by Zoe York
“Maybe I could mix you up a drink, Gran?” I offered, which earned me a dirty look from Juliet. I didn’t like Juliet being annoyed with me, but she wasn’t here most of the time. I’d learned how to mollify my grandmother to keep things peaceful around the house.
“We should play Monopoly,” Juliet suggested.
“You call that a game?” Gran sniffed. “I’ll take my drink, Tessy, and I’m going online. Y’all better be a lot more fun for the party. I didn’t live this long to have to try to figure out what everyone around me is moping about.”
As Gran left the porch, sniffing, Juliet sighed and dropped her head into her hands. A little knot formed in my stomach as I realized now I was somehow responsible not just for keeping Gran happy and sedate, but I also had to worry about my sister disapproving of the way I did it.
I rose and followed Gran into the kitchen. I purposely didn’t look back at Ryan, and I didn’t return to the table after I’d set Gran up with her drink. Instead, I went upstairs to read, and was in bed nice and early.
I woke up the next morning early and dressed quickly. I wanted to get a workout in before any magazine crew craziness got rolling, and I thought a decent sweat session might clear my head, which was still muddled with movie star almost-kissing, intimate baking, chickens with mad bodyguard crushes and Juliet’s weird moping. It was too much to worry about, so for now I was going to focus on getting my heart rate up and banishing some worries with sweat. I’d left the watersports shop to the employees to run for the rest of the weekend, and felt free and light, despite all the chaos and strangeness in the house.
I padded down the stairs to the basement, switching on the lights and ignoring the boxes stacked against the unfinished walls on the side beneath the stairs. That was storage, which was what this space was probably intended for. Most houses around here had basements, but the ones built as early as ours didn’t usually have the high-ceilinged, finished affairs that newer houses did. The ceiling down here was high enough to hang a heavy bag and a speed bag, but only because I wasn’t a tall girl. They would have been comically low for anyone over five-four.
I moved to the center of the floor, where I’d installed some pads, and jogged in place for a few minutes before beginning to jump. I mimed jumping rope—something the ceiling was too low to actually do—and watched the clock. When I’d been moving for five minutes solid, the sweat beading at my brow and my breath coming fast, I took a few minutes to stretch out, moving the whole time. When I felt loose enough, I got to work, going through the same series of punches and kicks I’d been doing forever, moves I’d learned from my dad, who’d once been a Golden Gloves champion.
He’d taught me to box when I was a tiny kid, as a way to feel powerful in a school system where being a scrawny mousy-haired girl didn’t always allow you to feel that way. Juliet had gotten along fine—being beautiful from age one would do that for you. But I’d always been a little different. And while I’d never minded not fitting in with all the other kids, it seemed to bother them a lot that I didn’t care. And I’d needed to learn how to make them leave me alone. Maybe words would have worked better, but Dad knew how to use his fists to convince people of things, and that’s what he’d taught me, perhaps against my mother’s wishes.
But that’s how it was, I guess. Juliet was Mom’s. I was Dad’s daughter.
I punched, kicked and jabbed until my lungs were screaming and my muscles were weak, and then I cooled down, throwing myself onto the mat once I’d finished stretching. The best thing about working hard enough to physically need the rest was that it stilled my mind and I was thinking about absolutely nothing.
“You’re still beating the shit out of these bags, huh?” Juliet asked, stepping down into the musty space and looking over at me.
Despite all the weirdness, it was still nice to see my sister.
“Keeps me in shape,” I panted. “Gets my mind to still a bit.”
She nodded. “Dad would be happy. Maybe I could use that,” she said. She reached out a dainty fist and hit the speed bag, watching it recoil and bounce a bit. Something in the action, and so much in her voice felt sad and lost.
“You doing okay?” I asked her.
She shrugged and punched the heavy bag with her other hand. “Ouch. Shit!” She stared at her knuckles.
“You need to wrap your hands if you’re going to hit that hard,” I told her, pulling myself to my feet. I switched off my Bluetooth speaker and picked up my water bottle, turning to head back upstairs with my sister, but she stood still. She was staring into the middle distance, unseeing. “Hey, you,” I said, bumping shoulders with her. “You sure you’re okay?”
A smile flickered over her face and she turned to look at me. “I’m great, Tess. Really.” it was the least convincing acting she’d ever done.
“Ryan seems nice.” I couldn’t help it. There was a strange excitement in even getting to speak his name, and it didn’t seem to matter that I’d told myself I wasn’t going to talk about him, think about him today.
I knew it was impossible. He was here. He was gorgeous and kind. And I was no better off than I’d been before my workout, as if speaking his name brought every misplaced feeling I had for him racing right back in.
I tried not to think too hard about the things my sister got to do with him. About whether they’d done any of those things last night after I’d gone to bed, and replayed our single near-kiss over and over in my mind like a lovesick child.
“He’s a good guy.” The words were right, and she sounded like she meant them, but I’d somehow expected something more. More passion, maybe. More enthusiasm. I knew I’d have a hard time not gushing if Ryan McDonnell was my boyfriend.
“You’ve just been seeing each other a couple weeks? I mean, you weren’t seeing him before … you know …?”
She shook her head as we started up the stairs. “No. I would have been faithful forever. Even though things …” Her voice cracked a bit on the word forever. “Things had gotten harder,” she said, and it was as if she’d admitted to killing a kitten. She sounded so guilty, like she blamed herself for failing at marriage.
“Jul,” I said, reaching up to pat her back ahead of me. “I’m so sorry.”
She turned and gave me an appraising look, and then sighed. “There’s so much I want to tell you.”
“So tell me.” I wasn’t used to Juliet being cryptic, but it had been a while since we’d seen one another. Time and space had driven us apart.
“I can’t,” she said simply, stepping out into the hallway next to the kitchen. “The magazine people are here.” She pointed to the front parlor, where I could see people moving past the open doorway and hear unfamiliar voices. One of the hulking security guards stood next to the door and he grinned at Juliet when he saw us standing there. Those guys were creepily everywhere, and managed to stay silent, even though they were huge. I guessed that was their job. I peered around him at the bustle in the room.
“Crap, they’re really early,” I said, keeping my voice low. It wasn’t even nine A.M.
“It’s good. Maybe we’ll be done early,” she said.
“I need to shower. I wanted to be ready. I had a plan.” A small panic rose in me. I’d wanted to be prepared for them to arrive, to greet them and offer coffee and tea, to seem worldly and put-together. But they were an hour earlier than I’d expected them, and I was drenched in sweat.
“It’s fine Tess, you don’t have to wait on anyone.” She said it like a person who never worried about waiting on anyone, and the differences between our lives were brought into sharp relief in my mind.
“I got this.” I took a deep breath and did what I needed to do. I pretended perspiration wasn’t actually dripping from the back of my hair and sliding down my neck as I welcomed the photographers, makeup artists, and the interviewer into my home. I acted like this was how I’d intended to look when the two biggest movie stars in the country were about to be interviewed in my house, like I was just. That
. Casual.
“There’s some coffee and tea, and some muffins and fruit in the dining room,” I told them. “Or, I mean, there will be in a minute or two …”
“I’m sorry we’re early,” Alison Sands told me, offering the smile I’d seen a few times before when the magazine had done segments on television entertainment shows. She was pretty and put together in her crisp black skirt suit, and standing next to her made me feel even more like a sweaty disaster. “We weren’t sure how much time to allow—you’re pretty far out here!”
The frown crossed my face before I could contain it. It wasn’t as if we lived in the middle of nowhere. Southern Maryland was civilized. We had a Target. And two Starbucks!
“It’s fine,” I managed, though coming at the time you were invited was much more civilized in my mind than showing up an hour early, especially in the morning. I decided to let it roll off my shoulders, and then I went to defrost muffins I’d made a week ago and brew coffee. Juliet came in to pull some fruit from the refrigerator, maybe sensing my desperation. When we’d gotten it all out on the dining room table and the magazine team was at work setting up for the interview, I turned to my sister.
“I’ll be right back,” I told her, and then I turned to sprint up the stairs to attempt to break the record for world’s quickest shower. Naturally, Ryan was coming down, and I barreled directly into him. Because, clearly, that was how my day was going to go.
“Oh crap,” I said, startled as his strong hands found their way around my arms to steady me. “I’m so sorry.” He was two steps above me, so I was staring at his chest. His strong, perfect chest, on display through a fitted dark button down shirt. I was already covered in a sheen of sweat, so hopefully he didn’t notice the way my skin heated and flushed.
“You okay?” He asked with a laugh in his voice.
“Fine. Sorry.” I stepped back down, out of his grip, and dodged around him, in too much of a hurry to try to stifle the careening butterflies in my gut or the desperate desire to stand there in front of him for hours upon hours. Or maybe forever. “Be right back.”
I took what could potentially be qualified as a shower in parts of the world where water was scarce—the kind where each part of your body got the vaguest of rinses with the water. Then I put on some makeup and twisted my hair up into a bun, and arrived back downstairs to find the interview already underway. I wondered what kind of notes they might have already made about Juliet’s super-sweaty sister.
Juliet and Ryan sat side by side, facing toward the picture window at the front of the parlor. They were flanked by all sorts of lights and reflective umbrellas, and the interviewer sat on a high stool in front of them, her legs crossed primly at the ankles.
“I thought this was a magazine interview,” I said to the big dark haired guard standing in the doorway watching.
He turned and gave me a smile that was surprisingly sweet for a guy so huge and terrifyingly … huge. “They’re doing this segment for promo and to feature on a couple of the nightly shows.”
I nodded as if this was just a standard happening in my daily life, and lingered for just a second. They were still doing sound checks and measuring lighting, so I stepped out and went to the dining room for a cup of coffee and a quick bite.
I was feeling better. I was dressed and dry, and had done hostessy things like making coffee and offering it to the crew. This was more like I’d imagined the day going.
Except. Where was Gran? I didn’t hear her cursing, so that was something.
I tiptoed back out of the room and wandered the main level of the house, peeking out onto the porch and scanning the yard. She sometimes did Tai Chi out under the trees on the riverbank, but she wasn’t out there now. I approached the door to the room where we’d moved her gaming computer and wasn’t too surprised to hear her grumbling at the monitor. I pushed the door open and was greeted by a cloud of dense smoke hanging in the air, its telltale aroma pungent and thick. Because of course Gran wouldn’t care what a Hollywood magazine was going to write about us.
“Gran!” I scolded. “It’s not even nine AM!”
She turned in her huge black chair and stared at me with too-round eyes and a little guilty smile. “Tess. I needed to relax. Big raid today.”
I shook my head. I did not need this today. “No big raid today. You promised no Warcraft today. And no pot!” I hissed.
“You can’t trust anyone over forty,” she told me. “Haven’t you ever heard that?”
“Oh my God,” I said, opening windows and waving my arms around over my head. “It reeks in here. The magazine people are here—do you want them to put this in the article?”
Gran shrugged.
“And now I smell like pot!” So much for appearing put together.
Gran shrugged again, giving me a simpering smile as she crossed her arms.
“No games and no pot until they’re gone!” I told her.
“Fine,” she said, pouting and then taking another quick drag on her joint.
“Give me that!” I said, reaching to grab it and stub it out in her ashtray.
“You could use it,” she said, nodding.
“I’m fine. Just a little …”
“You’re all worked up over hotty McHot Stuff being with your sister out there. I remember when you watched that movie of his every day for three weeks.”
I had been just slightly obsessed with Meet me in Manhattan. But that was a few years ago. I was far more mature now, and Ryan never did romantic movies anymore.
“Gran …” I started, but she reached forward and shut off the monitor, giving me a sweet smile.
“Thank you.” I leaned down next to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Maybe you could go sit outside a bit? Get some fresh air?” I worried that the smell of smoke had already wrapped itself through every fiber of her tracksuit, her hair. I didn’t know what the magazine people would make of a pot-smoking, Warcraft-raiding granny in Juliet’s life, but I had to assume those things wouldn’t help paint the picture of her idyllic childhood here in Maryland. We needed to try to help Juliet. She’d been through enough.
Gran finally stood and we went together to the back porch, where I settled her with a muffin, a cup of coffee, and her Kindle. Besides gaming, she had a penchant for erotic literature.
“I’m going back in to watch the interview,” I said.
She ignored me, already reading, and I turned quickly, my attention drawn by the sound of a screeching chicken. Oh God. Chessy.
Back inside, Juliet and Ryan sat holding hands casually and smiling as if they did this every day, but Juliet’s eyes were huge as she tracked the half-flight, half-sprint of an enraged chicken streaking through the room at Alison.
“Chessy!” I shrieked before I thought better of it. I dashed into the room, pulling the chicken away from where she was trying to peck at the interviewer’s legs. Alison had pulled herself up to balance on the top of the stool, her mouth in an exaggerated open gape and her eyes enormous as she stared at me like her last salvation.
“What is that thing?” Alison asked in a whisper-hiss full of the kind of shock that someone who’s never been pecked by a house-chicken before will use.
I’d finally caught Chessy and held her against my chest where she quit struggling once she had craned her neck around so she could gaze lovingly at Jack. “This is Chessy,” I said, realizing that an insane indoor chicken probably wasn’t going to help Juliet. But it was too late to fix this. Better to just be truthful.
“Why is it inside?” Alison asked, horrified.
“She’s an indoor chicken,” I said, figuring that explaining how Chessy had been targeted by the mean girl chickens out in the coop and bullied within an inch of her little chicken life probably wouldn’t be good fodder for the article. “It’s very trendy here in Maryland,” I said, trying to fix this but realizing I’d already gone too far.
“Really?” Alison asked, finally letting her legs down from where she’d balanced atop the stool.
“Oh yes,” I said. “You should see all the fancy ladies out at lunch with their hens in designer bags. I’m surprised they’re not doing it in California yet. It’s a nod to environmentalism and humane treatment of animals, and antibiotics…” I trailed off, my mind wanting to link fashionable chicken husbandry to global warming somehow, but not quite getting there. I was distracted by the amused smile spreading across Ryan McDonnell’s face as he listened to me talk.
His eyes danced and he shook his head lightly, grinning at me.
For a split second, I met his eye and little shocks went through me all the way to my lady bits and back.
“Interesting,” Alison was saying as she jotted something in her notebook.
“I’m sorry, I thought Chessy was out of the way,” I said, turning to put the chicken back in the kitchen.
“My fault,” Jack said, leaning in as I passed him.
Chessy struggled in my arms, every little chicken cell she possessed trying to get closer to Jack.
“I went in the kitchen to put away my coffee cup and she saw me. I thought I got that door closed…”
“A chicken’s adoration can unlock any door, I guess,” I told him. “Not your fault.” I smiled at the big guard who was observing the chicken with wary eyes. He shocked me by reaching out to take her from me.
“I’ll just hang on to her.” Chessy beamed up at him, nestling her head into his big chest.
“If you’re sure,” I said. When he didn’t protest, but stroked the chicken’s head instead, I went back out into the parlor.
Juliet and Ryan were leaning into one another, smiling like a couple that knew every secret the other kept. My stomach twisted as I took up a spot in a corner, out of the way.
“It wasn’t love at first sight really,” Juliet was saying. “I mean, I’d seen Ryan of course—who hadn’t? He was in every amazing action movie I saw.” I schooled my face into a mask. I could handle listening to my sister gush about Ryan. Of course I could. He was her boyfriend. To me, he was just … a man I needed to stop thinking about. One who made my whole body feel like it was getting ready to erupt.
