by B. E. Baker
“I’m not opposed to marriage or weddings, okay?” I push my remaining noodles around. “In fact, I planned two or three weddings when I was starting out, but I decided to focus in another direction.”
Brekka’s scrunches her nose. “But aren’t weddings kind of where the money is for event planning?”
I sigh. I’ve been backed into this corner before, and I can see they aren’t going to let go. I try one last time to change the subject before going nuclear. “Not everything is about money.”
“I beg to differ,” Trig says. “Maybe everything isn’t about dollars and cents, but it certainly moves things along. After all, money is our simplest calculation of leverage. If you’re in a business where the money is in weddings, and you’re competent at your job, why choose to take the lower paying work unless there’s a compelling reason to do that?”
“There’s a story, okay?” I look down at my lap where my napkin’s now wadded into a ball. “The last wedding I planned was my own. When my fiancé’s unit was hit with an IED unexpectedly, he died in Libya three weeks before our wedding. I got the news three days later. On Valentine’s Day. I quit planning weddings after that.”
I wipe a tear away and meet Brekka’s gaze defiantly. “Is that a good enough story for you?”
Trig and Brekka’s mouths fall open at the same time. Even if I’d never met them before, I’d know they were siblings.
“That’s why you hate Valentine’s Day,” Trig says.
“It didn’t help,” I admit. “And I think I’d like to go back up to my room now.”
Trig stands up and wipes his hands on his jeans. “I’m really sorry we pushed.”
“You’re not sorry about that,” I say. “You’re just sorry the conversation turned awkward so fast. But I get it, it’s human nature to poke and prod at injured creatures.”
Trig reaches for me, and I push his hands away. I don’t want to ride upstairs piggy back, or breathe on his ear, or flirt. I know where all that leads in the end, and it’s never anywhere good, not for me. Because the more you love someone, the more it hurts when they die. Or leave. Or forget all about you. Or get blown up.
“I think I can hop upstairs myself, if Brekka can help me.”
“Oh,” Brekka says. “I’d love to, but I’m sorry.” She shakes her head and looks up at me with wide, doe-like eyes. “I can’t.”
I stiffen. “That’s fine. I can probably get up alone.” I set the melty ice bag on the table top. “My knee actually feels a lot better already.”
She shakes her head and reaches one hand out toward me. “I’m not trying to be rude, I’m really not.” She pivots in her chair so her legs swing toward me and I notice she doesn’t move them. Like almost at all. It’s more like she drags them actually. “While we’re ripping off Band-Aids to bare painful wounds, I may as well tear mine off too. I was in a car accident a few years ago, and I came away with an injury to T10. I’m mostly paralyzed from the hips down. I would love to help you, but I actually need a wheelchair myself. Trig would have given you the only downstairs bedroom, but I selfishly hog that one for myself.”
My world spins a little, and then a lot. I think about the limited interactions I’ve had with her.
Brekka was sitting when I came inside, and already seated at the kitchen table when Trig brought me down. She never stood up. Why didn’t I notice that? The lower island in the kitchen makes sense now, so she can reach things to cook from her wheelchair. I think about how Trig flinched earlier when I called myself gimpy. I could have said something insensitive like that to Brekka.
“Where’s your wheelchair now?” I glance around the room. “And why didn’t Trig mention it earlier? You’d think it might have come up.”
Trig clears his throat. “Brekka likes it when people can get to know her first, before they find out.”
“Otherwise I’m just the wheelchair girl, the disabled girl, the girl who can’t walk, and as long as they know me, that’s my defining attribute. I’m sorry,” she says in a small voice. “I wasn’t trying to trick you. I prefer people to know me a little bit before they find out, whenever possible.”
I bob my head because more than most people would, I understand. It’s the same reason I don’t talk about Mark if I can help it. I hate being the poor, sad girl who was left at the altar by a dead Marine. I guess I should be grateful my wound is a little less visible than hers.
“I guess you can help me up,” I say to Trig.
He picks me up without a word, carrying me with his arms under my knees and behind my back again, just like before.
Except even if that’s the same, everything else has shifted. He looks at me with the same sad eyes I now turn on Brekka. Everyone always does once they know.
8
Trig
I wake up to the sight of three feet of snow blanketing the world outside my window. My parents included enormous, panel free, floor-to-ceiling windows in every room of this house, all of them lead reinforced and over an inch and a half thick. Even insulated, the glass can’t be good for the heating bill, but you can’t beat the views, summer or winter. The entire world outside looks clean, pristine, and perfect.
I wish the past could be whitewashed as effectively.
She found out her fiancé died on Valentine’s Day. And I blathered on and on like she was unfeeling for blocking that day out of her consideration. She probably knew exactly what weekend the Bachelor party was falling on, but if she tries her hardest to make it a day like any other, she wouldn’t have allowed that to impact her decision making.
I treated her the same way all those calloused jerks treat Brekka. Maybe worse. She can hide her injury, but I didn’t let her. I picked at it, forcing her to tell me before she was ready. I shake my head and push the covers down when I sit up in bed. My bedside clock says it’s ten a.m. Poor Geo’s probably still sitting in her room, twiddling her thumbs.
I knock on the wall. “You alive in there?”
She bumps back. “I was starting to worry about you. I’ve already put together three different options for the wedding program and assembled fifteen different menus. I should take connectivity breaks more often when I’ve got planning to finish. As long as I have my legwork done in advance, it gives me a great chance to pull things together without interruptions.”
I chuckle to myself. She’s definitely the first type of gorgeous person my sister mentioned. A knockout who works even harder than everyone else to make sure no one thinks she got where she did because of her appearance.
“Hungry?” I ask.
“I am. Think we could make breakfast for Brekka, since she made us dinner?”
I don’t even have to hide the grin that conquers my face when she says ‘we’ and ‘us’ since she can’t see me. But it gives me pause. Why would I want there to be an us? What’s wrong with me?
“Brekka got up at least three hours ago,” I say. “She’s like clockwork. She’ll probably have raspberry rolls ready for us downstairs. That’s her specialty, and I noticed berries in the fridge last night.”
“You ready to go?”
“I need to shower first. How about you? I could offer my services.”
“Hilarious,” she says. “But I already took a bath. The good news is that my knee feels much better already. I wrapped it with the bandage the ER doc gave us and it felt good enough that I almost hobbled downstairs myself.”
“What stopped you?” I kind of love talking to her without looking at her. Her exquisite face is almost too distracting.
“Maybe I like piggy back rides.”
I lean closer, my heart racing. “Do you?”
“I said maybe.”
I place my hand against the wall, wondering whether she’s touching it, too.
I finally drag my hand away and shower as fast as I can. Water from my hair drips onto my shoulders as I tap on her door. I almost trip on the box sitting outside her room even though I’m the one who put it there the night before.
“C
ome in,” she says.
I pick up the box and turn the knob. “Brekka gathered some things she thought you might like last night.” I hold out the box like a shield to deflect the brilliance of seeing her for the first time today, but her eyes nearly stop my heart anyway. They’re like deep blue sapphires in the morning light, and I completely understand why her parents named her Geode. I almost wish I could wrap her up so the entire world couldn’t see how brightly she sparkles. Although that would be a disservice to, well, to everyone.
She’s still in her pajamas and almost snatches the box from my hand. She rifles through the contents, settling on a cotton blouse with some kind of bunchy fabric around the waist, and tight black pants. Bless Brekka for including those.
“What about shoes?” she asks.
“Uh, I don’t know,” I say. “But I assume we can work that out downstairs.”
“Duh,” she says. “Thanks. I’m going to hobble over and try these on.” I reach over to help her stand, but she doesn’t need me, and I have to ignore the sad twinge her returning independence causes. She hops over to the bathroom and closes the door behind her.
When she emerges, she looks nothing like my sister and I’m relieved.
When I spin around for a piggy back ride this time, it’s different somehow. I feel the touch of her fingers on my collarbones, the pressure of her legs against my flank, the crush of her ample chest against my back. My heart races and for the first time in my life, I wonder if I’m old enough to suffer a catastrophic heart attack.
Don’t fail me legs, not now. As I shove up to standing, her minty, just-brushed breath blows into my nose. I don’t bounce her on the way down the stairs this time, focusing on not tripping over my own suddenly clumsy feet. The rapport we had when a wall separated us evaporated somehow now that we’re touching and it’s almost like there’s a buzzing underneath my skin.
I set her down on the same seat as the evening before and Brekka wheels easily over to the table, placing a plate of raspberry rolls on top of the granite, just as I predicted.
“Morning!” Brekka brightens every room, always. But even her smile seems a little damp for such a gorgeous, frosty morning.
The next twenty minutes feels so forced that when the cabin land line rings, I leap up to grab it.
It’s Charlie. “That gorgeous lady staying with you?”
“Uh, yep,” I say, hoping Geo can’t hear his side of the conversation. I take a few steps into the family room to be safe.
“And? How’d it go last night?”
“She hurt her knee skiing yesterday,” I say.
Geo’s face turns toward me when she realizes I’m talking about her.
“It’s Charlie,” I tell her.
She sighs. “I wish we could meet today. If only to go over the numbers. Has he worked them out?”
I convey her wishes to Charlie, who offers to chat with her instead. “I can email her the details, but I could answer most of her other questions on the line right now.”
“So you’re calling me to talk to her now?”
Charlie snorts. “Dude, this is a favor for you. We don’t really have room for this party at all.”
“I know,” I say. “I do appreciate it.”
“But. If you struck out, I have a green light, right?” Charlie asks. “Because I have a snowmobile. I could come pick her up right now.”
I don’t snarl into the phone. I’m sort of proud of that. “I don’t think so. Try anything and there’ll be a repeat of sophomore year’s Homecoming. I’m sure you remember how that went down.”
Charlie chokes on the phone in a satisfying way before I pass it off to Geo. Their call lasts a while, but eventually I get my phone back.
And somehow, even though I don’t know what to say to Geo today, Brekka navigates toward some kind of bizarre equilibrium with her. A balance that my presence throws off for some reason. Every time I walk past the family room, they’re giggling or one is talking while the other one’s mouth gapes open.
I’m not sure how inviting Geo accomplished this, but I’m suddenly unwelcome in my own home.
I stomp up the stairs, and neither of them even notices. I bang through the door to the upstairs hot tub and scrape off the snow. Once it’s heated, I put on my swimsuit and march across the second floor catwalk hoping they’ll look up and notice me. If Geo’s knee feels better, which it certainly seems to, you’d think she might want to join me.
She doesn’t.
When Chad comes by to plow our driveway around four p.m., I check my phone. Cell towers are back up. I call my pilot. He says we’re clear to fly after six p.m.
“Hey Geo?” I call down from the catwalk, my towel wrapped around my waist. “I just got confirmation the airport’s opening again at six.”
She leaps up from the couch and only grunts a little when she puts pressure on her knee. “Then I need to call the airline right away.”
She practically jogs over to the stairs, but stops at the bottom eyeing them with a determined look.
“Don’t overdo it or you might reinjure it,” I say. “I’ll go grab your phone.”
I snag her phone out of her cute red purse and run it down to her, noticing that she’s got three missed calls from Paisley, and five from someone named Rob.
Who the hell is Rob?
I bite my tongue so I don’t blurt out my question the second I hand the phone over. I completely forget I’m still wearing my swimsuit. Geo’s eyes on my chest remind me.
“Uh, sorry. I was in the hot tub.”
“I can see that,” she says, her eyes burning a path from my chest downward, and then zooming back up to my eyes. I can’t quite keep the corner of my mouth from turning up.
“You’ve got a few missed calls.”
“Thanks,” she says.
She doesn’t offer anything else, like an explanation that she has a half-brother she’s embarrassed of, who happens to be named Robert. Or a stalker-adjacent client. Or maybe a pest control guy who’s worried about a rat infestation at her place. It can’t be a boyfriend, because she doesn’t date. Right?
Or does she not date because she’s already committed?
I want to swear, but then they’d want to know why I’m mad and I have no reasonable reason. Nothing I can disclose anyway. It’s not like I can say, “When I was snooping on your phone, I saw a guy’s name. He called over and over. Who is this guy? If you don’t date?”
Geo spends the next thirty minutes on the phone with the airline. I shower and change back into clothes. It didn’t look like Geo was about to join me in the hot tub anyway.
She throws her phone at the pillows on the sofa as I walk back into the family room.
“Not good news?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Flights will be taking off at six, but since I’m a nobody who rarely flies, I get last priority. The soonest I can fly out is six p.m.”
I don’t understand. “It doesn’t open until six. We’d barely have time to get there in time for you to leave by then anyway,” I say.
Her scowl could skewer a wild boar. “Six tomorrow.”
“Is that a problem?” Brekka asks. Bless her for prying when I can’t. “It’s not like we’re torturing you, right? And we’ve got Monopoly in the game cabinet. Although on second thought, playing that with Trig is sort of like playing scrabble with Stephen King.”
Geo snorts. “So he’d scare me into quitting?”
I flop down on the sofa. “I’d do no such thing.”
“Fine, maybe not Stephen King. Nicholas Sparks,” Brekka says with a smirk.
I throw a pillow at her head. “I’m definitely not Nicholas Sparks.”
“Trig: the Nicholas Sparks of the business world,” Brekka says. “I like that. I’ll need to remember it for later. That will kill at the next board meeting.”
I sigh dramatically. “Has it occurred to anyone here that I have a private jet? I could probably give you a ride.”
Geo sits up straight and s
tares intently at my face. “Would you really? Do you need to go to Atlanta? Or maybe you could just loan me your plane?” Her expression is so earnest. I want to yank her up against me for a kiss that would send Brekka wheeling out of the room. A kiss that would make her forget this Rob and make her long for Valentine’s Day again.
I don’t of course, not with Brekka already scowling at me from two feet away. Geo needs my help, not a good solid snogging.
Why does she need to race back to Atlanta? Brekka was teasing, but it stings a little, snowed in with me and my delightful sister, and she’s so desperate to claw her way back home any way she can.
“What’s the rush?” I ask. “I mean, jet fuel isn’t cheap.”
She swallows and tucks her hair behind her ear. “No, I know it’s not. I’m sorry I asked.”
“Trig’s just being annoying,” Brekka says. “His feelings are just hurt you want to leave, and he doesn’t know how to process that you won’t reschedule your meeting.”
I scowl at Brekka. “I’m not hurt,” I say. “More like curious.”
Geo tilts her head. “Oh?”
“I’ll take you,” I say. “But you have to pay for it.”
Geo’s mouth drops open. “Uh, what does that cost—”
“Not the fuel. You have to pay with information. Why is this meeting so important?”
Brekka claps. “Yes, I want to know too, now.”
Geo sighs melodramatically. “It’s really no big deal.”
So why hasn’t she already told us?
“I have dinner every Monday with a friend of mine. It’s a tradition.”
“What’s his name?” I ask.
Don’t say Rob, don’t say Rob.
“How do you know it’s a guy?” Brekka asks.
I shrug. “I guess I don’t. Is it?”
“It’s my oldest friend. I’ve known him since I was five years old. His name is Robert Graham. But seriously, it’s not that big of a deal. I can skip it. I’ll just head back tomorrow.”
