THIRTY
Maeve
Having Finn in my childhood home is like watching my past and present converge in one instant. They’re almost impossible to align, but I’m doing my best to swallow the discomfort. We’ve never had the space for a dining room table in our tiny one-story house—despite my repeated offers, my parents would only let me pay off their home, not buy them a bigger one—and so we grew up taking our plates to the living room and eating on the couch, more often than not with a show running in the background. We’d talk over it, and the sounds of everything from New Girl to Ozark were our room tone.
Now, when my mom serves Finn his plate first, his eyes dart around frantically while he tries to figure out where to sit. Our house, like many houses in the desolate towns surrounding Pittsburgh, is a tiny box. When you walk inside, you can see the kitchen, the living room, and the one bathroom without turning your head. Walk down a hallway and there’s my parents’ bedroom, and two minuscule rooms that my sisters and I shared. Now that I’m coming from my sizable house, this feels tiny. I think that our hotel room for Fashion Week may have had more square footage. Finn hovers uncomfortably until Tiffany is served, then follows her lead to our beat up leather sectional. All in all, he takes the couch eating situation in stride.
Claude and I join them, and Finn smiles broadly. “So, any embarrassing childhood photos of Maeve here?” Finn asks with a grin.
Claude glares at him. “For you? No.”
Tiffany is also eyeing him like he’s a bug she’d like to squish. Although I’m closer to Sarah, both in sheer proximity and understanding what it felt like to grow up in our sisters’ shadows—which is how it felt (even though we’d be considered the more successful ones for some time now, by people outside our town)—Tiffany and Claude are well versed in the saga that is Finn. And they don’t pull punches.
Tiffany stabs a piece of melon aggressively. “Why are you even here?”
Finn looks hesitantly between me and my sisters. I shrug. I’m not helping him out of this one. And since my parents are in the kitchen making their plates, my sisters are taking full advantage. “Have you two listened to the latest episode yet?”
Claude’s eye roll is a lesson in pageant queen sass. “Duh. Do you think we’re fake fans? Obviously Maeve believes you, she’s been into you since college.” Now I’m the one shooting Claude dirty looks, but she continues anyway. “As far as we’re concerned? You’re bullshit central. How hard is it to lay out your feelings, ask our sister to Carbone, and make things official? And then you took another girl instead. Disgusting. Why would she be expected to lay her feelings out on the line when you called and asked permission to see someone else? It’s giving … disrespect.”
“And you’re fucking famous,” Tiffany chimes in. “Like, grow a pair already.”
“I know !” Claude seconds, momentum building. “Why should we think you’re committed to Maeve now ? What is it that you like about our sister?”
For all the complicated feelings I had growing up, when it felt like all that mattered was my siblings and not me or my mental health, I’ve always been grateful that I have them. We have each other’s backs until the very end and are absolutely relentless in our support of each other. I would run into a burning building for them, and I know they’d do the same for me.
My mom and dad return for that final question only, and squeeze onto the couch. We’re wedged in like sardines, with Finn in the center and the rest of us leaning out to peer toward him. “I’d like to know the answer to that one too, actually,” my dad remarks. My mom raises an eyebrow at me, clearly more in tune with the dynamic that’s unfolded between Finn and me. She’s on my side no matter what. Despite her not knowing how to do what I needed as a kid, I know she’s always tried to do her best and she can tell that I care about Finn. But my sisters and dad want to make Finn suffer a little bit before they welcome him to the family, given how upset I’ve been the past few months.
Finn puts his plate down on the coffee table and smiles. “Well, that is an easy question. First and foremost, Maeve is brilliant. Smarter than me, every day of the week. If I were to become stranded on a deserted island, she’s who I’d want to be with because I know she’d think of a million ways out that I never could. She’s so creative too. So innovative. And funny! She gives me all the credit for humor on the show, but she makes me laugh the hardest. Oh, and she’s kind.”
Finn started his speech looking between my family members, but now his eyes are locked on me. “No one is kinder. To strangers, friends, family. She is generous and caring and the best listener. She actually listens, instead of just waiting to respond. I love everything about her. She’s easily the best person I know. When she wasn’t in my life the past few months, it felt like all the best parts were missing. And obviously it doesn’t hurt that she’s completely gorgeous. Ever since the first day I saw her, our freshman year of college, she’s taken my breath away. She is so beautiful. Way out of my league.”
I wasn’t sure whether Finn would be able to hold his own around my family. His parents are cultured and elegant, polite at all costs, used to everything they say and do being potential media fodder. My family is a bit rougher around the edges and not into media-trained responses to their questions. But it appears that Finn’s soliloquy may have won them over.
My sisters have gone from angry to swooning, and my mom is smiling to herself looking between us. Even my dad looks like Finn’s words have taken the edge off his distrust.
I take Finn’s hand and squeeze it. “He’s not all bad,” I joke. “But for real, guys. We’re good here.”
There’s a collective pause as Finn and I wait for my family’s response, and they take in what I said. I’ve never brought someone home like this. I’ve dated, just not seriously enough to all sit on the couch and stare at him, unlike Sarah and Claude, who have a new “serious boyfriend” every year. After a moment, it’s like everyone exhales, and my family members all start firing at once.
“Can we FaceTime your mom?” Claude asks. “She’s, like, an icon.”
“Do you know any pro women’s soccer players?” Tiffany jumps in.
“What kind of car do you drive? I’m working on one in the back if you want to take a look,” my dad says simultaneously.
My mom reaches over and squeezes my knee. “Help me in the kitchen?” she asks. I follow her to our tiny kitchen, with the peeling tile floor and sagging wooden cabinets. She and my dad have turned down my offers to buy them a new house three times so far. I paid off this one the second I got my first Streamify payment. When I got that first deposit, my bank account suddenly had more zeros than I had ever imagined. I still don’t know exactly what to do with the money, but I know that I want them to live somewhere nicer. And a McMansion here is $300K.
Our kitchen is practically in the living room, but everyone is so focused on Finn that they’re not paying attention to us. I turn to my mom, eager to hear what she has to say. “So?”
She looks at Finn. “He seems like a nice boy. And you know how proud of you we are. But are you sure about this?”
My gut twists. I want to hear that my mom is sure, so that I can be. Even though I know that I shouldn’t let her words hold weight because she has never really understood me. “Why? Just tell me what you’re actually thinking.”
My mom smiles sagely. “How I really feel, you mean?” She looks over at Finn, who’s still holding court on the couch. “Your whole life, you’ve been a team player. Helping everyone around you. I shouldn’t have relied on you so much when you were a kid. You were just a kid, and I expected you to be like a mini-parent to your sisters because I was strapped so thin working. I wish I had known how to be more of what you needed. But now you’ve finally gotten to be the star. And honey, I am so proud of you. You’re still my baby, and whether you’ve seen it or not, I always knew once you found your thing you’d be a superstar. I want the world for you because I know you’ve been striving for it all since you were a kid. But with him, I don’t know that you’ll get to be the superstar. Because he already is one.”
I tear my eyes away from hers and toward Finn. “He’s happy supporting me. Helping me shine.”
“It’s a rare man that actually wants to help a woman shine, once he’s done winning her over. Or back. I want to make sure that you finally get to be a star in your own right. Because sweetie, you deserve it. More than anyone. So I’m just saying be careful.”
“I will be,” I agree quietly, my stomach churning despite all the vows I’ve made not to trust my mom’s advice over my own gut, when I’m the one who’s spent years of work on figuring out how I work and what makes me happy and healthy. She means well, but she has such a smaller view of the world. I believe that Finn is one of the rare men. My mom doesn’t know him like I do. She doesn’t know him at all! But the doubt running through my mind now isn’t just about Finn … Would I have been able to do this without him? Am I worthy like my mom thinks? Or just lucky enough to have proximity to Finn like his agent thinks? It’s hard for me to shut down these thoughts when I’m at home, where I always feel most vulnerable because I spent so many years here watching everyone else’s needs get met before my own. Just being here makes me feel like I don’t matter.
When we squeeze back onto the couch, I try to repeat my affirmations and push the lingering doubt out of my mind. I plant a kiss on Finn’s cheek, and he turns toward me and kisses me quickly on the lips, leaving both of us smiling like idiots. His hand on my back is like a weighted blanket, firm and reassuring.
After we eat I practically drag Finn away from my family and into my childhood bedroom. The room is so small that we could reach out and hold hands across the beds, and the walls so thin that I could hear Claude and Tiffany giggling until we fell asleep. Finn stumbles into the room after me, and I slam the door behind us.
“I think that went well—” I swallow Finn’s words with a kiss.
I’m tired of playing it safe. Of holding back. Of being the responsible one. I want to go all in and forget my worries.
Finn kisses me back like his life depends on it. He presses me against the wall, his hands roving over me. They feel like a memory. The best sort of déjà vu. I press into him and run my hands up and down his back, under his shirt, the skin I haven’t let myself touch for months. The skin that I know as well as my own.
And then suddenly I feel a thump resound through the wall, directly into my back, followed by footsteps and my sisters giggling. Finn pulls back, his eyes dark with longing, his arms bracketed around me. I laugh softly and he smiles and kisses me, over and over and over until I duck away. He pulls me to him and we collapse onto one of the beds.
“Maybe we should get a room,” he suggests.
I nuzzle into him. “I agree. Let’s go home. To my murder scene of a house.”
And that is what feels like home now. Despite my struggles with anxiety, I never wanted to leave my hometown behind until I had already moved on. Looking at our house now—it’s tiny, we ate melon instead of berries to save money, there was no AC in the summer, and it was cold in the winter. But all of my friends lived the same way, so I never felt I lacked anything. Once I went to college, though, then to New York, and continued to learn and work on myself, I realized that back home everyone’s thinking was small. There was so much more out there than pageants and soccer and having kids by twenty-five. And that it was reasonable to expect people to hold my feelings carefully, to respond with care, and to have emotional intelligence. My thinking isn’t limited to survival, so I can think about what is fulfilling. And when I started the show with Finn, I finally started to dare to dream. I don’t think that my family understands exactly what my life looks like, but they love me and that’s enough. I know they’re there with me no matter what I do, and I’m deciding to be bold and dream bigger. To hope. To believe in myself. And to love hard enough to fall and trust Finn will catch me.