Everything's Relative

by Jenna McCarthy

  “Goddamn it, hurry up in there,” Jake barked through the door, banging on it for emphasis. “Are you taking a monster dump or something? Jesus, Brooke. Would it kill you to think about somebody else for once in your life?”

  Brooke sighed as she picked her bathrobe up off the floor and wrapped it tightly around her. Then she counted to one hundred in her head as slowly as she possibly could before opening the door.

  “Sorry,” she said as she brushed past a furious Jake. “All yours.”

  She slipped one of her standard tent-style dresses over her head and grabbed her phone to check the time. The home screen told her she had one new text and one voice mail, both from Jules. She deleted them both without reading or listening to either. She had no desire to hear how great Jules’s novel was coming along, or to be grilled for details about Lexi’s job hunt, of which Brooke knew exactly nothing. And she certainly wasn’t keen on having to admit that she’d taken a grand total of zero steps toward either of her two goals.

  “Brooke, bring me a decent bar of soap, would you?” Jake shouted. “This sliver you left in here is worthless.”

  She knew she could pretend not to hear him, but it wasn’t worth the tirade he’d unleash if she didn’t bring him the stupid soap. She grabbed a new bar of cheap, store-brand soap from a crowded shelf in the single broom/clothes/junk closet and brought it to Jake.

  “You’re welcome,” she said when he failed to acknowledge the gesture in any way.

  “Your trophy is in the mail,” he sneered.

  Pretty soon I am going to be filthy, rotten rich, she said in her head as she quietly closed the bathroom door behind her. I won’t ever—and I mean ever—have to take this sort of abuse from anyone again. I’ll be able to do whatever I want and buy whatever I want and live wherever I want. Even as she issued this silent promise or threat or whatever it was, Brooke didn’t quite believe it.

  She thought now about what she would do with millions of dollars. The truth was, her mind really couldn’t wrap itself around what being wealthy would look like. Would she keep all of that money in the bank, or would she have to learn how to invest it? Would she walk into a Realtor’s office and pick a house out of one of those catalogs that came with the newspaper and write a check for the whole thing? Would she quit her job? She obviously wouldn’t need the money, but she loved her kids as if they were her own. Besides, if she did quit, what would she do all day? She’d probably have people to cook and clean and do awful chores like grocery shop and mow the lawn for her. What did rich people do with their free time? Volunteer, she supposed. Shop a lot, certainly. Count their money, maybe. Brooke thought all of those things might get boring after a while. Maybe she’d open her own private preschool that underprivileged kids could attend for free. Surely six million dollars was enough to fund something like that. She wondered how much she was going to have to pay an accountant to figure all of this out for her. She’d heard stories of people who won the lottery going back to being broke in a matter of years or even months, and she made a mental note to make sure to learn how to budget. She certainly wasn’t about to jump through a year’s worth of painful, flaming hoops for nothing.

  Lexi

  “You guys are both moving out?” Lexi sat up too quickly and swooned, knocking over her beer and Brad’s bong when she grabbed the table to steady herself.

  “Yeah, Slex, you know, sorry,” Brad said. He looked around for a towel or something to catch the beer and bong water that was racing toward the edge of the table. When his search proved fruitless, he pulled his LEGALIZE IT T-shirt over his head and dropped it onto the foul, wet mess. “My brother has an extra room and he said me and Ry can live there for free. You know, so we can work on our music and shit. There’s not enough room for all three of us. Plus my brother is kind of a dick. You’d hate him.”

  “When?” Lexi asked.

  “First thing in the morning,” Brad told her.

  Lexi was screwed. What were the odds she’d get two new totally cool, straight guy roommates who would be willing to pay her part of the rent in exchange for the possibility of maybe someday getting laid? Why did nothing ever go her way? Why? It was her mother’s fault, obviously. She’d dropped the parenting ball in the biggest way possible, pushing Lexi away with her need to dominate everything in her path. For some reason, Lexi thought now about when she was thirteen years old and had gotten her first period. She’d asked her mom to buy her some tampons, but Juliana wouldn’t even entertain the idea, insisting that she was “too young” for tampons because that area was “sacred.” Lexi tried the pads her mother gave her; the gigantic, stiff, generic-brand kind that felt like she had a stale hoagie roll or a wadded-up hand towel in her underpants. She couldn’t run or swim or even sit comfortably in one of those things. Lexi had fought the urge to inform her mother that she’d already gotten intimately familiar with the orifice in question and was pretty sure it was far from sacred; instead she took to stealing spare change from Juliana’s purse—just a quarter here or a handful of dimes there, never paper money—until she had the six dollars she needed to buy a lousy box of tampons. Sometimes she would replace what she took with pennies from her piggy bank so her mom wouldn’t notice the difference in her wallet’s weight. It was a bittersweet practice that made her feel guilty, angry, ashamed and proud all at the same time, and she’d had no choice but to endure it for years.

  “Who’s going to be in charge of collecting bill money now?” Lexi asked. Not that it mattered, she thought, doodling absentmindedly on the wet kitchen table with a Sharpie.

  “Sita,” Ryan said. “Sorry.”

  Sita was the nickname Lexi had come up with for their roommate Rachel, and it stood for Stick in the Ass. To say Rachel was a bit of an uptight priss was like saying molten lava was a tiny bit warm. Sita definitely wasn’t going to be into the freeloading-roommates-with-benefits thing, and besides, Lexi wouldn’t touch her nasty freckled ass with a ten-foot pole. She’d live on the street if she had to; she’d done it before. She put her head down on Brad’s wet, smelly shirt.

  “Fuck,” was all she could say.

  Her portion of the utilities was already past due, but Ryan was usually cool about it. Lexi looked in her wallet; she had exactly eighteen dollars. She called Floyd, the owner of the Salty Dog, and asked if she could pick up a few shifts.

  “Are you fucking out of your stoned-out mind?” he shouted at her. “You didn’t show up for your last four shifts, Lexi. Do you know how fucked I am when you pull that shit? I had the goddamned Mexican cooks serving the fucking food. Jorge probably spilled fifty bucks’ worth of beer. No way. Never. Not if you were the last hot little ass on the planet.” Floyd had slammed the phone in her ear.

  Well, maybe this was just the kick in the pants she needed, Lexi thought bitterly. It was something Juliana would have said.

  When the boys finally stumbled off to bed, Lexi hatched her plan. She needed to get out before Sita started riding her ass for her share of the bills, which would surely be five minutes after Ry and Brad drove away with their crappy things. At least she didn’t have much stuff; that simplified things a bit. She grabbed her phone and started punching at the keys. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and if Alexis Alexander was anything at all at this particular moment besides high and broke, it was definitely desperate.

  Jules

  “No way,” Jules said, staring at her phone screen.

  “What is it?” Shawn asked. She had waited up for him to get home—she barely saw him at all these days—and they had just crawled into bed. Jules was hoping he’d have enough energy to have sex, something they hadn’t done in weeks. Half the time she was already asleep when he got home, and the other nights he passed out before she could even ask him about his day.

  “A text from Alexis,” she said, showing him her phone. He read it out loud.

  “‘Need to talk to you have a favor not a big d
eal call me.’”

  “What do you think she wants?” Jules asked. “I’m scared.”

  “Probably money,” Shawn said. “And how funny that she texts you and asks you to call her. Why didn’t she just call you?”

  “That’s Lex—Alexis. Passive-aggressive all the way. This way if we get in a fight she can scream, ‘Well YOU called ME so WHATEVER.’ She wouldn’t ask me for money, would she? Not after she hasn’t returned a single call or text in almost two months. Maybe she got a job, or an interview at least. Maybe the favor is that she wants to borrow something to wear that didn’t come from the hoochie-mama store. That could be it, couldn’t it?”

  Shawn raised his brows but said nothing.

  “Crap. Of course not. Should I call her now? Is it too late, do you think? It’s after midnight.”

  “She just texted you, Jules. And I’m pretty sure your sister Alexis has only been awake for a few hours. She’s probably just getting started. I’m thinking the sooner you call her, the better.”

  Jules dialed her sister’s number.

  “Hey,” Lexi said.

  “That’s how you answer your phone?” Jules said.

  “I knew it was you, asshole. God, could you be any more like Mom? I can answer the phone any fucking way I want to, okay? It’s my goddamned phone, so don’t tell me how to answer it.”

  “So what’s the favor?” Jules said, her jaw clenched. She could hear horns and sirens in the background and wondered where Lexi was calling her from. Hopefully the sidewalk in front of some seedy bar and not the police station. Again.

  “Oh shit, right. I sort of need a place to stay for a few days. Maybe a little more than a few days. But I was thinking maybe it would be a help to you, you know?”

  “Are you planning to pay rent?” Jules asked.

  “Well, no, not . . . not really . . .”

  “Going to cook and clean for us, then?”

  “Yeah, right,” Lexi said.

  “So how would you staying with us help me out exactly?” Shawn raised his brows again when she said this; Jules shook her head as if to say, “Don’t worry, it’ll never happen.”

  “How’s your book coming?” Lexi asked, ignoring Jules’s question.

  “It’s going great, thanks,” she said, seething quietly. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “You didn’t answer mine, either,” Lexi said. “How many pages have you written?” Jules could just picture the smug smile on her sister’s beautiful face.

  “A bunch, okay?”

  “I’ll bet you a thousand bucks you haven’t written a single page,” Lexi taunted.

  “Oh, and where are you going to get a thousand bucks, Alexis? Huh?”

  “I guess I can’t borrow it from my inheritance, because you’re never going to write that fucking book. Never.”

  “And you’re never going to get a fucking job, so I guess we’re even.”

  A painful silence hung between them. Lexi took a deep breath.

  “Look, I’m fucked, okay? I have no job, no money and nowhere to live. If you let me stay with you guys, you can help me get my shit together and get a job, and in a way that’s helping us both. Plus, I’ll help you write your book. I don’t know how, but I will. I could tell you stories that would make your eyes pop out of your head.”

  Jules laughed. “Mom specifically said no porn.”

  Lexi laughed, too. “I have one or two clean ones.”

  “I need to talk to Shawn,” Jules said. He rolled his eyes and grimaced.

  “I’m out of options, Jules. I wouldn’t ask if I could think of a single alternative, I swear it. I can’t look for a job if I’m homeless. Who knows? It might even be fun. Maybe I can get you to lighten the hell up a little bit. I’m kidding! Honest.”

  Shawn leaned in and whispered in her ear, “God help me, but yes. The crazier of your two crazy sisters can stay with us.”

  “Ha-ha,” Jules said to Lexi. “You sure know how to butter a person up. Fine, Alexis, you can stay with us for a little while. But listen to me: No drugs, no sex and none of your junkie friends dropping by and eating our food or crashing on our floor or stealing our stuff. Your job will be to get a job.”

  “Sounds like a blast,” Lexi said.

  “Alexis, I mean it. Do you swear to God you won’t pull any of your famous stunts?”

  “Yes, Mom. I swear,” Lexi said. “To God.”

  “Little bitch,” Jules said under her breath. “So when is this happening? You know all we have is an air mattress, and you’ll be in my office, so you can’t sleep all damned day, either.”

  “How does now sound?” Lexi said. “I’m sort of halfway there already.”

  “You’re halfway here? What do you mean? How?”

  “I’m walking,” Lexi said.

  “At twelve thirty at night? Jesus, where are you? I’ll come get you.” Jules tried to ignore the fact that it was happening already. She was getting sucked into her sister’s crazy and Lexi hadn’t even set one foot in the door yet.

  “I just crossed under the freeway and I’m turning onto Fairview right now,” Lexi told her.

  Wonderful, thought Jules. They called that part of town Crack Alley.

  “Can you see the 7-Eleven from where you are?” Jules asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Okay, tuck in there and read some magazines or something. Try not to get arrested. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  “You want anything? Oh shit, I don’t have any money. Never mind. See you then. Thanks, Jules. I mean it.”

  Jules hung up her phone and looked at Shawn. He was struggling to keep his eyes open.

  “I love you,” she said, kissing him. “I didn’t have a choice, right?”

  “Right,” he said, closing his eyes.

  She threw on some sweats, grabbed her keys and headed out to the Honda. It purred to life instantly, clearly oblivious to where they were headed.

  “I hope you’re happy,” she said to her dead mother as she backed her car carefully out of the driveway.

  Brooke

  “Hello?” Brooke said tentatively. She didn’t recognize the number, which meant it was probably Jake using somebody’s borrowed phone. What awful thing have I done this time? Brooke wondered. She braced herself for the verbal beating that was surely coming.

  “Is this Brooke Alexander?” a woman demanded.

  “May I ask who’s calling?” Brooke said.

  “My name is Nikki Reeves,” the woman said. The name was vaguely familiar. Did Jake have a sister? Reeves was his last name, too. Maybe it was a cousin or something. His mom was dead, just like hers. And just like in all the Disney movies. Strangely, that thought was comforting to Brooke.

  “This is Brooke,” she said finally. “Can I help you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Do you happen to know where my husband is?”

  “I don’t even know who your husband is,” Brooke said with a nervous laugh.

  “It’s Jake, Einstein. Your boyfriend.” Brooke was amazed at how much venom this woman managed to squeeze into that word boyfriend.

  “My Jake?” Brooke said.

  “Well, legally he’s mine, but believe me, you’re welcome to him. I only want him long enough to try to squeeze some money out of him and get him to sign a few pieces of paper. Then he’s all yours.”

  “Jake . . . is . . . um . . . well he’s not here at the moment.” The truth was, Brooke had no idea where Jake was. He’d taken her car, again, and the few bucks she’d had in her wallet, and said he was going “out.” That had been yesterday afternoon. Brooke had been waffling between worry and outrage ever since she’d woken up at three in the morning and realized he hadn’t come home.

  “Well, I’ve been calling his phone and it goes right to voice mail, so the asshole probably dropped it in the toilet
again. Tell him to call me if he ever drags his sorry ass back there.”

  “How did you get my number?” Brooke asked. How did she know he habitually dropped his phone in the toilet?

  “He said he was living with a fat preschool teacher from Reseda. I could have gotten your driver’s license number and social security number if I’d wanted to. I’m a PI. That’s a private investigator.”

  “I know what a PI is, thanks,” Brooke said. That Jake had told his private investigator wife he was living with a fat preschool teacher was worse than the fact that he had a wife at all.

  “Just tell that asshole to call me,” Nikki said.

  “Please,” Brooke said.

  “Please what?” Nikki demanded.

  “You should say please,” Brooke said. It was an automatic response—she said it to her preschool students a thousand times a day when they barked their tiny commands at her. She realized how silly it sounded saying it to Nikki only after the fact.

  “Please tell that asshole to call me,” Nikki said.

  “Can I give him a message?” Brooke said. It was a knee-jerk question; she couldn’t help it.

  “Sure. Tell him I’m pregnant. Thanks.”

  Brooke was struggling to formulate a response when Nikki disconnected the call.

  She was living with a married man who had a pregnant wife. Was Jake the father? Of course he was. He had to be. Why else would his wife be calling?