“You’re so stupid!” he said, shoving me so hard I fell in the water.
I climbed back on the dock, sputtering and upset, and managed to get a huge splinter in my palm. “I fell,” I said when the grown-ups asked me what happened. I knew better than to say that Hunter pushed me.
“Hunter, you were supposed to be watching her,” Dad said. My mother defended her boy; I don’t remember the words, but I remember knowing I’d somehow made everyone unhappy.
My brother didn’t speak to me for the rest of that trip. The memory of standing with my brother, having him offer me the pole so I could fish, too . . . that just made his cruelty worse.
As we got older (and I got fatter), he didn’t introduce me to his friends. The few pictures we had of the two of us together showed him stiff and unsmiling, looking away from the camera, or glaring right at it. I always looked nervous. I learned early on to give him a wide berth and thanked God when he went to boarding school.
It wasn’t just me. Life irritated the hell out of my brother. He’d glare at people in the library, yell at our parents or me, slam doors so hard the house shook, break a glass when Dad dared to ground him. God forbid I had to go anywhere with him in the car; he was the epitome of road rage. When Dad moved out three years before I started at Concord Academy, Hunter broke all the windows in his bedroom and punched holes in the walls, which was blamed on my father’s desertion, even though Hunter was eighteen at the time.
Our mother excused his behavior every time. “He’s a hothead,” she’d sigh, almost fondly. “My father was the same way. He has a good heart, though.”
I never saw that heart, not until he brought Leah home. I was sixteen. With her, he was a different person—solicitous, charming, smiling, even a little bit nice to me, or at least not hostile. It made me feel off-balance. Instead of making fun of me for being fat, he asked me how I was doing at school, almost like he was trying to trick me.
Leah had been kind and beautiful (and so slender!). When they got engaged, she insisted that we go out for nachos, just us two. “I don’t have a sister, either,” she said. “I was so happy when Hunter told me he had one.”
“Mm,” I said, wondering why she was being nice. After all, if Hunter had given her his version of me, the fat, lazy, stupid, boring, useless little sister . . .
“I know you two aren’t close,” she said, almost reading my mind. “I hope that will change.”
“Well . . . uh, Hunter was . . . tough to have as a brother.”
“You mean his temper?” She smiled. “I know. We’re working on that.”
His temper, I learned in my Psych 101 class at Princeton, was probably intermittent explosive disorder, which consisted of rage, irritability, tirades, shouting and sometimes violence. But God forbid that he actually be diagnosed with anything that needed treatment. By then, I knew better than to bring it up to my mother, but I worried about Leah. A lot.
To his credit, Hunter seemed like a good husband. And at first, he seemed like a good father, even. Then, when Mason was about seven, Leah was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer; she who had never smoked and grew up in a household where no one else smoked, either. For nineteen agonizing months, she died in inches.
On my last visit to her, the day before she died, I promised her I’d look out for Mason, who was already my brother’s opposite in every way.
My nephew was kind, sweet, shy and generous. Like his mother. After Leah died, he’d become horribly anxious, all too aware that his father wanted him to be aggressive, taller, stronger, more athletic, more talkative. Without Leah there to balance Hunter, every comment my brother made went unchallenged, unfiltered. Mason’s nails were chewed bloody, which offended my brother, and he had this habit of tugging his hair when he was nervous. It broke my heart to see him fake-smiling almost constantly, an ineffective shield to Hunter’s constant orders to sit up straight, join the conversation, don’t just sit there like a lump, man up.
Big Kitty said it was good that Hunter was “strict.” My father . . . well, Hunter had never forgiven him for the divorce. Sometimes I was able to get Mason down to the city to see my dad and Cherish and the girls, but not very often. Leah’s parents came out from California twice a year, and they Skyped, but it wasn’t enough. April’s event had shown us that.
My mom loved Mason, one hoped, but in a more theoretical way. More, perhaps, because Mason was Hunter’s son rather than because he was his wonderful self. She wasn’t the type to babysit or take him to see a show, but she’d kiss him, tolerate a few minutes of him talking about Lord of the Rings or Guardians of the Galaxy, then shoo him away so she and Hunter could talk. She rarely saw him alone, only with my brother. Hunter didn’t let Mason out of his clutches too often. Especially since the overdose.
So this dinner . . . I was grateful, even if it wouldn’t be like eating with Marley’s family, where everyone was kissed at least six times. I’d counted.
“Isn’t this nice!” Mom said as we walked up the steps to Hunter’s impressive house. It was where he and Leah had lived after their marriage, a lovely Victorian on the other side of the park where Mason and I took Admiral almost every day. “My entire family, together for a meal.” As always, her eyes dropped to my torso to assess whether or not I deserved food.
“Hi, Ma,” Hunter said, kissing her cheek. His eyes cut to me. “George.”
His nickname for me, just in case I ever felt pretty and feminine. “Thanks for having us,” I said, handing him a bottle of wine. He was a collector. He looked at it, rolled his eyes and set it on the counter. Since I knew nothing I chose would ever be good enough, I took great pleasure in buying the shittiest wine I could find. This particular vintage had cost me $4.99 and was made in Florida. It had taken me forty-five minutes in the very nice wine shop to find a bottle that bad, and I didn’t regret a single second.
“Where’s Mason?” I asked.
Hunter and Mom were already talking and thus ignored me. There’d been some idiot at Hunter’s job who’d dared to disagree with him, and Mom was clucking and murmuring her sympathy and amazement that her son hadn’t already been anointed their king. Since I was here to help Mason with his list, I was glad they were engrossed.
I went into the living room. It always surprised me that Hunter’s house was comfortable and welcoming. Then again, Leah had been the one to furnish it back in the happier days, so it made sense. There were leather couches and lovely paintings, dark wood floors and, along the western wall, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, unfortunately filled mostly with tomes on running.
But here was her worn collection of the Old Mother West Wind books, which I’d read as a child myself and loved. Little Women and Anne of Green Gables. The Dark-Thirty by Patricia McKissack, which Leah had loaned me once and which had scared the bejesus out of me.
There were also about a dozen pictures of her—alone, with Hunter, with Mason, the three of them together.
If Hunter hadn’t been such a shit . . . if he wasn’t so obsessed with creating Mason in his own image . . . if he hadn’t treated Mason’s overdose like a weakness instead of a cry for help, maybe I’d have felt sorry for him, widowed at thirty-five, left alone to raise a child.
I stared at a picture of Leah pushing Mason on the swing out back. Both of them were laughing in the photo.
Dear, sweet Leah. I wished it had been Hunter who died instead, but those things never work out, do they?
“Hey,” came my nephew’s soft voice. “That’s a nice one, isn’t it?”
“It sure is.” He came over, and I put my arm around him. “I remember this one time when she brought you to Yale to see me,” I said. “You weren’t even one, and we went through Sterling library, and you discovered the echo. You’d yell, then laugh and laugh, and she and I started laughing, too, and some snotty professor gave us the stink-eye. And your mom said, ‘Mister, if you have a problem with a baby laughing, y
our priorities are seriously messed up.’” Except she’d said fucked-up, right there in the hallowed Ivy League temple, and the professor had been scandalized. “And guess who was my professor next semester?”
“Oh, man, really?”
“Yep. I didn’t care. She was right. You were so stinking cute.” I gave him a squeeze. “Still are.”
“Gross, G.”
“And yet true.” I cocked an ear to the kitchen, where from the sounds of it, Hunter was making our mother a martini. “Want to work on the list?” I asked.
“Yeah, okay. I guess.” He paused. “Don’t tell my dad about this, okay? You know how it is. He’ll take over and fill it up with stuff I can’t do.”
“Sure. Our secret.”
We went into the den, which was smaller and where we’d be less likely to be overheard.
“I haven’t come up with anything yet,” he said. “Maybe try to gain some weight.” He blushed. “I wish I was taller. Some kids in my class, they’re totally ripped already.”
Body image issues weren’t reserved just for women. “Well, that will come. You have years of growing in front of you.” I paused. “You eating okay?”
“Yeah. I eat all the time. But Dad wants me to eat like he does.”
“Rusty nails and yams?”
He snorted. “Basically. Sorry in advance about dinner. I suggested mac and cheese, but Dad said he hasn’t eaten cheese in decades.”
If I knew Mason, and I did, he’d joke and pick his cuticles and put off this list as long as possible. I took out my iPad.
“Let’s pick an easy thing first. You’re a freshman in high school, all the extracurricular stuff is starting. How about join a club?”
“Yeah. Maybe. I guess. They have a gamers thing and, uh, a coding club?”
I understood his hesitancy. Hunter would hate both of those, so if he knew about them, he’d be sure to voice his disdain.
“Great,” I said, typing in Join a club. “See? Not too hard. Another thing could be . . . I don’t know. Eat with some other kids at lunch.” My stomach hurt at the thought of him alone, pretending to read. I’d done the same thing at Princeton with their wretchedly snobby eating clubs.
He bit a cuticle. “Does that have to be on there?”
“Well . . . maybe you could just think about it. Get the lay of the land. It’s still early in the semester. I’m sure a lot of other kids are looking for people to eat with.” Quite possibly untrue, but I typed it in, anyway. “What else?”
“Dad wants me to have a social life. Says it’s unnatural to be alone so much.” He cut me an apologetic glance. “I had friends at my old school, but they all go somewhere else now. And you don’t count. You know. To him.”
“I do know. Plus, your aunt shouldn’t be your only social life, no matter how awesome I am.” I typed in Do something with a friend.
He was biting his lip now, chewing on it.
“You can do it, honey. Believe me, you’re not the only kid who’s a little . . . unsure of himself.”
He sighed. “I want to believe you.”
“Do it. Believe me. By the way, Marley is great for pointers, socially speaking. Especially with the fairer sex.”
“What? You mean, like, dating? G, there’s no way I could get a girlfriend.”
“We’ll laugh over this when you have eleven girls ask you to prom. How about for now, just talk to a girl? Trust me. Marley can help.”
“Fine,” he said, blushing. Aha. So he did want to talk to a girl. “How about, um, get As in all my classes?” he suggested.
That sounded like something Hunter would say. But if we put that on the list, and he got a B or C, would he feel like a failure? I paused for a minute. “Maybe something better would be ‘Check in with my teachers to make sure I’m clear on the material.’” Mason was so good with adults. I had a feeling getting to know his teachers would make him a lot happier at his school.
“Yeah. That’s better. Good idea, G.”
And that way, his teachers would get to know him, too.
“I have to do a public speaking thing for school,” he said. “That could go on the list, too.”
“Sure.” I typed it in. “Take piano lessons?” I suggested.
“No. This is probably already too much.”
“But you asked Leo that day.”
“We don’t have a piano.”
“And yet your aged aunt does.”
He smiled. “You’re not that old, G.”
“Thank you, darling child.” I tousled his hair. “Okay. We’ll leave that off for now. I think this list is a good start, don’t you?”
“Start? Will I have to do more?” He looked stricken.
“No, no,” I said soothingly. The last thing I wanted was to create more stress for the poor kid. “This is great. Remember, the idea here is to do things you want to do. Even if they make you uncomfortable, you’ll be glad you did them. Right?” He smiled at me. “We can text each other if we cross something off, okay?”
“Okay. Sure. There’s no time limit, right?”
“Nope. None at all.”
“Good.” His shoulders dropped.
“Mason!” Hunter yelled. “Dinnertime.”
I raised my fist and gently bumped it against Mason’s hand. “We got this,” I said. “You and me and Marley. The three musketeers of List-Land.”
CHAPTER 9
Marley
Have a cute stranger buy you a drink.
(Preferably not a gay guy or someone over the age of seventy.)
When I got home after my deliveries that night, I went straight to the shower, used the extra-good shower gel, shaved my legs and moisturized every inch of my skin. Tonight was Friday, the outing with Dante and the guys, and yes, Camden would be there. I had confirmation from Dante.
I had told Georgia about my photo shoot, and shown her the results. Tonight would be the first time Georgia and I tried something on the list together.
Emerson had had a boyfriend, the infamous and invisible Mica, who fed her to death. Obviously, she helped by eating, by not getting up, by succumbing to the pain of obesity and the shallow comfort of food. But Emerson had said in more than one e-mail that they genuinely loved each other. She had been over the moon about him.
Clearly, she’d been whitewashing their relationship, if what the evil cousin Ruth had said about his obsession with her size was true. God.
But even so. She’d been in love. She’d gone on dates and held hands in public. I still had the e-mails and messages, and that one cute picture of the two of them.
No nonrelative male had ever said he loved me. Relationships before this had consisted of the occasional shag in college. One semi-regular guy named Charles I met online a few years ago. We met for a drink once, went to his place, messed around and were each other’s booty call for the next couple of months. We never appeared in public after that first time, and I wised up and told him we were done. Not sure if he even noticed.
So when I met Camden, who talked to me in public, who laughed at my jokes, who said such thrilling things as “You look nice, Marley,” and “Man, this eggplant is amazing!” . . . he was different. Not different enough, not yet, but still. We fat girls sometimes take what’s offered, instead of what we really want.
The truth was, men liked me. Many of them even liked my figure—my fabulous boobage, my generous butt, my wild, tangled curls. And I liked men. I liked talking to them, flirting with them, watching them. I loved men. I wanted one of my very own. Yet here I was, almost thirty-five and never once had I been introduced as “my girlfriend.”
“This one’s for you, Emerson,” I said out loud, picking out a low-cut peasant blouse. Next I added a short, swishy skirt and three-inch heels. Did my makeup with an expert hand, thanks to many thousands of hours at Sephora, and then went upstairs and ban
ged on Georgia’s door. If I knew her, and I did, she’d pretend she’d forgotten about our plans for the evening. “You promised you’d come!” I reminded her.
“You don’t have to yell,” she said, opening the door.
“I’m not yelling. I’m Italian. And you’re not dressed.”
“I kind of forgot about this, and I have a lot of work to—”
“Nice try. Come on, I’ll pick you out something cute.”
Georgia had no idea how to dress. As a lawyer, she’d worn navy blue suits that made her look as feminine as a Ford pickup truck. As a nursery school teacher, she wore long skirts for floor sitting, flats and tragically shapeless sweaters. Sometimes, she sported the same turtlenecks my grandmother bought from Eddie Bauer, which made me want to cry and throw them on a pyre (or give them to Nonny . . . why waste?).
Georgia sighed.
“Admiral,” I said to her dog, who was waiting politely to be noticed, “tell your mommy that she’s going to have so much fun tonight.” I petted his narrow head. “See? He just said it. Even your dog knows.”
“Marley, I’m kind of tired.”
“I don’t care,” I said, marching her upstairs to her room. “Oh, I love the new pillows!” They were green and blue and had little mirrors in them. I opened her closet door and surveyed the ocean of navy and gray. “Sad,” I said. “So sad. You should try to dress how you decorate.”
“So this party . . .” she said.
“It’s just people at a bar, and guess what! It’s on the list. ‘Have a cute stranger buy you a drink at a bar.’ Don’t you make that face at me. Emerson is watching.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t fuss.
Georgia had lost a lot of weight. We weren’t supposed to discuss it, but the truth was, she needed to buy new clothes. I pulled out the smallest pair of jeans I could find as she made the sound of air being released from a balloon. “Quiet,” I ordered.
She really had nothing appropriate for firefighter flirting. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “Put these on in the meantime.” I handed her the jeans and a white button-down shirt (sigh), then trotted downstairs to raid my own closet. A cropped purple cashmere sweater, some dangly earrings. (Georgia was a small-gold-hoops person, the occasional tasteful pearls, totally living the WASP cliché.) I also grabbed a funky wooden necklace and the gray suede booties that I loved more than a human should love an inanimate object.
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