Chapter Six
Family bonding looks different for everyone.
Elodie
My phone rings in my ear as I paste another wedding dress onto the collage in front of me, squishing the mermaid gown between a huge, princessy contraption and a sleek, timeless sheath dress.
Ruby isn’t likely to wear any of these dresses, and she’s definitely never going to see this scrapbook I’m making—partially because she can’t see, and partially because I would rather die than admit that I considered putting her in a big, poofy, frilly dress—but it’s a fun exercise anyway, and a nice way to relax.
Not that I have time to relax, but whatever. My homework can wait an hour.
“Hello?” the soft voice of my favorite cousin crackles through the line.
I grin. “Lyra!”
Laughter answers me. “Elodie!”
I laugh too, joy tingling beneath my skin. “What’s crackin?'” I ask, grabbing a bridal magazine off the stack on the couch beside me and flipping through, looking for my next victim.
“Jupiter and I are making a mini-golf course,” she says. “Slash butterfly garden.”
They’re so cool. “I want a mini-golf course slash butterfly garden,” I say.
“That sounds sick. Where are you putting it? At the nursery?” I don’t remember there being a lot of space there, but maybe it was hidden.
Somehow. Or maybe they’re restructuring the property to fit in the mini-golf. They’ve got the money for it.
I’m surrounded by rich people, and yet my bank account, it remains sorrowfully low. Can one not become rich by proximity? Osmosis? How does it happen?
“We’re doing it in the backyard, actually.
Kind of between our house and Mars and Ceres’ house.
It’s been really fun figuring out how to incorporate the butterfly plants and work around Mars’ garden.
We dug the course today, then this week Jove will start putting down the artificial turf while I work on the plants.
Then all that will be left is to add what Jove calls an adequate amount of flags . ”
“This is so fun !” I exclaim. “I can’t wait to see it next time I visit.”
“Unfortunately, it won’t be done by tomorrow. Maybe the visit after that.”
I snort. “Sorry, dear cousin, but it’ll be a wee bit longer before I can get up there again. Very busy here, you see. I’m planning a wedding!”
She gasps, and I hear something topple through the phone. “Wedding? To Salty Boy?”
I choke on glue fumes, dropping my magazine. “Ew!” I gag. “No! Of course not!”
“Oh,” she replies, significantly more subdued. “Boo. Who’s the wedding for, then?”
“Ruby and Will.” I shake off the yuck of implied romance between Roman and me. “They’re getting married in September, and I’m the maid of honor.”
“Ooo,” she replies. “Fancy title for a fancy lady.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Fancy title for a fancy clueless lady. That’s why I’m calling.
I’m kind of spearheading the wedding planning, and I was hoping you’d have some tips and tricks?
” I look over the wedding inspo in front of me, eyes roving the magazines, wedding-themed scrapbook paper, and various tubes of glitter glue—among other art supplies.
Not a single tip or trick to be found in this absolute waste of my time.
“Please, Ly, I’m kind of useless here.” Except for that time I flawlessly executed a bridal party email chain, but the high from that win wore off right around the time I started searching up venues.
Who knew there were so many? And who knew you were supposed to know whether or not you want a venue that provides chairs?
Or that there are so many that do not provide chairs.
Sitting, I’ve discovered, is a very expensive pastime.
“Oh, I didn’t do any of the planning,” Lyra crushes me, then puts me back together. “Jupiter and Mars took care of that. Here, I’ll pass the phone to Jupiter, and you can ask him about it.”
The phone shuffles as I find a spare piece of mostly empty paper, grabbing a neon pink glitter gel pen to take notes.
“Yeah?” a man’s voice rumbles in my ear.
Yummy.
“Hey!” I greet, smiling at Jove’s rough tone.
“Lyra said you and Mars handled the wedding planning for you guys. Any advice you could give me? I’m planning a wedding over here, too.
My bestie’s,” I assure him, not wanting a repeat of the yucky yucky ew ew.
“Not mine. Your wedding was gorg, though, by the way. Magazine-worthy. All the lights! And the flags! And that carrot cake, goodness gracious. I dream about that cake.”
I pause to breathe and, perhaps, let him regale me with mind-blowing wedding tips.
He says only, “Mars did everything. I’ll give you his number.” Then another shuffle.
“I’m back,” Lyra says. “Very quickly.”
Giggling, I tease, “Your husband sounds just as hot as ever. Lucky, lucky Lyra.”
Lucky, lucky Lyra snorts. Giggles. Clears her throat. “Yes. Well.”
Yes, well, indeed.
“How is married life anyway?” I ask, abandoning my scrapbooking. I pull my leg up onto the couch and get comfortable. “Everything you wanted and more? Please say yes. I need my heart to beat romantic again. A reminder that good, true love is really out there.”
Lyra sighs the sigh of a woman properly loved.
“Married life is beautiful, El. Wonderful. Fun. Invigorating. Not just the stuff with Jupiter, which is perfect, but being a part of his family, too. Gaining a brother and a sister in one fell swoop? I’m so blessed and so grateful.
Last week we even did family bonding, roasting marshmallows over Ted’s mysteriously burnt-down shed.
I couldn’t have asked for a better evening—unless, of course, you had been there. ”
I appreciate the sentiment. I do so love a little s’mores with my arson.
“You should have invited Sol,” I offer. “Having him there would have been just like having me.” Because.
You know. My brother, who moved to West Virginia in an effort to leave me lonely and alone and all by myself and, oh yeah, freaking alone , is definitely an adequate replacement for me.
A better replacement, even, being practically perfect and all.
“As much as I love Sol,” Lyra cuts into my not-at-all-bitter thoughts, “he’s no Elodie. Plus, I did invite him. He stopped by for a little bit.”
Do I want Sol to be isolated and without companionship in his new town? No. Does it absolutely kill something inside of me that, after abandoning me, he is happily working and getting invited to things and living a life that has nothing at all to do with me? Yes.
This is why everyone loves Sol more than me.
Sol would never be half-wishing a sad, lonesome life on me.
Sol would, instead, push me into said life with an I love you, please come visit.
while believing with his whole heart that I would be fine on my own, because that’s what I told him when he brought up moving six hours away , because he looked so hopeful about the possibility that I couldn’t bear to let my selfishness ruin his promotion opportunity.
Stupid, Elodie. Get over yourself.
“You should come visit us,” Lyra says into the space where I should have been responding but am not, because it’s hard to respond when you have a giant, Saturn-sized lump in your throat.
“Um,” I say now, unwilling to commit to a trip out.
I’d love to, but I’m not exactly overflowing with free time between school, work, and wedding planning.
Spare moments? What are those, the silly blonde girl asks, looking around in confusion.
The audience laughs, points, and says how very dumb she is, scheduling herself in such a way that a single moment cannot be found.
“Whenever you can,” Lyra assures me. “We’ll be ready for you.”
Behind me, the lock on the front door jiggles, slides, then clicks.
Saved by the giant ginger jerk.
He walks in as I wrap up my conversation, hitting Lyra with a quick, “Gotta go, love you, bye!” before clicking End Call on her response. The last thing I need is for Lyra to hear more of Roman and get any more silly ideas .
“Your mysterious cousin?” Roman asks, eyeing me as he drops his keys into the bowl by the door. “Who, for reasons unknown, you don’t seem to want to know that I exist?”
“Lyra isn’t mysterious,” I respond, choosing to ignore the half-curious, half-accusatory tone in the latter part of his communication.
“Lyra is adorable, and sweet, and kind, and beautiful, and all things lovely. A romantic little thing who creates fairytales out of life, befriending butterflies and showering the world in flowers. I couldn’t think of a less mysterious person, unless you consider romance and whimsy to be mysterious. ”
Roman, who had paused mid-shoe removal to raise skeptical eyebrows at me around the “befriending butterflies” portion of my description of my dear cousin, blinks.
“She sounds…” he pauses, for why I could not say.
The only possible ending to that sentence is perfect , which I helpfully supply for him.
“I know. Don’t get too excited, though. She’s married. To a man whose shoulders outdo yours and who thinks slashing tires and bleaching people’s yards is a worthwhile way to spend his time.”
His eyelashes, so light against his freckled skin, flutter at a speed I did not know men were capable of fluttering. “Does your adorable, sweet, kind, beautiful, all-things-lovely cousin need a rescue?” he has the audacity to ask. “Because that does not exactly sound like a good man.”
Affronted, I glare. “Jove is the best man on earth, after Sol. He protects her and loves her better than anyone else could ever dream to. How dare you.”
“You just told me the guy slashes tires for fun!” he protests, brows furrowing as he finishes kicking off his shoes. “In what way could that possibly translate to best man on earth ?”
“In every way, obviously,” I sniff.
He opens his mouth, clearly working up something else ridiculous to say, but my stomach rumbles, cutting him off. He glances at it, scowling. “Elodie,” he says, tone… off. “When’s the last time you ate?”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t know. Earlier. Lunch, probably.” Or, actually, it was more like brunch, but I’m not telling him that. The last time I didn’t eat for longer than he felt appropriate, I was hand-fed. I would very much like to avoid that scenario ever happening again.
“And what did you eat at lunchtime?”
My nose scrunches. “Bread and cheese, Dad .” Bread and cheese in the form of Cheez-Its, but I’m not telling him that either.
He sighs, put out by my very existence, I can only assume. “I’ll make something quick,” he tells me. “Bison pasta, maybe.”
Bison pasta being buffalo chicken pasta, one of my favorites, and not even remotely “quick” to make when one is making it Roman’s way.
I, just barely, have convinced him to stop making his own elbow macaroni for it, but he still makes the mac and cheese from scratch, baking it with a breadcrumb crust on top before topping it with fried strips of chicken tenders he also makes from scratch, green onion, and buffalo sauce he, you guessed it, also makes from scratch.
The process, start to finish, takes an hour.
When I make my own bison mac, it takes thirty minutes, and that’s just because the oven takes a year to preheat for the frozen chicken strips I buy.
A box of mac and cheese, a swig of buffalo sauce, and maybe some green onions if I feel like cutting them up, and my meal is made.
It doesn’t taste anywhere near as delicious as Roman’s version, but for a weeknight after work, it’s all the energy I’m willing to put in.
Roman considers my version to be sacrilege to kitchens everywhere.
I made it one time after moving in, and he banned me from cooking henceforth in this home.
Which was… oh so sad. Real bummer. Poor me, cannot cook anymore, must be fed by the professional chef who makes the best version of everything he attempts. A tragedy, that.
“I would love some bison pasta,” I tell him, beginning the process of picking up my scrapbook clutter. “Thank you.”
Ooo, look at me. Being mature and polite and everything. Because of character growth, for sure, and not at all because I have buffalo sauce dangling from a string in front of my face. That would be silly.
“I’ll be upstairs if you want to just holler for me when it’s done. I have some… things to do.” A mountain of homework I should have already been doing, which I dearly hope will not crush me when I finally allow the weight of it to rest on my shoulders.
Roman waves me off, muttering about butter and hot sauce and what sorts of cheese we have in the fridge as he beelines for the kitchen.
Taking that as confirmation that he’ll let me know when dinner’s ready, I haul my craft supplies upstairs, dump them in the high wingback chair in the corner of my room to be dealt with later, and settle in at the little sewing desk I found at an estate sale shortly after I moved in here.
It was the perfect size for the space afforded to me by the slightly-bigger-than-what-I-had-previously bedroom.
The chair at the desk—a not incredibly comfortable wooden thing found at an antique mall uptown—is balanced in comfort by a thick, squishy cushion I sewed for it out of a patchwork of patterns from my scrap fabric bin.
Sitting on it now, I lower the sewing machine into the hideaway portion of the desk meant for storing it, and fold over the wood that covers it.
Desk now ready, I grab my backpack from the floor and pull out my laptop, notebooks, and pencil case, then arrange them on my desk.
As a final touch before I jump into my coursework, I open a drawer to my right, close my eyes, and shove my hand in, pulling out the first miniature object I feel from the assortment filling the drawer.
Opening my hand, and my eyes, I see that I’ve selected an itty-bitty jar of itty-bitty clay koala bears from my air-dry clay phase. They’re so cute with their little hands full of eucalyptus and their disproportionately big ears. Gracious, I love them.
Maybe I should get back into clay sculpting…
Sadly, responsibility calls, and I must set the jar—and my hobby desires—aside to live in the corner of my desk as I work, a spot of hope and joy amongst the bore.
“Just think,” I tell the koalas. “We could be committing arson and making s’mores right now.”
The little guys, overcome with despair at all they’re missing, do not respond, so I sigh, open my laptop, and get to work.