Farrah took one last drag of her cigarette before stomping out the butt and leaving it in a nearby planter. She continued on, this time lost in her thoughts. Every once in a while, she would take a sip of her martini and swallow.
Aiden, meanwhile, took the lipstick stained cigarette butt and placed it in his pocket. He was not a nostalgic man, but he cared about the welfare of the plants and didn’t want Farrah’s carelessness to take away from the scenery the backyard offered.
“Aiden,” Farrah said once the two arrived at the back door. She looked like hell, he noticed, even though it was obvious she put great care into her physical appearance. He wondered if she was even sleeping. “I am going to attempt to take a nap. You see, it is quite difficult to sleep, considering that Hannah, your lovely sister, has invited the Bixby sisters back here next week for Stephen’s New Year’s party.”
“I’m sure you’ll get through it,” Aiden said in a soft but flat voice.
It was only when Farrah left him by himself for the first minute since she greeted him when he woke up did he realize what Farrah had just said.
This would just not do. He had honestly believed he would be rid of Marion, save for the occasional greeting when he visited Hannah. But to suddenly learn he would be seeing the woman again, and so soon, was not something Aiden expected or wanted.
Maybe it was time he got himself a drink.
* * *
“Literally” is a word I hear misused a lot, and as an English major, it kind of grates on my nerves. Like I’ve heard, “Oh my gosh, the sun is literally melting my face off” —ironically enough, my witch of a mother said that one—to “this macaroni and cheese is literally the best I’ve ever had,” when everyone knows that Olive Garden has the best macaroni and cheese. However, when I say that I am literally in pain at the fact that I am currently walking up the steps to my parents’ house because we are celebrating a belated Christmas, I am totally not exaggerating.
“Are you all right?” Taylor asks in a soft voice as she knocks on the front door. “I think I can hear you grinding your teeth.”
“Tay, we are visiting Mom,” I say, and that is explanation enough. “Of course I’m not okay.” I shift my weight in order to alleviate from my poor arms the weight of Christmas presents currently pressing down on them. “You know she’s probably already shitfaced, playing that Mariah Carey song one too many times and annoying the shit out of Dad.”
“Marion!” a familiar voice screeches. “Watch your language. This is Christmas, after all.”
I bite my bottom lip to refrain from reminding my mother that actually, no, today is the thirtieth, which happens to be five days after Christmas. Instead, I try and will her to offer to help Taylor and me with the gifts that are so obviously in our arms, but all she does is open the door wider in order to make sure we’re comfortable upon entering the house. Luckily, the Christmas tree—which is plastic, by the way—is immediately to the right so Taylor and I don’t have to walk too far. I practically drop the gifts as soon as I can and collapse onto the nearby couch.
My father’s lip curls up as he regards me from his usual “pilot’s seat” across from the couch over the Orange County Register. His feet are in green Crocs, the ugliest shoe I’ve ever seen and the cheapest form of birth control, and he’s wearing sweatpants that probably haven’t been washed since 2005. I am grateful that Mom forced him to throw a shirt on, but it’s an undershirt that still has a wine stain on it. Still, he’s my father and the only person in this family besides Taylor that truly understands me.
“Long drive?” he asks in his rich baritone.
“Oh yeah,” I reply.
“Oh girls!” my mother says from behind us with over-exaggerated enthusiasm. “Look at all of these gifts. You really didn’t have to do that!”
I snort, knowing we had to do exactly that to get back on her good side after she blamed me for ruining Christmas. I was completely fine with being the Grinch because I’m so used to it, but Taylor insisted we get a few more things for our younger sisters.
“Oh, the girls will be so pleased,” my mother continues. She looks over at my father and rolls her eyes. “Don! How could you not even be dressed yet? You know we have a special guest coming over, right? I don’t want him to think we’re slobs.”
“He’s your guest, Stacy” my father replies, but he’s getting up anyway.
I shoot him a smirk that states how whipped he is and he gives me one of his looks. After he folds the paper to the best of his abilities, he heads up the stairs just as my youngest sisters come down.
Megan and Kat are twins, and are alike not only in their physical appearance but in their personas as well. The only difference they have is that Megan is traditional and supports the political party of Team Edward while Kat considers herself more of a rebel and associates herself with the Team Jacob party. Other than that, though, they are interested in the same things: hobbies, music, and boys. I think that Megan goes along with whatever Kat says because Kat is two minutes and twenty seconds older, but Megan vehemently denies such a thing. The one thing they don’t do, and that my mother never did to them, is dress in the same outfit.
“Everyone knows you don’t wear an outfit twice,” my mother always said. “Why would I put my daughters through the embarrassment of walking around in the same outfit at the same time? I’m not that cruel!”
Megan and Kat both have dark eyes and dark hair, much like Taylor does. However, Taylor’s more refined in her appearance. I’m not sure if that’s because she’s older than the two fifteen-year-olds or if it’s because Taylor has a grace that can’t be genetic because no one else in the family has it. Kat has dark freckles scattered across her face, however, and that makes her more insecure than Megan, even though Megan secretly wishes she could have freckles too. Girls are ridiculously complicated.
“Where’s Erin?” Taylor asks my mother as Megan and Kat walk past us without so much as a glance.
“You know how she is,” my mother replies, waving her hand dismissively. “She’s being dark and moody because that’s what she’s into now. She’s up in her room, questioning the point of Christmas and writing melancholy songs on her piano.”
“It’s a keyboard,” I point out from my position on the couch.
“Don’t tell her that,” Kat says with a twinkle in her eye that says otherwise.
“She calls it a piano,” finishes Megan, and both girls burst into an unexplainable bout of giggles.
“That’s because it is a piano,” Erin says as she heads down the stairs, followed closely by my father who, out of all of us, has the most creative fashion sense because he’s still wearing his Crocs and sweatpants and even the undershirt—he just threw on a nice wine-colored shirt over it.
“Jesus, Dad, really?” I ask, standing up so I can gesture at his attire.
“This is Christmas!” my mother exclaims, coming into the room with a bowl of mashed potatoes. “We do not take the Lord’s name in vain here, Ronnie.” However, once she sets down the food, she looks over at my father in order to inspect him. “Jesus, Don! Do you think our guest isn’t going to notice everything that’s wrong with this?”
“Not when I’m sitting down,” my father says, and even though he has this air of toughness about him, he’s pouting.
At that moment, the doorbell rings, causing my mother to throw her hands up, the twins to giggle, Erin to roll her eyes, and Taylor and I to share a look.
“That’s him!” my mother exclaims. “Oh, sit down then, Don. And girls, don’t say anything ridiculous.”
“Who is this guy?” I murmur to Taylor as we walk over to dining table.
“I have no idea,” she replies.
We both take our seats. My seat is on the left of my father and Taylor’s is next to me on my left. Erin is on Taylor’s left, Mom is at the end of the table, Megan is next to Mom, Kat is next to Megan, and whoever this mystery guest is, he’ll be on my father’s right and across from me.
“Mrs. Bixby,” a vaguely familiar voice says in greeting after my mother opens the door. “How lovely to see you after all this time. You know, Mrs. Solomon, the woman I work for and my personal hero, has never heard of celebrating Christmas so late. In fact, she didn’t believe me the first time I told her. But after I explained the situation, she agreed how kind it was of you to think of me.”
I freeze in my seat. It can’t be…can it?
“Well, you just got home from Harvard,” my mother says, and closes the door behind him. “You grew up with Taylor and Ronnie. How could we not do the neighborly thing and invite you over?”
My mother is obsessed with being neighborly. Her definition of the trait, though, is to top everything her neighbors do and buy the better product before her neighbors do. Since Taylor and I left for college, there have been two additions to the house, including a full-length swimming pool-jacuzzi combo in the backyard, and my mother has every single technology Apple has ever produced; she should be a member of their board. I wish I was kidding, especially since I’m a PC fan, but I’m not.
Another part of being neighborly also means sucking up to people who have much more money than she does, even if it means putting her second daughter through hell by making her relive suppressed memories.
“Marion,” Paul Reed says after handing my mother an expensive bottle of wine. She, of course, claims he shouldn’t have done such a thing, but Paul’s ignoring her and staring at me. “You’ve grown up quite nicely. Lost all the baby fat, I see. Finally, right?”
Kat giggles and I shoot her a look.
The thing is, Paul is probably the most annoying and most condescending person I’ve ever met in my entire life. He’s Taylor’s age, but has an invested interest in me because I let him borrow a toy shovel during recess back when we were in elementary school together. He is average-looking, with mousy brown hair and dull gray eyes. His nose is round and constantly red, no matter how much sunblock he applies, and his teeth, while somewhat straight, aren’t altered in a pleasing way like braces would have done. His parents are rich; I don’t know why they didn’t force him. Mine sure as hell did.
And Paul had—hopefully the past tense is the correct form of the verb—the biggest crush on me which made him a cockblocker. Despite the fact that I don’t have a cock, he cockblocked me. Whenever I had a crush on a guy, he would cockblock me by hanging out with me, walking me to class, and never giving me one minute to breathe. The moment he left for Harvard, after mentioning the fact that he got in every time we came in contact, I threw myself on the floor and thanked God. I even went to church the following Sunday just to show God how seriously grateful I was.
And now I have to eat dinner with him.
“Please,” my mother says after she opens the wine glass. “Have a seat.”
“Thank you,” Paul says.
“Erin,” I say. “What’s with the hair?”
I know Erin wants to be emo or goth or whatever kids are calling it these days, and for the life of me, I can’t tell if she is really that way or if she’s just looking for a way to rebel. I told her once to pull a Kat and be Team Jacob, but Erin said that humans will never understand the deep conflict real vampires felt, and it was stupid to try and write some silly, obviously religious love story using the tragic vampire.
“Please,” she added, “everyone knows vampires don’t fucking sparkle.”
The thing is, Erin looks like the girl next door. She has—or had—curly blonde hair, blue eyes, and a dimple in her cheek. And now her skin has never been paler, her eyes are sadder, her hair is black and straight, and I haven’t seen that dimple in a year. Her clothes are boring—black—and I refrain from telling her how ridiculous she is being, refusing to conform with normal people by conforming with goth-emo people. I really don’t want a lecture on how the two are different, either. Both groups are mad about something and, in their selfish haze, they don’t seem to realize that everyone has problems and they need to get the fuck over theirs.
But I digress.
“To reflect my mood,” she says as though it is the most obvious thing in the world.
“Mrs. Solomon doesn’t think that hair color should express how a person feels,” Paul interjects because I guess he feels the need to assist our pathetic family. “She owns her own gallery, you know, and refuses to allow any of her employees to dye their hair at all.”
“Interesting,” my father drawls as he cuts up the ham. He only speaks because no one else says anything, and really, how do you respond to that?
“You know, I completely agree.”
I have to laugh at my mother’s ridiculous statement, and my father joins me. My mother bleaches her hair every other month because she really believes blondes have more fun. I swear, the peroxide must be seeping into her brain or something.
My mother shoots both of us a look and turns back to Paul to continue what she has to say. But it doesn’t matter because both my father and I know that no matter what, this dinner is going to be a long one.
Chapter 7
To be completely honest, he had no idea why he was there in the first place. As Hannah changed, however, he began to chalk it up to the fact that she would be starting school and he wouldn’t get to see her as frequently as he would have liked. This was probably one of the last moments they had where they could be completely alone, without Stephen, Farrah, or anyone else. Sure, they had been sharing his house for the past few days, but there were always people around, whether it was the cleaning staff, the chef, or friends. While Aiden had grown used to that fact, Hannah needed the independence. It was one of the reasons why she opted to share an apartment with roommates rather than room with her brother.
Aiden shifted uncomfortably from his seat in the changing room, wondering what some poor teenager would think if she happened to walk in with an arm full of clothes, ready to try on. Probably that he was some sort of pervert. He felt like one just sitting there, waiting for Hannah to show him the next dress out of the dozen or so she picked out. The thing was, Aiden couldn’t tell cerulean from turquoise, nor did he particularly care one way or the other. The only thing that concerned him when it had to do with Hannah and attire was to ensure that the dress was long, loose, and high-necked. Other than that, he couldn’t give a shit.
“What do you think of this one?” his little sister asked, emerging from the changing room.
The dress, while remaining true to the 1920s era that the party required the guests honor, also touched upon the psychedelic 1960s era that Hannah loved. It was velvet, a sky blue color with three diamonds straight down her torso that were lime green. However, the designs resembled a kaleidoscope in the sense that around one diamond was another diamond in white and so on and so forth. The straps were black and thin, and black fringe elongated the hemline so it reached the middle of her thighs.
Okay, so he wished it was a tad longer but the cut wasn’t too low, though the dress did seem rather clingy.
“You’re looking at it like it’s a science project,” Hannah said with flatness, arching a brow.
Currently, Aiden’s hand was placed on the back of his head, causing his elbow to form a right angle, and his eyes were trying to figure out the dress itself, but his mind was just not there.
“Don’t worry,” Hannah added quickly. “I have cute shoes at home and all I would need to go with it is a lime green boa, and a feathered headband. Oh, and fishnet stockings of course.”
“Of course,” Aiden said, his fingers now gripping his dark hair.
“Geesh, you look so….” Hannah let her voice trail off, placing a finger on the tip of her chin. “What’s the problem, dear brother? It can’t possibly be the dress, seeing as how it’s nothing short of perfect.” She looked at herself in the mirror though she continued to speak to Aiden. “Is something on your mind?”
“What could possibly be on my mind?” he asked her, deciding to humor Hannah just to hear what she had to say.
“I’m not quite sure. T
hat’s why I asked.” She walked towards the mirror, her eyes checking to see how the fabric bunched as she moved. “This isn’t because I invited Taylor and Ronnie to the New Year’s party, is it, because I quite like them.”
“I couldn’t care less whether you invite them or not.”
Okay, so that was a lie but Hannah didn’t have to know that. The thing was, if Aiden didn’t understand his feelings regarding Marion, he didn’t want to continue to feel them until he figured them out. And if he saw her so soon after she had departed, he would continue feeling without knowing, and he didn’t like it. All Aiden knew was that he didn’t like feeling out of control, and for whatever reason, Marion made him feel out of control. Helpless. Not like himself. Normally, he was cool, calm, and collected, but whenever she was around, it was hard to stay focused. And he did not like what that might imply.
“So then tell me,” Hannah said, turning around to look at her brother. Aiden suspected that it was obvious to her that he was lying through his teeth about his feelings regarding her roommates, so he was grateful she had yet to push him too far with her insatiable curiosity. “What do you think of them?”
Aiden pushed his brows together, struggling to form some kind of response. He knew how he felt about Taylor—he was indifferent about her—but he was still indecisive about Marion. Clearly she wasn’t the type of girl he would date or socialize with, but there was something about her, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“I suppose you could have done worse,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and looking away. Hannah always knew when he was hiding something from her and he wanted to make sure she couldn’t spot his uncertainty. “At least they are both women going to the same college you are going to. And you seem to like them, yes?”
Four Sides of an Attitude: A Cufflinks & Austen Novel Page 6
