I flipper my way over to the counter, lifting my knees in an exaggerated fashion with each step, and set Pierce’s phone down in front of him.
He narrows his eyes. “That didn’t sound good.”
“Yeah, not so much. Apparently, I’m going to have a visitor soon, and I’m to do whatever he tells me.”
“Are we in a tropical version ofA Christmas Carol?”
“Christ, I hope not.”
CHAPTER 2
Stuffed Dates and Tiny Pedos in Bellbottoms
Brianna Lewis – San Filipe, Santa Valentina Island
The secret to life is to never trust anything that can get an erection—a lesson I learned at the age of twenty-one, taught to me by a plus sign on a plastic stick and a vanishing boyfriend who had promised me forever. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret for a moment that I have the world’s sweetest, just-turned-four-year-old little girl. I can’t imagine my life without Isabelle. It just would have been uber helpful to have, at the most, a loving partner with whom to share my life, and at the very least, financial support for my daughter. I’m not sure if you have children or not, but they are bloody expensive.
You know what else is expensive? Being maid of honour for your sister. I’m learning firsthand how many parties there are that lead up to the big day. Today’s is likely the worst. At least, I hope so. It’s a themed engagement barbeque hosted by the parents of the groom. Unfortunately for me, the theme is famous couples in history, which isn’t the easiest thing to pull off when you’re very single.
Because my Great Aunt Dolores lives with us, my sister, Amber, thought it might be fun if she and I paired up for the event. Doesn’t that sound terrific? Me and my 71-year-old great aunt dressed as Bonnie and Clyde, or perhaps Cinderella and Prince Charming?
As pathetic as that would have been, it gets worse, because my aunt and my daughter quickly partnered up, leaving me feeling like the clumsy kid who gets picked last for kickball in phys ed. That was me, by the way, so this little moment has allowed me to replay some of the more traumatic parts of my childhood.
Anyway, they’re going as Sonny and Cher. If you’re wondering who is dressed as Sonny, it’s my daughter, Isabelle which meant fashioning a wig/moustache to fit a scrawny pre-schooler. Dolores made them matching faux-fur vests out of a throw from the thrift store. She already had the Cher wig. I donotwant to know why.
My sister, Amber, and her fiancé, Zidane—Dane for short—are coming as Romeo and Juliet, so that’s nice. I’m not sure if either of them realizes it’s not actually a romance as much as it’s a teenage tragedy ending in a double suicide, but she’s going to look gorgeous, and he’ll be the height of handsomeness in his sweaty tights under the hot sun.
After much deliberation in front of my closet and computer screen, trying to find some extra cash that simply isn’t in my account no matter how many times I check, I’ve decided to go as Jane Goodall. I already have a light-green button-up shirt, hair elastics for a low pony, and I’m borrowing Mr. Bananas—Izzy’s chimpanzee stuffy with Velcro hands so it can stay affixed to my neck. The price was right, and now I have a plus-one. He can’t breathe or converse, but that also means he can’t lie or pull a disappearing act.
At the moment, I’m dressed in my costume sans Mr. Bananas, wrapping the seventy-five-dollar designer salad bowl from their registry. It was the cheapest thing on the list, which means I’m really screwed when it comes to the actual wedding gift.
Knickers, the calico cat whose tail was flattened by a mail truck when he was a kitten, hops up onto the table to see what I’m doing. He watches intently as I crease the ivory wrapping paper around the box. “Don’t even think about it, cat,” I say as he reaches one white paw for the ribbon.
He glares at me for a second before returning his attention to my furiously moving hands.
“Oh, fine. Here,” I say, cutting off a piece of ribbon and tossing it onto the floor for him. He hops down and starts batting it around like a soon-to-be-dead mouse.
Fold, tuck, tear off a piece of tape and place it just so. I need everything to be perfect today so I can avoid another round of, “Poor Brianna never should have got knocked up before she got married, because now her life is spiralling out of control at a violent pace, but we can fix that with this nice young man we met at the lumber yard so our granddaughter will have a brother and/or sister to play with someday soon.” Not my favourite game, to be honest.
Come to think of it, I’m not one for games, anyway. I don’t have the time for them. Likewise to going to the hairdresser for a cut and colour, shopping for new clothes, going out for drinks with my besties after work, or sleeping—all of which require money I don’t have. Well, not sleeping, I suppose. That one’s free, but only if you have the luxury of time. Which I do not.
Take today for example. I didn’t get home from my job as concierge at an all-inclusive (read: no-tipping) resort until two in the morning, and by the time I got to bed, it was after three. Izzy had me up at seven a.m. on the dot, because she’s an early-to-rise sort of girl. After making oatmeal and cut-up fruit for breakfast, we played her favourite board game, Snakes and Ladders, which to me is merely an irritating string of setbacks reminiscent of my life. Let the snake out of his pants, and you’ll quickly slide down the bloody ladder to the start-again square, instead of getting ahead like all of your peers who have already completed law school, passed the bar, and are happily practicing law and buying big houses to which they drive to in their BMWs. But I digress.
After board game time, I let Izzy watch cartoons for an hour while I studied, threw in a load of laundry, did the dishes, and cleaned out the kitty litter. The cats (plural, yes, there are three of them) are not mine. They belong to Aunt Dolores, so when I moved in with her because she could no longer work and I needed someone to watch Izzy so I could go to school/work, we also moved in with Milo, Knickers, and Puddy Tat. Three cats and three people in a tiny two-bedroom house is a LOT, but we make it work. Dolores and Izzy each have a room upstairs, and I sleep on the couch in the living room so I don’t wake anyone up when I come home in the middle of the night. It’s horribly inconvenient because all my clothes are upstairs in Izzy’s closet, and the couch is insanely uncomfortable, but it’s only temporary, so I keep telling myself it’s not that bad.
But that’s a lie because I long for a real bedthe way Ferris Bueller longed to have his own car.Every cell of my body yearns for a soft-yet-firm mattress without springs that violate me while I attempt to sleep.
Soon. I just have to stay on track, and before I know it, we’ll be moving into an airy three-bedroom home with plenty of space for the cats, the toys, and the woman who’s paying for it all to have her own bedroom. I even have the perfect house picked out. It’s a bright-yellow two-story English cottage-style home with a nice big yard and an attached garage. The house is shaded by a huge old gum tree with a tire swing affixed to one of the long branches, and the property is only three blocks from the ocean in the nicer part of town. It’s not for sale yet, but the owners are getting on in years, and every time I drive by, I expect to see a for-sale sign. I hope it won’t go on the market until I’m ready, but if it does, I’m sure I can find something else I’d love almost as much.
The only thing standing in the way of me and the life I want is passing my bar exams. The tests are seven months away, which is both exhilarating (because there’s a light at the end of the tunnel) and terrifying (because I’m not sure if I’ll be ready in time). I know eight months sounds like a lot of time, but when you work evening shift five nights a week at a busy resort and have an adorable child who needs your love and attention, you find yourself being spread a little thin. And now with Amber’s wedding coming up, things are about to get trickier.
Glancing at the clock, I let out a sigh of relief. For once, I’m ahead of schedule, and it finally looks as though the stars are going to line up long enough for me to actually put on some makeup. I set the tape down on our small wooden kitchen table and hurry over to the living room, (which is also my bedroom and Isabelle’s playroom), open the secondhand buffet cabinet that serves as our art supply/linen closet/extra dish storage, and find a scrap of pink construction paper and black felt pen.
“Perfect.” I’m saving a bit of money by making my own card. I cut the paper into the shape of a gift tag, then use my hole punch to cut a circle to a loop some white ribbon through.
“Isabelle?!” I call up the stairs as I rush back to the kitchen table. “Are you almost dressed?”
“Almost, Mummy,” she calls down.
