by Poppy Dunne
“Let’s walk Auntie Emma through this one more time.” I take a sip of the red table wine currently filling my plastic cup. My family spares no expense. “Did he ask you to the school dance?”
“Well, kind of.” Sawyer shifts from one foot to the other, playing with the glow-in-the-dark bangle bracelet she’s wearing, one of several. Apparently the eighties came back in a big way to claim our current youth, and no one told me. Sawyer’s gone for full hair-teasing, neon leg warmers, dangly plastic earrings, poufy polka dot skirt, the works. “See, Everest snapchatted with one of my friends last week, and showed her the promposal he was working on.”
“Promposal?” I swear, whatever happened to the good old days of boys showing up in the backseat of an older sibling’s car that smelled like French fries? They’d ring the doorbell, blurt out they wanted to go steady, then dive into the back of said car and take off like they’d just pulled off the most daring bank heist of all time. The nineties, man. Why can’t those come back into fashion?
Also, who names their child Everest? Especially when their last name is Rushmore?
Sorry, preteen is talking. Must listen.
“Yeah, the guy makes a big presentation with, like, a sign and everything.” She practically lights up talking about it, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “My friend Ashleigh got one that was like Beauty and the Beast. He gave her a candlestick, a teapot, and a clock.”
“Was this a promposal or a yard sale?”
Sawyer giggles. “And then a card that said ‘Be Our Guest at the Dance.’ It was so, so awesome.” She heaves a sigh, clearly dreaming of a day that Everest will surprise her with the Disney princess art project of her fantasies. “Anyway, Everest showed my friend this snapchat, and his promposal looked just. Like.” She takes a deep breath, her fingers fluttering. “Jupiter Ascending!”
“Well that sounds ver—I’m sorry, what? You mean that totally cheesy ridiculous sci-fi movie with Mila Kunis that bombed?”
“Uh, you mean the totally underrated super genius sci-fi movie with Mila Kunis that bombed?” Sawyer scoffs at my boring adult desire for a movie that does not bury Channing Tatum’s glorious hotness under albino roller-skating wolf makeup. Stifling a giggle, I try to keep the conversation on track.
“So. You think that means it’s for you?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? It’s my favorite movie ever! And the card said.” Sawyer clears her throat. “Bee My Date. B-E-E. Get it?”
“I’m…not sure I do?”
She huffs at her silly aunt. “Because Mila Kunis is space royalty and bees do whatever she says?”
I love children. “Well then, queen bee, how do we know the promposal’s Jupiter Ascending? Maybe it’s for a girl who has a sweet tooth. Or wants to be a beekeeper when she grows up.” You’d think kids in modern day Los Angeles would want to be a corporate lawyer or on YouTube, but they’re going back to the classic ways of doing things.
Sawyer breaks out into a million-watt grin. “Because my friend also saw he was making a paper-mâché Eddie Redmayne head!”
Okay. Weird, but legit. Kids are so creative. “So we’re nearly certain he’s asking you to the dance. You want to know what you should do at the dance, right?”
Sawyer blushes pink—adorable, like I said. “Just, you know. You’re so good at this, Aunt Emma.”
Well, I have made life coaching something of a hobby. I’ve read every self-help book ever. Think I’m joking? I used to tape the Oprah show back in high school. One time I taped over my third grade ballet recital, and it was worth it. So yes, I know all there is to know about loving love and getting love to love you back, along with recipes for homemade kombucha and aerobic salsa dancing. I should charge for all my knowledge, but family gets the professional discount: a little wine, a big hug, and I’m on call for whatever you need.
“First up. Dancing.” I put down my wine and lead Sawyer to a roomier area of the kitchen. My big brother Justin has maybe the best kitchen of all time, with a huge granite island in the center, five feet of room on either side of it, state of the art oven and stove, massive stainless steel fridge, the works. My whole studio apartment could fit inside this one room. And Justin has the family to fill it, too.
I try not to let that thought get to me.
“When I was your age, we did what I call the Frankenstein shuffle.” I put my hands on Sawyer’s shoulders, shove her arm length away from me, then get her to put her hands on my shoulders in turn. We sway back and forth, and she giggles like mad. “Since you’re only twelve, keep your hands up here. At all times. No funny business.”
“What if he tries putting his hands on my waist?” Her bright green eyes go glassy at the mere thought of it. Aw, my baby.
“My guess is one of the dance chaperones will rush over blowing a whistle and tackle the both of you, so do your best to keep him on the right side of the line.” We stop slow dancing, and I start twisting around the floor. I was a world-class twister back in 1995, let me tell you. Nothing was better than a Friday night watching Grease with my best girl friends and doing all the fifties sock hop dances.
Apparently, my attempt at classy dancing is too much for Sawyer to handle. She squeezes her eyes shut with laughter, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she keels over.
“What, you don’t want to show Mount Vesuvius your aunt’s killer moves on the dance floor?” I twirl once for good measure. I think Sawyer’s going to run out of oxygen soon.
“His name’s Everest!” she shrieks gleefully. Finally, I stop dancing and she calms down enough to get off the floor.
“Last little handy bit of advice. On the off chance he, or any other boy ever gets too fresh after you ask him to stop?” I lift my right knee in a fast, decisive motion. “One fast strike to the balls. Just like Sandra Bullock did in Miss Congeniality.” I narrow my eyes. “Bet you haven’t seen it.” Sawyer shakes her head. “Well, that’s an Aunt Emma movie night.”
“Like this?” Sawyer brings up her knee in perfect ball busting fashion. The kid’s a natural, so much that I have to applaud her. Reveling in the praise, she does it again with a ‘hi-ya’ sound for emphasis.
“Is physical violence really the thing to teach children as a first resort?” someone says as he comes into the kitchen. This someone is tall, dark, and giving me the side eye of all time.
“Well, good scowling sir, you try being a twelve-year-old girl sometimes. It’s a world fraught with peril and body glitter,” I tell him in reply. Sawyer gives me a hug and then runs out, probably to go greet some more of the arriving guests—I can hear them moving around in the living room. It’s getting progressively louder. Meanwhile, the brooding stranger picks up a bottle of scotch and pours himself a couple of fingers, neat. Sure is cavalier about helping himself to Justin’s best stuff.
“I simply believe that if you teach a little girl to see danger around every corner, she’ll learn to lash out too easily.” His voice is as smooth as that scotch, only there’s some ice to the voice, not the drink. I’m also picking up a hint of an accent. Not quite British, not quite American. Maybe he’s one of those affected Los Angeles douchebags who has to make up a nationality to seem more important.
Not that he’d need any help in catching people’s eye; he does that fine just by walking in the room. Like I said, he’s tall, with broad shoulders and a head of tousled, dark brown hair. Brown, snapping eyes meet mine in a wrestle for dominance. His (sculpted, manly, squared) jaw is stubbled, and he’s wearing that fashionable gray jacket and dark blue shirt like they’re just any old thing he’d put on. Pretty sure he even smells amazing, like an action hero who took a stroll through the pinewoods.
Well, I pull myself to my whole five-foot-six height, toss my dirty blonde hair over one shoulder, and take a sip of wine, my gaze never leaving his.
Then I dribble a little wine down my chin and need to dive for a napkin, because of course I’m wearing a collared white shirt.
“Very elegant,” he deadpans as I
wipe my mouth. My cheeks flare, and it has nothing to do with a wine blush. Well, almost nothing to do with that.
“I didn’t see you rush in with a napkin in hand to save the pristine honor of my shirt.” After all, who wants an image of this hot, surly stranger dashing to the rescue, probably with his shirt open and his undoubtedly glorious physique on display? That is only something I would enjoy with wine. Oh, and I have wine. Funny how the world works.
“Women today don’t go in much for chivalry, I find.”
Oh, hey now. “So, you don’t think men should be chivalrous, but I shouldn’t teach my niece how to defend herself?” I tsk, and throw the napkin into the trash. “Someone’s got his wires crossed.”
“Women should absolutely defend themselves.” He crosses his arms, still looking down at me with that imperious gaze he probably practices in the mirror every day. “But there’s something vulgar about not even attempting to be a lady.”
Now you can make fun of me all day long if you want—I can make fun back. But if you get anywhere in the ballpark of insinuating my perfect angel niece isn’t a lady, I will kung fu fight you. With words. Maybe a strongly worded email after I gather my thoughts.
“How can you be a lady in a world without gentlemen?” I look him up and down, doing the ‘size you up’ game that he’s playing. “We can go back and forth all day about which came first, the chicken or the egg. And by chicken, I mean gentlemen. By egg, I mean lady. By came…I don’t mean that the way it sounded. Point is, it doesn’t matter who stopped playing by the rules first. Everyone’s got a right to protect themselves against heartache.” I pick up my wine again. Mmm, tastes like ten dollars from BevMo. “So if you’ll excuse me.”
I sashay out of the kitchen and head for the living room, leaving the world’s hottest curmudgeon to sip his scotch in emo silence. Already, I hear my mother’s voice soaring over all the other guests. And why shouldn’t it soar? It’s her birthday, after all. Sixty-five, who’d have believed it?
I can feel my eye twitching just thinking of it.
I love my mother, I really do. But she’s got three kids. Her oldest is her only boy, so he’s golden. Her youngest is her baby, my sister, Lily. That leaves me, stuck in the middle with booze. Guess which one of her kids is the spare?
“Come again? Are you always this antagonistic in greeting?” the hot guy says, sliding up beside me like the ghost of five minutes past.
“Are you always this blunt to people you’ve just met?” Honestly, we’re standing in the middle of my brother’s enormous living room, and it’s filled with the nearest and dearest in my life. There’s my dad, who’s sitting on a couch and quietly eating pineapple spears while talking to no one. Classic Dad. Then there’s Mom, with her hair freshly dyed platinum blonde so that she can continue to claim she’s ten years younger. Justin, his wife Charlotte, the three kids. Even my sister Lily’s arrived, wobbling in stilettos and texting away like mad. In fact, this guy is sticking out of this intimate family gathering like a hot, surly sore thumb.
The hot man narrows his eyes at me. Even narrowing his eyes is supremely sexy. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Well, now it’s my turn to be embarrassed. “No, not at all. Of course I do. How could I ever forget you…John?” He says nothing, his eyes half-lidded. “Mark. Dan. Edgar. Leslie.”
“Leslie?”
“I needed to throw in a wild card.” I take another sip of wine while he rolls his eyes. Rolled eyes! Sexy rolled eyes, yes, but still! Rude. “Look, I’m sure the one time we met at some Christmas party was magical, but I’m afraid I don’t recall it.”
He chuckles, the sound of his laughter a lush, sinful sound. Are hot men born with decadent laughter, or is that kind of “master of the universe” sound part of what makes them hot? Like I said earlier. Chicken, egg, came.
No, still not the way I meant.
“This is incredible. You haven’t changed at all,” he drawls. I’m about to discreetly pour my wine out onto his shirt, when Justin swoops in to save the day.
“There you two are! I’m so glad you found each other.” My big brother sweeps me into a bear hug, then clasps hands with Hottie McDouchebag. In a family of three kids, two of them girls, it’s weird to admit that your brother is the prettiest, but that just happened to be the case with Justin. He inherited Mom’s perfect aquiline features with Dad’s Nordic coloring. As a result, he looks like Brad Pitt’s waspier brother, and he has used it to all of its advantages. Star quarterback. Homecoming king. Student council president. Law firm partner by thirty. Married father of three. And somehow, he remained the world’s nicest, most genuine human being.
I’d hate him if I didn’t love him so much.
“We found each other, all right.” I tilt my head and ‘evaluate’ the mystery man. “Now we’re trying to figure out at which family gathering we first stumbled on each other.”
Justin’s blue eyes widen with shock. “Em, is this a joke? You don’t know who this is?”
If you ever want to seriously wonder if you haven’t had some major attack of memory loss, join this conversation. You can have my spot while I rush to a neurologist. “Is he…my evil twin manufactured in a lab?”
Hottie scoffs. “We look nothing alike.” Well, don’t sound so happy about it, dude.
“Fraser. Remember?” Justin looks at me like I’m crazy. And then a bomb goes off in my brain.
Fraser. Not…the F bomb? (My oh-so-clever childhood nickname for him.) Fraser Drake, my brother’s best friend in middle school through eleventh grade? Before he left to go to some ritzy private school in, I don’t know, Switzerland or something? The one with—
“Polo shirts,” I blurt out. Justin looks puzzled, but Fraser gets it. He looks like a man who’s got only so much patience left, and I’m burning through it as fast as he can dish it out. I’m digging into his choice reserves now.
“Yes, I didn’t have much say in my wardrobe growing up.”He sounds testy. Hey, at least I didn’t bring up the khaki pants with the ironed pleats. No sense rubbing salt in the wound. “Fortunately, that hasn’t been the case for some time.”
And then the shock of it all really gets to me, and I let my hand relax…forgetting, of course, that I’m still holding a half glass of wine. Fraser leaps backwards as my house red splatters all over his fine Italian leather shoes. I wince, bolt for the kitchen, and come back a second later armed with loads of paper napkins. Fraser takes them from me, leans one shoulder against the wall, and wipes at the wine stains on his shoes and the cuffs of his pants.
Justin, meanwhile, looks like he can’t take me anywhere. Because let’s face it, he really can’t.
“Now I know you truly haven’t changed.” Fraser balls the used napkins, spots a wastebasket, and chucks them with a perfect underhand throw. “You threw up on my shoes at a party in high school. I suppose I’m grateful you’ve learned to hold your liquor better.” The word barely is implied there. Justin stands by, helpless as I respond.
“I remember those tennis shoes. I think I did you a favor.”
“Hey, here’s an idea. Emma, why don’t you go to the kitchen and mix those rosemary cocktails you kept raving about?” There’s Justin, doing his best to keep the peace. He’s always been a genius at that. Of course, if the cocktails hadn’t been on the menu, he might have said ‘Emma, why don’t you go strip naked and run around the neighborhood three times’ just to get me out of here. And I’d love him for it.
“Should I save one for you?” I arch my brow at Fraser Drake, who’s looking past me to the party in the living room. Already, he seems kind of weary with the whole thing. Ah, just like a snob.
“I like the classics,” he replies. “If there’s another scotch—”
“I’ll be sure to tell it hi.” I leave, my cheeks burning as I walk back to the kitchen and start the process of crafting some amazing cocktails, if I say so myself. As I make my own simple syrup, crush rosemary and muddle blueberries, I mentally kick myself fo
r everything that just happened. How stupid could I be, not realizing who Fraser was? Maybe because I haven’t seen him in over fifteen years, and in that time he’s gone from being the kid who hates when you mess with his color-coded student planner to, well, the hunk of all time.
Come on, Emma. These drinks aren’t going to fancy themselves.
Pretty soon, I’ve got a full tray of cocktails—and a few ginger beer mocktails for the kids. I hustle it out into the party room, where Mom’s already wondering what’s happened to her birthday toast. She’s seated in the center, everyone crowded around her. Just the way she likes it. Sebastian, in all his adorable two-year-old glory, is bouncing on her knee and yanking at her strands of pearls. Mom pinches his cheek in an absent, ‘don’t muss up Grandma’ kind of way.
“Aren’t we going to toast me? You only turn sixty-five once,” she says, passing off Sebastian to Charlotte.
“I’m amazed you admitted your age without two stiff drinks in you,” Dad mutters to the pineapple. No one pays him any attention but me. I give his shoulder a squeeze, and he smiles up at me.
Sebastian starts crying as Charlotte bounces him, shushing in a tight, panicky voice. She looks harried, her hair coming out of its ponytail, and a not-so-inconspicuous barf stain on one shoulder of her sweatshirt. I take Sebastian, and she gives me grateful eyes. My nephew chortles in my ear. Is there a sweeter sound? Trick question, there is not.
“Here, Mom.” Justin has taken the tray and is passing out drinks. “Emma made these.”
“I found the recipe in Rachael Ray’s new book.” I’m proud of my knowledge, even as Fraser throws me a sharp, pointed glance. You’ll enjoy the drink, buddy. Justin, Lily, Dad, Fraser, soon everyone is served. Glasses in hand, we raise a toast to Delia Brightman, family matriarch.