We Ain’t the Brontës

by Rosalyn McMillan

  I fall asleep that night more content than I have been in months. He can’t have felt this way toward Lynzee. My body is glowing with love. My heart is full of hope. I believe that whatever challenges we face getting a new loan for this house, we will conquer and destroy them. Fuck the new buyers and their horses; they can find another dude ranch. Our home will no longer be for sale. It will forever be the Evans home.

  And finally, fuck April. If she doesn’t know her father by now, it isn’t meant to be. Jett is quite happy being the father of his only blood sons, Javed and Jamone. April hasn’t needed Jett’s love to get to the point in life that she’s at now, so why interfere in our lives? Lord, forgive me if I’m taking it out on this child who didn’t ask to be born, but nobody wants an outsider trying to intrude into a family’s private life. And by gosh, I’m going to make sure that April doesn’t upset ours.

  11

  The twins have been back home for two weeks and are laughing and joking the way happy teenagers should be. I feel confident that Lynzee didn’t introduce them to April. I’ve made their favorite meals, cleaned up their rooms, and cleaned up their studio. I’m feeling lovable and enjoy sharing my love with my two babies. None of us mention the possibility of moving in a couple of months. We’re living for the moment. I told the real estate agent that we weren’t going to sign the contract.

  When I tiptoe upon my sons painting in their studio, planning to surprise them with oatmeal and raisin cookies, my ears start to burn.

  Jamone begins: “That was some bold shit that Aunt Lynzee said about Mom.”

  “Word,” Javed admits. “She shouldn’t have talked that way about Mom’s writing. Who the hell is she to criticize Mom’s sex scenes?”

  Momentarily, Jamone stops painting. “And to tell us that she was embarrassed about Mom writing such graphic fiction was totally uncalled for. That’s some fucked up shit.”

  I gasp. How dare that bitch criticize my writing? I don’t need to hear another word. I rush upstairs and dial Lynzee’s number.

  “Lynzee here,” she chirps cheerily.

  “You low-down bitch. How dare you talk about me in front of my sons?”

  “Wait a minute. What the hell are you talking about, Charity?”

  “Boy, you really had me suckered. I thought you invited my boys out there because you really wanted to see them. Apparently, that’s not the case. You brought them out there to talk shit about their mother.”

  “Oh, I get it. Jamone told you.”

  “You damn right he told me,” I lie, yelling into the receiver. “Did you think he wouldn’t?”

  “You don’t have to scream in my ear. I hear you.” She pauses. “Charity, I spoke out of turn. I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not. You meant what you said.”

  “Give me a chance to explain, would you?”

  “Hell no. You’re just jealous. A hypocritical, envious bitch. I would think that since you’re so filthy rich, you wouldn’t be concerned about a lowly writer like me. Obviously you feel intimidated,” I seethe.

  “Not me, girl. I’ve got a huge fan base. You’re the one who tried to capitalize on my last name.”

  “Our last name,” I correct.

  “Whatever. If you had an ounce of respect, you wouldn’t write pornographic love scenes like you do.”

  “They’re not pornographic. They’re artistic.”

  “Bullshit. Zedra thinks they’re foul, and so do most of my friends.”

  “Fuck you, Lynzee. I’ll give you fair warning, cow. I’m coming back, and I’ll be bigger than you ever were.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “What?” My voice begins to tremble. I can feel pitiful tears clouding my vision. “How dare you!” I hang up before my voice betrays my emotions.

  I am overwhelmed with hatred. How have I been dealt such a selfish, self-absorbed sister? I think about my late parents. Where are you Mom? Dad?

  I am too hurt to tell Jett what Lynzee said. He has enough on his mind. His test on the new Ford Edge is tomorrow, and I don’t want to upset him unnecessarily.

  Even though I feel like the biggest hypocrite this side of the Bible belt, I retreat to my bedroom and my Bible. I know that if I tell Herman what happened, he will tell me that God is testing my faith. He will go on to explain that faith is to believe, on the word of God, what we do not see, and its reward is to see and enjoy what we believe.

  But I wonder if He is also testing the love that I have for my sister. The Bible speaks of a mysterious sin for which there is no forgiveness. This great unpardonable sin is the murder of the love-life in a human being. Right now, my heart is full of hatred, a hatred for my sister that is so deep I can taste it. I wonder, am I as guilty as my sister is of this treason?

  12

  Jett is in a foul mood. I have been stalling our real estate agent, so after I refused to sign the first contract, we’ve had no other offers on the house. On top of that, he’s only sold two cars this month. His sales manager is riding his ass.

  I’m not in a good mood either. I’ve continued to work with finance officers at local banks and mortgage companies. It’s tedious as well as monotonous to keep faxing in three years’ worth of income tax returns, my last publishing contract, and a letter explaining why we’ve been late on our mortgage payments.

  It’s truly killing me to think about moving. The hardest part is keeping up a front for Jett. I have to make him believe that I am actively looking for a new house. I actually do inquire about a few of them to Elaine. I even go so far as to view several houses. Jett accompanies Elaine and me on two occasions. Both times, he feels that the houses I’m looking at are too expensive. After all, the house that we buy has to be based on his retirement income. We can only afford a house that is a quarter of the cost of our own. That means looking at houses around 2500 square feet. I can’t comprehend living in a house that small. Where will we put our exercise equipment? Family room furniture? Pool and game tables? Our twelve-seat dining room furniture? Artwork?

  Jett nearly breaks my heart when he tries to get me to face reality. “Charity, we’re going to have to sell the dining room set. The dining rooms in the houses we looked at are way too small.”

  We have just come home from looking at five houses. Each house was worse than the last. No house can compare to ours, but our choices seem like an insult. I feel like we’re on welfare getting food stamps. The pickings are so slim. This is the first time in a while that I witness Jett’s anger. He’s not happy with our choices either.

  “What? No. I can’t, Jett.”

  He shakes his head, clearly irritated by me. “I suggest that you try to sell the furniture to the new owners when we finally do sell. You can sell this living room furniture, too. It’s going to be too big for our new house.”

  I go into our bedroom. When Jett comes in, I’m sitting on the bed. The television is off and he knows that I’m pouting.

  “Honey, I know you’ve been half-looking for houses. This has got to stop. I just received the fifth tax notice yesterday. We’re a year past due. If we don’t sell this house soon, the county can sell the house for back taxes. Do you want that to happen?”

  I’d completely forgotten about the taxes. They’re $14,000 every February. We also pay our home insurance, which is another $5,000. Momentarily, I can envision the headlines: LOCAL AUTHOR’S HOME FOR AUCTION DUE TO BACK TAXES.

  I gulp awkwardly. “No, Jett, I don’t want that to happen.” I get up from the bed and hug him. “You’ve got to help me, honey. This is so damn hard for me. The thought of selling this house is killing me.” Selfish tears fill my eyes. “I can’t hardly stand it.”

  “Honey,” he says, kissing the top of my head, “it’s only a house. Just bricks, mortar, and wood. Stop making it so important.”

  “But it’s my dream home.”

  He kisses my wet cheek and tries to sound encouraging. “You’ll have more dreams. And who knows? We can always build another home.”

  I
pull away. “No, we won’t.” In my heart, I know he doesn’t mean it. What person in his right mind would consider building a house when they’re over sixty? Not many. And not Jett.

  Finally, we have more buyers, Arthur and June James. The husband is a surgeon at St. Jude Hospital. The wife is an attorney.

  “They’ve offered one point one million,” Elaine says.

  Jett speaks up. “That won’t cut it, Elaine. We’ll counter at one point three-five.”

  The next day, Elaine says, “No go. They made a counter offer of one point two-five.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I say. “We’ll counter at one point three-two.”

  Elaine comes back the next morning. “Their final offer is one point three million.”

  We were hoping to get what the house was appraised for: $1,450,000.

  Jett and I say in unison, “We’ll take it.”

  We sign the paperwork and June James comes over the following morning. June is a Caucasian female in her early forties. She’s wearing a tan Christian Dior suit that I know set her back at least three grand. She has a six-carat emerald-cut diamond wedding ring on her left hand, and at least a three-carat pinky ring on her right.

  “I want the light switches in the kitchen and foyer,” June states.

  “Uh, we’ll have to discuss that later,” I offer. Sometimes I can’t stand rich people. They’re so cheap; they want everything given to them. The two light switches she is referring to are the ones that a bookstore owner in Texas gave me at one of my book signings. The light switches are painted copies of two of my book covers with my name on them.

  I can’t resist asking, “Why do you want them? I don’t get it.”

  “Because I want you to leave a living legacy to your body of work.”

  I am flattered. Jett isn’t. He loves those light switches. I feel him kick my foot under the table.

  “We’ll have to get back with you on that request, Mrs. James,” Jett says.

  “All right.” June heads for the kitchen. “I also want the cooking utensils beneath the range hood, and the cable cord for the television.” There is a sixteen-inch Sony television on the end of the island that we watch while sitting on the sofa. Why she asked for the cord and not the television is beyond me. However, those stainless-steel cooking utensils are expensive. They’re by Roscan and cost me more than three hundred dollars. I guess she isn’t as stupid as I thought.

  Is this woman in her right mind? I resent her thinking that we are so desperate to sell that we’ll give in to all of her requests—even if we really are desperate at this point. We’ve run out of options and have applied at every possible bank. They have all turned us down.

  “Mrs. James, my husband and I have no problem giving you these kitchen items as long as you allow us the time to locate a house. We’re requesting ninety to one hundred twenty days to vacate the premises. How does that sound to you?”

  “Fine. We have to sell our home in Germantown. That could take a month or two. Our fifteen-year-old daughter, April, is going to love this house.”

  Another April. I am again reminded of a nag that is killing my psyche. Just like that, my mind wanders to the love child of my sister and my husband. I am still trying to convince myself that she is nothing to worry about. So what if April looks like Jett? I’m told that we all have a twin in this world. That twin could have fathered Lynzee’s child for all I know.

  The only drawback about the James’s offer is that they are requiring some repairs. Mrs. James hands me a list. It is fortunate for us that Jett is handy when it comes to doing work on the house.

  He paints, caulks, and cleans the windows like a professional. We have to pay a cooling and heating company to repair one of the five air-conditioning zones and one of the heating zones. The garage company that we pay to get the electronic door openers up to code is yet another expense. Part of the stone on one of the chimneys needs to be torn down and rebricked. In total, the repairs cost us almost $6,900. That means that we have one less month’s house note in the bank.

  June comes to our house twelve times while we are making the repairs. She brings her kids, her mother, and her uncle to see the house. I am getting exceedingly tired of her visits. Like a fool, I give the woman our telephone number, and she calls nearly every day.

  To be fair, I have begun to diligently look for a new house; however, when I actually do find a house that I like, Jett doesn’t approve of the location or the size of the lot. He wants at least an acre. Since I’m not making progress quickly enough, Jett finds a house and asks me to look at it. When I check it out, I’m disappointed. The house is seventeen years old and the amount of dust inside looks as if it hasn’t been cleaned since it was built. The saving grace is that they recently installed an in-ground pool. In my opinion, they should have spent the money updating and cleaning the house.

  “I’m sorry, Jett,” I say. “I wouldn’t move in this house if they were giving it away.”

  Two weeks later, we finally agree on a house. It is five miles from our old home. The brick home sits on two acres of land. I’m not crazy about the architectural design of the front of the house, but I kind of like the inside. The only problem is that the price of the house is $40,000 more than we agreed upon, and because our credit is so challenged, Elaine informs us that we have to accept a higher interest rate and have to put down a bigger down payment. This means that our house notes are probably going to be two hundred dollars more a month than we budgeted for. It also means that we will have less than eight thousand dollars left in our savings account. The end result is this: if we buy the house, Jett will have to work until he’s seventy-five unless I get a new contract. With all the zeal I can muster, I convince Jett that I am confident that I’ll get a contract this year, possibly by the summer. He agrees, and Elaine finalizes the deal.

  The flowers are blooming. We have hundreds of purple verbenas planted all around our property, as well as several flowering bushes: azaleas, magnolias, and Japanese ferns. The landscaping is so pretty that we’ve won the house of the month award in our subdivision three times.

  When Jett isn’t at work, he and the twins work almost daily on the yard. He replaces several of the sprinkler heads on our underground sprinkling system, and puts black mulch around all of the trees. The yard has never looked so beautiful. In my mind, it’s telling us good-bye.

  One day when Jett is at work, I check out our bank account. It’s lower than I remember. Completing those repairs for the Jameses killed us. But the repairs had to be made for our home to pass inspection. I finally realize it’s time for me to deal with the reality of the situation. We are selling our dream house, we are selling our furniture, and we are moving into a smaller home. I try to cheer myself up by remembering that at least I still have my husband and my sons.

  13

  To my amazement, I receive a call from my agent. “Charity, Dutton’s made an offer. Mind you, it isn’t much, but it’ll get your name back out there.”

  I don’t hesitate. “That’s great news, Arlene, but the bottom line is the money. Exactly how much is it?”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  “Again? I can’t believe it. I thought you were going to try to get me more money.”

  “Charity, the publishing industry has changed. No one is offering big contracts like they used to. By the way, the offer is for two books.”

  A fool could figure out the math: $25,000 apiece. I made more than that when I worked at the bakery.

  “I’m sorry, Arlene. I can’t accept it.”

  “I can try bumping it up a little, but I’m afraid that they won’t offer too much more.”

  Tears sting my eyes and I feel my chin touch my chest. Has my talent as a writer sunk to such depths? Maybe Lynzee is right. Maybe I’m never going to be a New York Times bestseller.

  “Let me know what happens, Arlene.”

  When I hang up, I feel a desperate need to talk to Lynzee. I guess it is just old habit. When anything having to do wi
th publishing comes up, she is always the first person that comes to mind. What would she think? And what would my mother suggest that I do? I miss having a family to talk to. I need to talk to an unbiased person who can help me solve some of my problems.

  I decide not to call Lynzee. Instead, I phone Herman two days later.

  “Charity, it’s your decision. But it’s been years since you’ve been published. Getting your name back out there, in my opinion, should take precedence over the money.”

  I make the call back to Arlene. “Hey, I decided to take Dutton’s offer.”

  Arlene is silent for a few seconds. “Charity, I’m sorry. Dutton wouldn’t consider a contract for a hundred thousand, and even pulled back their original offer.”

  Flabbergasted is too mild a word for how I feel when I hang up. Back to being blacklisted. Damn Lynzee. My career is now shot to hell. What in the world am I going to do?

  That night, a wave of hysteria hits me. My mind is reeling and I’m feeling excruciatingly sorry for myself. I begin to cry, and though I try my damndest, I can’t stop the flow. While Jett and I are in bed, I take the pillow and stuff it in my mouth. My forehead is as hot as a blue flame. I’m still unable to stop the tears, and the pain in my heart feels as if a cold dagger is pierced inside it. A part of me wants to share my heartache with Jett. I start to hiccup, and can hardly catch my breath. I want to know when all of these trials will end.

  14

  I have finally come up with a book idea that I am certain will sell. It will also show Lynzee that she can’t mess with me but for so long before I fight back. The book will be called Revelations. It’s about two sisters who are both authors. One is very successful, and the other one isn’t. The unsuccessful sister decides to tell the truth about her sibling’s past that will ultimately change the way her fans view her. It’s a classic case of sibling rivalry where the underdog is the victor.