Chapter 3
THREE
Annie
I agree to meet May and her fiancé Tom at the beach because I’m Very Supportive, but seeing them together right now puts me in a fresh panic that I still don’t have a way to get to their wedding.
Right, because Tom decided to get married in South Beach, of all places, and to May, whatever Tom says, goes. Despite her twin sister’s severely serious fear of flying.
It’s partially my fault. I’ll take some accountability.
She asked me time and time again if it was okay, and because I’m behaving and not causing her anymore wedding-related drama, I said it was fine, that I’d figure something out and not to worry her pretty, perfect little head, because I am now the unproblematic Sister Annie and the most helpful Maid of Honor there’s ever been.
Now, the wedding is in two weeks, and I still don’t know how I’m getting there.
I don’t have my driver’s license, never needed one as a born and bred city girl.
A train ticket is approximately a million dollars, at this point.
I set an alarm on my phone to just bite the bullet when I get home because I don’t have another choice.
“So, are you guys all set for the wedding? Do you need me to do any last minute things, Plum?” I ask now, totally overcompensating for my ineptitude as a maid of honor and reaching for her childhood nickname like it’s a lifeline.
“No, our wedding planner has been amazing, and I think her team’s got everything covered.”
Because she’s perfect May with the perfect wedding. “Great,” I tell her. “I’m excited to get ready with you. It’ll be like when we used to do each other’s makeup in the basement.”
“Except you always made me look like Ursula, and I’m going for a more natural look.”
“Hey, Ursula is a queen bitch. You should be honored to look like her.”
A man walks by dragging a cooler through the sand and yelling, “NUT-crack-ERS!” in that way those guys do.
I would kill for one of those right now, New York City’s unofficial summer drink.
Fruit juice, Kool-aid, and four or five or six different types of the cheapest liquor blended into a tasty slushy treat.
A guaranteed good time. At Pride a few years ago, I found myself in the middle of a party, in a complete stranger’s kitchen in the West Village at four in the morning.
How many nutcrackers did that take? I’m not sure.
I lost count (and consciousness) after the third.
“You got your dress, right?
“Yup. It’s all set, and I got a travel steamer for it, too.”
“When do you leave again?”
Fresh panic. “Uh, the Thursday?”
She frowns. “The day of the welcome dinner?”
“Uh, no. Wednesday.”
She stares at me. “You don’t have a way to get there yet?”
Shit. “I do. Well, I don’t,” I amend, after seeing her face. “But look, Plum.” I show her my phone. “I set an alarm to buy a train ticket tonight!”
“How much are those tickets now?”
“Don’t worry about it, Plum.”
May hums, smelling bullshit from a foot away despite the overuse of her beloved nickname. “Please just make sure you’re there in time for the welcome dinner,” she murmurs.
It stings. Not because she’s asking, but because she has to ask.
Because she still thinks there’s a nonzero chance I’ll flake or screw it up.
The only thing she said to me after the engagement party disaster was a tight, “Please don’t do anything like that again.
” And now here we are, and she’s not wrong.
“Of course I’ll be there for the welcome dinner, May,” I say, trying to sound steadier than I feel. “My twin sister is getting married.” To an asshole. “I’m going to be with you every step of the way,” I add, and I do mean that with every fiber of my being.
“Hey,” Tom suddenly bites, and my heart drops into the pit of my stomach. Did I say that asshole part out loud?
“Uh—”
“Hey,” someone says from behind me, and my heart keeps sinking and sinking and sinking and continues its way down my intestines until it feels like I need to shit it out.
I look up to my right, and for the second time in my life, I’m in Nico Giannuzzi’s shadow. But literally, this time.
May and Tom jump up to give him a hug while I find myself glued to the sand.
I start cycling through excuses to leave in my head.
Am I sick? I could be sick. I hear the flu is really making its rounds.
It spreads easily through… the heat. Of the summer.
Very contagious in the summer, when everyone is outside in the open air.
“Annie,” Nico deigns to acknowledge me, sitting below him at his feet, and this with my name in his mouth activates all my fight instincts. Just fight, no flight—like he claws the nasty out of me and all I want to do is be combative and tear his fucking face apart.
This is Sister Annie’s time to shine. You will use every ounce of your strength to stay seated right there on your towel and not climb on his gorilla shoulders and tear his eyes from their orbital bones or strangle him using only your thighs, she says.
“Hi,” I grit out.
May smirks, clearly still entertaining her decades-long running theory that I’m harboring a crush on this overgrown ape.
I give her a tight smile in return.
Thankfully, Nico can probably smell my rage pheromones, some primal warning carried through the breeze, so he lays his towel out as far away from me as possible, on the other side of Tom and May.
Now, the only time I’ve seen this asshole in fourteen years was on a dark rooftop, so I’m suddenly grateful for my sunglasses, a perfect shield for spying and getting a real look at him.
It’s a shame really, because he looks unfairly good, almost aggressively handsome.
He’s always been big, maybe he played football or something, but he’s filled out and then compacted and solidified into strong, firm planes, making me think of how easily he could throw me—apologies, a football—around.
His hair is still the same thick mess, his face scruffy in a haphazard, lazy way that only accentuates the sharp cut of his jaw.
His clothes look expensive and fit him well.
His sunglasses (which have the audacity to be Tom Ford) scream effortless ease, as does the nearly sheer white linen shirt draped over his broad frame, sleeves rolled just enough to tease at strong forearms. I can’t wait for him to take it off.
Annie, Sister Annie reprimands.
Enough out of you. I’m temporarily celibate, not dead.
“Anyone hungry or thirsty?” a still-clothed Nico asks the group.
“What do you have?” Tom asks.
Nico pulls out a big brown paper bag with grease stains on the bottom. “Fries. Homemade. Just made ‘em myself.”
My lip curls. “Old, cold, soggy fries. The ideal beach snack.”
May pinches my leg.
“Don’t have any then,” he says in my direction. “Your loss.”
Tom takes a handful. I hear a crunch. Whatever.
“Nutcrackers?” Nico goes on to ask.
“What flavors did you get?” Tom asks.
“He only had pina colada and…” he looks between the two separate bottles, “…blue.”
“Hit me with the blue.”
Am I salivating? I distract myself by considering the ineffable enigma of the flavor ‘blue.’ “What is the flavor blue?” I ask everyone because I’m being nice and behaving.
Tom shrugs. “It’s just… blue,” he says, like the inarticulate dipshit he is.
May loves this game—another one we’ve played since we were kids. “Is it raspberry?”
“Not quite… But it’s definitely tart and sweet,” I add on.
“A little citrusy.”
“Fruity.”
“It’s more of a concept than a flavor, I think,” Nico adds.
“Yes,” May laughs. “It’s a feeling.”
“Like melted popsicles and childhood nostalgia,” says Nico, shocking me with an insight and a depth well below kiddie pool.
“Like disappointment in a bowling alley.”
“Like skinned knees and fireflies.”
“Blackout descents into jungle-juice oblivion,” I mutter.
May squeezes my hand. “Nico’s a chemist,” she offers. “Why do you think the flavor blue turns your tongue blue?” she asks him, deftly diverting the course of the conversation, because she is the best sister in the universe.
Chef should’ve gone over this in his Chemistry of Candy episode.
Nico looks contemplative. He mutters something that sounds like “synthetic organic compound” or maybe “pathetic botanic ground,” but who knows, because he’s an illiterate gorilla. He eventually shrugs, because of course he doesn’t know. Because he’s an illiterate gorilla chemist, apparently.
Tom glugs half the bottle. I brace myself for the Red Flag Hulk. I hope he gets a brain freeze.
“You guys excited for the wedding?” Nico asks.
I take this opportunity to lay back and disassociate on my towel, overwhelmed by everything happening right now. The dense ape, the soon-to-be drunk dipshit, my Kryptonite summer drink, the impending three thousand dollar train ticket.
“I’m going to walk up to the bathroom,” I hear May say after some time. “Be right back.”
My right eye twitches. I recenter myself.
“Sunscreen?” Tom asks.
“I’ll take some,” I say, so very kindly, because really, I’m not going to deny myself the opportunity to watch my worst enemy’s tortured face while I rub cream over my legs and tits.
Tom tosses the bottle over.
“Pete, my ex, always said the best form of tattoo care was sunscreen.” And most of my hands and arms and legs are covered in them, so I’m constantly reapplying.
“Pete,” Tom snarks in his weasel voice, “was he the prison tattoo artist or the junkie coke dealer or both?”
And there it is. There is an immediate activation of the fight response, especially because he never tries this shit in front of May, and I suddenly have a newfound understanding of why people are moved to extreme acts of violence.
Nico even glances over at Tom, the picture-perfect image of concern, thick eyebrows furrowed, full mouth pursed.
“Fuck you, Tom,” I mutter under my breath. I say it quietly and don’t scream it because I am behaving and being nice even if Tom’s a dick and I’m embarrassed as hell that perfect, apparently rich and successful Nico just heard all of that.
And you know what? Pete was a coke dealer, but he is also a world-famous tattoo artist, and these are actually all really beautiful tattoos that people would pay thousands of dollars for, and I got them all for free, but Tom doesn’t deserve to know that.
Pete is also in prison now, but no one here deserves to know that, either.
“Aw, don’t be embarrassed, sis,” Tom starts.
“I’m not your sis,” I mutter a little louder.
“Everyone has trashy tattoos,” Tom continues, as if I haven’t spoken.
“They’re really nice tattoos, actually, fucker,” I answer, at the decibel right below ‘shouting,’ because he is trying me now.
“I have a Marge Simpson on my ass—” Tom tries.
“You’re comparing my work to a Marge Simpson ass tattoo?!”
“Even Nico has a bad tattoo,” he says.
“Tom—” Nico interrupts, and this isn’t okay because the last person I need standing up for me is perfect, handsome Nico, of all people, and now I’m in fight mode.
“Tell me all about your bad tattoo, then, Nico,” I sneer. It’s on, let’s go.
“No,” he says, and the tips of his ears are turning red, which only activates me more because now it’s his turn to get embarrassed.
“It’s hilarious,” Tom says, as if no one is talking except for him, which is his default.
“It’s not—” Nico attempts a little louder.
Then we are all shouting.
“Does it say ‘Gym, Tan, Laundry’ across your ass?” I scoff.
“Oh, real original, Annie,” Nico snarls.
“‘Property of Snooki’?”
“Keep ‘em comin’, honey.” Nico’s whole body is turned towards me now, stiff and tight with anger.
“Robert DeNiro, then,” I shoot back.
“Tony Soprano, actually,” Nico jeers.
“Actually,” Tom offers, “Nico’s tattoo is a—”
“Fuck,” Nico cuts in. “That stick’s been stuck up your ass for fourteen consecutive years, Annie.”
“You wish your dick was stuck up this ass,” I purr.
“Honey,” he laughs easily, “If I got my dick up your ass, you’d be wishin’ for it for the rest of your life.”
I am appalled. Who the hell is this guy and what the hell has he done with the kid who bawled like a baby when I took his holographic Charizard Pokemon card? I stand up and start moving, to do… something, anything—
“Where you goin’, sweetheart?” Nico drawls.
I stop short and look around. “I’m sorry, is this some sort of active construction site? Are you going to tell me to smile?”
“But you’d be much prettier if you smiled.”
“You’d be much prettier if you kept your scammy fucking mouth shu—
“What’s going on?” May calls out from behind us.