Secrets of a (Somewhat) Sunny Girl

by Karen Booth

  “Come in. We have a ton of food and Luke will make you whatever you want to drink.” She was wearing an adorable ice blue party dress, with a fitted bodice and short full skirt. She looked like a slightly slutty Disney princess.

  Luke passed my coat to a woman waiting off the wings of the foyer. “It's true. Whatever you want.”

  “A Negroni?”

  “Up or on the rocks? And is there a particular brand of gin you prefer?”

  Luke was not messing around. “Up, please. Hendricks if you have it.”

  “Of course I have Hendricks. I wouldn't dream of having a party without it.”

  Of course not. “Thank you so much.”

  Amy grabbed my hand. “Come on. I want you to meet everyone. I've told everybody all about you.”

  I stopped myself from saying the words fighting to make their way from my lips. And they still want to meet me? “Can't wait to meet your future in-laws.”

  We started down a long hall. Overhead, soaring barrel ceilings dripped with chandeliers. Beneath our feet, a black granite and white marble checkerboard made our heels click with every step. Family portraits of suspiciously airbrushed people sat in fat gold frames on the walls. Everything screamed history and money. Longevity. Permanence. Perhaps that was part of the great appeal of Luke. This was the opposite of our upbringing.

  The hall opened up to large carved pillars at least twelve feet high and a palatial room with a roaring fireplace at one end, a grand piano and a lavish display of opulently upholstered furniture. Milling about in the space, a gathering of well-coiffed men in V-neck sweaters and khakis grumbled and laughed.

  I tugged on Amy's arm. “Where are the women?”

  “In the kitchen. We'll go in there in a minute.”

  “Don't you think that's a little strange?”

  “Why is it strange?”

  “It's weird. The way they separated the men from the women.”

  “Nobody separated anyone. That's just the way it happened. You have been to a party before, haven't you? This is what happens.”

  Something about this screamed misogyny and patriarchy and quite possibly toxic masculinity. “I still say it's strange.”

  “Katherine, what is your problem? Please don't ruin this party for me.”

  “I’m just asking a question.”

  The introductions were fine, albeit uncomfortable, but most of that was likely coming from me. What year were we living in that the dudes were in one room and the women in another?

  After I met Luke's dad and brothers, his uncle, several of his cousins, and the groomsmen, Amy walked me into the kitchen. Luke's mom, Cindy, was the first person we encountered. She was just as much of a perfect physical specimen as her son, with blindingly white teeth and the posture of a person who has done dance her entire life. “Katherine, we want you to know that you're about to become a member of our family, too. Just like Amy.” Something about the comment, however gracious, made me think she was perpetually widening her social circle.

  “Oh, well, gee. Thanks. That's very sweet of you.” I forced a smile and glanced at Amy, waiting for the moment when she'd roll her eyes, the signal that we would get to laugh about this later.

  That moment never came. Amy admired Cindy in utter adoration. “I’m getting the best mother-in-law ever.”

  Cindy's chin dropped and her lower lip stuck out. “And I'm getting the daughter I always wanted.”

  “Don't you already have a daughter?” Granted, I was still sorting out the family tree, but Luke had definitely mentioned a sister.

  Cindy tossed back her head and laughed, cupping my shoulder with her hand. “I can tell we have a real firecracker on our hands.”

  Amy smiled in eager agreement. “She's a real barrel of laughs. Especially at parties.”

  I forced a beauty pageant grin. Or at least that was what it looked like in my head. “You know how much I love large social gatherings.”

  I surveyed the massive kitchen, a sea of white marble and double ovens populated with women who spoke while hardly moving their jaws at all. When in the hell was Luke going to show up with my cocktail? I needed some gin and Campari to loosen me up for more fake pleasantries.

  Amy paraded me around the room, which put my pageant contestant practice from a few moments earlier to good use. I met Luke's aunt, Jan, who was clearly cut from the same cloth as her sister, Cindy, except quite self-absorbed, the sort of person who tells you all about herself before she thinks to ask a single question about you. Thankfully, the groom showed up with my drink, which took the edge off. Next time, I wouldn't wait so long. I'd start drinking in the car.

  Luke left to join the men in the other room, which made me a bit sad. He was a known quantity, always even-keeled and easy to be around. Plus, my sister was acting so unlike herself it was hard for me to be in the same room with her without slugging her arm and asking what in the hell was wrong with her. We hadn't shared a single inside joke or made fun of anyone yet, not even Aunt Jan, who would not stop talking about her seven Pomeranians, each named after a member of 'N SYNC or The Backstreet Boys. By all accounts, Justin Timberlake was quite a rascal.

  I'd met two of the three other bridesmaids before at work functions for Amy's law firm and they were nice enough, but after ten minutes, I ran out of things I could think to ask about practicing law, so those conversations fizzled. I just felt all too uncomfortable, like when you're wearing a blouse with a scratchy tag or undies that won't stop riding up. I wasn't meant for idle chitchat and it was always impossible to explain to anyone what I did for a living, which added an extra layer of awkward to everything.

  “So you're like an interior designer.” Aunt Jan had hunted me down to tell my an adorable story about how Joey Fatone is always gnawing on one corner of her very expensive designer couch, but apparently decided to humor me with a discussion of something in no way related to herself.

  “Not quite. I'm a color analyst. I help companies put together color schemes for things like ad campaigns and corporate branding.”

  “So you're a graphic designer.”

  I shook my head. “I don't do any actual design.” Once I reached this point in the back-and-forth, it started to sink in just how easily I could disappear and it wouldn't matter. What I did was like a wisp of smoke—fleeting, difficult to quantify, and I suspected would not be missed when it was gone.

  “Katherine has superhuman eyesight when it comes to colors,” Amy explained. “It's remarkable. A one-in-a-million anomaly.”

  “Well, it's not superhuman so much as it is uncommon. I can see a million more colors than the average person. It's my job to identify particular colors that might be especially harmonious or pleasant. Or sometimes schemes that are jarring or make people uncomfortable. There's a real psychology behind it.”

  “Katherine's working on the new Anthem Apparel catalog. It's very exciting.”

  Somewhere above her head, a light bulb went off for Aunt Jan. “Oh, I just love their cardigans. You must pick those crazy names they use. Like when you buy a sweater and it's called cornflower, not just light blue.”

  No, that's not what I do either. “Sort of.”

  Eventually, Amy and Jan launched into a lengthy discussion of where Amy and Luke were going to go on their honeymoon and I wandered into a quiet corner of the kitchen, where a young woman with dyed magenta hair and heavy eyeliner was sitting on a barstool drinking a glass of red wine and staring at her phone.

  “Hi. I'm Katherine. I'm Amy's sister.”

  She looked up from the screen. “Oh. Hey. I'm Shelly. Luke's sister.” She turned her phone over and set it down on the counter.

  I knocked back the last of my drink to disguise my shock. This was Mr. Perfect's sister? The outcast girl in the corner? I immediately liked her. “Your mom was talking about you. I guess she just never got around to introducing us. She's pretty busy with the party.”

  “My mom was most likely not talking about me, but I appreciate your willingness to lie
to make a stranger feel more comfortable. It shows a great deal of empathy on your part.”

  Apparently I'd better buckle up for this conversation. “She mentioned you if that makes you feel any better.” She'd also called my sister the daughter she never had, so there was no telling what sorts of skeletons Shelly might have. I didn't want to pry, but if I happened to stumble over a few bones, it would at least make the evening more interesting.

  “That's something. For sure.” Shelly pulled out the empty barstool next to her and patted the seat. "Join me."

  “Now let me get this straight. You're the youngest in the family?”

  “Yeah. The three boys and then me. There's nine years between me and Luke. Mom really wanted a girl, so she made one last attempt. I'm a senior at NYU.”

  “Your mom got her wish. That's nice. It seems like most people who try that always end up with another child of the same gender.”

  Shelly took a sip of wine and seemed to ponder the glass when she set it back on the counter. “I don't know if my mom actually got her wish, but she can tell people she did and I think that's all she really cares about. My parents have a knack for getting whatever they want.”

  I was busy wondering what Shelly meant by that first part when her dad waltzed into the room. No one seemed to be horribly scandalized by the fact that a second man had made his way into the kitchen. That was reassuring. I hadn't completely stepped into a 1950s time warp. “Can you give me the lay of the land with your family?” I asked it out of the corner of my mouth. The last thing I needed was for Amy to hear me.

  “There's not much to tell. Everyone is normal and boring. Even worse, they're all happy being that way. Frankly, it makes me sick. That's why I end up hanging in the corner. I can't sit through one more conversation with Aunt Jan about Howie D and her precious little personality.”

  “Interesting. So Howie D is a girl.”

  Shelly cocked an eyebrow. “You name your dogs after boy bands, you're going to have to bend some gender rules or deal with a lot of doggie testosterone.”

  “There has to be some family dirt.” I leaned back in my seat and surveyed the group of women. Almost everyone had the same hairstyle—a longish bob with highlights. “Somebody has to be on their second or third marriage or sleeping with someone they shouldn't be.”

  “It would sure make family gatherings more interesting, but I come from a long line of monogamists.”

  And I came from a long line of people who seem to take liberties with that. I knew for a fact that my Aunt Lucy had cheated on every one of her husbands with the guy who eventually became the new Mr. Aunt Lucy. “Interesting. Is your family Catholic?” I was always looking for a reason why people were able to stay with the same person without any bumps in the road, although that was a bit silly. Amy or I had never cheated on a boyfriend. We'd managed to keep things together. Neither of us had gotten married though. That was the next big test.

  “Nope. It's just the way it's played out. Everyone seems adept at finding their soulmate. My parents have been married for thirty-six years and they're showing no sign of stopping.” Shelly and I looked at them, and nearly on cue, her dad patted her mom's ass, and she feigned disapproval, swatting him on the arm and telling him he was terrible. Everyone who witnessed the exchange found it hilarious. That Cindy and Tom. What a couple of rabble-rousers.

  “What about you? You find your soulmate yet?”

  Shelly was immediately fighting a smile. “Maybe. We'll see. We've only been together for about a month.”

  “Well? Who is he?” Hot guy from one of her classes? Better yet, super hot older professor?

  Shelly scanned my face like she was looking for something. “Promise you'll keep this to yourself? You can't even tell your sister.”

  “Yeah. Of course. I'm very good at keeping secrets.” If only Shelly knew the lengths to which I would go to hide some things.

  “Not a he. She. And my family doesn't know.” Every family has a secret somewhere. It was a fact of life. And just like the secrets in my family, I sensed that this was causing pain. Shelly was a very relatable jumble of happy and sad. “You asked for the family dirt. I guess that's me.”

  I shook my head. “No way. You’re awesome. Secrets and dirt are not the same thing, anyway.” I scanned my brain for some nugget of wisdom. I'd been through my fair share of relationships. Surely all of that life experience, a million mistakes made, could benefit someone. “You know, it's okay to enjoy a relationship without it being under the microscope of family. Especially at the beginning when everything is so new and perfect and you know that feeling will go away at some point. When things settle in.”

  “That makes so much sense.”

  Sure, I was echoing my exact attitude about Eamon and why I'd never told Amy about him. “I think it's best to worry about what's between you and your new love and worry about your family later. You're so young. You're just starting to know your own heart. You don't have to figure it all out now.”

  “Thank you for saying that. Before you came over, I was sitting here stewing in my own juices, wishing I could find a way to tell my parents.”

  “It's probably more than wanting to just tell them, huh? You want them to accept you. That's the big fear, right?”

  “As much as my family makes me nuts, I do want their unconditional love.”

  “I’ve only known your parents for a short while, but everyone seems lovely and full of affection for each other.”

  “As long as you don't rock the boat.” She jabbed the kitchen counter for effect. “It's okay. I'm not ready to talk about my girlfriend yet anyway. There's something about it that makes me want to keep it to myself. The minute I start bringing anyone else into it, it could be ruined very easily.”

  “Makes sense.” Perfect sense, actually.

  “Does it? Or am I making excuses because I don't want to deal with it? I can't decide which one it is.”

  “It's normal to worry about what your family will think. I did something similar once. I fell in love and didn't tell anyone. Not even Amy.” I never told Eamon I loved him, either, at least not in person. That letter I sent him a year after I got back from Ireland contained the confession, but he'd never read it. He still didn't know, but what was I supposed to say now? I loved you eleven years ago and I could probably love you again, but I'm afraid it won't last. I nearly died the first time it ended.

  “Was it a long time ago?”

  “It feels like it was a lifetime ago.”

  “And what happened?”

  Now it was my turn to blush. Just thinking about Eamon made my skin hot. “I thought it was over and then he reappeared in my life. Sort of like magic.” Except that it wasn't really magic, was it? There was a logical explanation for what had happened. The magic that I had once hoped for, Eamon reading and replying to my letter, begging me to come back to him, never came to fruition. But the way it had happened was better. I might not be sure I was ready for love now, but I had undoubtedly not been ready then.

  “I hope everything works out.”

  “Me too.” As to what “working out” meant, I didn't know. The world seemed to think it was the picket fence, but I wasn't convinced.

  Shelly smiled. “Thanks for the advice. I like talking to you. I can see why your sister loves you so much. You were all she talked about before you got here.”

  “Really?” I watched Amy as she chatted away with her future mother-in-law. How I could ever question my sister's love was beyond me, but I did sometimes. Seeing her in this setting, I had to wonder if I'd been holding her back all these years.

  In the car on the way home, I called Eamon. "I hope this is an okay time to talk. I really needed to hear your voice."

  “I love hearing you say that. And yeah, this is a good time.”

  “You don't need to sign the boobs of random women with a Sharpie?”

  “I’m done with the boob signing for today. Thank God. I nearly got a cramp.”

  I laughed nervous
ly, watching out the window as we started to escape upscale suburbia and enter the realm of normal people again. “Very funny.”

  “I hope you know I'm kidding.”

  I didn't really know that, so it was nice to hear. “Good. That makes me glad.” I realized then that I'd already gone from being the woman who wasn't sure this was a good idea, to the woman who didn't want to share him with anyone else. Those women were not entirely compatible. I was going to have to stick to one, for my sanity and his.

  “How did the party go? You don't sound drunk, so it must've been at least tolerable.”

  “It was okay. Everyone was really nice, but I definitely did not feel comfortable. Their whole family is like pod people. They're all so happy and normal.”

  “Why does that make them pod people?”

  “I don't know. Because that's nothing at all like my family? And there's no family dirt, which I find a little impossible to believe.”

  “You went digging for dirt at your sister's engagement party?”

  “Hey. You're the one who told me not to drink too much. I had to entertain myself somehow.”

  He unleashed the laugh I find most disarming. In my head, I could see his off-kilter smile. “There's always dirt somewhere. Trust me.”

  “That's what I was thinking.”

  It got quiet on the other end of the line and I wondered what he was thinking about or whether he was maybe tired. I would've given anything for him to be waiting for me at home right now, rather than thousands of miles away. I couldn't escape the loneliness of that fact.

  “Katherine, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “What exactly is it about that situation that makes you so deeply uncomfortable? Your sister getting married. I know it's not just that you feel like you're losing her. There's something more to it, isn't there?”

  It felt like my heart was doing a bad impression of an old clock, ticking away at an unreliable pace. There was so much about this for me to unpack, probably because I'd devoted so much of my life to keeping it hidden. “My parents didn't have a great marriage and they did a lot of things to hurt each other. It's hard as a kid to witness that. It definitely sours your opinion of the institution.”