Plot Twist

by Bethany Turner

  Ick. Ick, ick, ick.

  The moment we were alone—apart from the dozens of rich people all around us—Malcolm shifted into a more intimate gear. “Look, Liv, this didn’t go the way I had hoped.”

  “How did you hope this would go? What did you think your money was going to get you?”

  He groaned. “This has nothing to do with the money. I was tasked with donating a hundred thousand to the Lakeside Society tonight, and when I saw you up there, I decided to be done with it all in one fell swoop. I didn’t know you’d be here. I didn’t have any plans. I just saw an opportunity and took it. I thought it would be nice to reconnect—”

  “‘Nice’?” I blurted out. “Do you know what a mess I was when we broke up? Do you know that I went to Italy—”

  “Good! That’s what I wanted you to—”

  “For a year, Malcolm. I went to Italy for a year. I . . .” I sniffed and willed the tears to stay in place. “I lost a year of my life. And no, that wasn’t your fault. Not entirely. But forgive me for not wanting to ‘reconnect.’”

  His eyes broke away from mine, and he began looking from side to side, as if one of the passersby would, perhaps, be able to help him out.

  “I’m sorry about everything, Liv,” he said as his feet began slowly retreating from the uncomfortable intimacy between us. “I truly am.”

  “Hey, Livi.” Fi was suddenly by my side, her arm looped through mine. “Everything okay?”

  “Yep, everything’s great.” I grabbed her hand and smiled at her. “I was just going to take off.”

  “It’s good to see you, Fiona,” Malcolm said with that same schmoozy tone he’d used with Rick and Kathleen. “When was the last time? I suppose at the firm’s Christmas party—”

  “Oh, shut up, Malcolm,” she seethed.

  His eyes widened. “Excuse me?” Who knows how long it had been since he had failed to charm even one woman. Much less two.

  Fi sighed as she threw her arm over my shoulder. “You’re right. That was rude. Forgive me.” She adopted her sweetest voice. “On behalf of the Lakeside Society, please allow me to pass along our sincere appreciation for the generosity of Boynes, Madison & Larcraft. But if you ever come near my girl again, it won’t matter how much attention and awareness you bring to the plight of the many countries of the world where there is not enough water to sustain life. I will destroy you. Do you understand me?”

  We didn’t wait for him to snap out of his stunned silence. We just turned and walked toward the door, arm in arm.

  “You okay?” she asked as we parted the crowd.

  “I am. I do have a question, though.”

  She smiled at various patrons, and they smiled back. “Fire away.”

  “I’m just wondering . . . Could you tell me one thing about the Lakeside Society that isn’t printed in the pamphlet? Even one?”

  She stopped in her tracks, and I had no choice but to stop alongside her. She thought for a moment and then smirked. “Nope. I’ve got nothing.”

  February 4, 2010

  On the day I was born, my brother, Brandon, who was six at the time, was hit by a car. He was pretty much fine, apart from a broken bicycle and some bruises. But it was scary enough that when my dad received the call at the hospital from my grandmother, on whose watch the accident took place, he left the hospital where my mother had just given birth to me to travel across Boston to the hospital where Brandon was.

  That was the first of countless times my big brother stole my spotlight.

  While I was recovering from chicken pox, Brandon contracted meningitis. I was left quarantined with chicken soup and old episodes of The Andy Griffith Show while all of the constant, loving attention I had been receiving from my mother was redirected his way—simply because his disease was more life-threatening than mine and there was a chance his brain might explode or something. He chose the evening of my senior prom to announce he was dropping out of grad school to enlist in the Air Force, the afternoon of my high school graduation to tell us he was getting married, and he called our parents from Kirtland Air Force Base to inform them he was getting a divorce just moments after I told them I was leaving Boston and moving to Los Angeles.

  Therefore, it came as no real surprise to me that the day Fiona and I arrived in Boston together for the first time in nearly a decade, for a surprise visit, was the day Brandon arrived in Boston on leave. His visit was also a surprise—and, obviously, a better one.

  I don’t believe my parents have ever tried to love him more. It just naturally happened along the way.

  “That’s ridiculous.” Fi laughed as we bundled up in our eleven layers of clothing in preparation for leaving our hotel to join our parents and Brandon for dinner. “They do not love him more.”

  “No, they do.” I nodded complacently, having long ago come to terms with my position as the second favorite Ross child.

  “But you have the best parents—”

  “Oh, I know. They are the best. And I know that I am well loved. And if they ever realized they love him more they would be horrified and live out the rest of their lives in full guilt mode.” I shrugged. “It’s not intentional. It’s just circumstantial.”

  We braced ourselves for the painful Massachusetts winter air and began walking the four blocks to the country club Landon and Jocelyn were members of. I’d never pictured the Rosses as country-club people, but the Mitchells most assuredly were.

  I hadn’t been to the club myself since I was a little girl. For as many years as I could remember, Fi had had her birthday parties there. She was never impressed by any of it—that was just a part of her life—and I think she would have given anything to have a party, just one year, at the bowling alley or the ice-skating rink like the rest of us always did. The grass is always greener, I suppose, but I thought she was crazy for feeling that way. I loved the country club. Everything was made of luxurious solid wood and marble, and everyone who worked there was always so nice. As a child I didn’t realize they were paid to be nice; I just knew that they were nice. The bowling-alley people weren’t as nice, as a rule—though presumably they were paid to be nice as well. Well, be nice and spray the insides of the shoes—a task of equal importance.

  “Remind me . . .” I shivered as we approached the opulent entrance to the club. “Why did we decide to leave the warm coast for the frigid coast in the dead of winter?”

  “To take back control!” Fi muttered with exuberance through her scarf. “You’re going to finally conquer the absurdity of February 4 and show this date who’s boss!”

  I rolled my eyes at her and laughed. “That’s right. Now I remember.”

  In truth, for all her current enthusiasm, Fiona hadn’t been easy to convince. After all, she was fascinated by the absurdity. She loved the idea of there being no control over love’s influence in our lives. She enjoyed getting caught up in what she perceived as fate or serendipity or destiny . . . or something. But I couldn’t take another year of wondering when Hamish would pop around the corner. I couldn’t suffer through another twenty-four hours of waiting for some sort of heartbreak that would inevitably be associated with Liam. And after Malcolm staked his claim on the day last year . . . Yeah. No more.

  The formal doorman greeted us, and we stepped into the warmth.

  “We’re looking for the Mitchell party,” Fi said with a smile as she handed him her coat.

  The doorman’s assistance in locating our party ended up being unnecessary.

  “Darling!”

  We stole a quick, sardonic glance at each other before turning to the voices of our mothers ringing out in unison. My jaw dropped, and I heard Fi stifling a giggle beside me, and I realized I had accomplished my mission. The absurdity of this February 4 would have nothing whatsoever to do with Hamish MacDougal. Not when I got to spend the evening with Susannah Ross and Jocelyn Mitchell dressed up from head to toe like 1920s flapper girls.

  Fi took a step toward them, but I grabbed her elbow and pulled her back. “Hey,
Fi, wait a second.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I’m serious, you know. I don’t want anything about this day to have anything to do with Ironic Day. If we so much as walk past a movie theater and there’s a Hamish movie playing, we’re hopping in a cab and going to the Boston Massacre site or something. If an unlisted number calls my phone, I’m throwing it right into the Harbor, just to be safe. And so help me, Fiona Mitchell, after this moment, the name Liam Howard is just a string of gobbledygook letters that means nothing in our language. We’re clear on this, right?”

  She placed her hands on my shoulders and squeezed gently as she smiled. “We’re clear. As of this moment, no Hamish, no Liam, no Malcolm, no romance, no fun, no adventure—”

  I groaned. “You promised. Seriously, Fi. Today we let this go. I just need, on this one February 4, to prove that it’s all been a fluke. An odd little series of coincidences that stops now. This year is what’s going to keep me—”

  “From being institutionalized. I know, Livi. I get it.” She dropped her hands from my shoulders. “I’m here, aren’t I? Would I have given up my post-gala forty-eight hours of sleep and junk food to get on a plane to Boston with you if I wasn’t all in?”

  Fiona’s second Lakeside Society fundraiser had been an even bigger success than her first, at least according to her own report. I would have to take her word for it. For reasons understandable to all, she hadn’t fought me too hard this time when I declined her invitation to attend.

  “I know. You’re right. Thanks, Fi. I’m just . . . over it. You know?”

  She nodded. “I do. So stop thinking about it and come on. Clara Bow and Thoroughly Modern Millie are waiting for us.”

  * * *

  “Hi, Mom,” I said with a smile a few seconds later. A smile that quickly transformed from slight apprehension to total disbelief. “What are you wearing?”

  “It’s costume night, sweetie!” She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek and then did the same to Fi. “Didn’t we tell you? I could have sworn we told you this morning at breakfast.”

  I heard Fiona snort, and I looked at her to confirm that we’d been told no such thing. I was certain that if we had, we would have remembered. We still wouldn’t have dressed up, of course, but we would have remembered making the conscious choice to disregard our mothers’ impassioned pleas.

  “Did the two of you get together ahead of time and decide to be twinsies? Or was that just a happy coincidence?” Fi asked with a smirk.

  It was so odd to both of us. Our parents had lived nearly an entire lifetime circling each other. Their daughters had been inseparable for three decades, and yet all it took, apparently, was the two of us getting out of their way for them to start spending time together. Over breakfast they had regaled us with tales of golf outings and canasta parties and the cruise they had booked for June.

  “Well, of course it was intentional, Fiona.” Jocelyn laughed. “And just wait until you see Henry and your father. They look like Jay Gatsby: The Later Years.”

  “If only that whole getting murdered in the swimming pool thing hadn’t gotten in the way,” I muttered to Fi, and she chuckled.

  “Come along, girls,” my mother chirped, hooking her arms through ours and forcing us to walk farther into the club. “Brandon is already here, and I’m starving!”

  “Did Brandon dress up?” Fi asked, but we didn’t have to wait long for an answer to that question.

  “Ahoy, there!” he shouted toward us, jumping up onto his chair and pulling a telescope to his eye—the eye that wasn’t covered by an eye patch, of course. “Arrrgh, there be ladies here!”

  Everyone laughed at him and all his ridiculousness. Well, everyone except me. I just rolled my eyes, though I couldn’t fight the slight smile that made its way to my lips despite my best efforts.

  He jumped down from his chair and rushed over to hug us both in a way befitting neither a pirate nor a country club—but it was all overwhelmingly Brandon. I’d never been able to deny that the guy was insanely lovable. In fact, despite my lifelong feelings of inadequacy, I’d always been his biggest fan. He was a complete dork, and he drove me crazy more than anyone else on earth, but he was my big brother, and I was in awe of him.

  “You do realize you’re a forty-three-year-old child, don’t you?” I asked him as I leaned into his embrace.

  “I prefer man-child, actually.” He grinned at me and my stoicism melted. “I’m glad you’re here, sis. Best surprise ever.”

  Before long, Henry and Landon Gatsby joined us, and we sat down to a strange, wonderful, first-time-ever full Ross and Mitchell family dinner. Conversation was rich, sentiments were real, the food was delicious, and apart from Brandon’s incessant booty puns, the humor was hysterical.

  At one point when the conversation turned to the second retelling of a you-had-to-be-there story from the parents’ recent night at the theater, Brandon leaned over to whisper conspiratorially to Fiona and me.

  “Hey, so some friends are meeting me here in a little bit, and we’re going to take off. You two should come with us.”

  “Friends?” I asked. “You’ve been back in Boston for two days and you have friends you want to hang out with? When your sister’s only here until Sunday?”

  “Don’t give me that guilt trip. I invited you! Besides, it’s only one friend.” He blushed. Brandon Ross blushed. “And then she’s bringing some friends.”

  He had always been fun to tease. “Are you going to invite your parents, who worry like crazy when you’re away fighting for our freedom—”

  “Behind a desk in Albuquerque.”

  “—and treasure every moment that you’re safely back home within their grasp?”

  He chuckled. “Um, no. I am not taking Scott and Zelda over there out dancing at Club Uey. And besides, they’re not going to have to worry as much anymore about the possibility of me being injured in some act of office-work heroism on distant New Mexican shores.”

  He winked, and I felt my stomach sink in a familiar way. I had no idea what he was alluding to, but I knew that my surprise visit home was about to be further overshadowed.

  “Why? What are you talking about?”

  “Hey, let’s get back to what matters here,” Fiona interjected as she leaned around me to get closer to Brandon. “Who’s this one friend? You said ‘she.’ Spill it, Ross.”

  The color crept up his face again. “You’ll meet her when she gets here.”

  “What’s her name?” Fi pushed.

  “Sonya.”

  “And how’d you meet?”

  He rolled his eyes, but his joy was evident. “I forgot how annoying you are.” When Fi didn’t reply but simply rested her chin on her knuckles and kept staring at him, he gave in. “We went to high school together. We reconnected last year on this online message board for our twenty-five-year class reunion. They tried to stage an online party for those of us who couldn’t make it to the actual thing. There were only about six of us who bothered to sign in at all, and by the end of the night it was just Sonya and me.” He shrugged, but the joy remained. “She’s been out to visit me on the base a few times since then, and during my last leave I met her and her kids—”

  “‘Her kids’?” Fiona’s eyes grew even wider.

  “Yeah. Matthew is seven, and Maisie is five. Her husband died in a car accident in 2007. Sonya and the kids and I spent a few days at the Cape, getting to know each other.” He pointed his finger at me. “Don’t you dare tell Mom and Dad I was in Massachusetts and didn’t see them.”

  “Brandon!” Fiona squealed quietly. “You’re going to marry this girl, aren’t you?”

  The goofiness and any lingering annoyance with his little sister’s pushy best friend melted off his face. “If I have anything to say about it, you bet I am.” His eyes flashed to me, and I measured my reaction. I’d never seen him regard me so earnestly.

  I swallowed down the emotions I didn’t quite understand. Yes, everything was all about Brandon, and
that always pushed my buttons. But that wasn’t it. Not this time. I was used to not being in the spotlight. Apart from fleeting moments here and there, I’d never wanted to be. But this time my brother had something I did want. I wanted to feel for myself the certainty and the happiness and the love—all wrapped up in one earnest and goofy package—that were radiating from him.

  For thirty-seven years he had outshone me, but true jealousy was just now imparting on its maiden voyage.

  “Oh my gosh, Bran,” I whispered through the frog in my throat. “I’m so happy for you.”

  And I was. I wouldn’t have taken his happiness away from him for anything in the world. I just wouldn’t have minded having some of that for myself.

  He grinned at me like a schmuck. “Thanks, sis. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”

  Fiona glanced around the big, circular table to verify that our parents were still in their own little world. Indeed, they were. I heard murmurings of plans to visit DC when the cherry blossoms bloomed. Fi’s interrogation resumed.

  “Tell us more. What does she do?”

  “She works in the communications office at Harvard. She used to be an assistant metro editor at the Globe, but after her husband died . . .”

  It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in hearing all the details about the woman my brother loved. I was. But I was unable to focus on anything he was saying. Random details about Sonya’s career and how smart and cute Matthew and Maisie were intermingled with comments like, “Oh, but you have to see the Jefferson Memorial at sunset, surrounded by all that pink.”

  Snap out of it, Liv. Wonderful things were happening for the people I loved. My parents and the Mitchells were living their best life. Brandon was in love. Fiona was singlehandedly saving Yemen. And it sounded like I was about to become an aunt.

  Maybe it just wasn’t in the cards for me. Any of it. Love, fulfilled dreams—my best life. Then again, maybe this was my best life and I needed to get busy living it. I had it pretty good, overall. I got to write for a living. I got to live vicariously through Fiona’s fabulous adventures without ever having to put on a bra or makeup. I got to go to the beach whenever I wanted.