CHAPTER 1
Elodie
How am I going to spend two weeks in the same house with the man I can't stop thinking about? A man who, incidentally, looks exactly like my father?
It's just so wrong.
Here I am, scrolling through my phone, looking at pictures of my Uncle Rye, while my mother packs her bag to go visit my father across the country in rehab.
A little bead of sweat trickles down my chest, making me shiver as April sun streams through the kitchen window.
"Rye will be here tonight,” she says as she fidgets with the tag on her Coach bag making sure the logo is clearly visible. “Most people can't tell the difference between him and your father. He'll come and go, just like your dad does. He'll drivethe minivan. Just don't let any of the neighbors get too nosy, and don't mention what's going on toanyone. Elodie, are you listening?"
Blood rushes to my face, and I turn my phone face down on the granite island.
“I’m listening,” I say, receiving a doubtful frown in response. “Uncle Rye will be pretending to be Dad. Got it.”
“Perhaps you should call him Dad at all times while he’s here. What do they call it, method acting?”
I nod ignoring the rush of dampness that seeps from my body thinking of sleeping a wall away from my uncle for two weeks. “Got it. I’ll call him Dad.”
I bet Dad fucks like a beast.
All that calm control has to have an outlet right? God, I wonder if he will be jerking off while he’s here? The vision has my feminine parts clenching. My nipples are achy and sensitive and my clit is ten kinds of demanding right now.
Rye could melt most frigid women’s resolve into a steaming puddle of wanton desire with those spooky greenish gold eyes of his and the way he moves through life with a confidence that makes you want to put him between you and all the terrible things in the world. I tell myself it’s just infatuation build on the quiet attention he’s given me since I was five years old.
But, every time I see him, it’s like the air disappears. I want to reach down and rub away the tension he creates between my legs.
I know nothing of men in that way really except what Anna and Jeremy my besties from grade school tell me. But there arethings built into our DNA we cannot control. Desire and want. God, so much want.
My mother offers a thin smile and I return one in my practiced, polished perfect daughter manner.
Image is everything to my mother. She won Miss Michigan, after all, and her own mother was first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant, 1952, or whatever year it was.
“No fast food,” she says checking her lipstick in the glassy front of the wall oven. “I mean it, Elodie, don’t let Rye lead you astray. You’re doing so well on this diet, I don’t want to lose our progress. Remember that Sophia said their only doubt about you is that you’ve…filled out a bit more than is normally acceptable for a principal dancer.”
I click my molars together on another forced smile. “Got it. No fast food. I promise.”
She turns to open a cupboard and take yet another count of the diet shakes stacked in there, and I take the opportunity for another peek at my phone.
I tap on my photo files, then another tap to the hidden file I keep.
The latest snapshot of Uncle Rye pops up first from last month's performance of Swan Lake, where he brought me five dozen white roses. The picture is him standing next to me as I struggle to hold up what felt like fifty pounds of floral bliss.
“You have enough Opti-Cal to last two weeks. Weigh in when you first get up after you pee, then again right before bed. The app will log it and I’ll check it while I’m gone. Remember, accountability keeps us honest. God help me, if that man ruins all the work we’ve done—”
"Everything will be okay, Mom. Just take care of Dad."
Two years ago, I put on five pounds during spring break, and I’ve been paying for it ever since. Mom blames Uncle Rye because he insisted that I could share his Chinese take-out when he came to visit, just a few weeks before my sixteenth birthday. He ordered enough for six, and I pigged out but I also took on an extra two hour practice every day because there was no school, so I’m not sure if the five pounds was from the fried rice, or just a little water weight from an overload of msg and sodium.
I’m six pounds lighter than I was then and Mom is happier with things this way.
And honestly? When Mom’s happy, my life is a heck of a lot easier.
I spin on the island stool, around and around, whipping my head as I do naturally now to spot myself. I’m trying to ignore the tiny pulses down between my legs as I do it thinking of Uncle Rye’s eyes. The way his hand always hovers every so lightly at the small of my back whenever we are out in public. How he always puts himself on the street side of the sidewalk when we’re walking.
He’s coming here tonight to stay for two weeks. God either loves me or hates me. I’m still trying to decide which.
