30. A Giant Prank
30
A GIANT PRANK
Elodie
The second the soles of my sneakers hit the top step on Juliet’s floor, my friend swings open the door to her apartment. With eager eyes, she declares, “Everything. I need to know everything.”
“You know everything,” I tease, but my stomach flips with butterflies, making a liar of me.
Undeterred, Juliet shuts the door behind her.
Stares me up and down.
It takes her three seconds to diagnose. “I knew it! You got banged in Vegas.”
“Shh,” I say since Amanda’s just beyond the door in her apartment. Juliet—my friend, my savior—picked her up from Ally’s house this morning, and they hung out together for the day.
I love my friends so much. They’re like Amanda’s aunts.
Juliet scoffs, flapping a hand behind her. “Sawyer’s here. They’re playing Mind the Gap and Amanda’s got music blasting at a ridiculous decibel. Tell me everything.”
Sawyer is Juliet’s big brother and he’s as obsessed with board games and video games as Amanda is. Two decades older, he’s like the fun uncle she never had. He’s a ruthless competitor, too, so I’m sure they're neck and neck in pop music trivia from the new game Amanda picked up a few weeks ago.
Juliet makes a rolling gesture with her hands. “So you got married, and then…”
A tingle runs down my spine as I picture this morning in the hotel room. A smile takes me hostage. “And then my temporary husband gave me the best sex of my life.”
She squeals.
“Well…we had an extra hour. What else were we to do?” I ask, ever so innocently.
“I’m finally getting a pancake-breakfast-worthy update,” she says, gathering my hands in hers. “Details.”
I tell her about the wedding, then how we upgraded our clothes, then the music, then the room.
Juliet holds up a stop-sign hand. “I do want to hear about all the in-room services, but first…you rented a dress? And he got a suit?”
It’s like she’s caught me in the act of…something. “We did. Why are you asking like that?”
She hums as if it’s obvious. “Because it meant something to you.”
“Well, I did marry him. It didn’t mean nothing.”
“I know. But it sounds like it meant more than you expected. More than a marriage of convenience.”
I want to deny it, but instead I give a one-shouldered shrug. “Look, you know I like him. I always have. It just doesn’t mean everything .”
She hums again, doubtful this time. “Doesn’t sound like it means nothing either.”
I remember the way Gage looked at me as I walked down the aisle—like I was a mystery he wanted to uncover—then relent. “You’re right. It meant something. But it can’t mean what your big, squishy heart wants it to mean.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine, fine. Tell me about the magic D then.”
I give her a few more details, finishing with, “He’s just…he’s great, Juliet. He’s truly great. I’ve never met anyone like Gage. But it’s just an arrangement, and I can’t get caught up in it.”
Words to live by. Words I’d better not ever forget.
“It’s a wonderful arrangement though.”
“I suppose it is. But it’s also surreal. And a little terrifying. Because now I have to deal with what’s next .”
“And what’s that?”
I gulp. “Gage and I talked about it in the car. But I should probably tell Amanda first,” I say, and all at once, my sex high wears off. Reality slams into me. “I just got married to ward off a threat to my livelihood, and I’m also trying to raise my sister to be a good person who doesn’t lie. What does this say to her about how I solve problems?”
Juliet grabs my arm, squeezing it like she’s trying to impart all her boldness into me. “That you’re a mama bear.”
I frown. “Juliet. You can’t believe that.”
She squares her shoulders. “I can and I do. You’re busting your cute little butt for your sister every day. You’re finding new ways to take care of your family. You’re fighting and working it. Do not dismiss that.”
My throat catches. “Really?” I need this so badly—someone’s reassurance that I’m doing this right. Or at least, not wrong.
“Yes, you may be unconventional in your methods, but your heart, friend?” she says, then points importantly to the door. “It’s beating for that girl in there.”
As if on cue, my chest swells with emotions. “I have no choice. I must hug you right now.”
She widens her arms. “Incoming hug.”
We embrace, and buoyed by her strength, I go inside. Girl pop is blasting from Amanda’s phone in greeting as I prepare to tackle the start of what’s next.
But first, Amanda and Sawyer are facing off on Juliet’s couch while a black-and-white cat paces, watching them like an official in a tennis game. Amanda slaps a palm down on the couch cushion. “Zendaya doesn’t have a last name, bro!”
“So I was right then,” Sawyer insists, “when I gave her first name.”
“She’s not Zendaya Smith,” Amanda argues.
“But she is Zendaya. I got that part right. The rest is details,” he says, ever the businessman, trying to talk his way out of a situation and looking the part, too, in a crisp tailored shirt, even on a Sunday.
“How do you not know who Zendaya is?” Amanda continues.
“How does she not have a last name?”
“That woman from your generation doesn’t. You guys have all those celebrities with no last names. Madonna and…you know.”
Juliet clears her throat. “Hello, Madonna is our mama’s generation.”
“Yes, kiddo,” I add, backing up my friend and my generation.
“It’s all the same. It’s old,” Amanda insists.
“Fine, fine. Don’t give me credit for Zendaya Smith. I will still destroy you,” Sawyer warns, but ten minutes later, he’s schooled by my sister. She lifts her arms in victory. “I am the trivia queen,” she says, then glances at me, then my shiny gold ring. “So the outfit of the day is married, I see?”
I gulp, hoping Juliet is right. “It is.”
* * *
Before dinner that night, Gage calls, and I can hear the pride in his voice, a man who’s solved a problem. “I have a proposal for you,” he says, as I turn the heat down on a pan of sauteed broccoli and carrots.
“But you already proposed. Kind of twice.”
“Woman, there was no kind of.”
I smile. “For real twice.”
“A man should do all good things in multiples. Orgasms, proposals, and purchases of chocolate.”
“I don’t disagree,” I say, plating the veggies on top of the fluffy rice I cooked earlier.
“So, what do you think about this…” He details the idea, and it feels a little like a fairy tale.
After dinner that night, I tell Amanda the plan for the next two months, the time left on the lease, and she just shrugs a yes. “I guess it sounds cool. Like a vacation for the rest of the year or something.”
She sets a plate in the dishwasher. How can she be so level-headed about it? My stomach churns with another set of am I doing this right worries as I rinse off a bowl to hand to her. “You really are good with it?”
“Sure. I mean, it’s weird, but whatever.”
Is that a good whatever or an I can’t be bothered whatever? I don’t know. I turn off the faucet and dry my hands. Rather than guess, I flash back to advice my shrink has given me over the years. Be kind and be honest . “Amanda, sometimes I feel…” Then I just rip off the Band-Aid. “Like I’m doing a terrible job with this whole thing. With you. Raising you.”
“With me?” she asks, incredulous.
“Yes.” That’s honest.
She shakes her head, shutting the dishwasher. “I don’t think so.” She’s certain where I’m not.
“You don’t?”
She’s quiet at first, then swallows and says, “You’re around more.” Her voice starts to crack.
Mine does too. “Than Mom or Dad?”
She nods, her blue eyes glistening.
“They weren’t around that much?” I ask to be sure since this is news to me. “I thought…” I thought they raised you differently than me.
“Els, they were kind of obsessed with recovery. That was their thing. Sobriety coaching. Being sponsors. Being there for their sponsees,” she says, her tone so vulnerable that it breaks my heart a little.
“I thought they were super parents,” I say, taking a beat to process this new intel.
“I mean, I loved them. I miss them. But I don’t think you’re like…a bad guardian.”
I laugh at the half compliment. “Thanks.”
“I mean it,” she says, genuinely. She dips her face, and when she raises it and meets my gaze I can tell she has something important to say. Maybe something that’s been weighing on her. “Sometimes I feel bad though. You had this whole life at age twenty-eight. You probably wanted to get married and settle down. And then I landed in your lap.”
My heart breaks even more. I reach for her, curl my hands over her shoulders. “Don’t ever doubt that this is where I want to be. With you.”
“Are you sure?” Tears slip from her eyes. I wipe them away.
“I never hesitated to take care of you. And I never will,” I say, my tone brooking no argument. “You’re mine. Do you understand?”
She places her head on my shoulder, pressing her face to me, nodding against me. “I like that you’re around. I like that you come to the studio. And play trivia games. I like that I get to work in the shop. I like that you tell me your crazy things. Like getting married. I never knew what was going on with them.”
I stroke her hair, marveling at this seismic shift in my view of my parents and maybe myself. Here I thought I was the wild, impulsive, irresponsible one. Maybe I am. But maybe there’s another side to the impulsive coin. Being honest with the people you love. “I never thought about keeping any of my crazy life from you, including this married part.”
She pulls away gently, offers me a small smile. “It’s kind of fun to be in on it. It’s like a giant prank. Or a game. And that dude is the worst,” she says, her nose curling as she brings up Sebastian.
“He is.”
I haven’t told her much about him. She doesn’t need to know all the things he’s said to me. But she knows I don’t like him. She knows he’s a bad guy. And she knows, too, that if he ever comes into my regular shop when she’s at the counter, she needs to find someone else—Kenji or me—to deal with him.
“But thanks to him, I get a pinball room, and a movie theater, and a pool for almost two months,” Amanda says.
My sister might be the most adaptable person I’ve ever known. It comes from the harshest kind of necessity, but she is, after all, forged from the fire.
But perhaps I am too, and maybe I’m not so bad at setting an example of how to step up for your family. “Then later this week let’s move into my temporary husband’s rich brother’s mansion.”