by Naomi Niles
“Let us hope,” I said quietly. My thoughts were on Jaimie, who had undoubtedly participated in the negotiations. Knowing her, she had likely advised Carruthers and nudged him toward a decision. She would be reaping the benefits of my gratitude for days.
I left the building and walked outside into the open air. It was the quiet part of the morning, and the warm sun glinted off the tops of the cars in the parking lot as though winking in celebration.
Jaimie answered on the first ring. But before I could speak, she interrupted. I could tell at once there was something wrong.
“Braxton?” She sounded scared, even frightened. “I just got some distressing news.”
“What’s up?” I asked, my pulse racing. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Ren. I wasn’t expecting this to happen so soon; I thought I had more time.”
“Is she hurt?”
“No, she’s fine. She’s great. She just landed a book deal with a major publishing house!”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jaimie
Braxton seemed taken aback. “But that’s great news!” he said, adding in a quieter voice, “…Isn’t it?”
I said nothing for a moment. As soon as Ren texted me the news, I had left the office. I was now standing staring at my reflection in a small fish pond at the back of the building. The orange fin of a carp bobbed to the surface, and the sun glittered over the placid waters.
“I suppose it is,” I said finally. “And in a couple days or so I’ll accept it, and I’ll be able to offer her the support and encouragement she deserves.”
“So what’s the problem?”
I suppose I should have known I would have trouble explaining it to him. I hadn’t admitted to anyone the extent of my rivalry with Ren because admitting it would make it real, and I didn’t want it to be real. It was good that my best friend had landed a book deal; I just had to keep telling myself that until it became true.
“I’ve been working on a book of my own for the longest time now.” I drew a deep breath. “And I always knew Ren was going to be rich and famous and successful…”
“Jaimie, just because one of her books is going to be published—”
“I know, but I also know Ren, and I know she’s destined for greatness. She’s too talented and too persistent to be held back. She’ll be a millionaire by the time she’s thirty, and that’s a conservative estimate.”
“If you were enemies,” said Braxton, “I could understand being upset. But she’s your best friend.” There was a note of disappointment in his voice.
“Yeah, I get that. It confuses me, too.” I knelt down on the grassy back in front of the pond. “And I’m not even mad that she’s about to become a published author. It’s just—she beat me. I always knew this day was going to come. I just thought I had more time.”
There was silence on the other end of the line, only broken by the sound of a car door slamming. Braxton seemed to be struggling with how to respond.
“How far are you into your book?” he asked finally.
“Not very.” My hands were shaking, whether from surprise or lack of food—I had skipped breakfast that morning to come in early. “I keep writing the same three chapters again and again. I must have scrapped the whole thing and started over six times now. Whereas Ren never has to go back and correct herself and makes the whole process look effortless.”
“I’m sure it just looks that way because you’re seeing it from the outside,” said Braxton. “If you were privy to her actual process, you’d see how much work she puts into it.”
“I guess. But she wrote this book in six weeks. She can write 5,000 words in a day while I struggle to formulate a coherent sentence. There’s no way I’m ever going to be as good as her.”
“Do you have to be?”
“What does that mean?” I felt frustrated with him without really knowing why.
“I just mean maybe you feel tense because you’re pressuring yourself to be something that you’re not. You can’t be Ren. You can only be yourself.”
It was the sort of wise-sounding statement that I was supposed to accept as true, but I didn’t feel particularly receptive at the moment. “I just keep telling myself that if only I work at it as hard as she does, maybe eventually I’ll be as brilliant. But I’m twenty-three, and I’m not getting any better at it.”
“It can be hard to accept that some people are naturally better at certain things,” said Braxton. “No matter how hard you trained, you could probably never beat me in the octagon. I’m just guessing—I suppose you could surprise me. And I’ll never be a great musician no matter how many hours I spend noodling away at the guitar in my garage. I’ve just learned to accept that.”
I struggled to hold back a sob. Ever since the end of college, I had been clutching at this hope that with sufficient practice, I could be a great novelist. And I could see now that that wasn’t going to happen. It was like realizing that you were never going to marry the person you had been in love with. Years of carefully constructed illusions were crumbling in an instant.
“You doing okay?” Braxton asked after a lengthy silence.
“Ask me again in a few days.”
“Well, I hope you come around, for Ren’s sake.”
I sniffed loudly. “I don’t like that I feel this way, honestly. Ren would never forgive me if I was sullen on the happiest day of her life. And I know somewhere in my heart there is a part of me that is glowing and enthusiastic about this development. I just need to dredge it up.”
Braxton fell silent. I was so absorbed in my own thoughts that I almost didn’t hear the soft tread of footsteps behind me, and screamed in surprise when he suddenly sat down next to me.
“Were you driving over here the whole time?” Overcome with appreciation, I fell forward and hugged him.
“I was,” he replied. He patted me warmly on the back. “Now how would you like to go back to my house for breakfast?”
“I would love that, actually.” My stomach rumbled as though in affirmation. “Can you make chorizo again?”
“I think we may have eaten them all, but I can run by the store. I need to pick up some mango juice anyway.”
Half an hour later, we were seated in his kitchen. Honeyed late-morning sunlight spilled through the windows onto the granite countertops. On the stove, the skillet was warming, and Winston slunk restlessly at Braxton’s feet.
“So did you ever respond to Ren’s text?” he asked.
“I sent her congratulations. I was very enthusiastic about it, because—I know this sounds weird, but I’m going to be really excited for her in a day or two. It wasn’t a lie because I know it will be true eventually.”
“Makes sense.” He handed me an onion, which I began cutting into strips. The smell of sizzling breakfast sausage began to fill the kitchen.
“You know what I think you need?” He came over and put his arms around me.
“No, what?”
“I think you might need a short vacation. Just a day or two away from Boulder.”
“Yes, please. But where would I go?”
“Where would we go?” He let go of me and came around the counter to face me. “I was thinking we could take a quick trip down to my parents’ house near Dallas. You’d get to live out in the country for a few days. You’d have a warm place to sleep at night and three home-cooked meals a day.”
“Sounds like the Shire.”
“You’d finally get to meet my family and decide for yourself whether it’s worth going out with a boy from the sticks.” The skillet made a loud hissing and popping sound. Alarmed, Braxton ran over there and began to stir the meat with his spatula.
“I don’t think I’d mind,” I said as I placed the onion strips into a white bowl. “It would give me a few days to clear my head and repent for being jealous of Ren. And while I’m down there, I can begin working on my application.”
Braxton turned around, looking surprised. “What application?”
; I explained that I had been thinking about maybe leaving MMA and applying for an accounting job with a prominent record label. “I’ve been toying with the idea for a few weeks. I only took this job in the first place so I could have a way to pay the bills while I launched my career as a novelist. But now that that’s definitely not happening, I might as well push for a better-paying job. I really think I could make this my career.”
It felt weird to hear myself saying that accounting was going to be my life now. Maybe if I could conspire to go back and be born as a different person with more of a talent for writing, maybe then I could achieve my dream. But I wasn’t that person. Not in this life.
“Well, I’m proud of you,” said Braxton.
“What for?”
“I just am.” He shrugged. “I just like you and think you’re doing a lot better than you realize.”
“Thank you.” It was the simplest of affirmations, but it warmed my whole insides. “So when are we leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning,” said Braxton. I stared at him in surprise. “And before you ask, I’ve already booked both our tickets.”
“Well, gosh. What if I had said no?”
“You wouldn’t have.” He smiled. “You need this vacation as much as I do. I don’t know many people who work as hard as you do.”
“I suppose that’s true.” I breathed in deep, the smell of cooked meat filling my nostrils. “Are you sure I won’t be imposing?”
“Of course not. At this point, the family is already expecting you, and I don’t want to be the one to have to tell them that you bailed.”
“Fair enough. The last thing I want to do is break your sweet mother’s heart.”
“I don’t think anyone wants that.” Braxton lifted the skillet and drained the sausage grease into a colander, beneath which lay a bowl lined with paper towels. “You had better get your bags packed as soon as you get home tonight. I’ll be coming by to pick you up at seven am.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Braxton
“So is there anything to do in Sulphur Springs?” Jaimie asked me, a taunt in her voice. “Or do you live just out in the boons?”
“Well,” I said slowly, “it is a town of sixteen thousand—”
“So yes.”
We were seated together on an airplane flying over Texas, and we had about half an hour left in our flight. I had agreed not to go over to her house the night before so that we would have more time to pack and sleep. But Jaimie had slept fitfully and seemed unusually grumpy when I knocked on her door at seven am. She had spent the first leg of the trip trying to sleep in my seat, but had eventually given this up in favor of watching the sky through my window.
“Sulphur isn’t known for being a popular tourist destination, no,” I said with a touch of embarrassment. “Probably the only really interesting place to visit is my parents’ house. But we do have a dairy museum and a lake.”
“Ooo, exciting!” she said sarcastically.
“Of the two, I much prefer the lake.”
“I probably will, too.”
“When we were kids,” I added, “Mom and Dad used to take us to Imagination Mountain.”
“Is that as creepy as it sounds?”
“Almost. It’s a big playground in Coleman Park with a manmade waterfall, and when I was little, it seemed like the coolest place in the world. I sometimes wish I still loved anything as much as I loved that place. When we finished playing, we would go find Dad, and he would be grilling sausages and bratwurst and ribs and chicken and every other kind of meat you can eat. Here’s a thing you’ll have to understand about Texans: we eat a lot of meat.”
“Mmmm, can’t wait.” She went on gazing out the window, admiring the blue expanse over the cloud cover.
“I bet you’re glad not to be in Boulder for the weekend,” I said.
“I really am.” She yawned loudly and stretched her arms. “Now that I’m waking up, I’m really beginning to look forward to this trip. Ren texted me last night to ask if I wanted to hang out, but I told her I was too busy packing.”
“Are you sure you didn’t hurt her feelings?”
“She seemed fine.” Jaimie rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “I promised her we would celebrate next week when I got back.”
My brother Curtis was waiting for us at baggage claim, a thirty-something man with thinning hair and a muscular build. I supposed it was for the best that he was the first of the brothers to meet Jaimie: out of the five of us, he was the most affable and laid-back.
I slung Jaimie’s bag over my shoulder, and together we followed him out of the airport, through the warm parking lot to his truck.
“How are things back at home?” I asked him once we were on the road. “I talk to Mom at least once a week, but I haven’t heard from Dad in a while.”
“About the same as they were when you left. Dad finds little things to do around the house. He and Mom are talking about building a trellis in the backyard for the climbing plants. He still hasn’t gotten over Glen Campbell’s death.”
“Our family loves country music,” I explained to Jaimie. “It’s one of those things you’re just going to have to put up with.”
Turning back to Curtis, I added, “And how are the other brothers?”
“They’re all steadily getting paired off,” he replied, sounding slightly awed. “Darren was down here a few weeks ago. Natalie and Penny had a row because Penny overheard Natalie making fun of her behind her back, and of course, Allie got drawn into it. Words were exchanged.”
Much of this was incomprehensible to Jaimie, who looked at me imploringly. “Who’s Allie?” she asked. “Who’s Natalie?”
I realized I probably should have drawn her a chart before we left Boulder. “Allie is Curtis’s wife—they just recently got married. Natalie is one of Allie’s many friends from Dallas and the three of them sometimes go out drinking on the weekends. Penny is Darren’s fiancé.”
“And Darren is one of your brothers?”
“Yes, the dumb one, as we like to call him. Marshall likes to say that by the time Mom and Dad got around to making the two youngest boys, all the brains had been used up.”
Jaimie laughed. “I don’t guess they think too highly of you.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “They tolerate me.”
“So who is their favorite of all their sons?”
Curtis raised his hand quietly.
“Probably him,” I replied. “Him or Marshall, although I should note that he has only recently become popular within the family, since he became a millionaire.”
“Winning a million dollars does tend to increase one’s popularity,” said Jaimie. “I had an uncle that everyone hated until he won the lottery.”
“It’s annoying because Marshall is probably the laziest out of all of us, with the exception of Darren. Zack is a Navy SEAL and just returned from a stint in Libya. He described it as like being baked in an oven. He was so glad to come home.”
“And all of you are dating or married at this point?”
I nodded. “We are, although God only knows how that happened. Marshall is dating a cute baker and aspiring librarian in South Carolina, which somehow works. If you know Marshall, he’s a man who loves comfort, and she has a very calming presence. Zack’s got a girl up in Manhattan, an adventurous reporter, and Darren and Penny are about to get married.”
“And why does everyone hate Penny?”
“I wouldn’t say everyone—Mom loves her, for one. She just takes some getting used to.”
“She’s eccentric,” said Curtis. “Which is perfect for Darren. If we were sorting them into Hogwarts houses, Penny is a Ravenclaw, Lori—Marshall’s girlfriend—is a Hufflepuff, and Kelli and Allie are both Gryffindors.”
“God, no one cares, Curtis, you nerd,” I said in a teasing voice. “It’s been a joy to see our family multiplying over the past couple years. Mom is just so chuffed that she’s no longer the only woman in the family. She finally has somebody to t
alk to.”
Curtis turned on the radio and “Wagon Wheel” began playing. It was a version I didn’t recognize. “Did you know this started out as just a fragment of a Dylan song about forty years ago,” he said, “and then somebody came along and heard it and decided to add verses to the chorus? It takes balls to try to write a Dylan song.”
“Curtis loves music,” I explained to Jaimie, who didn’t know how to respond. “We’ve all got a weird hobby. Marshall’s is gambling, which has been fairly lucrative for him. Zac likes to read, even though he pretends he doesn’t. Darren fixes cars, although I sometimes think his real obsession is Penny.”
“God, yes,” Curtis groaned. “It’s so gross!”
“I’ve heard stories,” I said. “Apparently they just sit there at the dinner table flirting and kissing on each other like there’s nobody else in the room.”
“Though to be fair,” said Curtis, “Mom says she and Dad were like that when they first got married some forty years ago.”
“Mom and Dad are still like that!” I exclaimed. “It’s annoying.”
“And frankly we’re all sort of obsessed with our partners,” he added. “Allie is the only genuinely good thing to have happened to me in the past five years.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to say any more than that. The story of Curtis’s first marriage was his to tell if he wanted.
“And I’m sure the other boys would say the same thing.”
“They probably would. Zac and Marshall all seem sincerely happy with their partners. It’s almost weird, right? You’d think there would be at least one relationship that was shaky or in danger of breaking up.”
“But the gods have granted us success in our relationships,” said Curtis, grinning at himself in the rearview mirror. “Mama always said it would be thus.”
By now, we were approaching the outskirts of Sulphur Springs. On either side of us lay endless expanses of wheat fields only broken here and there by a gasoline station or the imposing silhouettes of oil machinery. There was a familiarity to the journey that was tinged with nostalgia. We passed empty tarmacs and chain-link fences, majestic ranch homes with long drives, and a field where cattle lay sunning in the noonday heat. One raised its head at us as we drove past, then lowered it again with a bored look.
