Chapter 6 #2
“Shame. Must be hard working with his brother at the next desk over.” Her penciled brows lifted with a questioning pause. Well, it’s not a problem anymore, I wanted to snap back, but instead bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted copper.
A dish of salad goes flying when Maeve steps on a bright blue matchbox car in her wedge sandals.
“What the fuck?” she screeches as the car careens into the baseboard before Thomas wails and chases after it, checking it over for damage. Chippy, our twelve-year-old Airedale cross, begins hoovering up the spilled lettuce and tomato like a child inhaling candy from a burst pinata.
“Kynan, get the dog before it eats any onion and we’re back at the vet for another two hundred dollars. Fucking hell,” Mom moans, eyes on Chippy like she is his personal parole officer. Daughters of an Irish publican, they drop the word fuck like a comma.
Aunt Maeve joins the chorus. “You can’t be leaving your bloody toys around when adults are moving about with food, boy. Go wash your hands and sit down, okay?” She deftly kicks the rest of the cars into the corner with the precision of a FIFA striker.
Tommy bounds over to the sink with a goofy grin and climbs up on the timber stepstool Dad made for us when we were little.
He squirts four pumps of hand soap before Connor assists his son, sandwiching his tiny hands between his huge ones.
It’s chaos. Glasses clinking, Niamh wailing when the steaming corn casserole was moved out of range of her grabby fist. We are a burgeoning portrait of deliberate lines, thick and black against the ivory paper.
Dad is the first stark layer of charcoal laid onto the paper to form the bones of the work, the structure and heavy lifting required for the image to take shape.
Mom and Maeve place serving spoons into the many Pyrex dishes, both talking a mile a minute to no one in particular.
They are the softened background pigment resulting from the blending sponges, knowing what is needed and when.
Connor, Liam, and Kynan are the mechanical pencils adding depth and detail; without them there would be none of the masculine boldness, none of the moody shadows and lowlights.
Because Ronan is still backpacking through Europe, he would be the negative space.
This moniker isn’t meant as an insult, but to highlight the value of leaving the paper pure and untouched, adding nuance and contrast to the building piece.
And me? I’m an eraser. Trying to the best of my ability to erase the looming debt that could hang over my parent’s heads like a guillotine.
Some specialists refuse to even consult with uninsured patients.
How the hell will this work without the money from the Mercer job?
I use a variety of erasers in my work to soften heavier tints and expunge others.
“What you take out of a piece is as important as what you lay down,” my art teacher once said.
“See through someone else’s eyes, Sabrina,” he’d say over and over when he talked about perception and depth.
Only my baby sister can’t even see through her own without those blooming jellyfish coming to spoil the party.
If I could give her my eye, I would, but I can’t.
Well, I’m going to give her my very best effort at a solution for this messed-up prognosis, no matter what.
While I churned endless laps through the water earlier, OnlyFans drifted into my consciousness, before drifting out almost as quickly.
The myth about people making six and seven figures from feet pictures is just that: a myth.
If my feet weren’t disgusting, perhaps I could be tempted.
Especially if it meant I didn’t have to show my face and, God forbid, someone recognized me.
I’m almost through the last of my food when my phone begins to buzz.
“I swear to fuck, you assholes want me in an early grave,” Mom rants, clutching the base of her throat and imaginary pearls to hammer the point home.
“Not mine, darl,” my dad protests.
“Fuck, Bubble!” Liam says, throwing me under the bus with no mercy. Gee, thanks, bro.
“Bubble, of all the people, why do you insist on graying the hair of the woman who birthed you?”
The short answer is, I don’t. I love my family beyond the limits of boundless universes, and would do anything for any of them, including flicking Liam’s ear as I move.
Trying to extricate my chair from the sandwich of Liam’s bulky frame and smug face, and my dad’s admonishing, all the air in my throat seizes when I see a text from Penny.
Pen
Do you have anything to share about today?
Me
The interview? No. Why?
Pen
I need an update
Me
I’m at Liam’s birthday dinner
Pen
Oh, shit. Sorry. Is Molly mad about your phone?
Me
What do you think? Knife emoji. Boxing glove emoji.
Pen
Call me when you can xo
Me
I will
The chorus of insults came thick, fast, and unforgiving. Get off the phone, Bubble. You’re delaying the cake, Bubble. What the actual fuck, Bubble?
“Sorry, sorry, that was work, it couldn’t wait,” I stammer out, silencing my phone for good measure.
Any delay in serving the birthday cake was a punishable offence, and more than a knife and boxing glove emojis were sent in my direction.
If Mom and Maeve are fabulous cooks, their cakes are highlighted delicacies.
“Aye, you work too hard, lass,” Aunt Maeve says with a sigh. “It’s your brother’s birthday; work can wait, yeah?”
“Yes, Aunt Maeve.”
Geoffrey is unmoving and not the savior I was hoping for. If he were planning any sort of proposal, now would be a great time, buddy. Get your brave on and drop to one knee. I silently will Geoff into action while my aunt continues to tisk tisk at me from the other side of the table.
“Work can wait; family is forever. Now, Caity Cat, tell us more about what is happening with your eyes.”
Penny picks up on the second ring while I ride the subway back to East Orange.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” she badgers the moment the call connects. My gut plummets again. Have they been in touch with Covet to say how inappropriate I was as a candidate? How much damage control do I need to do here? I get it, I’m not as pretty or as thin as the other women.
“Bri, are you there? I need details of what happened today and the email before this goes any further.”
What goes any further? Email? Has Covet lost the ability to supply candidates? This is bad, so bad. Not as bad as the body odor wafting from the older man in the Clash T-shirt, but still.
“I tried Pen, but I fucked it all to hell and back. I dressed exactly as we had planned. I was asked pretty much everything you told me I would, with some curveballs thrown in.”
“Curveballs, like what?”
“Why I wanted the job.”
“That’s not a curve, Bri. What did you say? Did you talk about the incredible opportunity it would be to work alongside a Mercer? To learn from a vibrant, visionary leader in an evolving and dynamic industry? That kind of thing?”
“Um, not exactly.”
“Like what, then? What did you say?” Even from the other end of the phone, I can tell her brow is furrowed. Pen knows more than anyone how much I need this job, and like me, would have expected me to stay on script and let my skills and personality shine.
“I told them Cait had to see an expensive doctor and that I needed the job.”
I can hear her sharp intake of air through the phone, even over the humming roar of the train and the noisy snoring of the Clash T-shirt guy.
“Oh, Bri,” she says with clear dejection in her tone. I know, I fucking know.
“Pen, I was nervous, okay. It’s not the guy I researched in the car on the way to the interview.
The guy, Mason, is young. Like young and sexy, and his cologne was so damn heavenly that it must’ve messed with my brain chemistry.
And, he had this hot assistant too, so it was a double-pronged wall of executive hotness staring at me while firing questions. I panicked.”
“Double-pronged wall of executive hotness?”
“YES!”
“And his assistant is Trystan Hynd. I know him well. "
“Oh. Well, you left that out of the brief.”
“Listen, Bri. I don’t know what you’re saying. Maybe your dad supplied you with too much whiskey or wine. But the email sent to us both requested your presence for a follow-up interview at Sercio tomorrow night.”
“Wait, what?” It comes out as a high-pitched squeal that startles the snoring man four seats over. He curses and falls back asleep almost instantly.
“I swear. Sent from Trystan Hynd, who I can only assume is part of this double-pronged wall. Anyway, he thanked you for your time on behalf of Mason and requested you meet him at Sercio for dinner at seven in the private dining room.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know! But Sercio is that newish restaurant on Third that no one can get into unless you’re a celebrity, sports star, or politician that matters.
I will need you to swing by again tomorrow for cocktail dress selections.
Bri, this is a good thing. A great thing.
I don’t know how much that wall of hotness melted your brain cells, but you must’ve done something right, girl. ”