by Julia Kent
“WHOOP! WHOOP! BITCH ALERT!” Perky intones.
“What's bitchy about that?”
“Now you're implying we're all stupid. That 'obvious' comment sealed it.”
“How can telling the truth be bitchy? You're being misogynistic,” I explain to all of them.
“We're women! We can't be misogynistic!” Mallory counters.
“Maybe you're self-hating women who internalized the patriarchy,” I lob back, laughing inside, knowing it'll piss them off.
Wait.
Is that what they mean by bitchy?
The chamber we're in goes dead silent, only the lapping of water against the rocks making any sound.
“What about you?” Perky finally says, clearly speaking to me. “How does it feel to lose everything that you sacrificed your personality, soul, morals, and your ethics to achieve?”
“Your idea of small talk really sucks, Perky.”
That just gets me the grin I deserve.
Fiona and Mallory cut eyes at each other.
“Pour me another really big sangria, and I’ll tell you,” I inform Perky, turning her into a servant. She knows the power play I’m using. It doesn’t matter.
She’s won already.
She’s the one who’s marrying a congressman. A real one, not a wannabe like Burke.
Parker put in the work. He rose through the ranks. Sure, there was that whole lucky incident where he had to perform CPR on the sitting congressman he was working for, but everyone experiences some kind of luck in their life, right?
Except for me, apparently. Why is Perky taking so long to get me that drink?
She delivers it, moving slowly through the water, holding it up at forehead height, finally handing it over. It’s ice cold, condensation all over the outside of the glass, and as I bring the rim to my lips, the cool ice cubes shift, spilling over the edges of my mouth as I take a sip.
“Who made these?” I ask Fiona, who points to Perky. “Good job,” I tell her.
“Quit deflecting,” she says. She sounds like Ian.
“You want me to open up my heart and tell you what it feels like to be violated emotionally, financially, professionally, and socially,” I say between sips.
She shrugs. “You're more entertaining than anything on Netflix right now.”
Mallory tries to kick her underwater, but physics slows her down enough that Perky just jumps back and laughs.
“No, really,” Fiona says, giving me a serious look. “It has to hurt. I know how hard it was, being the center of a media storm when I took on the attacker in my preschool class.”
“That’s different,” I say, my voice breathy, the bitterness that normally comes out dissipated. I’m loose. I’m relaxed. I’m having actual sincere interactions with my sister and her friends.
This is surreal.
“It’s not that different. All of us have had some kind of weird online scandal thing that we’ve had to deal with. Mallory was a porn star, Perky’s tits were all over the place—”
“Quit saying that word,” Perky interjects.
Fiona ignores her. “I had the attack on my preschool class, and now you—”
“No,” I say simply. “It’s different. Mallory’s thing wasn’t great, but it was small and local. Perky’s thing… I gotta admit, that was big. And embarrassing. Being known as two-dogs-humping girl has to hurt. But you,” I say, leaning forward and taking a long, slow drink as I try to figure out what the hell is going to come out of my mouth next. I swallow and finish.
“But you,” I continue, looking at Fiona as the steam makes her even more ethereal than she already is. “You were a hero. I’m the opposite.”
The stone-cold silence in the hot spring seems to bring the temperature down twenty degrees. I take a big, deep breath, drawing the wet heat inside, feeling like I’ve just ruined the mood.
“She is a hero,” Perky says. “And so are you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You testified. You gave the Feds everything that they needed to track down all of those other scams that Burke was involved in. You helped them get most of the money that was left before he could transfer it out of the country. Turning on him was the smartest thing you did. If you’d been in on it with him, that would have been different.” Her voice fades out as a cold, prickly feeling travels up my back in spite of the hot water.
“Aha. That’s what this is about. We’re not here to talk about Mallory’s wedding, are we?” Mal’s discomfort drives it all home. “You’re here to pump me for information about what I’ve gone through.”
“Not exactly,” Mallory says, jumping in, trying to touch my elbow, but I yank it away before she can succeed. “We do want to talk about the wedding. There are all these details, and some people,” she says in a sing-songy voice, purposefully not looking at her friends, “think that I talk about it too much. But, it’s just… Hasty, you don’t tell anybody what’s going on inside. You work for Ian. You had that horrible experience at Bailargo—”
Perky cuts her off. “That we tried to warn you about.”
Fiona stops her. “This isn’t about blame, Perk.”
“I’m not blaming her. I’m making fun of her for not respecting the fact that we’re not idiots. But then again, that’s what you do, isn’t it?” she says, calmer, more pensive. “You just assume that we’re idiots and discount everything we say.”
A protest starts deep in my chest. For a moment I think it’s reflux, but then it turns into something else: the fast beat of my heart.
“You’re right,” I tell her, reaching for the glass of water, which Fiona has nicely refilled for all of us. “I do think you’re all idiots.”
“We think you’re bitchy,” she shoots back.
“Well, now we’re getting somewhere.” I look at all three of them.
“We’re not ganging up on you,” Mallory says, as if I’m thinking that.
“Of course you’re not. We’re laying our cards on the table. We’re being honest and open. And for the record,” I say to Mallory, “your hair looks like a copper scrubbie.”
“It does not!”
“Yeah, it kinda does,” Fiona says, reaching up and pulling one springy curl. “You could really clean a burned pot with that head if we just tipped you upside down, threw a little Dawn dish soap in there—”
“Stop it!”
Perky gazes at me with unwavering penetration. She’s trying to figure something out.
“I’m an open book,” I tell her, the alcohol sinking in as I pull myself up, palms flat behind me against the edge of the pool. My arms still have the strength to heft me up, wet ass smacking against the stone. My legs are still dangling in the water, calves tickled by the heat. “It sucks,” I say quietly to all of them. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“Sure you do,” Fiona says, moving with languid grace through the water, coming toward me.
I drink to hydrate, and then I just listen.
“You do know who you are. You knew it the minute every illusion about who you tried to be was shattered.”
“Don’t go spiritual on me, kid.”
She laughs. “But it’s true.” Kind eyes meet mine. “You could have kept your mouth shut. You could have only given the prosecutors the specific pieces of information that would make you safe, but no one else. You didn’t do that, Hasty.”
I bristle.
“Hastings,” she says, correcting herself. “You did more.”
“I did more than fuck Burke over. It had nothing to do with morals or being kind to other people. I just… uh.” I kick my feet, splashing water in anger. “I just want to get back at him. I want him to pay. I want him to experience one sliver of the humiliation that he put me through. So yes, I spilled my guts. I told them everything I knew. I gave them every password. I found every way to reveal whatever I could to help them.”
“And you helped other people,” she pushes back.
I shrug. “I guess so. A lot of them are just r
ich assholes who invested in the wrong thing with my hus—my was-band, my not-husband–whatever the hell you call Burke.”
“Did you know,” she says slowly, “that Burke got my parents to invest in one of his schemes?”
All of the numb looseness that the alcohol has given me disappears in a snap.
“No. No, I didn’t. Oh, God,” I groan, leaning my head forward, raking my fingers through my wet hair. “Oh, Fiona. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Because of you, they didn’t lose their money. He was about to transfer a huge amount from hundreds of people into some offshore account, but they caught it in time. Mom and Dad won’t get all their money back, but they’ll get most of it. About ninety percent. Because of you.”
“No. It was because of me they invested in the first place. I remember. Burke wanted me to contact everyone I knew, whenever I was home, to try to push them into investing in something that he was working on. And I did it, because I’m an idiot.”
“Join the club,” Perky says. “Apparently, we’re all idiots. The four of us. We’re quadridiots.”
“I take that back,” I say to her. “I used to think you were idiots.”
“What do you think we are now?”
“People.”
“We’re movin’ up in the world,” she says to Mal, who smiles at me, but her brow is furrowed, pert little nose curled up slightly in a squinch.
“Burke made you do that? He made you get Mom and Dad to invest, to talk to their friends who work on State Street and get them to work the system? Even Will?”
“He made me try. Dad never took the bait, which was a relief. I talked to Will when I was here for your rehearsal rehearsal dinner,” I say.
She nods slowly. “He told me.”
“He never invested,” I tell her, hands up in defense. “I swear, and if I had known—oh God, Mal, if I had known…” Tears fill my eyes, pressing hard against the back of my throat, turning salty and sickening.
“Oh, Hasty. We know you didn’t know. You were doing what you thought was right.”
“I was building my husband’s business for him. I thought it was part of this grand plan we had, that I would be the venture capital queen and he would be the financial king and we would rule over this kingdom where we were at the top.”
“But when you’re at the top...” Perky says quietly.
I interrupt her. “‘It’s lonely at the top’? ‘You’re all alone’? ‘You’re only at the—’”
She cuts me off. “There’s only one place to go if you’re at the top, and that’s down.”
“That’s not how I saw it. Until they hauled me away in handcuffs.”
“Then I’m glad they hauled you away in handcuffs,” Mallory says, earnest and soft. “Because until you came home, it was like I had a sister who was a placeholder, who fit into a category called sister. But now, it’s like I have a friend.”
Friend.
The three of them stare at me as if my sister has thrown down an emotional gauntlet I'm expected to pick up and run with. Each heartbeat makes me heavier and lighter, each second that passes without a response from me making it harder to open my mouth and say what I want to say.
What do I want to say?
The light in Mallory's eyes dims, then darkens, her disappointment traveling through the water's waves, soaking into my skin as terror fills me.
Yes, terror.
Being vulnerable is its own kind of torture.
But my lungs feel crushed, pressed down by the fear of rejection.
The only way to have friends like these is to be a friend like them.
“I'm so jealous,” I choke out, a part of me screaming to shut up, another one jumping for joy inside. “I never had friends like you do, Mal. You always had buddies. Always. And it was just so easy for you.”
“What?” Mal gasps. Perky is uncharacteristically quiet and Fiona watches me with eyes too wise for her years.
“It's true.”
“You were friends with Dorian. And Eric. And loads of people from the clubs you were president of. You were symphony chair for clarinet, and student body president, and–”
“Dorian and I were in the same crowd. Eric was, well...” I sigh. “He was my friend. But I didn't have what you three have.”
“Maybe it's because you put out vibes,” Fiona says.
“Vibes?”
“Stay-away vibes. Don't-fuck-with-me vibes. You have steel in your aura and it's the kind that cuts you if you get too close.”
I make a sound I can't stop myself from making. “Auras? Really?”
“See?” Perky interjects. “There you go.”
Looking at each of them, one at a time, I slowly force myself to capture their expressions, translate nonverbal facial cues into emotion, and try each one on for size inside me.
This is one outfit I don't like.
“How can correcting people be bad? How can wanting to be correct–to be on top–be a source of bad vibes?” Keeping the acid out of my voice is harder than it should be.
“If you have to put people down, or judge them, then it is,” Mallory replies, tilting her head like she's seeing me anew.
“You interpret my words as a put down. I don't mean them that way.”
“You don't?” Perky's eyebrows shoot up. Sweat soaks her hairline, the flat outline of her face making her eyes stand out more.
“Judgment isn't a bad thing. It's how we categorize the world. How we protect ourselves from danger. How we analyze and–”
“People aren't facts that fit neatly into boxes, Hasty,” Mallory says to me. “We're souls. Not business development projects.”
“And this is why I don't have friends like you do,” I respond emphatically. “Because my world view doesn't fit into this whole emotional thing.”
“What does 'emotional thing' mean?” Fiona's question has no tone to it. She genuinely wants to hear the answer.
“When I talk to someone, I scan their words. Their faces. Their body language. How they carry themselves reveals more than what they tell me. I make snap judgments on the inside. He's in a hurry. She's heartbroken but holding it together. He has a secret agenda about that housing regulation. She wants to screw the guy across the table at a board meeting. That sort of analytical reading of a room has actual monetary value. It's what I'm best at. It's how I excel.”
“And it doesn't work on friends,” Perky says.
“Right.”
All four of us stare at each other. It's clear they are surprised by my answer.
“Was Burke your friend?” Mallory whispers, the words so faint, I almost don't hear them.
“What?”
“Was he your friend?”
“I–”
“Not the object of your scanning,” Fiona adds, getting a nod from Mallory in return. “But a friend.”
“No.”
My answer is immediate and easy.
“No,” I repeat. “He never was.”
“And do you have any friends?”
Ian.
His name comes to mind immediately, Mallory's next in line.
A smile takes over Fiona's eyes as I blink rapidly.
“You do. There's someone who makes you feel connected. Understood. Someone you can say anything to and you don't have to worry you'll walk away from the conversation feeling worse than before, or defensive–or judged.”
She's right. I do.
“Who?” Mallory asks, intrigued.
“You,” I inform her. “And Eric.”
Perky moves closer to me, catching my eyes. “And Ian McCrory.”
I nod.
All three start clapping. Clapping!
“What are you doing?”
“Congratulations, Hastings,” Perky says, using my name correctly for once. “Welcome to having a heart. Yours just came online.”
13
I am missing the rehearsal dinner.
Why? Because I have strep throat.
That's right.<
br />
It's been seventy-two hours since I left Ian's office with a painfully sore throat, rode the train home, collapsed in bed, woke up to a fever, and had Mom force me to a local drugstore's clinic for a rapid strep test.
I went to a chain-store clinic. Me.
Six months ago, Burke and I were spending $40,000 a year for concierge primary care. Immediate appointments. Examination rooms with loveseats and ionic foot baths. Easy Botox injections (not that I need them... yet) and prescriptions filled by on-site runners who went for you to a boutique compounding pharmacy three blocks away.
You waited in a lounge with baristas, a light buffet, and a small gym off in one corner. Hand massages, reflexology, you name it.
The chain store clinic had free ennui. You want boredom and tedium? They had it in droves.
Seventy-five minutes later, antibiotics in hand, bill paid from my own checking account (since I don't have health insurance yet), we left. I dry-swallowed the pills.
Went to bed.
Mallory understands. In fact, Mallory wants Typhoid Hastings to stay far, far away from her wedding party. The rehearsal dinner is a week earlier than usual because of Parker.
A sitting U.S. congressman has limited windows of availability, so Will and Mallory flipped the rehearsal dinner and the bachelor/bachelorette parties.
If I had to miss one, strep picked the right event.
And so here I am, still feverish and sick, with a throat that feels like barbed wire. I’m experiencing a clash of FOMO and JOMO that looks like a Bruce Lee movie, but emotions are sparring instead of bodies.
Sleep is a blissful lover.
Ian McCrory would be even better.
He tastes like cherries.
Not the kind you find in grocery stores, even high-end places in suburbs where the zip code is a famous year in the country's independence. He tastes like freshly plucked, sun-ripened cherries off a Washington tree, after hiking all day and arriving, sweaty and vibrant, full of pleasure at the simple joy of having made it to your goal.
Ian's mouth makes me think of a future where all I have to do is kiss him like that. No accomplishment is better, more impressive, or more worth my time.
“Hastings,” he murmurs against my neck, making my nipples harden under the thin sheet as he slides down, down, down my body, mouth at my breast, big hands moving to my ribs, each finger stroke bringing me closer to him. Long, massive, with dark hair on his legs and chest, Ian is as glorious naked as he is in a suit.