by Sharpe, Elle
Aunt Ruth made a little throat-clearing sound at me in warning. She was always accusing me of trying to “rile her children up.” She and her husband were both neat, tidy, even-tempered people. They didn’t like mess, or noise. They did not at all fit the stereotype of “mad scientists,” which was a shame.
Uncle Jeff—the surgeon—came next in the birth order. He was a handsome, jovial guy, with lots of curly hair and a big, wide smile. His number one hobby was bragging about himself, and his number two hobby was bad jokes. Often he managed to combine the two. His wife, Claire, unfortunately fit the description of a trophy wife: sweet, pretty, and always ready to worship her husband. I feel bad thinking that, because she was also a perfectly nice person.
Their son, Tom—a big, strapping all-American looking dude—had just graduated from Yale. He’d gotten in on a rowing scholarship that he hadn’t needed—the family could have easily afforded the full tuition on their own. Their daughter Amanda was still in high school, but she was currently away doing some sort of gifted-and-talented exchange program in Spain.
Mom was the second-youngest in her family. Her major accomplishment in life was her well-run household. She’d also worked as an HR officer at some very boring company until she married dad. That was where she’d learned how to throw a party completely devoid of fun.
Aunt Joanna, the youngest sister in mom’s family, made a point of being nothing like her siblings. While the rest were all control freaks in one way or another, Joanna insisted on being in control of nothing. She wore flowy, hippie-ish clothes that only managed to still look fashionable because they were so expensive. Her long pale hair flowed freely around her, and she made no effort to hide the fact that it was graying and thinning. She had that kind of loose, careless attitude towards life that’s much easier to have if you also have a big pile of money that you’ve never had to work for.
Her husband, Carl, had made a decent amount of money in real estate or something. He’d divorced Joanna years ago for being too Joanna-y, and she had basically shrugged her shoulders and said, “That’s life.” She’s lived happily off of the alimony ever since.
She gave me a pitying pat on the shoulder as she floated through the door, and said how good it was for me to be so helpful. Then she leaned in close and whispered, “I don’t know how you put up with it all.”
She thought the two of us were on the same side. That we were the two reasonable people in this crowd full of uptight stress balls. But she had money and I didn’t, so there was still a pretty big difference between us. She had an excuse for not doing all that much with her life. I did not.
Joanna’s daughter Allison followed her mother into the house. While the overachiever gene may have skipped a generation with Joanna, it was back in full force inside of Allison. At the age of twenty-seven she was a successful freelance photographer/commercial director/art director/brand consultant/general modern-day creative-professional boss bitch.
I honestly wasn’t even sure of the full scope of her job, but I knew she spent her time jet-setting around the world, filming and photographing beautiful people in beautiful locations. And when the beautiful people and beautiful locations weren’t beautiful enough, she would yell at twenty-five people to move twenty-five things a few centimeters to the left or right, until everything was absolutely perfect. Lately she’d been taking on bigger and bigger brands, and even some celebrities.
She had long pin-straight black hair and a flawless, make up-less face. She was always effortlessly stylish. Today she was wearing an oversized, waist-cropped knitted sweater and palazzo pants—both in shades of cream, because she was far too careful to ever get any dirt or food on herself. She also had on one of those minimalist necklaces, a thin gold chain with a tiny gold pendant in the shape of a long, straight line. The type of necklace that said, “I’m way too cool to actually wear jewelry. Instead I’ll wear this little thing, that just vaguely nods to the idea of jewelry.”
She looked like she should always be leaning against the side of an adobe wall, staring serenely off into the middle distance. Except that then she lifted up her sunglasses and fixed you with these cold, steely eyes—like the eyes of an army commander—and you suddenly felt afraid for your life.
She took one look at the pink scrapbook, said, “Nah,” and moved past me into the room.
So that was Mom’s side of the family. On dad’s side there was one older brother, Sam, who was an architect. Not any kind of famous architect. The buildings he designed were pretty ordinary. But he loved his work, and becoming an architect at all is very competitive, so nothing to sneeze at. His wife, June, ran an art gallery. Their two sons—Jacob and Aidan—were both slightly older than me, and both had high-paying tech jobs and nerdy good looks. Their favorite topic of conversation, as a family, was how fulfilling they found their careers.
Dad, by contrast, hated his job as an insurance adjuster. A job he’d only taken after Mom had forced him to give up his dreams of professional music. For which he’d resented her ever since.
After everyone had finally arrived and signed the all-important guest book, Mom decided to put me on waitressing duty. It was like she couldn’t bear for her family members to see me being idle for a single second—like that might prove how lazy and useless I was. So instead I flitted between people, offering up hors d'oeuvres that no one was especially excited about.
Already, the conversations buzzing through the air focused on everyone’s great accomplishments from the past months. All the children had excellent grades, but whose were the most perfect? What, Amanda only had a 4.1? Why wasn’t she taking more AP classes? Oh, don’t worry, she was definitely planning to take more next year. And wow, Jacob had just gotten another promotion. And Jeff had just gotten another raise. What good fortune everyone seemed to have.
I wondered what Ronan thought about all of these perfect people. It had never been more obvious to me how inadequate I was, compared with the rest of them. Maybe he’d finally be forced to come to his senses about me, when he heard them talk about their shiny, impressive lives. How could he continue to claim there was anything special about me, in the face of so much superior accomplishment?
I spotted him standing in the hallway, talking to Allison. It didn’t surprise me at all that he’d gravitated towards her—the cool, attractive woman close to his age, who also just-so-happened to be single. The way they were smiling and laughing together made me uncomfortable. Was she flirting with my boyfriend right in front of me?
No. No she was not. Because, as I had insisted, Ronan was not my boyfriend. We were “just friends.” And therefore he could flirt with whoever he wanted. And she could flirt right back.
He caught me looking over at him, and I quickly leaned down to offer Aunt Ruth a watermelon skewer. I tried to convince her that cheese and melon wasn’t such a weird flavor combination after all.
I was sure I felt Ronan’s eyes on the back of my head. But I didn’t turn back to confirm it. If he was trying to make me jealous, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking it was working.
Even if it was.
Ronan
I kept wondering when Norah would be released from her serving duties so that we could actually spend time together. I still felt the electricity of that small kiss on the cheek that I had given to her earlier, and I was hoping I’d find another moment to sneak in some innocent physical contact.
I realized I was fantasizing about such things as holding Norah’s hands, which struck me as impossibly trite and definitely not normal. But I really loved her delicate little hands. I wanted to intertwine my fingers with hers, and rub my thumb up and down over the pulse point of her wrist.
I imagined doing this casually in front of her family—a simple, loving gesture from a boyfriend to his girlfriend. And I imagined Norah being pleased about it. Proud, even. Happy for her whole family to know that we were together.
In the meantime, I had a hard time explaining our non-existent relationship st
atus to her family.
“So,” her cousin Allison asked me, “Are you Norah’s boyfriend?”
Something about the directness of her gaze made it very difficult to lie.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. She made a knowing, encouraging noise, and I kept talking, though I probably should have known better. “I mean, I’d like to be the boyfriend. I know that much. What Norah wants is not so clear to me. I’m honestly feeling pretty confused right now. It feels like she’s trying to keep me at arm’s length. But then she invites me to meet her whole family.”
Allison smiled.
“Yeah, that sounds like Norah. Queen of not committing. To be honest, I was kind of messing with you when I asked that just now. The day Norah actually settles into any sort of stable, long-term relationship I’ll be very surprised.”
“Oh.”
Well, that was certainly blunt.
“Hey, better to know ahead of time, right?”
“I guess. Hey, you’ve known her a lot longer than I have. What do you think I should do to get a straight answer out of her?”
“Hmmmm. I don’t know, man. I'm not exactly the best at ‘giving advice.’ And I can’t exactly say that relationships are my area of expertise, either. Don’t have much time for them, myself. I’m more used to dealing with assistants. Much simpler. If I want them to do something for me, I just say, ‘Hey, do this for me.’ And then they do it.”
Allison had told me she directed commercials for a living, which meant she was used to shouting commands at big crews of people. Even without shouting, her voice—which was on the deeper side—seemed to carry a certain amount of authority. It was sort of like a female version of the voice that I put on when I wanted my subordinates to listen to me. But her version seemed to just be her normal speaking voice.
I noticed that the two twin girls were coming over to us. Allison looked down at them like they were mildly interesting pets—like they were cute, but she’d prefer to get away from them in case they started drooling on her shoes.
“Cousin Allison, will you play with us?” one of them asked. “Cousin Norah says she’s too busy.”
They wore matching expressions of disappointment on their adorable faces. As fellow rejects of Norah’s attention I felt like I could relate to them.
Allison leaned down to their level and said, “No, kids. I am not going to play with you. That sounds absolutely exhausting and very boring. Besides, you know how your mom and dad feel about playing. Any self-respecting child should have grown out of playing by age five. Why don’t you do some of those lame little iPad science problems instead?”
“Norah always lets us play with the costume box,” one of them said, longingly. “And she thinks of the best games. How come she has to be too busy to play with us?”
An idea occurred to me.
“What are your names?” I asked them.
They spoke at exactly the same time, so I barely managed to make out the answer.
“Lyran and Kela?” I guessed.
“Eh, close enough,” Allison said.
“Lela,” the one who was presumably named Lela corrected.
“And Kyran,” said the other. They both glared at Allison.
“Yes yes,” she deferred. “You’re right.”
“Okay, Lela and Kyran,” I said, making sure I got the names right this time. I was pretty sure I was going to forget them in about five minutes. “Tell me, where can we find this costume box?”
They led me down the hall to the room that must have been Norah’s childhood bedroom. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw it.
It was much neater than her current apartment. I suspected that was her mother’s work. But other than that it was Norah all over. The walls were a pale green color, covered with movie posters and artwork spanning childhood through teenage years. There were some framed awards from music competitions too, and strips of photo booth pictures of her and Jen making funny faces. I hadn’t realized Jen and Norah and had been friends for such a long time.
I had to admit, middle-school-aged Norah was pretty darned cute.
“Up there,” one of the girls said. I had already forgotten which was which. She pointed to a big black suitcase covered in stickers, sitting on a high-up shelf in Norah’s closet. “It’s too high for us to reach.”
“Well, this is where I can leverage my height advantage,” I told them, and I heaved the suitcase down onto the bed.
When the lid unlatched, a mess of fabric sprang out. Capes, scarves, dresses, hats, masks, wigs. It was an eight-year-old’s dream.
“I want to be a pirate!” said the one in the purple cardigan. I decided to call her Twin One. Twin One was clutching a big black pirate captain’s hat close to her chest. But then she spotted a robot mask deeper in the pile, and her conviction wavered. “Or wait, maybe I want to be a robot.” She put on a robot voice as she set the pirate hat aside and picked up the mask. “Kill. All. The. Hu. Mans.”
“Why not be both?” I asked. “Robot Pirate. Sounds pretty intimidating to me.”
“Awesome!” she exclaimed.
She put the pirate hat on over the robot mask.
“Yo. Ho. All. Hu. Mans. Must. Walk. The. Plank.”
“If she gets to be two things I get to be two things, too!” Twin Two declared. “I want to be a...werewolf...fairy!”
“Both beautiful and terrifying,” I said. “I approve.”
She pulled a wolf mask over her head and fairy wings on over her arms. She had a bit of a hard time gripping her fairy wand in the rubber wolf-man gloves, but eventually she got the hang of it.
“What are you going to be?” Robot Pirate asked.
“He has to be a dragon!” Werewolf Fairy declared. “To kidnap Princess Norah!”
“Fair enough,” I agreed. “But I feel like I can’t just be one thing now, either. Wouldn’t that be far too boring?”
Robot Pirate fished a black cape out of the box.
“You’ll be Vampire Dragon!” she informed me. “Super deadly.”
I strapped on a green dragon mask that covered most of my face, and swept myself up in the black velvet cape. I actually did feel a little like a supervillain, about to carry out my dastardly plan.
“Now,” I said, making my voice go deeper and adding a snarl, “For the next part of the plan, I’ll need the help of a local sorceress. Together we shall lure the Princess Norah to her doom. Bwhahaha.”
Norah
I lost track of Ronan for a moment, and the next time I saw him he was over in a corner, whispering conspiratorially in Allison’s ear. Wow, things sure did seem to be progressing rather quickly between the two of them. I wondered if he actually was trying to make me jealous. Or, maybe, he just liked her. Maybe he’d finally realized that there were better options out there for him. That I was too much work for too little reward.
Allison was way cooler, and more successful, and considerably more chill than I was. In fact, she and Ronan had a lot in common. They both had personalities that seemed to instantly demand respect. They were serious career people. They were both the kinds of people who immediately took charge of every situation they were in, and they never let themselves get pushed around.
As for me, Mom kept finding new chores for me to do. When it was clear that everyone was getting sick of having zucchini muffins pressed on them she told me to check on the food in the oven, even though there was still a good half hour left until it was supposed to be done. Then I had to wash dishes. Then she told me to start filling up the water glasses.
I did try to get away a few times. But Mom just came back at me with her old guilting tricks. Apparently I was powerless against them. Didn’t I want the party to go smoothly, and for everyone to feel happy and comfortable, and to cherish this family memory forever? And did I want for her to have to shoulder the burden of creating this family happiness all by herself? Didn’t I care about my own family?
What was I supposed to say to that? “No, I really just want to make sure
that my not-quite-boyfriend doesn’t start making out with my hot cousin.”
As it happened, that very same hot cousin came up to me while I was forearms-deep in dish soap.
“Hey Norah,” she said. “It looks like we’re out of Coke.”
I did a little double-take at her. Did she think I was her server or something?
“I don’t think we can be, Allison,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “I swear I put out a whole case.”
“Well, they must have all mysteriously vanished,” Allison said. She sounded weirdly stilted. “Maybe you should get some more from the garage.”
I got the feeling that there was something going on. I almost felt like I was being taunted, or something, but nothing she was saying seemed especially insulting…
“Can you wait?” I asked, irritated. “I’ve got a few more things to help Mom with in here.”
“I think it’s pretty important that we have more Coke,” Allison said. She sounded like she was taking this very seriously. “People might get dehydrated. And that would be bad. Here, I’ll even help you, if you show me where the Cokes are. In the garage.”
“Uh…”
“Come with me to the garage, Norah.”
She was using her full-on “follow my orders” voice on me. The Voice That Cannot Be Refused. I assumed that when she was on set this was the voice that made dozens of production assistants cower.
“I...uh, sure,” I relented. “Just for a second, I guess.”
“Don’t worry Aunt Sarah,” Allison called to Mom, as she grasped me by the shoulder and led me away. “Norah and I are just going to get more soda. Won’t be a minute.”
She flashed her pearly white teeth at my Mom, and Mom gave a full, approving smile back.
“Of course Allison. Thank you for your help!”
I rolled my eyes. For some reason in mom’s eyes Allison could do no wrong.