CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
JAVIER
She callsme back two hours later, the moment she walks through her front door. I’m already in bed, waiting, and I can hear her taking her clothes off as she walks through her apartment. Madeline’s too impatient for it to be more complicated than narrated masturbation, and by the end I’ve come all over myself for the second time that night.
It’s after that, after we say good night and I’m taking a shower, that the guilt really shows up in earnest. When she saidI’m at Ben’s, I should have saidEnjoy the movie, notWhat are you wearing. I’ve gone to so much therapy and done so much work on myself, and for all that, I’m still a seething mess of jealousy and impulses, and I hate it.
I know she and Ben are just friends. I know she’s been pretty clear on this fact, and I believe her, obviously. I just don’t understand it. He’s an attractive, stable doctor-in-training who’s been her confidant for thirty years. He throws Halloween parties. He’s physically present in Virginia Beach. Meanwhile, I’m a mess with no college degree, just over three years of sobriety, a cat who doesn’t respect me, and I live five hours away in a two-horse mountain town.
Deep down, I think the only explanation is that she hasn’t noticed all that yet. All it’ll take is one simple pros-and-cons list, and she’ll realize her mistake, right? Until then, I’m on borrowed time. Which is why when I found out she was athishouse, my first stupid impulse was to do the one thing I know I can do for her: make her horny. A great skill, which I’m desperately pleased to have, but—well, insecurity isn’t really a good look.
“Why am I like this?” I ask Zorro, who’s patiently waiting on the rug outside the shower because he likes to lick the tile after I bathe. It’s kind of gross, but I choose my battles.
He doesn’t answer me anyway. I put some conditioner in my hair, wash my face, and turn the water off so I can trade places with my weird cat.
The next time we talk,when she calls me to ask if I know what color the napkins at the reception are going to be and we talk for ninety minutes after that, we don’t discuss the phone sex. We also don’t discuss the fact that we’re going to see each other in a week and a half. Maybe, if we’re lucky, one won’t affect the other.
“What if that’s lingerie?”Thalia asks, nodding at a few wrapped gifts on a side table. “You think they’ll make us watch her open it?”
There’s a distressed noise, and it takes me a moment to realize that I made it.
“Who would want that?” I finally say. “Mom doesn’t want that. Her sisters don’t want that. We don’t want that.”
“It’s traditional at a bridal shower,” she points out. “You get wine-drunk and open all the embarrassing presents people get you in front of everyone while they make lots of wedding-night jokes.”
“Is that real?” I ask. I’ve never been to a bridal shower, only seen it on bad reality TV shows. “Also, she’s fifty-five years old. This isn’t a bridal shower, she doesn’t want a bridal shower, what would she need with a bridal shower?”
Thalia snorts at my impression of my mom. We’ve both been here since late morning—I left my apartment at five this morning and if that’s not proof of filial love, I don’t know what is—and now, in the early afternoon, we’re standing in a corner and hoping no one gives us any more tasks. Icannotmove another chair.
Technically the party started five minutes ago, so people have been trickling in—relatives, my mom’s friends. Gerald is already here, but Madeline isn’t. I know she’s coming, and every time I hear the front door open, a thrill runs down my spine and I have to pretend I don’t feel it.
“This could be so much worse,” Thalia admits. “One of my friends went to a bridal shower where the bride made the attendees vote on which sex position she should inaugurate her marriage with.” I choke on my Jamaica agua fresca, and Thalia smiles innocently at me. “Joke was on her becausepiledriverwon.”
I’m coughing and trying to pretend I’m not—if I make too much noise someone might notice my presence and want me to move another chair—and Thalia calmly takes another sip of her wine, smirking so hard she might hurt herself.
“I have a feeling they didn’t take the suggestion,” she goes on. “I had to look uppiledriverand it doesn’t look very comfortable. Anyway, at least Mom and Gerald aren’t asking us to dothat.”
“It could always be worse, is what you’re saying?”
“Exactly. And besides, Mom isn’t?—”
I can hear the front door open, and my stomach knots. I take a drink and a deep breath to cover it up, try to focus on what Thalia’s saying.
“It’s not her,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Not who?”
“Javi, don’t. I’ll tell you when it is, okay?”
I give up on acting cool because it’s clearly not working. “Thanks,” I say and manage to get Thalia talking about her research.
“—behavior in a control group,”Thalia’s saying. If I’m being honest, my mind has wandered a bit, at least until she nods at the room behind me and says, “That’sher. No, don’t?—”
I turn and there Madeline is, still closing the front door. She’s wearing the same coat she wore at Christmas, and I swear her hair’s even bluer, ten different shades of blue and green, like sunlight on a perfect Caribbean lagoon. I remind myself to breathe. Madeline’s flushed from the cold, smiling, holding a gift bag in one hand. She takes off her coat and hugs my mom, then hands over the gift.
“Javier,” my sister hisses. She finally grabs my elbow. “How many times do you think I said your name?”
I can tell I’m blushing, the rest of my skin prickling with awareness at her proximity. This room feels too big and too small at the same time.
