“I think you forgot to mention someone I’d be meeting,” I tease, pinching one tiny paw between my thumb and forefinger in something close to a handshake. “Nice to meet you, sir or madam.”
“This is Bo.” Ellie crouches to scratch behind his ears. “Carol’s dog.” Bo sniffs at the Tupperware of puppy chow tucked under Ellie’s arm, taking the dessert’s name a little too literally. “Nooo,” Ellie warns, “this isn’t for puppies.”
“Don’t let him pee on you!” A shrill voice echoes from somewhere deeper in the house, and Bo scampers off toward it. We follow shortly behind, stepping into a kitchen that feels like a suburban Mom’s Pinterest board brought to life. Every stretch of the canary yellow walls offers a different word of inspiration to remind me how lucky I am to be here. Above the table,gather. By the fridge,thankful. And over the big copper farmhouse sink, the wordblessedis printed in big white letters on a plank of repurposed wood. If an AI were to develop a dream kitchen for the average white, midwestern mom, this would be it.
“Welcome back, girls.” Professor Meyers leans against the cream granite countertop, muscling open jar after jar of premade cranberry sauce. Her stained apron and worn-in house shoes humanize her, but I’d recognize that stern, disappointed look in her eyes anywhere. She glances from her daughter to the clock on the stove: 3:55. “What took so long?”
“We were baking,” Ellie says. “Well, sort of. Combining ingredients, at least.” She turns to the other side of the counter, where a thin woman with silver tent-shaped hair and a mess of colorful necklaces is raking a vegetable peeler over a potato, sending the skins flying off in sheets. “Hi, Aunt Carol. Good to see you.”
Aunt Carol looks down at Bo, who is vibrating at her feet, then toward Ellie. “Did he pee?”
“I don’t think so.” Ellie scans my jeans for any non-preexisting stains. “We may have gotten lucky.”
“Thank God.” Carol blows out an exaggerated breath of relief, the kind you might expect from someone who narrowlydodged a car crash. “He hates the doggy diapers, Kara,” she goes on, returning her attention to the potato she’s peeling. “Chews ’em right off.”
“Um, Carol? Were you planning on saying hello to Murphy?” Kara shakes a colander of freshly boiled potatoes over the copper kitchen sink, offering me a small smile through the steam.
Whatever hypnosis the potatoes have Aunt Carol under shatters at the sound of my name. “Murphy! Ellie’s girlfriend!” Her big dark eyes stretch with excitement, and I can’t help but notice she more closely resembles her dog than her sister. Both the potato and peeler drop from her bejeweled fingers and onto the counter. The clatter sends Bo into a barking fit, but Carol just raises her voice over the noise. “Kara told me everything about you!”
My heart rate doubles.Everything? What constituteseverything? Was she pulling from two semesters’ worth of tardies and half-assed assignments or the sparse catalogue of information Ellie’s shared about her ex? I’m desperate to know, but there’s no way for me to ask. It’s probably better that I don’t know anyway. I accept Aunt Carol’s awkwardly limp hug, trying not to get tangled up in her necklaces and praying she can’t feel my heart race through her oversize knit sweater. When we pull away, Carol grabs my forearms, holding me in front of her for further examination. Her eyes crinkle as she studies me, tilting her head back and forth. Bo looks up at me from her feet, his head following a similar tilting pattern. When she finally speaks, it’s to Ellie, not me. “She’s beautiful, El.”
“Thank you,” Ellie and I say in perfect unison.
“I mean it,” Carol insists, speaking to me this time. “I’m telling ya, Ellie brought home some real jerks in high school, some real clunkers. I always knew she’d eventually find a sweet guy or—” She cuts herself off with a cackle, leaning into her grip on my arms. I try to laugh along with her, only because it seems like she wants me to.
“Geez, Car, let the poor girl out of your death grip,” Kara scolds, waving the potato masher at her sister.
“Oh hush, Kar, I was just looking at her, is that such a crime?”
I bite my cheek, trapping the threat of nervous laughter. I’m not sure if I hate or love the parents who gave their daughters two nearly identical names, but if we run into one another in the afterlife, I want to shake their hands. You have to respect that level of commitment to chaos.
Carol loosens her grip on my arms a little, just enough for me to feel the blood flowing to my fingertips again. Her eyes, however, don’t budge from my face. She pushes her lips out, scooping her chin toward the cowl of her burgundy sweater in slow, deliberate nods. “I feel like I know you already,” she says.
“Can we not do the hippie-dippie stuff today?” Kara pleads, sounding her usual level of annoyed.
“No, not that, I mean I think I’ve seen her in the shop before.” Carol tucks her silver hair behind her ears, showing off a pair of dangly gold earrings in the shape of peacock feathers that glisten under the fluorescent kitchen lights. “I’ve got this little jewelry and accessory store in downtown Geneva called—”
“Monarch,” we both say, our voices overlapping.
Carol’s eyes flicker. “Did Ellie tell you?”
“No, but I’ve been in the store a few times.” I sneak a second look at her mess of necklaces, wondering how many are from her own inventory. Monarch has sourced my mother’s Christmas presents for more years than I can count.
Carol flashes her sister atold-you-solook, then swivels back to me. The flicker in her eyes has grown to a full-on gleam. “I knew it,” Carol says. “I knew I’d seen you around. Do you work downtown?”
“Yeah, I’ve worked at Sip since high school.”
Kara perks up. I’ve used one of her trigger words. “Marcus was a barista at Sip in high school too.”
“Murphy’s not just a barista though,” Ellie says. She balances the Tupperware on her hip and loops her free hand around my waist, pulling me so tight against her that her hip bone digs into the side of my thigh. It’s bony and persistent, but I don’t particularly mind, except that it’s revealing some major holes in our plan. I know her roommate’s name and her favorite movie, but I don’t know our boundaries so far as physically playing the part of her girlfriend. Do I hold Ellie’s hand at the table? Do I snuggle up to her at every chance?
“Murphy does all of Sip’s marketing and social media too,” Ellie goes on, blissfully unaware of the panic kicking me in the gut. “Like I told you, Mom. She’s really good at business stuff.”
Kara smiles just enough to prove that she heard her daughter, but not enough to convince anyone she’s impressed, then pulls out her phone without saying a word. Luckily, Carol has enough words for all of us, launching into a lengthy spiel about how Sip has changed the fabric of downtown Geneva. By theway that Professor Meyers looks up from her phone every few sentences, I get the feeling she thinks her sister is spewing nonsense, but I’m eating up every word. It’s a nice distraction from the list of worries compiling in my head vis-à-vis: how I should and shouldn’t touch my fake girlfriend. I’m sure Carol and I could babble on for hours about Sip’s impact on the downtown demographic, the need for fewer high-end stores and more shops that fit a Sip customer’s needs and budgets. I could weigh in, but my attention is tied up in Ellie’s hipbone, the way my skin warms around her hand on my side. I could babble on about that too.
“Here it is,” Kara interrupts. She flips her phone around to show off a low-resolution photo of a teenage boy wearing an apron with the original Sip logo. He looks a little like Ellie did in high school—dark hair, blue eyes, a little on the short side—but his smile is wide and bright like something out of a Crest Whitestrip ad.
“Aww, Little Marcus.” Carol lays a hand over her heart, her stack of silver bracelets clattering and clinking together. “You’ve gotta put that one in the slideshow for the rehearsal dinner.”
