Chapter 23 #2
Mo had two beertinis before feeling solid enough to put her name on the list to sing.
She never ordered beertinis in New York, but back here, it felt right.
It was a draft beer—in her case, Michelob Ultra—with a handful of green olives in it.
Sounded gross, but it was basically an appetizer paired with a drink. Very efficient.
She put herself down for “Pink Pony Club.” She finished her drink and ordered another, and before she knew it, she was at the microphone singing about Santa Monica and big dreams, only one of which she knew about.
Sweaty and laughing, Mo finished the song, but in a few minutes Anna dragged her back up to sing a duet of “Sisters” from White Christmas , one of their favorites growing up.
By the time the duet finished, Tiff had bought everyone shots of some eggnog liquor that the bar still had on hand, even though it was May.
Maureen choked down her shot and watched as someone from a new group took on the Killers.
She thought about that first car ride with Wes to the Hill, wishing they hadn’t left things so weird last night.
Or wishing they had started things weirder, with him explaining everything the moment he saw her.
Luckily, the bar was too loud and she had had too much to drink to replay every mistake and missed opportunity.
She’d been in constant movement since she woke up this morning, no time to think, and that was for the best.
“I need to eat something,” Mo said. Her stomach lurched with the eggnog—and maybe a little with the thought of Wes’s face, admitting he’d read her first book years ago.
Tiff had wandered into a corner with lap dance guy, where they were furiously making out.
Lainey, Mo, and Anna ventured outside. Lainey paused for a cigarette (“I only smoke when I’m drinking”), but Mo’s attention was on a Super Dog food truck parked down the street.
She tugged on Anna’s hand. “You need to eat too,” Mo said.
The sisters stood in line, the cool air doing its work to sober them.
The streetlamps, too, made it harder to feel drunk than the technicolor red and blue bar lights had.
They each ordered a fully loaded hot dog—relish, onions, ketchup, mustard, and jalape n os.
“Sorry if this is kind of a laid-back bachelorette party,” Mo said, mouth full.
She swallowed, the bun sticking in her throat.
She wished she had a beer to wash it down but knew she didn’t need another.
“I wanted you here to celebrate all this with me. And I thought seeing Kyle at dinner might help you know him better.”
Mo must have made some sort of face, a face dramatic enough that Anna could see its expression in the light of the streetlamp.
“What?” her sister asked.
“I don’t get Kyle.” She paused and tried to reroute, but her mouth got away from her. “I know you love him and he loves you, but I feel like you deserve someone … He’s just so—listen, I don’t want to say something that will hurt your feelings.”
Anna’s lips pursed. “Then you should have stopped talking two minutes ago. I’m going to chalk this up to alcohol or moodiness. Can you be happy with me that I found a guy I can imagine making a life with? Is this because you’re jealous?”
Mo snorted. “Of Kyle?”
“You don’t even know him. You barely even know me anymore,” Anna said, her voice tight and hard.
Maureen felt the gut punch of that statement. “Anna.”
Her sister relented, turning toward Mo. “What?”
“I am sorry. I’m sorry for not being here as much the past few years. Hell, do you know how bad I felt when I didn’t even have an idea for this party tonight? I didn’t know you’d grown into having a whole karaoke song list.”
Anna shrugged a shoulder. “You could have asked.”
“I could have. And I could have asked more about Kyle too. I know. I will try harder. Look,” she said, getting out her phone and opening Instagram. “I will follow him. I will make kind comments about his life and learn more, okay?”
Anna paused, seemed to relax a little. “Love takes effort. All kind of love. It’s a verb, not a noun, right?
I love him, and I appreciate that you’ll put in some effort to get to know him too.
But be warned: His Instagram is a mess, but sure.
It’s a start. Prepare for lots of Star Wars memes and woodworking pics. ”
“And you.”
“Yes, and me. We should talk more.”
“I agree. Love is a verb. I’ll do better.
” Mo grabbed her hand. “And maybe I am jealous. Not of Kyle. I will give him a chance, I promise. But I’m jealous that you have it figured out.
I’m the older sister, and I feel like I was such a leader to you.
I had everything figured out when we were younger, and now? ”
“Now?” Anna prompted.
Mo leaned against the building. It was an antiques store. Small, haunted-looking dolls glared out at them. If she hadn’t been emotionally socked in the gut, it would have been funny. “Now I’m a mess.”
Anna leaned next to Mo, her long sweep of blonde hair coming loose from her half pony to hang around her face. “You seem off. I mean, besides insulting the love of my life.”
“Ugh, again, I’m sorry about that.”
“You should be. But tell me what’s up. Let me sibling you a little.”
When Anna used sibling as a verb, it evoked their best days together.
At Iowa State, Mo had a terrible first-year roommate randomly assigned to her who was obsessed with insects.
Her second year, she lived with friends and they fought nonstop.
Finally, junior year, her sister became a Cyclone too, and they lived together off campus.
Nothing had ever felt more natural than those days, coming back to the apartment and laughing about the idiotic things they were obsessed with.
They siblinged back then: knew each other to the core; teased and loved each other in equal parts.
It was the same ease now Mo had with Sloan and Mackenzie, but she’d lost the knack of it with Anna.
Mo took a deep breath. “I wrote another book, but I don’t think it has a chance to get published. ”
“That’s big,” Anna said.
“It’s an adaptation of The Proud and the Lost .”
Anna made a face, scrunching her nose so that her freckles rearranged their constellation. “Ugh, that book we were supposed to read in Miss Tucci’s class in eleventh grade? With the car crash?”
“I’d read it about a dozen times before that, but yes.” And, after a deep breath, Mo told her about the time at the estate two weeks ago and about Estelle, including her heart attack. She edged around Wes’s involvement, but she had to mention him to make the story understandable.
Because Anna had superpowers, she must have heard something in Mo’s voice. “You like Wes.” When Mo didn’t deny it, Anna pushed on. “Is that why you and Aaron broke up? Not that I was a huge fan of Aaron, but—”
“I actually broke up with Aaron a year ago.”
Anna took a bite of her hot dog, then swallowed. “A year is a long time to not tell your family about.”
Mo slid down the wall, below the eyeline of the haunted dolls. The concrete was reassuringly cold and solid under her. “I know. I’m sorry. I think I have this thing about admitting mistakes to you. Since I moved out there, I mean.”
“Or, you know, since forever.” Her sister sat next to her.
“I just don’t want you all to worry about me making the wrong choice. Or be ashamed of me.”
“The only way we would be ashamed of you is if you lost yourself.” Anna knocked her shoulder softly against Mo’s. “And if this Wes guy makes you feel like you’re not good enough, then I don’t like him.”
“No, definitely not. I feel—I feel like my silliest me. My best me.” Mo didn’t have a hot dog to distract her now. “And that’s probably how Kyle makes you feel. I’m such a dumbass. I’m sorry.”
“You are a dumbass, and I love you.” Anna stood up and offered a hand to help Mo do the same. “So, are you seeing this guy?”
“We’re reading our books to each other—the rest of our books. And I’m getting to know him better.” In bed, she wanted to add, like they used to at the end of fortune cookies.
Anna’s face broke into a smile. “Oh, Mo, that is so cute. Only you would fall in love via book club, I swear.”
“It’s not a book club,” Mo said, irritated. She thought of the manuscript in her suitcase that she’d saved to read on the flight home, like the dessert at the end of a long meal. “And I’m not in love with him. It’s all … very complicated.”
“You love complicated. You love complicated things so much you will literally invent them. That’s half of what being a writer is, right?” Anna made her voice go sultry. “It’s a sexy-times book club. Wes and Mo and the sexy-times book club.”
“With car crashes.”
“Oh yeah, only the sexiest car crashes.” Her sister glanced around the quiet street. A truck drove by, casting its headlights to illuminate the freaky dolls in the window even more clearly. “You should call him,” Anna said.
“I am not going to call him. It’s, like, three AM there.”
“You could text him.”
“I’m not going to text him!”
Anna grabbed the phone out of Mo’s hand and scrolled through the contacts. “Oh, he’s been texting you. And you’re seeing him next week?”
“Maybe.”
“For a date?”
“No.” She didn’t know for sure. She didn’t tell her sister how much she wanted it to be but how weird they had left things.
Wes was a nepo baby, a publishing insider.
Wes was her rival. Wes had read her first book.
Wes had punched an asshole and gotten himself fired.
Wes didn’t know how to let things not be perfect, but what if she couldn’t be perfect?
What if complication really was all she was set up for?
Before she could ruminate more, her sister pointed meaningfully at her phone. “You have him in here under his full name? Wesley Spencer? What is he, your insurance agent?” Anna tapped for a minute, then handed it back to Mo.
Mo glanced down, where Wes’s name had been changed to Lover Boy Hot Sex XXX .
Mo tried to shove her but was laughing too hard.
They walked back to the bar, which was closing, to scoop up the other two bridesmaids.
The Killers singer gave them an enthusiastic goodbye outside the bar, with an impromptu toast to Anna better than any Mo had thought up so far.
“May your love be an example to others, and an example to yourselves. Let your love today and on your wedding day change and grow, and be for others a beacon of charity, hope, and joy.”
“He’s better than my Unitarian minister,” Tiff informed the group as they ambled to the hotel.
Mo was sober enough to check them all in with the night clerk.
Tiff and Lainey went to their double-occupancy room, and Anna and Mo went to theirs.
It was, Mo mused, the first time they had shared a room since visiting their grandma at the pig farm all those years ago.
As she fell asleep to the familiar snuffles from her sister across the room, Mo wished she were sharing the bed with someone else.