Your boss?
Yeah.
Pause. Then: Okay. Another pause. Why?
I don’t want to tell her about Riley — about why I don’t want to be around Riley without someone caustic by my side. Because this stuff with Riley is all in my head, and if I bring it up, Bridget will get the idea that it’s not. Which is natural, given that I told her all about that morning just because it was so weird. And maybe — because Bridget was mute and couldn’t compete for conversational space — I blabbed too much. She even got the idea I was somehow smitten. Although she didn’t react the way she usually does to my conquests, because I’m usually drunk when I make them and this time I was sober.
Looking back, wondering why I’m doing this, it strikes me as being like the difference between manslaughter and premeditated murder. Usually my lust life happens accidentally, in the heat of the moment. If Bridget is mistaken over what I said about Riley, I can see why she’d be taken off guard. This would be the first time in forever I’ve talked about a girl in advance of hooking up with her other than to mention the size of her boobs.
But that would only be relevant if Bridget was mistaken, which she is.
I don’t like Riley. I mean, I like her, but I’m not into her. That would be stupid. And besides, she’s just a college girl. Never mind that her LiveLyfe profile paints a compelling picture. She says she likes to see bands at the Overlook. How have I never seen her there? I go all the time, but maybe I started after she went off for college.
Where she’d be a bubbly little girl.
In her college girl clothes. Bobbing around and going to clubs. Doing all the shit that proves how different we are, even though I get this feeling we’re simpatico.
Business, I text back.
Just the three of us?
Maybe, I lie.
There’s another long pause.
Is he bringing his daughter? Bridget texts.
I’ll pick you up at 6:30.
CHAPTER 16
Riley
My opinion of Brandon plummets once I see him enter the restaurant. Because he’s with someone predictable. A statuesque woman who’s almost as tall as he is, in heels she doesn’t need like I do. She stunning in such an obvious way. She has small features, a wide smile that’s not all teeth like mine, bow-like lips, and eyes that are narrow, upturned at the ends, shaped like almonds. Brown hair that shines. The kind that doesn’t get split ends.
I touch my own hair. Then I look down at this ridiculous red dress Dad more or less commanded me to wear. I thought it looked mature and maybe even elegant before I’d left, and even let a few thoughts of what Brandon might think enter my head. But who am I kidding? I bought it before I left for school. From Phoebe, in fact. And right now, I just want to head back and return it, even though it’s been almost five years, because I bought it for the wrong person. I’d thought it was sexy at the time. Now I see that it’s juvenile.
The girl on Brandon’s arm is wearing her own dress so much better. I can’t tell from the table, but it’s either very dark green or blue. Maybe black. Like almost everyone else in here. Some of the men are in tuxes; most are in suits. Brandon wore a tie, but the maître d’ holds up a house coat for him to wear because a tie isn’t enough here. Of course it still manages to fit him perfectly — and what’s more, it manages to look great beside the tall brunette.
I don’t want to stand because I’ve suddenly realized how I must look. If the maître d’ could have given me a house coat, I imagine he would have. Because some airheaded little girl came in with her daddy wearing a homecoming dress. Maybe later, everyone’s probably thinking, she’ll do a few of those wedding line dances.
As they come closer, I can barely stop myself from staring at his date. She wore her hair better than I did. She wore a more fashionable dress. She’s already tall, and yet she’s enough of a bitch to go out of her way to make me look even shorter. If anyone needs heels like hers, it’s me. And yet I kept my shoes kind of low, because this is half business.
Dammit. Brandon brought a beautiful woman. And I brought my father.
Brandon shakes his hand. I watch him do it, surprised to see that he must have done something to his beard since I saw him last, because it no longer strikes me as unprofessional. Now it seems to somehow fit.
I see movement from the corner of my eye. I look over to see the beautiful brunette holding her hand out for me to shake.
Presumptuous.
Arrogant.
She didn’t say a damned thing. She just held out her hand, like I’m supposed to bow and kiss her ring.
I force a smile and take her hand. Her pretty mouth moves. She barely exhales, but she’s said something I can’t hear. Because she’s going to play this like a diva.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Brandon looks over and puts his hand on the woman’s shoulder. “This is my sister, Bridget.”
Something inside me snaps. I feel my smile widen … apparently because I’ve been dying to meet Bridget? Phoebe knows her, I guess.
Bridget nods with a little smile. Then, incongruous in the posh club, she smacks Brandon’s shoulder hard with the back of her hand.
“Sorry again.” To both me and Dad, he adds, “Bridget just had vocal cord surgery. She can’t talk.”
“I can kind of whisper,” she manages to say. Then she flinches, and her hand moves automatically to her throat. Seeing her hand is all it takes to shatter my illusions. Her nails are painted, but they’re trimmed, maybe chewed. They’re not the hands of a debutante like I’d thought. They’re the hands of a worker — of someone who’s come by beauty accidentally rather than having manufactured it.
“She can kind of whisper,” Brandon says, giving her a look, “but she’s not supposed to.”
The remaining introductions circle our small table, but the rest of us know each other already. We all sit, and Brandon looks at me in a way that sizzles something inside me. It occurs to me that half of me wishes Bridget had turned out to be someone else — a date, say. Because now I feel odd in a different way. It’s like Brandon can see through me because of what I did the other day. And now there’s now no proof, here at the table, of why I shouldn’t feel embarrassed.
It’s one thing to have done something dumb and personal in front of an attached guy whom I happen to work with.
It’s another to have exposed myself so intimately to someone who …
Well, I’d rather not think about that.
We settle in and order drinks then an appetizer. Bridget makes for an odd dinner companion because she can’t order for herself, but she has some sort of sibling language worked out with Brandon that lets him act as her mouthpiece.
Watching them together makes me wish I had a brother or a sister. I know plenty of people who don’t get along with their siblings, but what I see across the table is so sweet it almost feels magical. Brandon has always struck me as standoffish, and the last time I saw him he seemed flat-out jerky — but this is a different side. It’s a Brandon I haven’t seen. One I wouldn’t have known even existed.
She touches his arm. He leans in, first watching her face and any gestures she tries to make, then turns his ear to her for a whisper if necessary. She orders by pointing to the menu — for Brandon rather than the waiter. He does the speaking.
He barely smiles. Or pays attention to me. This is all either business or family-personal, and when he’s not chatting to my father about Life of Riley and the future, he’s communicating in his cute underground way with Bridget. She’s not subtle when she wants his attention. She’s tapped his arm, nudged his shoulder, and flicked his ear. It should be annoying but isn’t, and Dad laughs every time.
I can tell Bridget would be formidable if she had her voice. Phoebe told me as much. But seeing her here, now, missing her primary weapon, makes her kind of helpless. She’s in strange company with people she doesn’t know, in a setting that clearly neither of them is used to. And though she keeps a strong front, she also keeps her hand on Brand
on’s sleeve more often than not. And he could ignore her. He could focus on my father. He could have left her at home. But he brought her instead. And even though I can tell she’s weaker than she’d like to be, Brandon is giving her strength.
I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. My eyes keep flicking to his, but he’ll barely look at me. And when I catch his eye, I’ll look at Bridget’s hand on his — a platonic partnership, like a ward and her protector. But Brandon doesn’t get what I’m asking — or what I’m commenting on without saying a word. To him, this isn’t noble. To Brandon, it’s all so of-course.
He came out of the foster system. He began with us as a construction worker. I don’t know without prying, but I can’t imagine he has much money right now … though that will change if he gets the promotion Dad told me he’s inches from handing over. I guess I’m more prejudiced than I thought because his innate nobility surprises me. Part of me expects him to be a brute, even though I know better.
But he watches over his sister.
Before I can stop myself, I wonder what it would be like for him to watch over me.
I look up in time to see Dad and Brandon chatting … and Bridget staring right at me. Her eyes are blue green, and a thin circle of dark eyeliner makes them pop.
It feels like if she’s been watching me watching Brandon for a while.
Have I been? I don’t know. I tried to follow their discussion for a while, but it’s only business in the vaguest way. Mostly, I’ve heard my father’s history, the company’s origins (including the original name, Mason and Crystal — two building materials representing my parents’ names), and more chatter that qualifies as idle rather than informational. Most of the time, I’ve wondered why I came, though I don’t regret or resent it. I’m surely not learning anything about operations.
Mostly, I’ve been watching the others.
And because Bridget is passive and my father is right beside me, the others is mainly Brandon.
She gives me a small smile, as if we’re sharing a secret. I smile back, but it’s a pale imitation of my usual tooth buster. I must look nervous. Docile. Like a little girl who has no business at the table with two titans and their slim, tall, beautiful sidekick.
She taps Brandon’s arm.
He turns to see what she wants, but that’s when my father’s head perks up.
“Ebon?” he says.
A man with dark hair and large eyebrows looks up from two tables over. He’s sitting across from a pretty woman with light-brown hair. The man’s eyes widen in recognition. He smiles and waves.
“That’s Ebon Shale,” Dad tells me. “Have I told you about Ebon?”
I shrug.
“We met on Aaron. The island, Aaron? As kids. When I had my summer job working the pier carnival.”
This sounds vaguely familiar, but it’s hard to concentrate. So I mumble something as he stands, making excuses to Brandon and Bridget.
I realize he’s about to leave the table to say hello — and judging by the way this Ebon guy is pulling out a chair and knowing my father’s tendency to chatter, he might be there for a while.
I’m about to be alone with Brandon and Bridget.
Bridget, who can’t talk.
And Brandon, whom I’m reluctant to talk to.
Bridget gives me another of those little smiles then stands to go. Probably to the powder room.
I start to rise, to say I’ll go with her, but she touches my shoulder for the first time.
And she’s gone.
CHAPTER 17
Brandon
Looking back, it was probably a bad idea to prep Bridget for this dinner. Usually, I set expectations, like parents do for kids. Usually, if I don’t give her a primer on who we’ll be meeting and what they’re like — and hence how they might take offense to her unique and unvarnished brand of truth telling — she ends up embarrassing someone.
Not her.
Not me.
But whomever we’re talking to.
Her friends and our mutual friends know Bridget and have forgiven her. There’s a dip in any relationship with Bridget near the beginning, when most people don’t like her. But those who survive the dip without writing her off always come to love her. It’s a trial by fire.
I didn’t particularly want her doing that to my boss, who seems inches from promoting me to a better life, assuming I don’t screw it up. Or to his daughter, about whom someone like Bridget might see and announce many truths. Like maybe she’s a little too spoiled. Like maybe she should come down from her perch. Like maybe she’s too cute to be taken seriously and should … I don’t know … get some librarian glasses or something.
These are things Bridget will tell people she’s just met, straight to their faces. And she’s usually right, but nobody likes her for saying it. At first.
So I prepped her. I told her to keep her mouth shut in my most authoritative, please-don’t-ruin-this-for-me brotherly voice.
Like a blind person who finds her sense of hearing vastly improved, I’m sure prepping Bridget between her place and the restaurant only allowed her to become critical with a superhero precision.
And now she’s rising from the table. Giving me a little knowing smile. Offering Riley the same smile, as if this is all so obvious.
Ten seconds later, I realize she’s taken her purse. Suddenly, I’m terrified — I know exactly what my sister is up to.
“I’m … will you hold on a second?” I say to Riley, holding up a waiting finger.
Riley’s eyes are wide, and her mouth is a straight line. Like I’ve been setting off loud fireworks at the table instead of asking one little question. She nods, and I rush off after Bridget. Ironically, I hear Mason talking to his friends at the other table, telling the man jokingly that his (wife? girlfriend?) has never had a conversational filter.
Just like Bridget.
Who, robbed of her social weapons, seems to have adapted. Again like a superhero, bent on costing me this promotion in the interest of something she deems as more worthy.
I grab her arm halfway across the restaurant. My goal was to catch her before she reached the car and drove off to leave us alone, and I realize I’ve succeeded splendidly. For one, Bridget didn’t drive; I did. For another, she’s headed to the restroom.
She looks back at me, her eyes lit with curses. Not because she’s mad but because she feels the need to be vaguely insulting.
“Where are you going?”
She points at the restroom door.
“Why?”
She crosses her legs and pantomimes a bad need to urinate, complete with a nervous little dance. I’m sure several of the finely dressed diners at nearby tables are staring.
“I know exactly what you’re doing, Bridge. Don’t.”
She shrugs as if to say, I have no idea what you’re saying. Dumbass.
I watch my sister closely. I may be looking at her with only one eye, with that eyebrow raised. This feels like that sort of assessing moment, and the kind of look Bridget would give me if our roles were reversed.
She repeats her peeing pantomime for emphasis.
But my head is back in the truck on the way over. And on the short walk from the city parking lot to the restaurant because I didn’t want it valeted. I’d begun those discussions as discussions, not seeing them as monologues until later. Not quite remembering all the little knowing looks Bridget gave me through my speech, as if she was plotting something devious.
I know I told her about Mason. I might have told her how much I like the guy now that I’m getting to know him a bit. I doubt I told her that he feels a bit like a father because that’s surely my damage, having grown up without one. I know I told her how important it was to me that Mason liked us both. I didn’t tell her how dire my situation was because her surgery caused it and I don’t want her to feel guilty, but I’m sure I told her how badly I wanted the promotion and all it might do for me. For us, because Bridget and I have been the Two Musketeers since we were tw
elve. She’s the only one I’ve ever been able to count on, and I’m the only person she’s ever fully trusted.
And I know I told her about Riley — but right now, in front of the bathrooms with a dozen highbrow diners eyeing us, I can’t recall exactly what I said. Between the two of us, Bridget is usually the motormouth. But I must have cracked like a dam in her silence. I’m not used to doing that.
I told her Riley was the boss’s daughter. I told her that the company was named after her, and that the big man seems to dote on her more than Riley might want him to.
And I told her about our morning together. I told her that Riley was sent to pick me up. And dammit, I told her about the dress Riley had been wearing. In my mind, the point had been that she’s inappropriate and not ready for any big chairs, but I think Bridget took it wrong.
Just like she misinterpreted my explanations of our trip to the creek.
Just like, if I mentioned my dreams like I probably had, she’d have taken that wrong, too.
When we’d been walking here from the lot, I’d summed it up by saying, Don’t say anything stupid to Mason. Or to Riley. Bridget had whispered, “I won’t say a thing.”
She’d put emphasis on “say.”
And she’d smiled when I’d said “Riley.”
“It’s not your job to fix me up, Bridget.”
Bridget stabs her finger at the restroom, still crossing her legs theatrically beneath the long and elegant dress bought for her by a grateful client last month in Seattle. She crosses her eyes. Bugs out her tongue. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.
“I’m serious.”
“I just have to pee,” she whispers.
Dammit. Bridget is a master at this. I came over here 99 percent sure she was trying to take the truck and run so I’d be forced to hang out with Riley alone. By the time I realized she’d arrived at the restrooms, I’d dropped to 90 percent sure, but this time that she was simply trying to force us to sit at the table alone while Mason was chatting, which would surely be a while. A minute ago, I was 70 percent sure that this was all a ruse, and that she was setting me up now for a long con intended to pair me with Riley later.
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