Chapter 15 Here for Whitney
Breaking: Reed accepted the request. He only has obscure photos of random crap on his feed—no humans. He’s one of those.
“No, no word. His phone is still off. Whitney’s still in the fetal position,” she says.
Whitney is one of those people who can’t be alone. She wilts away like spinach on a stove. And Aunt Teresa works a lot; hence, the deep-seated need for me to be present during this missing persons situation.
“What do you think happened? You know him better than I do.”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” My aunt sighs. “I don’t feel like I know him that well either. He’s always so polite and reserved, you know, in that English way. It’ll be forty-eight hours soon. She’ll be able to file an official missing persons report.”
Aunt Teresa drops me at her house and heads back to the hospital she works at. Inside I find Whitney curled up on the bed in her old room.
Whitney’s always been tiny. These days she’s five foot one with beautiful dark eyes, thick brows, long gray-blond hair, and heart-shaped lips.
Her gold skin is perpetually sun kissed, and her personality’s a ten.
The woman’s magnetic. Today her skin’s pale.
Her eyes are red. Her face is swollen and puffy. Her under eyes are a sad shade of blue.
I change out of my jeans to match her vibe: sweatpants, baggy T-shirt, messy bun.
I spend the afternoon giving her hugs and back rubs on her mother’s couch.
Aunt Teresa’s living room is the definition of cozy.
She’s got a big bright-blue sectional, burnt-yellow walls, and a gold-framed flat-screen TV surrounded by bookshelves, cluttered to perfection with a combination of knickknacks, DVDs, pictures, and tomes.
When I manage to get my own place someday, I want to recreate this vibe in my own living room.
I listen as Whitney laments the moving process she’s been through this past week—how it tugged and pushed on the easy-loving rapport she typically shares with Glenn.
The small secrets she stumbled into as she helped unpack his things—the most troubling being the woman he apparently married six years ago after a four-month stint in Hawaii.
He ghosted her when his father fell ill and he had to return to the UK on short notice.
They eventually got divorced, but it was a long-winded drama because he avoided it for so long.
I like Glenn less and less as the evening wears on. Whitney’s utterly convinced he’s been attacked by a shark or pulled out by a riptide and is currently lost with his surfboard at sea.
I’m skeptical. I tell her I think Glenn is going to be fine. That he probably needed some space, and he might have trauma around confrontation. She’s not sold.
We order Thai food and call Glenn several times (straight to voicemail). We keep Friends running on the TV so it never gets too quiet.
My mom and Layla barge into the house around seven with dessert. They set two large cups of cookie-butter ice cream in front of us from our favorite shop, Afters, and we all settle in at the table to catch up.
I find myself zoning out as Mom jumps into her third back-to-back tale about a silly dog she’s been babysitting. My mother, Kelli, is the charming, chaotic lady wearing a Stevie Nicks sweater, who never quite makes it through one story before she gets distracted and starts another.
We weren’t allowed to have a dog, growing up, because Dad had no patience for animals.
Post divorce, Mom rescued my boi, Udon Noodle, who has since passed, and when I moved out to New York for college, she started a dog-sitting business.
She’s twelve years in now, and it’s thriving.
Her house is always overrun with adorable pups.
There are a minimum of six doggos there at all times, and while I, too, love dogs, I prefer a house with a little less canine activity.
A little less activity in general. When I visit now, I tend to stay with Aunt Teresa.
We’re about an hour into casual chitchat, mostly directed at Whitney, when my mother turns to me and says, “How are things going in Dad’s apartment?”
I stiffen. I haven’t told her about moving into my father’s apartment. Whitney doesn’t even know. Which means . . . my father must have told her.
“You talked to Dad?”
“We got coffee the other day, yes.”
I hate when they get coffee. I hate it with the kind of burning, all-consuming passion that eats away at your internal organs. It started about five years back. These sporadic in-person catch-ups.
I clear my throat. “To discuss me?”
“To catch up.” She smiles. “And yes, we discussed you. You’re our kid. You’re typically our main topic of discussion. You’re not exactly an open book, Rikki. We cross-reference our intel about your life.”
I inhale, shoving my rising tide of emotions into a filing cabinet for later examination. “We’ve talked about this, Mom. There’s a reason I restrict the amount of information I share with that man about my life.”
My mother sighs. “That man is your father. He’s family.”
She’s said this to me about ten times in the past five years. Every time I hear it, I want to throw myself through a window.
I feel like “family” privilege should be revoked once a restraining order has entered the chat.
“I’m glad he’s helping you out,” she finishes.
I glance at Whitney and Layla, both of whom are averting their eyes, looking incredibly uncomfortable. I let the topic drop, shifting my focus to the bookcase behind my mother’s head and letting my mind wander as she easily breezes onto another subject.
“Rikki, baby?”
I snap back into myself ten dissociative minutes later. “Yeah?”
“Before we leave, we wanted to tell you something.” My mom glances over at Layla. “Well, I wanted to ask you something. While you’re here, on the West Coast, in person.”
They smile brightly at each other and then at me.
I raise my brow. “What’s up?”
“Well”—my mom dances in her seat, bouncing her knees like a little kid—“I asked Layla to marry me on Friday!”
“And I said yes, of course!” Layla says. She holds out a hand with a silver ring featuring a cluster of amethysts that make up a delicate floral design.
The angst winding through my system melts on sight. A smile burns into my cheeks. It’s enchanting. And unique. Just like her.
“We’re getting a matching one made for your mom,” Layla adds.
“It’s perfect. Congratulations!” I beam at them. “I’m so happy for you two.”
“And sweetie.” Mom reaches across the table, grabbing my hand. “Would you—it would mean everything to me if you’d be my maid of honor. Will you?”
I suck in a sharp breath, smile wilting just the slightest bit as my insides twist in consternation. Another wedding. “Yes, Mom, of course.”
“So what about you?” Whitney blurts.
It’s been about an hour since Mom and Layla left. Whitney and I retreated to the couch. We’ve been sprawled out in the nest of pillows on the sectional. Friends is on. I’ve been silently running through a slew of grounding exercises to regulate the wedding-planner anxiety shivering in my chest.
I blink out of my happy place and come back to reality on the couch, shifting to look at Whitney. “What?”
“What about you?” she says again.
“What about me?”
The two of us have gone six hours without her asking a single question about me, and it’s been a welcome relief to be out of my own head.
Whitney sits up straighter. Her giant messy bun flops backward away from her face as she studies me with her currently bloodshot brown eyes. “How are you doing?”
I cringe as an image of Reed reading my erotic chapter comes hurtling back into my mind. “I’m okay.”
“What’s going on with your dad?”
I wave her off. “Nothing new.”
“You’re living in his apartment?” She hugs a pillow to her chest. “I thought you were trying no contact again after the last bout of fuckery.”
I sigh. His last “bout of fuckery” was inviting me to a resort in Mexico with him and his girlfriend last year post my big five-month relationship breakup.
I flew to Mexico City and took a car to the resort only to receive an email from my father explaining that he had to cancel last minute.
I tried to check into his room, but they couldn’t find his reservation.
I tried to get ahold of him through every possible venue and failed to get him on the line.
I turned around and flew home to Newark.
I was so mad, I managed to hold on to no contact for five months before finally accepting one of his various apology texts, calls, emails, and messages relayed through my mother.
“He’s not living in the apartment,” I answer curtly. “It’s one he’s flipping.”
“Why are yo—”
“It’s temporary. I’m due for a raise at work. I’ll be out of there as soon as it comes through.”
“Okay. . . What’s the latest on the dating scene? How’d it go this week? You set your dates on Fridays right? And Saturdays? Tell me things.”
When I stay quiet, she takes my hand in between both of hers and shakes it. “Pleassssee. Rikki. Distract me.”