Seven
Teagan
It’s the day of my parents’ garden party and I am not ready. I made it to the house ten minutes ago, but I’m still sitting in my car across the street, trying to work up the nerve to go in. Lenny might be there already, crying and lying about how awful I am. My parents’ perfect child has egg on her face, and rather than helping me clean it off, they’ll interrogate me about where it came from and why I hadn’t thought to surround myself with less fragile food.
I pull my finger from my mouth. There is a spot of blood on my cuticle left by my nervous chewing.
Never again will I agree to do something as stupid as date someone in my inner circle. Sure, Heath is my inner circle, but a contractually obligated sex schedule is as far from dating as you can get.
A day after my dick appointment with him and I still smile when I think about it. I didn’t “have a thing” afterward. I wanted to give myself time to spiral in case my anxiety took over or my emotions went awry, but everything about that night was perfection.
In only a few minutes—not much longer than my last time with Lenny—Heath had me seeing stars and gave me an orgasm so hard I wasn’t sure I was on Earth anymore. It was the kind of sex that makes your head spin and your brain turn to mush. To someone like me, turning my brain off for a minute is almost better than the orgasm itself. Almost.
As nervous as I was to do it, Heath gave me a reminder of what Lenny could never do for me. I needed a little proof that I’d made the right decision to end things. Especially before this party.
Finally, I climb out of my car into the glaring sun. Manhattan becomes a humid hellhole in the summer, but the heat in Westchester is barely any better today.
My parents’ house looks like it could fit on a college campus. A two-story brick behemoth with white-framed windows, dormers, and an interior clad floor to ceiling with mahogany. All it’s missing are columns and Greek letters on the front.
In the backyard, fifty or so people mingle on the concrete patio, each group doing their best impression of a Ralph Lauren summer collection advertisement, holding glasses of wine and taking shade beneath the twelve-foot manicured Italian cypresses. I open the gate and, to my undeserved luck, find my two favorite people. I wave to my brothers and relief lights up their faces.
Levi wheels his chair over with excitement, Rowan following him. I lean down and squeeze Levi into a hug. He returns it with equal fervor.
“Finally, you’re here,” he says into my shoulder, and I can tell he is smiling. Levi has the same snarky personality I do, but sometimes we slip up and show our genuine affection for each other. When he leans away, he asks, “This is the best dress you could find?” That’s more like it .
“Love you too.” I press a kiss to his cheek, then reach out for Rowan. I wrap my arms around his narrow waist, stretching up to kiss his cheek as well. The six-foot-two timid baby of the family, he greets me with his smile rather than words.
No one sees a Black woman with two Asian men and thinks “siblings” first, but I’m the luckiest person alive to have them as family.
“How’s the party going?”
“ So good,” Levi replies with as much sarcasm as humanly possible. He has his hair slicked back into a folded-over bun. His wrinkled white oxford is lacking the customary beige jacket Rowan has on. He wants to be here about as much as I do. “Mom and Dad have asked where you are like five million times. They want to show you off to everyone.”
I close my eyes with a sigh. “How drunk do you think I can get before then?” I look over and find both of my parents waving us over. “Not drunk enough, I see.”
We go to them and I cling to Rowan’s arm for support.
“Teagan, there you are,” Dad greets me. Confusion stitches his brow behind the wire frames of his glasses. The tilt of his mouth shows his disapproval even before he vocalizes it. “Where is Lenny?”
“Oh, um . . .”
I trail off when Mom turns to face me, placing her hand against Dad’s back. “Hi, darling. Where’s Lenny?”
Someone once told me that couples start to look more alike the longer they are together, and that is definitely true for my parents. Mom’s glasses are a different shape than Dad’s, but they still have the same wire frames that match their perpetually in business casual aesthetic. Over the years their faces and waistlines have grown a little rounder, and their medium-brown hair has grayed at the same pace. They may be older than the average parent, being in their midsixties when I am the oldest at twenty-three, but that is not the main reason for our disconnect.
They love a summer’s day with a chardonnay. It’s a reprieve to see them in a good mood, both smiling rather than scowling, and I don’t want to ruin it with the answer to their question.
“We decided to come separately,” I say, finding a blip of enjoyment in my double entendre.
Mom gives me a look of confusion before an unfamiliar woman claims her attention. “Cheryl, I just wanted to say congratulations to you and your husband. Thirty years in business is a huge achievement!”
“Thank you,” my mother coos, much like she will the rest of the night. “We’re still having a blast, but we are excited about the future.” She pulls me against her side.
“You must be the famous Teagan,” the woman says to me. I wonder if I’m famous because Dad has a fondness for hyperbole or because, as is true for most of the environments they force me into, I’m one of the few—if not the only —women of color in the room. She looks at my brothers and says, “And you must be . . .” Her eyes drop to Levi’s chair. “Levi and Rowan.” She points between them as if it’s an accomplishment to get it right.
Most people use Levi’s disability as a point of discernment between him and Rowan—something that has always infuriated me. But our family’s diversity often overwhelms people.
After going through the struggle of adopting me from Ethiopia, my parents pretended the process was too hard to go through again. But all that changed when they saw Levi.
I was four when my parents went to the Philippines to meet him. Two years old, wide-eyed and expressive, he was the cutest toddler, even when he was tearing the house apart. They put him in every sport possible to give him a channel for his abundance of energy. The car accident his freshman year of high school left him without the use of his legs, but he never let that stop his athleticism or stifle his brash personality.
I was six when Mom and Dad found Rowan. The four of us flew to Laos to meet him. He was still a baby—the first time I had been around one. I spent so much of my time watching him, holding him, caring for him. That hasn’t changed much either. Even though he’s almost eighteen, I will always be protective of him.
Back before the Jolie-Pitts, and before most people were aware of how unethical transnational adoption can be, my parents always planned to grow their family in that way. They wanted to share their abundance of wealth and privilege with children who had none. The problem is that, while wealth can be shared, not all privilege can. I’m not sure they’ve learned that yet.
“Your mother tells me you’re top of your class in law school,” the woman continues.
I open my mouth to answer but my mother speaks for me. “Yes, she has always been a wonderful student. Valedictorian in undergrad, perfect LSAT score, and we expect the same when she takes the bar exam next summer.” She gives me a little squeeze, so proud of the mountain of expectations she has placed upon me. “We can’t wait to see where she takes the firm when she becomes a partner.”
I look over and find Rowan fidgeting with discomfort. He hates this discourse as much as I do. “I’m going to grab a drink. Can I get you anything, Mom?” I ask as my excuse to leave.
She shakes her head before continuing her conversation. I gesture for Levi and Rowan to follow me, and they happily do so, sharing my desire to be literally anywhere else but here.
Weaving through the beige sea of affluence, we escape to a less populated area at the other end of the garden. I grab two glasses of champagne from the bar and hand one to Levi.
“Where’s mine?” Rowan asks.
“Three years in the future,” I quip before taking a drink. The crisp liquid slides down my throat, soothing me with its cool temperature and the thought of the alcohol kicking in soon. I drain half the glass then sigh.
“This party is ass,” Levi says what we’re both thinking. “I need some drama. Are you going to tell Mom and Dad that you broke up with Lenny?”
I shoot him a look. “Wasn’t planning to throw myself into the fire to entertain you. Sorry.”
“You broke up?” Rowan asks. “Why?”
Levi and I have no filter with each other, but Rowan is different. He is the quiet one, keeping most of his thoughts inside, even when we’re away from our parents. An innocent lamb in a family of wolves.
I search for the most appropriate words. “He wouldn’t . . . he couldn’t . . . um . . .”
“He couldn’t give her an orgasm,” Levi finishes for me. I bat a hand against his arm.
“I’m not a baby anymore. I’m seventeen,” Rowan reminds me. “I know all about sex and stuff.”
“You do?” Levi and I say simultaneously.
“Yes,” Rowan answers with a pout.
Levi and I exchange a knowing glance and take a slow sip.
“Oh shit, is that him?” Levi points through the gate as a car pulls into the driveway.
My jaw drops when Lenny climbs out of his Maserati. He adjusts the lapels of his tan blazer and then holds out his hand. A woman I have never seen before runs over and takes it like a well-trained puppy. Her curled balayage hangs to the middle of her back while her white minidress barely covers her ass.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I say to myself. I hide behind Rowan as they walk through the gate and into the party.
“Mom and Dad are going to have so many questions.” Levi snickers.
“Shut up, I know.”
Lenny and his date make their way through the crowd in the direction of our parents. I gnaw on the edge of my glass, wishing it was my finger instead.
“Chill, Teags,” Levi says. “It won’t be that bad.”
I laugh. Through the crowd, I watch them turn their heads toward me and glare. “Sure it won’t.”
~
“You broke up?” my father asks me for the ninth time. Our postparty Sunday family dinner can’t pass quickly enough.
We sit in the dining room just off the veranda, the caterers still in view while they finish the cleanup. Mom keeps herself busy packing away whatever leftover hors d’oeuvres she thinks will keep, while the only thing on Dad’s mind is the one thing I don’t want to talk about.
“Yes,” I answer again.
“You broke up with him or he broke up with you?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does.”
Levi is busy shoveling his food down like the bottomless pit he is, and Rowan sits with his face in a book at the end of the table. Sitting directly across the table from Dad, there’s no escape from the intensity of his gaze or his line of questioning. In the case of Teagan’s Orgasms v. Lenny’s Feelings , my dad is the prosecutor and I am getting deposed without counsel.
I sigh, knowing he’s not going to let it go until I answer. Invoking my Fifth Amendment right is sadly not an option right now. “Technically, I did, but it’s not—”
“I can’t believe this. He is my partner’s son, the future of our firm, just like you, Teagan. You couldn’t dream up a better partnership. I don’t understand why you would break up,” my father laments. “What was wrong with him?”
Levi snorts with laughter next to me and I shoot him a glare. “It just didn’t work out, Dad,” I say.
“How? He couldn’t have been more right for you.”
Right for me? Or right for the picture of me Dad has in his mind? There is no arguing with an attorney who believes they’re correct. I stare down at my plate and chew on my finger rather than the actual food in front of me.
Mom returns to the table and uncorks the second bottle of wine. She has nothing to add, no disagreement with anything Dad says. My finger is bleeding by the time I pour my third glass, hoping they won’t notice.
As the oldest sibling, I have always taken the brunt of my parents’ nitpicking. It’s hard to remember a time when my life wasn’t dissected at every meal, but with Levi and Rowan still living at home while I’m away in the city all week, nothing is as exciting as diving into my business. If only they knew what I was actually up to.
Heath sent me a text this morning to give me notice for tonight. I left him on Read, even though I knew today would be a shit show. I peek at the message again to give myself some encouragement.
Heath: This is my 12-hour notice for Sunday. I’m available ;)
As much as he pisses me off, Heath is my saving grace right now. He ruined me in the best possible way. Sex every week? Chef’s kiss. Great sex every week? A masterpiece—a smash-terpiece , if you will. The penis de résistance.
I’m so desperate, I’m starting to sound like him. The promise of sex is barely enough to keep me hanging on, but at least I have something to look forward to.
“Give her a break, Dad. She’s allowed to choose who she wants to be with,” Levi defends me. “You can’t force her into some kind of arranged marriage. She didn’t like the dude. Simple as that.”
“It isn’t as simple as that, Levi. It’s a matter of the future of our firm. If the partners can’t get along, the business is doomed.”
“Oh my god, Dad. Stop being so dramatic. She doesn’t have to be with the guy to get along with him.”
“Judging from how they avoided each other all day, I find it hard to believe she can.” Dad turns his focus to me again. “You need to patch things up with him.”
His wide-eyed scowl tells me that is not a question, and it is not a time to rebut. “I will.”
“Immediately.”
“I will!”
He leaves the table to cool off and help Mom in the kitchen. With my stomach turning, I pick up my phone and type the text I’ve been sitting on all day.
Me: Are you free at 9?
It’s only six but I don’t know if I can wait much longer. Maybe I don’t have to.
I retype my message and hit Send.
Me: Are you free in an hour?
The typing indicator appears right after. I watch the dots dance while holding my breath.
Heath: Hell yeah