Chapter 2 #2
Even last year at the engagement party, after thirteen years of Annie-free bliss, I still knew exactly which Li sister was standing in front of me, way before she opened her mouth to insult me.
She was just… a lot. Everything about her was immediately overwhelming.
She’d grown up to be so devastatingly beautiful it knocked the air outta me, and it was a fuckin’ lot.
The tattoos down her arms and legs were a lot.
The slinky dress that hid no part of her insane body was too much, and then her eyes—sharp and gorgeous, cutting straight through me as she told me I’d aged like spoiled milk, every word rolling off those pillowy lips? It was way too fuckin’ much.
She was so much that I had to pound vodka sodas just to take the edge off—to dull the intensity of our constant, violent, verbal sparring that picked up right where it left off thirteen years ago.
It backfired, of course. Now she still thinks I’m a trashy, illiterate sausage who can’t hold his liquor… and also thinks she’s sexy.
I hate that she’s right. Because yeah, the accent I’ve spent years trying to get rid of and the whole (checks notes) porn thing make me kinda trashy.
I can read scientific journals and articles all day every day, but I can’t make it past the first page of any sort of fiction book (unless it’s by Tolkien, and even then, I was fourteen and it took me months), so maybe I am half-illiterate.
I also really like sausage. In fact, I’m on my way to eat it right now like a walkin’ freakin’ stereotype.
And anyone with eyes can see that thirty-year-old Annie Li is sexy as hell.
In fact, anyone without eyes would be able to feel it, too, if they squeezed that curve in her waist.
After all these years, it’s still incredibly frustrating to be reminded that Annie Li is always right.
I shake my head, redirecting my attention towards the nicer, better twin. “How’s it hangin’, beautiful? Visiting your parents?” And the spawn of Satan? I squeeze May and lift her off her feet, avoiding my penis and her hair.
She brushes my invisible cooties off her shirt after I put her down. “Yes, I need some things for the wedding,” she says.
I realize I’m grinning like a lunatic when May manages to look down her nose at me while being a foot shorter. “Are you tired or are you high?” she asks me.
“Yes,” I offer.
“Hmm.” She doesn’t judge because she’s the much nicer twin. “How are you getting to the wedding, by the way? Just flying in for the weekend?”
Tom has some douchey qualities, and that includes an appreciation of glamour and glitz and a flaunting of wealth that can be a little cringey.
Including having his rich as hell, very kind fiancé pay to have a wedding in South Beach.
Because he went to the University of Miami.
Ten years ago. I’m not complaining, though.
“I’m making a road trip out of it, actually.
A whole bunch of restaurants down the eastern seaboard have been reaching out to our lab, asking for someone to come visit and check out their kitchens and menus and stuff.
I’m leaving next Thursday, and it’ll take all week.
Staying in a bunch of rental properties.
I’ll be in South Beach the night before your welcome dinner. ”
My only search criteria for those rentals was ‘fuckin’ epic kitchen’ so that I’d be able to film some real good content for NakedReactions.
The nicer and bigger the kitchen, though, the nicer and bigger the house, so I’m renting out some pretty sick properties.
Two of them even have a pool and a separate pool house.
Maybe I’ll throw a party for restaurant kitchen staff.
I’m psyched, actually. It’ll be a real productive week.
“Sounds fun.”
“May Li.”
“What?”
“You and I haven’t hung out in mad long, and I’m going to your wedding in a few weeks. We haven’t worked together for a bit.” Over the last few years I’ve given May some insider info on city restaurants, and as an analyst she’d recommend them as “profitable investments” to her firm. “What gives?”
She shrugs. “My schedule doesn’t leave a lot of room for ‘hanging out.’ I’m in the middle of an important recommendation.” She thinks for a moment. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“Monday. Federal holiday. I have a rare day off.”
“Ah. Well, nothing.” Rubbing cream on my infected dick.
“Want to come to the beach with me and Tom? Rockaways?”
I think about it. The ocean could be good for my dick.
The osmotic pressure would help reduce the swelling.
I know that the high salt concentration lends itself to antibacterial properties.
And there are a bunch of minerals in the ocean that also have anti-inflammatory properties.
Although this may only work for surface wounds. Maybe not infections like mine?
I realize I’ve been thinking all of this out loud when May Li very kindly says, “I probably wouldn’t go into the ocean with an infected penis.”
I laugh because May Li can be hilarious. “’Tis but a scratch, May Li. Cooking accident.” I make a decision. Why not? “Okay, I’ll come and stay out of the ocean. Text me where on the beach.”
We give each other one last hug. May makes sure to leave space between her and my dick, and I continue my way down to my mom’s.
“You’re high as a fuckin’ kite,” is the first thing Ma says to me, smacking me on the side of the head.
I bring her in for a hug, her fluffy hair tickling my face, glasses mashing into my chest. “I missed you, too.”
“You got any more?” my sister, Valentina, asks from behind her.
I dig around in my pockets, pushing crumbs of unknown origin and some change around. I find two, pick some lint off of them, and hold them out.
My mother and my sister each take one, knock them together, and pop them in their mouths.
“You’re late,” Ma tells me, walking back into the kitchen.
I throw my bag on the ratty couch and take a deep inhale at the sharp tang of garlic and tomato and oregano and the warm yeastiness of bread and pasta and immediately feel my soul heal.
Valentina and I grew up helping Ma with Sunday dinner, the whole to-do of it, and it’s what got me involved in my doctorate concentration.
The NakedReactions channel, too, I guess.
“I ran into May Li,” I tell her, kissing Valentina on the head and moving to the plates to start setting the table. None of the plates match, so I make sure to pick my favorite ones—the heaviest and the thickest and the weirdest shaped. “Remember her? The twin?”
“Is she the normal one or the crazy one?” Valentina asks, sitting down to shave parm.
I cringe. “The normal one, I guess. I’m going to her wedding in a few weeks.”
“I always liked the crazy one,” Ma says. “I remember when youse guys were out on the block playin’ Manhunt and she kicked Bobby Pinto in the nuts ‘cause he pushed your sister onto the pavement.”
This checks out.
Valentina cackles. “Oh yeah, I remember that. She took me home after, too.”
This also checks out, because Annie Li may be batshit, but she was always fiercely protective of people she liked or who couldn’t defend themselves.
Including quiet, perfect May Li. And my sister, I guess.
Not me, even if I never stood a chance in hell of defending myself against anyone. Including Annie Li.
“I heard she went real crazy, though,” Valentina adds on.
My neck prickles at this, considering I did watch her rip a cigarette from my mouth, light a plant on fire, pull the fire alarm, and flood an entire fancy-ass party.
Which was a travesty, really, because the cookies on the dessert table were from one of the best bakeries in the city, and I had been planning on pocketing some to bring home.
“What do you mean?”
“I was out with some people from Stuy a few years after you guys graduated from college, and we ran into her at some warehouse party at like three in the morning.”
“Valentina, what the hell?” my mom demands to know. She stands with her hands on her hips, the apron my dad gave her twenty years ago bulging around the words I AM THE SECRET INGREDIENT. “Three in the morning?”
Valentina rolls her eyes. “She didn’t look good.
I mean, I definitely didn’t look good either, because it was three in the morning, but she looked high as hell, and not in the good way.
In the scary, empty way. Like in the ‘took too much about three hours ago’ way.
And she was hanging off some scrawny dude with a face tattoo. ”
“Jesus Christ.”
“My friends weren’t surprised, said that was just what she was up to nowadays.”
“That’s what she’s been up to? Fucked up at three in the morning at some illegal underground party in Bushwick, sucking some molly dealer’s—”
Ma throws a dish towel in my face, the one with the picture of the oven that says, When in doubt, pull it out. “Nico,” she warns.
Valentina shrugs again.
What the fuck? Annie Li, salutatorian of Stuyvesant High School? I roll this around in my mouth like it’s a taste I’m unfamiliar with. This doesn’t check out, and it makes me feel kinda sad. I wouldn’t wish something like that on my worst enemy, and she was my worst enemy.
“Poor baby,” Ma says. “Hope she’s okay. Nico, can you grab a serving spoon?”
I go to open the drawer, but it gets jammed halfway because of the sheer amount of shit in it. I jiggle it until it opens and grab a spoon.
“Have you seen her for any wedding stuff?” Valentina asks.
“Yeah. Once last year at the engagement party.” I dip my finger in the gravy. Perfect. “She looked fine.” Fine as hell. So hot she caused a fire, in fact.
“She’s the one you had that valedictorian beef with, right?”
I shrug like that “beef” wasn’t the single most stressful and dramatic year of my life. “Yeah.”
“What’d you do to her again?”
“I didn’t do shit. She was the one who made my senior year a living hell for some unknown fuckin’ reason—”
“Okay, enough gossip about the poor girl,” Ma says. “Come sit down.”
Valentina and I battle for the other good chair, the one that isn’t Ma’s. No one wants the wobbly chair. Valentina is victorious. I sit down at the other one and immediately tilt to one side.
“Let’s say grace.”
We all take each other’s hands. “Rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub. Yay, god,” we recite.
We’re fake Catholics.
“Love ya, Joe.” My mom blows a kiss towards the ceiling.
“Love ya, Dad,” Valentina and I chime in.
We dive right in.
“Nico,” Ma says in between bites. “Where’s Tara been?”
My fork stops on its way to my mouth. “We broke up months ago, Ma.”
She clicks her tongue and stabs her fork in my direction. “What the hell, Nico? She was great.”
Tara was great. I was not. I could never be honest with her about NakedReactions, which was totally unfair to her, so I broke it off. “Just didn’t work out,” I tell my mom.
“I wanna see you be happy,” she tells me.
Ditto, I want to say. So I’ll keep doing this thing until you’re good.
On my way back to the subway, I pull out my phone.
From: chef@
To: ali@
How dare you deprive humanity of the full force that is Ali? Bad girl. Why’d you need to do that?
Are we getting into past relationships and inner wounds now? Wow, the big stuff. Look at us go.
1. My dick is infected.
2. None of my relationships have ever lasted longer than a few months.
3. I love my job.