Perky

by Julia Kent

  “Yes.” Disarmingly forthright, Parker's admission makes us all stop breathing for a second or two.

  “So you are using me,” Will finally says with a long, disgusted sigh.

  “I wanted to help you out when Fred dropped out of the wedding. And when I saw Persephone here, I also wanted to talk to her. So forgive me for not turning around and leaving the second I put it all together. My assistant, Omaia, wasn't there the day you called, and my staffers had no idea there might be a conflict of –”

  “See her on your own time. Not at my wedding rehearsal rehearsal dinner.” Will ignores the dignified apology. Parker's going to have to dig out all his considerable charm to get out of this mess.

  He has lots of shovels in his tool shed, though.

  “Persephone refuses to see me.” Eyes cutting to me, Parker’s attention feels like a dare.

  Dare me to what?

  “Then figure that out for yourself. Don't violate rules of consent because your dick got curious,” Will snaps, arms akimbo, a wall between me and my nemesis.

  My hot nemesis.

  I really adore Will right now.

  “Yeah!” I pipe up, using Will's body as a shield. “Listen to your friend!”

  “And you!” Mallory says, turning on me. “You don't go around punching people at my wedding rehearsal rehearsal!”

  “Why do you and Will keep saying the word rehearsal twice?”

  “Because we're rehearsing the rehearsal.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “We want people to get to know each other before the rehearsal.”

  “But we already know each other! Even more than you'd think, apparently.” I glare in Parker's direction. “You're bordering on bridezilla territory here, Mal.”

  “It's my day. My wedding. Promise me no punching.”

  “I can't promise that if Parker's in the wedding party.”

  “Then he's out,” Will says flatly.

  In my family, people don't talk like this. Will is making declarations on the spot, sweeping decisions that open doors and close them. Mostly close them. My parents would convene a family therapy appointment, complete with two different therapists to help facilitate, and we'd talk and talk and talk until unstable consensus was achieved, complete with guided meditation, the right crystals, and a little past-life regression thrown in to determine motivation for anyone not in one hundred percent agreement with the majority's decision.

  Will is just... acting. Deciding. Proceeding.

  Unilaterally.

  Without hesitation.

  “Let's talk in private,” Parker says to him, jaw going tight in that way I know so well.

  Not know. Knew.

  I knew so well, five years ago, before I had any idea that someone you adore could betray you so spectacularly.

  Mallory looks around the room nervously. A part of me feels bad, because this is supposed to be her day. Her time. Her turn. No, this isn’t the wedding. It's not even the wedding rehearsal. The idea of a rehearsal-rehearsal is so twee, I want to find a kitten sling and put it on her, stick a hedgehog in it, and give her a string of Christmas lights made of mason jars.

  And yet... punching Parker wasn't exactly fair.

  Will's phone buzzes just as he and Parker start to move out of the room. He checks it and looks at Mal. “Sorry. Jim and Kevin are stuck in traffic on Route 1. Bad accident. Detours are clogged. They're trying to get here.”

  She nods quickly, urging him to go with Parker with a clear chin thrust.

  “I'm sorry,” I say to her, earnest and meaning it, even as I hate the words. “I can behave.”

  “You're sorry? Parker's the one who should be apologizing!” She frowns. “And I'm not even touching that 'behave' comment.”

  “I know. But I should, too.”

  Mal's eyes flit to the door. The taste of Parker is still on my lips, the feel of his abs on my bruised knuckles. They throb, the skin hotter than the rest of the back of my hand. The room we're in is small. It's only ten of us, and four are already here.

  “Drink,” Mal says, handing me her blood orange martini. Without arguing, I do as I'm told, the sweet juice making me gulp, the boozy afterkick welcome. I don't drink often. If ever there was a time, though, it's now.

  And five minutes ago, when he kissed me.

  “Can someone make me three more of these? That was good,” I say, tongue poking out to lick a drop from the corner of my mouth. What I’d rather have is a cigarette, but if I’m turning to a vice to tamp down my emotions, alcohol will do.

  “One more and then you're cut off, Perky. I can't have you drunk and punching people at my rehearsal rehearsal. Pick one.”

  “Apparently, I already did,” I mutter.

  “Where are Fiona and Raye?” Mallory mutters, not quite under her breath. “I need reinforcements.”

  I jiggle my now-empty glass. “This makes a good reinforcement.”

  “Alcohol is not going to solve the Parker problem.”

  “No, but it makes me care less, and that's close enough.”

  Mallory's sister, Hasty, comes rushing in. She's a blur of perfectly cut blonde hair and resting bitch face so strong, it has its own reserved parking spot in San Francisco, where she lives.

  “What's she doing here?” I gasp.

  “She's my sister. Mom made me ask her to be a bridesmaid. Will's sister is one, so...”

  “I know all that. I thought Hasty wasn’t coming to this?”

  “Mom guilted her. Plus, she hates Will's sister, so when she found out Veronica wasn't going to be here for the rehearsal rehearsal dinner, she decided it was a chance to shine.”

  I snort. “You’ll have to do better.”

  Mallory lets out an aggrieved sound. “Hasty realized she could schmooze up some of Will’s rich friends to help with her work.”

  “That’s more like it. Hasty Monahan: Why do something nice for no reason when you can use your sister to gain monetary benefit? Oh, God. I shouldn't have chugged your drink!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you really need it more than me now. First Parker, then Hasty? Is Mercury in retrograde?”

  A whimper of acknowledgment comes out of Mallory before she squares her shoulders and faces her sister, who comes in for the fakest of fake kisses and hugs.

  Hastings–Hasty for short, though we don't dare call her that to her face–is the opposite of Mallory. If you took my best friend and systematically described her reverse self, it would be her own sister. The answer to how two people can start from the same DNA soup of two parents and come out so radically different is going to make someone a Nobel Prize winner someday.

  “You're right,” I hear Parker say, his voice loud, the sigh after the words an aggrieved but not angry sound. “I was wrong.”

  “Say that again,” Will insists.

  “I was wrong.”

  “And?”

  “I was an asshole.”

  My whole body turns toward them. Instinct is powerful. I can't help but eavesdrop.

  “You could have told me right away that you knew her,” Will adds.

  “I should have. And I swear I wasn't using you. Not like that. I thought she'd be more...”

  “Adult?” I don't appreciate the laugh they share after Will says that word.

  “Discreet.” Parker clears his throat. “I thought staying would be a win-win.”

  “For who?”

  “A win for you because I'd fill in for your cousin. A win for me because I'd finally get Persephone alone and have a chance to really talk to her.”

  “After what you did to her?”

  “I told you. I didn't do it.”

  Always a low baritone, Parker's voice drops into the determined territory of the wrongly accused. People do that when they get defensive. Voices change. Mannerisms shift. Work in a coffee shop long enough, like I do, you see it. All the permutations of conflict in the world are on display in your average coffee shop if you stay there long enough.


  And Parker's voice, right now, is one I know well.

  A rush of adrenaline makes my ears ring.

  He's serious.

  Five years after he blew up my life, he's still claiming innocence.

  What kind of jerk does that?

  One I'm still in love with.

  Damn it.

  2

  “Perky!” Hasty says to me, hands out for the fake hug that matches her fake interest in me. I'm her kid sister's best friend from kindergarten, the annoying little girl who teamed up with Mallory to pick on Hasty all those years ago. No matter what, whether we're twenty-nine and thirty-three or six and ten, to Hasty, I'm the abomination who destroyed her new pair of jellies with Barbie nail polish while she was taking her piano lesson.

  My parents paid her back for them, so I don't understand the lingering anger, but whatever.

  Fake hugs exchanged, we stand with fake air between us, fake smiles faker than the fake eyelashes she’s wearing, the ones that look like Australian spiders were glued onto her eyelids.

  Hasty works in the Bay Area for a financial start-up. She's married to Burke, one of those hipster guys who runs ultramarathons for fun and raises money on Facebook on his birthday every year for diabetes research for dogs. He's tall, has six-percent body fat, and laughs like he can't quite believe anything out of your mouth is serious. When he makes eye contact with you, steel blue eyes widen as you speak, narrowing when he does.

  His eyes are narrow a lot.

  If a computer program hand picked someone for Hastings Monahan to marry, it would be Burke Oonaj.

  Competitive yoga is Hasty's thing. I know, right? Yoga shouldn't be competitive.

  Yet Hasty's found a way.

  “Who all is coming to this rehearsal rehearsal rehearsal dinner?” she titters. “I just deplaned in Bedford, so I'm a bit undercommunicated.”

  Hasty's also fluent in Jargon.

  “Bedford?”

  I fell into a trap, her smug smile making it clear she dangled a worm in front of me and I bit. “Private jet share right off the old military base.”

  I throw her a bone. “Private jet?”

  “Yes,” she coos, looking around, hoping for an audience. “I’ve just been onboarded with a venture capital firm. It’s a perk of the job. Best invention since sliced bread.”

  One sweep of her manicured hand behind her long, perfectly straight blonde hair and she completes the condescending affect of a corporate chaser who knows exactly where she stands in her internalized hierarchy of the room.

  We’re all just the tops of heads to her.

  “Sliced bread really isn't that profound.”

  “Neither are you, Two Dogs Humping.”

  And there it is.

  “Ha ha. Why be original when you can be Hasty?”

  “It's Hastings.”

  “Sure, Hasty.”

  “You are so juvenile.”

  “Hey!” Mallory says, inserting herself between us. “I see you two are catching up!”

  “More like revisiting old territory,” I say with a brittle grin meant to parody Hasty.

  “Nostalgia?”

  “No, torture.”

  Hasty's attention is drawn away from us, like old times. The second anything better comes along, Hasty bolts.

  “Is that Parker Campbell? The Parker?”

  “The asshole who ruined my life five years ago? Yes.”

  “No, no. I mean the new congressman from Texas.” Her eyebrows go up. “Wait. Parker. Your Parker? He's the dog-humper-picture-taker?”

  “Say that five times fast with a mouth full of marbles.”

  “Why would I put marbles in my mouth?”

  “Think of them as tiny balls without pubic hair. Should be easy for you, given your husband.”

  She ignores me.

  “If I weren't married,” Hasty says, eyeing Parker like he's a side of grass-fed organic beef and she's Michael Pollan, “I'd tap that.” She elbows me. “Why'd you let him get away? You could be on your way to the White House.”

  Before I can answer, she looks me over, top to bottom. Her expression morphs as she takes in my long, honey-brown hair, my fancy jeans studded with tiny pearls, V-neck camisole under a light silk kimono top. My four-inch strappy heels. Her lips curl in tighter and tighter contortions that remind me of a Venus flytrap with an unsuspecting fly landing in it.

  “Huh. Never mind. Maybe Parker's lucky he did such a stupid thing to you.”

  “HASTY!” Mallory explodes, cheeks turning red, the flame of her hair against flushed skin beautiful yet painful to behold.

  “Don't call me that,” Hasty says, cutting her off. “You know I'm Hastings.”

  “I know you're a bitch,” I say straight out.

  She grins. “I always liked you. You may look like you dress yourself out of a clothing donation bin in Las Vegas, but you're direct.”

  “Screw you, too, Hasty.” I pluck at the hem of my flowered kimono jacket. It follows my curves. It's festive and pretty. Isn't that appropriate for the occasion?

  I look at her and realize there's no comparison. Her clothing is all tailored and shaded, subtle color palettes, a fashion plate. Modern urban chic.

  She may have style, but I have a soul.

  “Proving yet again that Parker dodged a bullet,” she whispers as I nudge her, the dirty vodka martini she's mainlining spilling over her pinkie finger.

  Mallory lets out a long breath as Hasty walks toward Parker, who suddenly heads for the bar. Hasty halts, pulls out a compact and touches up her lipstick, one eye on my ex, one on her reflection.

  “Mom owes me big. So big. I didn't want her in my wedding,” Mal grouses.

  “She's your only sister. It's kind of required.”

  “Why couldn't you be my sister?”

  “Because I didn't come out of your mom's vagina.”

  “Great. Now I'm thinking about my mom's vagina! Perky!”

  “Did I hear the word vagina? Are we talking about the honeymoon already?” Will asks smoothly, arm wrapping around Mallory's waist, his other hand holding a fresh blood orange martini, which he hands to her with the perfect grace of a man serving his woman whatever she needs to be happy.

  Despair rises up in me.

  Despair that requires alcohol.

  Today started out with great promise, I think to myself as I storm off to the bar, ready to double fist some drinks to get through this dinner. At no point was Parker Campbell on my mind this morning.

  Okay. That's not quite true. He's always on my mind.

  But earlier today, he wasn't so... here.

  Rayelyn Boyle, one of Mallory's geeky friends from high school, pokes her head into the room and flashes a grin at me. An anemic smile is all I can muster before I'm rudely interrupted.

  “Persephone,” Parker says. I turn around to find him standing before me, arm extended with my favorite beer in it. “For you.”

  Despair turns into a fluttery panic in my belly. I can handle a defensive Parker. I can handle an angry Parker. I can even handle a besotted Parker.

  But a grown-up bringing me a drink like a man who wants to make a woman happy?

  I don't know where to fit that in around five years of righteous anger.

  “Thanks. Will didn't kick you out?” I peer at his face while sucking down some of the beer, ignoring my rapid heartbeat and how my skin feels like it’s been removed from my body and dipped in a novocaine bath. “No bruises. No black eye.”

  In my peripheral vision, I see Raye and Mallory hug. Raye knows how to be a supportive, no-drama friend. She’s nothing but attentive, touching Mallory’s bracelet with an admiring gesture that makes me feel like a heel.

  A pang of confused emotion gongs through me. I'm ruining Mal's first big moment on the road to matrimony.

  Wait a minute.

  I'm not.

  Parker is.

  He laughs. “I smoothed it over with Will. We didn't take it out behind the kitchen and turn to fists
.”

  I pout. I drink. I openly size him up. Parker is sun-kissed blond and Texas sharp. No accent unless you listen hard, but that's up here in Boston. In Texas, where I met him and where we lived together for nine glorious months, he can twang and hang like the local he is. Tall, cool, and slick as hell, the man knows what he wants and is going for it, step by step, leap by leap.

  Assistant DA.

  Congressional staff member.

  Congressman.

  Senator.

  White House.

  Maybe the timeline won't be quite what he planned, but that doesn't matter. Eyes on the prize, Parker has one quality that stands out among all the others.

  No. Not his tongue.

  Wait.

  Hmmm.

  What was I saying? Because now all I can think about is his tongue.

  “Persephone? You're blushing. Thinking about me?” One step closer and he's in my space, crossing a line I didn't know I had, a line some part of me is begging him to transgress.

  But I have other parts. Parts that silently size him up.

  Parts that are starting to feel like someone poured a Costco-sized bottle of warming gel on them.

  Finally, I have to ask. I shouldn't.

  But I do.

  “Why would you lie to your friend to crash an event like this?”

  “I didn't lie. My staffer scheduled this for me, so I had no idea Mallory was Will’s fiancée. I just didn't tell the whole truth the second it revealed itself.”

  “You really are on a path to the White House,” I marvel, taking a longer sip of this delicious pale ale.

  Pure mirth pours out of him. “I'm not sure whether to be insulted or flattered.”

  “I never, ever shined you on, Parker. You know that.”

  “Ah. Right. Insult it is.”

  “The only words I'll ever send your way.”

  “Ever? Forever's a long time.”

  You were supposed to be with me forever.

  The thought slams into me full force, rocketed into my frontal lobe by spontaneous combustion and five years of furious mourning for a man I should not be suffering over. We all have the one who got away, but he's not supposed to also be the one who cruelly exposed my most vulnerable moment to seven billion people.

  For fun.

  “Forever, Parker. You made that choice. Don't try to turn it around and make it my burden.”