by Hughes, Maya
I stared at the hanger like she’d offered me a viper covered in razor blades. I hated new clothes. I hated everything about clothes in general other than them covering ninety percent of my body.
New clothes hadn’t been tested from every angle in the privacy of a fitting room where they could be abandoned, not walked back out in front of everyone to tell them it doesn’t fit.
New clothes hadn’t been broken in.
New clothes might not cover every part of me I wanted, and new clothes from Laura or Mom were never a gift. They were just another way for them to show me I was absolutely nothing like them with their tiny bodies.
Flashes of back to school shopping when I’d been growing up sent shivers of panic racing down my spine. Walking back toward Berk like I was on the way to an executioner, I blocked out all the laughter and clinking glasses around me.
Maybe it would actually fit.
Maybe it wouldn’t look terrible.
Mom wouldn’t want me to look terrible in front of everyone.
No, maintaining the picture of perfection was what she lived for.
Breathing a little easier, I slung the garment bag over my shoulder, nearly falling over as the weight inside shifted.
“I got you.” Berk’s hand slid along my back.
Looking up at him, I totally believed it. His hold on me was solid without a hint of strain, like I was one of the lighter girls who got tossed over a guy’s shoulder on a whim at a pool party.
“Do we change now?” He looked at the black garment bag like it may have been a pack of gremlins masquerading as a suit ready to tear him apart.
“We’ve got some time. Dinner isn’t until nine. And knowing my sister, she won’t arrive until ten.”
“Did you want a drink? I could murder a beer right now.”
“Knowing my sister, you’d have to go into town for that.”
“It’s their bar bill if there’s only booze on tap.”
I snorted and jiggled the arm of my glasses. “Don’t hold back.”
He laughed and walked to the bar.
Every head turned as he walked by. Guys in my sister’s crowd weren’t exactly built like brick shit houses. I probably shouldn’t feel so bad about how my dress would fit. After a three second interaction with Berk, I could only imagine what Laura had picked out for him to wear. If I was lucky he might have to go shirtless with the legs of his pants cut off à la the Hulk.
“Julia.” The way he drew out my name made me want to barf. It made it sound like my name was Muffy or Barbie and we were in a John Hughes movie with the rich kids who were total assholes. Only here in real life, these ones were also assholes. But he was an asshole I’d liked, which made it even worse. I’d held off sleeping with him for three months of making sure he liked me, someone special for my first time. It was a whole three days before he decided there was a better Kelland sister for him. I’d been blinded to his douche status just because he’d thrown me a bone.
“Hi, Chet.” My best smile was plastered on my face.
“I’m so glad you’re here. Laura was afraid you’d back out at the last minute and everyone would be gossiping about you behind your back.” He hugged me, smelling like a toxic mixture of his and hers Chanel scents and way-too-expensive champagne. His hold continued even after my ghost of a pat on the back.
“Instead, they can do it to my face.”
He laughed, finally letting go and squeezed my shoulders. “You’ve always had such a wonderful sense of humor.”
I looked down at his hands and back up to him. What was his deal?
“Hey, Jules. I’ve got your drink.” Berk broke the uncomfortable staring match I’d been roped into.
He expertly handled the two champagne glasses even with one hand taken by the garment bag, and handed me my drink.
“I’m Berk.” He shoved his hand right in front of Chet’s face.
Chet turned to my rescuer and his eyes widened. “Can I help you?”
“Sure, you can let go of Jules. My date.”
“Jules?! Her name is Julia,” Chet snapped.
“My mistake, I just go with what I call her in bed at night.”
The bubbles from my glass of bubbly shot straight out my nose. I’m talking full on spray tan coverage of Chet. All heads swung in our direction.
Berk didn’t even try to hide his laughter behind his hand like I did. Between the alcohol burning my sinuses and my laughter there were tears in my eyes.
Chet grabbed a stack of napkins from a passing server before glaring at Berk and rushing off.
“I can already tell this weekend is going to be fun.” Berk winked at me.
I locked my knees lest I melt into a puddle beside him.
He stood shoulder to shoulder with me like he was ready to take on every ex-boyfriend that came to give me shit this weekend. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Chet was the only one, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Berk that.
Beside him, I did feel like he was ready to take on the world on my behalf. My very own knight in shining armor even if it was only for two days and even if he was just pretending to be with me. I could pretend with the best of them.
9
Berk
Damn that dude was an asshole. Telling me what to call Jules. And then that stuck in my head. Did she hate when people called her Jules? She was the type to let something like that slide to avoid making someone feel bad.
“You are cool with me calling you Jules, right? That’s what Elle calls you,” I leaned down and whispered in her ear.
She shivered and I looked up to see if there was a vent over her, blowing the AC, but nothing was there. “You can call me anything you want—except Julia. The only people who call me that are in this room and no matter how many times I tell them differently, they still do it.”
“Anything I want, huh?” I ran my fingers over my chin and looked off into the distance. “How about Snowglobes?” I bent down and whispered the word in her ear.
Her cheeks turned beet red and she shoved at my shoulder. “Anything but that!”
“Are you sure? Anything? I’m sure I can come up with something in that same vein. How about Lana?”
Her eyebrow shot up.
“Some things are better backward.” I stood there taking a sip of my drink, waiting for her Wheel of Fortune reveal as she ran through the letters.
“Berk!” She laugh-hissed and shoved at my shoulder. “Anything that you could say in front of a classroom full of second graders.”
“What part of the city are these second graders from?”
She laughed and some of her champagne dribbled down her chin.
“Such a messy drinker. And you’ve only had one glass. Or did you get started before our party bus ride happened?”
“I’m messy because someone keeps making me laugh.” Her playful glare shot out from behind her horn-rimmed glasses.
“I’m only clarifying the nickname rules. So far we have ‘not Snowglobes’ and something that can be said in front of a classroom of second graders and their nannies from the Mainline. Any other requirements?”
“Something you could say in front of your mom.” She took another drink from her glass.
I dropped my gaze to my hands and squeezed the stem of the glass. With Jules, I never felt like I had to hide who I was, but I didn’t want to be a pity case, a sob story where she’d look at me and squeeze my hand and smile at me because she was that kind of person. But she didn’t know everything about me. What would she think if she knew?
My throat tightened and I closed my eyes for a second. Enough time to breathe through that dart to my heart and keep those walls I’d built so high and wide around my heart intact. With a gentle shake of my head, I was back to being Berk. Not Orphan Berkley Vaughn.
“You’re taking all the fun out of this, but how about Julienne Fries?”
Her eyes lit up and the corner of her mouth quirked up. If she pushed her glasses up her nose in that certain, adorable way I�
��d maul her on this dance floor. “That, I can handle.”
We found a spot along the wall and Jules gave me the rundown on the ins and outs of our weekend companions.
“He’s here with two of his ex-wives and his new fiancée?” I pointed at the guy with a way too perfect, nearly-touching-his-eyebrows hairline, who didn’t look much older than us. He had a stick thin strawberry blonde on his arm who managed to drape herself all over him to mark her territory without actually touching him. To other people it might look handsy, but ninety percent of the time she never made contact.
“Technically, only one ex-wife. The first marriage was annulled when she found out he’d regularly snort his monthly trust fund allowance right up his nose before the first week of the month was over.”
“He stopped using coke then?”
She shook her head and didn’t even try to cover her laugh. “Nope, his monthly allowance just got a whole lot bigger when he turned twenty-five. They paid off his debts and now if he tried to snort all the money every month, he’d be half a step from a coronary, which is why everyone thinks his new fiancée is trying to speed the wedding up to this winter.”
“And I thought the football team had drama.” I downed the last of my drink.
“They’ve got nothing on families that have been frenemies for generations with more money than sense.”
“What about you? You’re one of them, right?” I lifted my empty glass to the walking fashion magazine photoshoot happening in front of us.
“Do I seem like one of them?” Her eyebrow quirked up.
I looked her up and down. Low sensible heels. Plain pants and a top that did its best to hide all the assets I knew she rocked under the nineteen layers she usually wore. “Nah, I guess not. So how’d you end up not getting turned into one of the pod people?”
She looked out over the crowd. “My dad.”
“I haven’t seen him yet. Where is he?”
“He died when I was nine. My mom was flat out against having kids after me, so I guess I became his boy child. We’d come out here on the weekends and go camping, ride horses and have water gun fights. Laura always preferred to go shopping with Mom even when I came back telling her how much fun it was. I don’t think my mud-soaked clothes were the kind of convincing she was looking for.”
“It was a lot of rough and tumble stuff?”
“Not all. He used to read me these books when I was growing up, even way after I’d outgrown them, but the way he read the story always kept me riveted.” She took a sip of her drink with a smile that only came from those happy childhood memories.
“Which books?”
“Peter Rabbit.”
“Do you still read them?”
Her smile faltered. “They’re at my mom’s. She’s… having some trouble finding them.” Each word was a tiptoe like she was walking in a minefield.
“I hope she does. Sounds like you and your dad had a lot of fun.”
“We had the best time. He’s the one who got me into baking.”
“He baked?”
“A guy can’t bake?”
“It’s not that, I just figured people with money had other people do that for them.”
“He wasn’t like that at all. My grandparents didn’t even tell him they had money until he was in college. They lived in a normal house in the suburbs. But on the weekends they’d come out here too. My grandfather told my dad it was his boss’s house and they were allowed to use it. But he didn’t drop the fact that my grandfather was the boss. So my dad had a pretty normal childhood until he showed up at college and saw his grandfather’s name plastered on one of the academic buildings.”
“Had to be a shock.” Even rich families had their secrets.
“It was. He didn’t do the same to us, plus my mom never would’ve settled for a middle class existence. She wanted the big house and the even bigger parties. But anytime my dad came out here I’d come with him. The cattiness of all this”—she waved her hand at the couples and groups smiling and laughing all while casting judgmental glances, or checking over their shoulders every couple of minutes to make sure they were being paid attention to—“was something I was more than happy to escape.”
“With the food you make, you should’ve been the queen bee of your own little domain.”
A sharp exhale shot through her lips. “Showing up with chocolate and carbs in this crew is right up there with drowning puppies in a shallow creek. Baking did not make me popular. I gave my treats to teachers and the staff at school. My mom forbade having them in the house for more than twenty-four hours, so it kind of became a habit for me to give my baking away. And once my dad was gone…” She got a far-off look and I hurt for that little girl who had wanted to do something that made her feel closer to her dad and had had it taken away by the one person who should’ve done anything to help her during that time. But having a kid didn’t make someone a good parent.
“After my dad was gone, I didn’t do it as much as I would’ve liked, which is why even with how terrible my house is, the kitchen made it worth it. Plus, I snuck in a new oven and fridge. I told Elle the landlord had paid for it.”
“Why didn’t you tell her?”
“She’d have insisted on splitting the cost and she was strapped for cash. I didn’t want her to feel bad about it, so I did it.”
“Look at you keeping secrets. I had no idea, Julienne Fries.”
She let out a stuttering laugh and finished the rest of her drink. “Just so you know, we have a room together. I hope that’s okay.” Her hand tightened on the glass like she was bracing herself.
“No problem. I’m cool crashing on the floor. I’m sure even that will be nicer than some of the places I’ve slept.”
Her eyes widened and she waved her hands. “No, I can sleep on the floor or on the couch. I invited you.”
“Come on, Frenchie. I might be a jock, but I’m not an asshole. I’m not going to have you sleeping on the floor or the couch, especially when you’re supplying me with all this top shelf booze.” I snagged two more glasses from the passing server’s tray.
“We’ll figure it out when we get back to the room. I’ll head to the bathroom and then we can find it.” She chugged the glass I handed her and handed it right back, laughing at my slack jawed face.
“It’s not like it’s straight vodka.” With her costume bag, she headed toward the bathrooms.
I finished my drink and eyed a table of mini versions of foods I’d inhale if I wasn’t trying to keep myself from embarrassing Jules. Slowly, like I used to when I came into a new house, I ate one and counted for a full minute before I ate another.
Showing up to a new house as a foster kid was a surefire way to find yourself locked out of the fridge. Some families were awesome and they’d put a small stash of fruit and snacks in our rooms for the new kids, knowing we’d feel awkward in a new place. Others had locks on the fridges or on the kitchen. It was better to figure out the lay of the land and the rules first.
But I learned early to always eat whenever food was offered. I never knew if a social worker would show up to pick me up and cart me away to somewhere new. Hours sitting in the back of her car or hanging in an office just waiting. I hated that jittery feeling I got whenever I was left waiting for long stretches. It was like sitting in the doctor’s office for an appointment cranked up to eleven.
After I ate as many as I figured I could without lifting one of the trays and just pouring the food into my open mouth, I picked up my backpack and the costume bag I’d slid under the table. I hoped this thing didn’t include tights or some goofy Shakespeare pants.
I’d never worn a costume like this before. The Halloween parties we threw at the Brothel were usually togas or some other costume that could be thrown together in an afternoon scramble once we’d secured a few kegs. When I was younger, if I was ever in a place that had trick-or-treating, I’d used my football uniform, my pillow case, and whatever face paint I could score off other kids, and go door
to door as a zombie football player. With how everyone here dressed, I’d probably be in an outfit three sizes too small.
Finishing my drink, I checked the room for Jules. Had she said meet her somewhere else after the bathroom to find our room, or to just meet at the room? The last thing I wanted to do was screw something up and embarrass her. It was strange how different she was from the pod people all around us. I couldn’t blame her for inviting me. She needed someone else to watch her back and make sure they didn’t drop in whatever alien parasite or microchip these people had in their brains.
These women looked at me like people who’d never been told no in their whole lives. And I knew firsthand what kind of fuckery that brought about. It made it hard to see Jules rubbing elbows with people like this. She didn’t exactly scream ‘look at how much money I have’ like every other person in this place.
From the watches to the shoes, I’d seen these same looks on many donors at the fundraiser the Coach and university ‘requested’ we attend.
I checked the room for Jules and didn’t see her. After asking one of the servers to check the bathroom for me, I went in search of my date and the room we’d be sharing. All weekend. I threw up the mental vault to keep any thoughts that weren’t strictly friendly from invading my mind. I definitely didn’t need to be thinking about Jules under the covers and what exactly she might be wearing or not.
10
Jules
My low heels clicked on the marble floor on the way out of the bathroom after drying my hands. Turning up my winning smile, one that had hurt my cheeks for days when I was younger—who knew cheek muscles could be conditioned?—I opened the bathroom door.
“Of course she’d end up with a guy that huge. It’s the only way she’d find someone she wouldn’t crush in bed.”
Chet and his friends laughed at the end of the short hallway outside of the bathrooms, right by the bar.
“Those kinds of girls always put in the extra effort. She’d probably have been a good lay.”