the clean shirt over my head.
“Are you sure that you don’t want help with your hair?”
“I don’t need help, Mom.”
“Alright darling, alright.”
I reach for my favorite sitting down jeans, pausing briefly when I catch sight of Colin’s side of the closet fully cleaned out. At least I get more storage space now. I change into clean underwear and slip the jeans on.
Mom makes a face that expresses her clear disapproval for my outfit.
“It’s such a shame about the breakup, sweetie. I know you two loved each other. You definitely won’t be getting back together, right?”
“Mom! No!” I grumble.
“I’m just making sure, dear!” She smiles. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I know.” I sigh.
“No make up?” she asks with a wince.
“Seriously?”
“You never know when you might meet the right man!” she says. “Person!” She corrects herself quickly. “The right person!”
“Who am I going to meet at a seven-year-old’s birthday party?” I snark.
This shuts her up.
She’s tried to be supportive since I came out as bi in high school. With three other (mostly) straight children, two of them happily married, sometimes she still defaults to the heteronormative. I know she means well, but she’s had over a decade to get used to the idea.
I glance in the mirror. My hair is a bit of a mess. I resist the urge to fix it. After all her fuss, I’m not going to mess with it now and let my Mom think she was right about that. I apply some mascara, smudge a little blush into the apples of my cheeks, and grab my favorite neutral lip color. Normally, I might have taken a little extra time for my face, but with my Mom here, I’m ready to stand my ground and leave the house looking low effort. I straighten my glasses and declare I’m ready.
“You are beautiful, dear.” Mom smiles. “I hope you know that.”
“Thanks, mom,” I reply on reflex, grabbing my bag from the pile by my front door. It can be hard to truly acknowledge her compliments. I know she loves and supports me, sometimes she just picks the worst ways to show it.
Unsurprisingly, we end up at a cat cafe. My newly seven-year-old niece is completely obsessed with cats at the moment. Cat Rhapsody’s is a new addition to the neighborhood, an adorable little building, freshly painted, all pink and purple and white. With a counter of human snacks for sale and a whole room full of cats and their toys.
“Welcome!” the pretty white lady behind the counter exclaims. She has a heart-shaped face and bright pink hair in a pixie cut. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Bagel?” She is practically buzzing with excitement.
I snag a latte, grateful to finally get a bit of caffeine into my system, and settle into a seat beside my youngest sister.
“Penny.” My exhausted brain gives the simplest greeting possible, to be sure my sister knows who is sitting beside her. Her visual impairment means she can’t exactly make out facial features, even sitting this close.
“Running late?” Penny asks. She lounges on a long bench, her little pregnancy belly bumping her sweater out. She’s four years my junior, with similar red curls, although hers have always been a bit more tamable.
“Mmph,” I respond.
“Having a tough morning?”
“Mom is in a mood today,” I mutter.
“Be on the look out,” Penny says. “I think she’s got someone special for you to meet.”
“What? Why do you think that?” I ask with a laugh.
“Oh, because she told me she invited her spin instructor here for you to meet.”
“Penny. No. No. Right? You’re joking with me?” I ask.
She laughs in response.
“No! Pen! Penny! I can’t tell if you are teasing or not!”
She shrugs, a mischievous smile on her face.
“Michael! Come over here and tell your wife she has to tell me the truth.”
“I know better than to get into an argument between the sisters!” he calls from across the room, where he and our niece are playing with a pair of calico kittens while our oldest brother, Paul, and his wife entertain our parents.
“You are a menace,” I groan and my sister laughs again.
Pen fills me in on the details of her life and I don’t miss that she carefully avoids the topic of my relationship status. I’m glad not to talk about Colin for the billionth time, and even more glad not to talk about how I spent the whole weekend with a stranger and didn’t realize what a creep he was.
It's only a few minutes before a large orange cat decides that my lap is the most comfortable place to settle down for a nap.
Petting a purring fuzzball does make me feel better. I don’t have any pets, I always loved animals. Colin was allergic to cats, but the new apartment does allow them. Maybe I could take advantage of that. Find a fuzzy friend who would keep me company.
I scratch the big guy behind the ears. He purrs loudly.
It’d be nice to have this kind of unconditional approval.
“We found out the sex today.” Penny’s tone is almost conspiratorial.
“What? Really?” I ask excitedly.
“Yeah—” she pauses.
“You want to tell me what it is?”
“Well, I wondered if I could use—you know—the name.” Her face is slowly turning beet red.
“The name? Oh? Oh, right!” I laugh a little. “Of course you can!”
“It’s silly to still think about it,” she says.
“No it’s not!”
“I just always assumed you would be the one who used it—” Her words fumble to a stop.
“We always agreed whoever got there first.” I laugh but put an encouraging hand into hers, since she can’t see the sincerity in my features. “Of course you can name the baby ‘Presley’.”
She grins.
“Are you sure?” Penny asks. When we were kids Penny, Paget and I found a baby naming book. We spent an entire summer vacation picking out the ‘best baby name’. There was a pros and cons table, a double elimination bracket, we even took a full family vote. Of course once we picked the ‘perfect name’ the three of us immediately started to fight over who’d get to use it. We rehashed that fight all throughout adolescence. Sometimes jokingly, other times more seriously. We settled on ‘whoever gets there first’. As the oldest I always kind of assumed I’d be the one using it.
“Yes, of course I’m sure! I’m so very happy for you.” It’s not a lie, my sister deserves every ounce of happiness she’s ever received, and so much more. “At this point, who knows if I will ever get a chance to pick out a baby name!” I bark out a laugh and it sounds so much more strained than I intend for it to.
Penny’s been married for over a year. Her husband Michael is fantastic. Of course I’m excited they are starting a family, still a little twinge of jealousy forms in my stomach. Penny has a husband, and a kid on the way. I just had a one-night stand with a dude I met in a bar who turned out to be my stalker. I just thought I was a lot closer to the status of 'wife and mother' myself.
Penny smiles. We've always been close. For a long time, she felt like the one person in my life who really understood me. Our parents are great and have always been supportive, but four kids is a lot, and we never had tons of money. So when Penny started needing more help at school and care around the house a lot of it fell on me. The oldest daughter.
“Are you sure it’s alright?” she asks, unable to ignore the strain in my laugh. Across the room, our niece, Rachel, squeals.
“Yes! Yes, absolutely. I just had a rough weekend.” I admit.
“What kind of rough?” She waggles her eyebrows.
I wish I could laugh.
“Seriously, are you alright?” She presses her shoulder to mine.
I make eye contact with my mother across the room. I just can’t tell the story right now, not with my whole family here.
“Can I tell you later?” I ask my sister. “How is your nursery coming along?”
Penny smirks at my change of topic. “It’s alright so far.”
The door of the cafe opens, and a man walks in. I know it isn’t anyone we are related to because he is tall and lean. He’s at least six inches taller than anyone in my family, with floppy golden hair and the thick toned thighs of someone who bikes, or even—spins.
Maybe even someone who instructs others how to spin?
“Oh no,” I whisper. "Oh no. I think the spin instructor just walked in."
My little sister snickers behind her hand.
1 ? I know I'll never take it to the dry cleaner, but my mom still seems to think that's a possibility too.