by Amy Faye
"Good, good." Jerry leaned back in the chair, his fingers interlaced. He looked good for a man who had to be fifty. Brett thought maybe better than his step-father had looked when they'd last seen each other. It had been a long time, and that was a long time for a man to find something worth keeping his life together for.
"Why? You worried we'd be fighting like cats and dogs?"
Jerry's expression of disinterest was about as unconvincing as anything. "No reason, I s'pose."
Brett looked down at the clock just above the radio. They weren't late, at least. His eyes darted off to the side of the street, where a short alley led back to a parking lot. In that instant he decided to pull over, his hands resisting the temptation to jerk the wheel over.
The car slipped into the parking lot easily. He pulled into the first spot, not caring whether or not he was straight. He wasn't going to be here long. Either he'd be leaving in deep shit, or he'd be leaving better than he'd arrived, but he wasn't going to take long.
His hands automatically turned the keys to the off position and pulled the key before he was even certain what he was supposed to be doing. When his hands continued the practiced routine and realized that he wasn't making any move to get out of the car, they seemed to stop, confused. He let his hands drop into his lap.
Jerry watched him, expressionless. Somehow Brett had expected him to look curious or unsure or something, but if he was feeling any of those things, he didn't show them. If anything, he looked bored. Like Brett had taken a particularly roundabout way to get to what he was about to do.
"Why don't you tell me what's really on your mind, Jerry?"
He made a face, pinching his lips together and raising his eyebrows, and then shrugged. "Nothing's on my mind," he lied, making no effort to hide the lie.
"Don't give me that. You're not cute enough."
"But you think Amy is, then? Cute enough?"
Brett's mind immediately filled in several blanks, but he looked confused anyways. "I'm sorry?"
Jerry laid his head back again. "You want to talk about whatever kept you up so late last night? Book club or something?"
Brett's teeth rubbed against each other. Yeah, that was the question, wasn't it? "Not particularly," he said softly. "But I have something related, I guess."
Jerry looked at him dully. Brett wanted to throttle him, do anything to get that look off his face. "Shoot."
"I wanted to talk to you about Amy."
"Oh yeah? About Amy? What about her?"
Brett's teeth rubbed more and harder. "Give me a minute, man."
"Fine. Take your time."
"I wanted to know if I had your permission," he started, and then his stomach turned all the way over in his gut, and the rest of the sentence threatened to fall out.
Jerry waited, like Brett had asked. And then he waited a little longer, and when it seemed as if the words weren't going to come out any further, he prompted simply "Permission?"
The architect's teeth went from rubbing to grinding. His jaw hurt. "I wanted to ask for your permission," he said, through clenched teeth. It was going to be humiliating, he was sure of that, but he was going to force himself to continue no matter what it took.
"I wanted to ask your permission to date your daughter," he said. He said it as simply and directly as possible to avoid having to explain, or try to explain, how it wasn't really incest after all. They were step-siblings.
There really wasn't any reason that it should be a weird situation at all. A strange coincidence of fate had turned into an uncomfortable coincidence of fate. But now, with Mom gone, well, they weren't even really even married. They hadn't been really married since Jerry had gone down.
He didn't explain any of that. First, because he figured that Jerry was probably smart enough to figure it out if he wanted to. Second, because he wasn't convinced that any of it would convince the man. But most of all, because he wasn't sure if he'd be able to get the words out if he tried.
"Is that all?" Jerry's face didn't look surprised. It as good as confirmed to Brett that things were exactly as he suspected, that Jerry pretty much had things figured out, whether he had the details or not.
Brett put his hands on the wheel, flexing his fingers. Maybe he was dehydrated. He could feel his skin. Could feel it too much, too sensitive. His eyes closed and he took a breath, trying to ignore the flood of sensations that adrenaline was pumping through his body. "Yeah."
"So I can talk now?"
"Sure," Brett said. He wasn't sure what he was going to say, but that was how this worked. The only reason he'd asked his step-father to stop talking a minute was that he could hardly get the words out in the first place.
Jerry made a face like he was chewing on the thought. He rapped a finger on his lap one minute, then looked out the window. Brett followed the line of his eyes with his own. There was a reflection of the sky in one back-alley window. It was blue today. They hadn't had rain in a little while, and it was overdue at this point. But it wasn't on the horizon yet.
Then Jerry turned back to him a second later. "No," he said, and that was the end of the conversation.
2005
Sam was still right where he'd left her when Brett got back. He gave her a smile. He was surprised how much she'd brightened up since they met. Maybe he should have left her in Ann Arbor, though, because around all these new people–new to her, anyway, she was right back in her shell again.
"You feeling okay?" his voice was low enough that he hoped nobody but her could hear. His hand touched her shoulder gently.
She barely moved, like every time she moved her body it stung somewhere deep down. But her eyes moved up to look at his face. Then she gave a nearly-imperceptible nod.
Brett settled back into his seat and wrapped a big arm around the small woman he'd brought along. Who he almost regretted bringing along, now, seeing how much of a strain it was on her. But she wasn't the type to tell him no, and he wasn't the type not to ask.
When he turned back, Amy still had the present in her lap. She frowned at it a minute, a furrow between her eyebrows. Like she was confused about something. She hadn't even bothered to make an effort at unwrapping it.
She picked it up gingerly, and Brett started, dimly, to remember that she had a routine she went through. A slow one.
He afforded the time to flip his eyes across to Mom and Jerry, sitting on the sofa. He could see something was off. Whatever it was, he didn't want to pry. He tried to reason that they'd figure it out eventually, or they'd let everyone in on what was going on. That was what he hoped, anyways.
He tried to keep his thoughts off his face. He leaned in and pressed his lips softly to the side of Sam's head. She leaned into the kiss gently. His attention focused back on his sister, making a focus to think of her as his sister. As if he could train himself not to think about her. As if he could train himself not to recall that she's not really his sister at all when he saw the way that her t-shirt pulled tight around her chest.
She flexed it one way. He could see her trying the other, but it didn't bend. By that point she must have had a good idea what it was. But he guessed that she wouldn't know. And she certainly wouldn't know how much agony he'd gone through deciding to give it to her, even after all this time.
He ought to have figured out a long time ago that he was past the point of giving it. He'd lost his nerve once, there was no reason to try to go back on it now. The gesture didn't mean anything to anyone. No one but him, at least.
Somehow, though, he couldn't shake that little bit of sentimental attachment that said that, at least to him, this was an important gift. One that he wanted very badly to give. So he'd give it now or never.
Amy was always slow opening gifts. He wasn't sure how he was 'supposed' to feel about it, but it stuck out about her. Everything about her was rash, thought through only as far as she had to before she acted.
But opening gifts, on Christmas and on her birthday, was something entirely different. She approached it li
ke it was supposed to be some grand mystery, and she could only open the wrapping if she were able to guess what she found inside. As if, when she finally did peel back the shiny paper, she might have it taken back if her guess was wrong.
This time was no different. She must have known it was a book already, but now she sat looking at it dimly, her eyes not quite focused. Her face screwed up a little bit in something that might have been doubt. Then she looked up at him, the same expression of doubt never leaving her face. He wondered what was going through her mind, but he wasn't going to ask her, and she didn't volunteer the information.
She opened her mouth to say something, and then an instant later she clapped it shut again, swallowing the words. She looked down at it again, weighing the size in her mind. Turned it over, as if there would be some hint on the back, but it was the exact same as the front, except for the tabs folded down and taped in place to hold the wrapping in place.
"A book," she said aloud. She always did guess it aloud–though she seemed unusually distracted by something, and didn't bother faking uncertainty. Her voice was low enough that it almost sounded like she was saying it to herself, but the only other sound in the room was from Mom setting her now-empty glass down on the side table by the sofa.
His sister ran her fingers along the wrapping paper once again, but there was nothing to be felt, no raised lettering or anything. Just a glossy cover, wrapped up in gaudy green and red wrapping. Then she looked up again at him, expecting some kind of response. He shrugged vaguely with one arm, the other still around Sam's shoulder.
He could see the little flash of annoyance that shot through her and let himself enjoy it for a moment. Then she looked back down at the present in her lap, and finally slipped one finger gingerly under the wrapping. He'd paid four dollars for the roll, he remembered, at a convenience store that looked like someone had frozen it in the 1980s. It was the one right by Sam's apartment.
He didn't think that would have made a difference. Same as Dani was sour about her routines being changed, Amy had her routines of her own, and as much as she would probably have insisted that she wasn't going to lose her mind over it, she seemed to take them at least as seriously as anything Brett had ever seen.
Once she'd eased the flaps back, she started working slowly on the fold. He'd tried to keep the tape as limited as he could, knowing her quirks, but it seemed to make no difference to how quickly she got through.
He hugged Sam to fill the seconds, enjoying the way that she squeezed into him. He'd been having a great deal of luck pretending that it wasn't awkward with her and Amy in the same room, and if he could continue to pretend that, it would be great.
Then, finally, she had the paper peeled back, and turned it over to look at the front. Her frown only deepened, the furrow between her brows as deep as it could be.
"If you–" he forced himself to cut off there. She didn't raise her head anyways, in the first place, until a few minutes had passed. When she did look up, her eyes shined in the light.
"Thanks," she said softly. "I love it."
23
Amy
Present Day
Amy had told the boys to get there at eleven, and it was ten forty-five. So there was nothing to be nervous about; they weren't late. If they walked in the door right now, they'd be early. But her leg jumped nervously as she sat waiting.
Sure, they weren't late, but why couldn't they have been more early? Her foot was already starting to hurt from the effort of jumping. She pressed it firmly into the floor. Thirty seconds later, it jumped again, seemingly unabated.
Then she stood up, her eyes on the small patch of road visible from her seat, and took a step towards it. Then a turn around, and then a step away. Another deep breath. What was wrong with her? She swallowed hard. She’d gotten herself this far, and she’d carry herself further if she had to. Why did it matter so much what a pair of men thought about it?
She knew it was a stupid question as soon as she thought it. Of course it mattered. It mattered to her, whether or not it was ‘supposed’ to matter didn’t really factor into anything. If she worried about it, then it mattered.
Her stomach did a flip and she took another step away. Pacing was normal, when you were worried. Right? She didn’t have anything that needed worrying about just yet. They were going to be there any time. Once they were inside, she’d stop feeling that gnawing worry in her gut.
Part of her wondered why there was any reason that she should be worried now. There were so many times that she should have been worried before this. Practice, the audition. She’d been nervous, but she felt like she held it together better in those times than she was right now.
Something about the mixing of Brett and Dad being involved, about the pair of them being together, about her god damned idiot self, letting a man who should have been nothing but her brother, talk her into bed with that smile of his and his looks and memories that were long since in the past.
She blinked and tried to pretend that she wasn’t stressed about any of it. That was the most logical thing. Fake it til you make it: that was what Dad always said. She couldn’t help smiling for a moment, even in spite of her frayed nerves. It sounded like a crock, but she’d faked her way through the Conservatory, faked her way through college before that, faked her way through high school.
Faked her way through so many things. It was hard to gauge success, on some things. But there were some things that were easy to gauge success. Pass or fail, and she’d passed through all of the ones that came before. She turned her wrist to look at the watch around her wrist. Five minutes. If they were actually late, she was going to be… good and upset, she thought. Good and upset.
She turned away from the door and paced away, and when she turned back, she had only taken a single short step back towards the door by the time she saw two men, one almost a head taller than the other, neither really in clothes suited for the Orchestra, step into view.
The taller one grabbed the handle, and Dad came in through the open door. If he said ‘thank you,’ she didn’t hear it. He might have muttered it softly, though. She wasn’t exactly in a position to hear. Her heart was thumping too loud in her ears. Brett’s smile looked fake, but it looked like he was trying hard to pretend that it wasn’t.
“Hey. How’d it go?”
Her jaw wanted to move a million miles an hour. She forced herself to slow down before she even let herself speak the first words. Deep breath in. Hold a fraction of a second, and then slow breath out. The wait had felt like it was going to kill her, and yet now she wanted nothing more than to draw out the suspense. But she couldn’t keep them in the dark forever, either.
“I got it,” she said, a smile infecting her face.
Then she let them react, and neither of her boys disappointed. Dad was understated, as usual, while Brett pulled her into a tight hug before seeming to realize that he’d overstepped in the wrong situation, and pulling himself back.
“Good work, Kiddo,” Dad said. He reached across and put a hand on her head. There was something unusually sad about his smile—she didn’t give it any more thought than was absolutely necessary.
Sometimes, in spite of her best efforts, Dad was unusually morose, and there wasn’t really anything… wrong with it. He did his best, and there was nothing more that she could ask. When he was ready to feel better, he would, and if there was something she could do, he’d ask. Until then, she just had to be understanding, and after twenty-seven years, she was used to it.
"So… what, then?" Brett was the one speaking. If he noticed Dad's mood, then he didn't mention it. In fact, if she didn't guess wrong, she would say that there was a lot he wasn't mentioning.
She waved them on. "Come on." Then she started taking them through. It was easy to pretend to know her way around; she'd been in the building all of twice, now, but as long as she tried to remember the map she had seen, she could pretend well enough even to fool herself.
It all led in one direction–in, f
urther and further as she went. And yet, the one thing that became increasingly clear, as the exploration continued, was that much of the place was nothing to see.
There was the stage, of course. She enjoyed seeing it again, and she enjoyed seeing the look on Brett and Dad's faces when they looked out, from the stage floor up at the auditorium. In that moment, she thought, they might have finally realized how big this was for her if they hadn't already.
But other than that, it was a maze of closets and practice rooms. Practice rooms that were as nice as the nicest in the Conservatory, but it wasn't anything to look at. Her energy was high enough that she probably should wouldn't have even thought about it, but there was something else going on. Something she couldn't put her finger on until she'd picked up her cello case and they started looping back toward the door.
Brett talked; Dad didn't. That was what she'd expected. What she didn't expect was the way they were both acting with each other. Like they were pretending that the other wasn't there.
Amy forced herself to ignore it. Otherwise she was going to have to actually get an answer, and this wasn't the time or the place. With all of that, and the risk of having her dirty laundry aired in a place where she absolutely couldn't afford it, made the entire building seem smaller. When she worried about what ears could hear, every corner seemed closer.
Suddenly, the entire tour seemed to be taking far too long. Hadn't she already shown this room? No, she thought. This room was in use. From the look of things, it probably had been for some time. The conductor sat at the front, shirt open down to the third button, leaning back against a stool. Two women and three men sit with violins in their lap. They afforded a glance at the door before going back to their conversation.
She let out a long breath, closed the door behind her. She had to hope that she wasn't being too obvious about her mood, but she knew that it wasn't likely. The odds were, she was being as obvious as can be. She wasn’t going to let that stop her. She kept the attempts up as long as she could, until finally, thankfully, she was able to get them both outside, too tired to bother with formalities.
