3. Dee
Chapter three
Dee
“So, what’s the plan?” My cousin, Morgan, asks as she puts on her coat.
“This is the plan,” I say, gesturing around me. “We’re killing some homework, binge-watching trash TV, eating too much candy, and staying up way too late making prank phone calls.”
Morgan glares at me. “Hilarious. It’s like you don’t want to ever be allowed to babysit ever again. What’s the plan for your career, not the sleepover?”
“Talk about a buzzkill. Your mom really needs to lighten up,” I say like the smart-ass I am, nudging Emi gently in her side with my elbow, making her giggle.
“What’s a buzzkill?” she asks.
“When you kill a bee. How shitty, right?” I ask, outraged.
“Yeah, that’s shitty. They’re really important for the environment.”
I give Morgan a look, tilting my head toward her daughter. “She gets it.”
“Mom says you shouldn’t have been working in that soul-sucking job anyway.”
“Oh really?” I ask. Ever since Emi hit the fourth grade, she’s become the worst secret keeper. It’s not like my cousin Morgan or her husband Kai are huge gossips, but they have to watch everything they say now, because the kid will recite the entire damn thing like a Shakespearean monologue.
Morgan lets out a deep sigh. “You are both hell-bent on half listening to me. What I said was…well, okay, that time I did actually mean what you think I meant. They never treated you right there to begin with. They always had you fighting to prove yourself, when you were already working three times as hard as your coworkers.”
“Did I have a corner office at Keller’s? No, but I got all the secondhand sunlight I needed from my cubicle. I was living the dream.”
“Do you mean indirect sunlight?” Morgan asks with a laugh.
“Same thing.” I shrug.
“I think this could be a good thing,” she says, voice serious. “Starting over. Finding somewhere new that treats its employees better.
“This elusive job you speak of,” I say, giving a wiggle of my fingers in the air. “How exactly do I find it?”
“I don’t have all the answers, but I don’t think you would have left that job on your own. You were focused on climbing, not thriving.”
“Uh…I’m offended. I’m clearly thriving right now,” I say, before grabbing an ice-cream sandwich from the freezer and lobbing it at her kid, then pulling another one out for me.
“Yeah, well, you can always come to us if you need help.”
I roll my eyes as I unwrap my dessert.
“Dee,” Morgan says firmly, drawing my unwilling gaze to meet hers. She softens, realizing my hesitancy. “I mean it. I’ve got you.”
“I have savings to fall back on.” For a few months…
maybe. “I put out some more applications today. I even have a lead on a potential interview from a guy I used to work with.” Sure, Phil was kind of a dick when we worked together at Keller’s, but I’ll take what I can get.
I take a giant bite of my ice-cream sandwich before mumbling around my food, “Things are looking promising.”
She dips her chin, eyebrows raising in challenge, daring me to say that again, like she doesn’t believe me.
“Love you. But I’m good. I mean it.”
“Love you too, Dee. Love you, Ems,” Morgan says, before giving Emi a hug goodbye so she and Kai can start their date night.
I try to host Emi at least once a month so that her parents can have a night to themselves every once in a while.
Plus, aside from Luca—Ellie and Dominic’s two-year-old son—she’s the coolest kid I know.
I follow Morgan to the door to lock up after she leaves. “And you know, if you’re really worried, just be sure to leave a massive tip behind for babysitting. And a Yelp review.”
Morgan rolls her eyes. “Don’t get in trouble, Emi,” she yells over my shoulder. “Make sure Dee Dee doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Emi gives her mom a salute from the couch. “On it, Mom!”
“Yee of little faith,” I whisper, closing the door so Morgan can only see a sliver of my face before I turn and yell to Emi, “Okay, time to prank call all your teachers and then blackmail them into giving you straight A’s.”
Emi and I spend the next thirty minutes getting her homework out of the way while I set up snacks on the coffee table for movie night.
“Dee Dee?” Emi asks, her voice so quiet it’s hard to hear her.
“What’s up, Ems?”
“What do you do when someone doesn’t want to be your friend?”
I sit up a little straighter. “What do you mean, jelly bean?”
“This girl at school, Tina. She invited all the other girls in class to her birthday party, but not me. It felt pretty shitty. Like a shitty buzzkill.” Yeah, Morgan’s not going to be thrilled that that phrase is sticking.
I love being a pseudo-aunt to Emi, but this stuff?
The honest-to-God helplessness I feel hearing that she’s having a hard time with a girl at school? What the hell do I do with that?
“Maybe she forgot your invite. You know how forgetful I can be sometimes. Maybe that’s something she struggles with too.”
She shakes her head before I finish. “No, she told my friend Becky she didn’t want me there.”
A fist wraps around my heart and squeezes. The ache that pounds in my chest reverberates all the way to my temples.
“It sounds like Tina doesn’t know what she’s missing out on.
You’re a really special friend, Ems. I’m not saying that doesn’t suck.
It really does. But not everyone is going to see us and really see the important parts.
Some people only look for the parts they want to see, and they like to fill in the rest of the blanks themselves without bothering to give us a chance.
My guess is this Tina is hurting, and it’s easier for her to hurt other people than to face whatever is bothering her.
” I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her close to me, leaning back on the couch.
“But I promise you, it’s not about you.”
Her eyes glisten, but she doesn’t cry. She leans into my side and pulls the blanket up to her waist. “Okay, Dee Dee.”
“Okay,” I reply softly before she hits play on the movie. I’m left wondering if what I said helped Emi at all. God, how does Morgan do this?
Memories flash through my mind for the rest of the movie, unwelcome and making me want to cringe at just the thought of how it used to feel when I experienced my own share of unkindness at the hands of my peers.
The immature part of me wants to storm into her fourth-grade classroom and demand that Tina show herself so I can figure out just why the fuck she feels like it’s okay to exclude her classmates.
But the rational part of my mind knows that dealing with unfairness, rejection, and the hurt they cause is part of life.
I can’t shield Emi from that. Even Morgan and Kai can’t do that.
I’ll talk to Morgan about it in the morning and make sure she knows. God, I don’t envy her…having to navigate stuff like this as a mom has to feel so heavy.
I give Emi’s shoulder another squeeze when she giggles at her favorite part of the movie, and I make a silent wish that life is kind to her tomorrow. Because sometimes it really is a game of one day at a time.