Tom looks at his own hands, holding a cabinet door. He tries to compose a sentence for a long time. Finally, he manages, “Excuse me?”
“’Cause I swear, I need your hands more than I’ve ever needed anything.”
I wipe my hand over the back of my mouth. Fuck it. He’s a big boy, he can handle pizza breath. My body is taking over. Everything is boiling up out of me—years of stolen looks and tight T-shirts and that bone-deep certainty that the animal in him wants me, too.
How else could he always make me feel this way? Brighter, darker, hungrier? No one else has me standing in a cold shower or breaking down a kitchen with my bare hands. I want him crying with pleasure. I want to be the only one he can think of.
“Take your shirt off. Shoes off. I’ll do the rest.” Lust has broken my voice box; I’m raspy. I point at my bedroom door. “Bed. Get in it.” I’m looking at the solid square of his belt buckle.
“Are you out of your mind?” He’s stunned.
When I reach for him like a creepy sex zombie, he steps away, almost cowering against the fridge—a huge man terrified of my outstretched fingertips. He reaches up and pulls down the broken retractable blind from the window and throws it on the floor between us, as if it could possibly keep me back.
“Darcy, are you joking?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” I watch him swallow and his jaw tenses, the tendons like ribbons. I think I look like I’m a predator. “I’m not joking. I just told you, I’m telling the truth from now on. I want you, bad. I feel how much you want me. So show me what you got.” My breath is puffing out of me, light and fast.
“DB, you have lost it. Quit messing with me.”
Holly’s right. I’m not romantic. I’ll fix it later. “Tom Valeska, get in me.”
He lets out a shaky breath and there’s a light of fear in his eyes. I’m a scary bitch. He’s a bashful sweetheart with pink cheeks. Valeska is nowhere in sight. The first moment of doubt hits me, and I narrow my eyes at his face. Seriously? I thought I’d have teeth on me by now. “Well?”
He pushes at his belt buckle like it’s uncomfortable. “I’m sorry you’ve had a shock. I should have told you as soon as I arrived.”
He turns his waist away and I’m certain. He’s got an iron erection, and it’s for me. I’m having it, pressing in an inch at a time until I can’t even blink. This house can go to hell.
The look in my eyes makes his breath crack in his lungs. I don’t need a mirror to know I must look fucking intense.
I’ll give him a second to compose himself. “Why didn’t you? Jesus, Tom. I’ve been making a complete ass of myself. How many times did I bring her up, and you said nothing?” I go to the pantry door. The big fucker. It’s all I can do.
Crack. Tom catches it before I’m flattened underneath.
“A lot of times.” His face is pained as he puts it on our growing pile of debris. “You’re a lot harder to lie to than I thought.” He looks at my bedroom door again and shakes his head slightly, like he has water in his ear. “Did you just tell me to—” He can’t finish.
“You tell the truth to Vince, but not me?”
“I lost my temper,” he says without humor. Out there, he was his usual perfect self. I’d dismiss him as cold, but when he looks back to me, he’s glittering darker now. Hungrier. There’s a magnet dragging us together. Finally.
“Says the guy with a sledgehammer in his car.” I shake my head and pull all the knobs off the broken oven and toss them at his feet. “You are my one straightforward person, you know that? You are the one person who tells the truth. And you’ve been lying to me since you arrived. Why?”
“I thought it would be better this way. If I told you after the renovation.” He says it like it’s reasonable.
“And why’s that?” A little voice inside my head whispers, Oh no.
“Because of this.” He gestures around the room, his eyes catching on my mouth. I lick my lip and think about the syrup I drank. He’s not walking out of here alive.
Then he brings me back to reality, in the sweetest, kindest Tom way possible.
“I thought it would be safer if I didn’t tell you until the house was done. I thought this might happen.” As if he can’t help himself, he reflexively looks at my bedroom door. “And it won’t happen.” His chest rises and falls.
His eyes are profoundly disturbed. He won’t be getting in my bed, because he doesn’t think about me like that. At all. And I’ve just showed my entire poker hand to him. This is like my asking to buy Loretta’s ring from Jamie in the parking lot, one minute after he inherited it. Why don’t I ever try to strategize? Everything just erupts out of my volcano mouth.
He says, “I thought it would be safer to lie.”
Hot red blood is filling my body, rising up my torso, my neck, to the roots of my hair. Humiliation is dissolving my skeleton. “Safer.” My voice sounds very far away to me. “Safer?”
My parents would probably understand the reason for his sweet white lie; Jamie definitely does.
“I need to focus on the house,” he says, very reasonably. “I’ve never run a business before single-handed.” He’s got a sweat sheen on his skin and he’s still struggling to catch his breath. “I’ve known you since you were melting Barbies with a lighter. You’re Jamie’s sister. I promised your parents that I’d look after you.”
And just like that, I understand. Life’s all about finding buffers.
Megan was a buffer because it’s been clear for years that the moment she was gone, I’d pounce. Christ, I didn’t last one minute. I have no game. For a habitual liar, I seem to slip up at the crucial moments.
He has his first job for his own company and doesn’t want me smooching around like Pepé Le Pew. I’m the client. I’m his best friend’s sister. I’m Mr. and Mrs. Barrett’s weak-hearted daughter. I’m the liability he swore to take care of.
I’m a kitchen-trashing psychopath who is going to tear his clothes off his body and kiss him down to his bones. And I need to get a grip.
I make myself laugh and nod. “Okay. Fair enough. That’s probably smart, actually.”
I somehow walk to the front door on my trembling legs and the cool evening air floods in. I will find the nearest ocean and walk in, all the way down to Atlantis, and inquire about real estate. “Next time I see you, you can’t make me feel shitty about this. Pretend it didn’t happen. But you know what? I thought you had more guts.”
* * *
I GO TO a liquor store, buy something cheapy sticky sweet, and then go to Truly’s house. She opens the door and blinks owlishly out into the night.
“I need to lie on your couch for a bit,” I tell her, toeing off my boots. “I just did something unforgivable.”
“Okay,” she says without hesitation, like the excellent friend she is. We’ve been lying on each other’s couches since high school. I will lie on her couch until the day I die.
Except lying on her couch is not an option, as it turns out. It’s stacked with underwear. Truly seems to have hardly registered my arrival; she goes back to her sewing machine, illuminated by a bright overhead lamp, and the whirring resumes.
Truly Nicholson is the queen of a cult indie underwear label called Underswears, and no, her name is not a nickname. Well, it was initially. She was called Truly in utero when she finally made her appearance on an ultrasound screen. That little baby was truly a miracle.
I assess her bent-over back. “Finish up now. I think you’ve done enough.” I doubt she’s eaten anything in hours—possibly days—worrying about grease on her fingers. Crumbs, stains, and drips are her mortal enemies. “Truly, I need to tell you about a totally insane thing I just did.”
Wheeeee. The sewing machine rolls about two inches of tiny stitches. There’s clicking, and then, wheeee.
Robotically, Truly lifts the machine foot, repositions, depresses the foot, and then, wheee. Her eyes are completely blank. I’m pretty sure she’s already forgotten I’m here. When I see she’s finished sewing the current pair, I turn the lamp off from above her.
The terrible enchantment is broken. She slumps down onto her forearms while I find some chocolate-flavored milk that hasn’t expired. I pull piles of laundry off a little-used armchair, deposit her on it, and hold the straw up to her mouth.
“A little dramatic,” she whispers, hoarse, and her pale green eyes roll over to focus on me as she drains the entire glass. Her hands are useless to her by now.
Her strawberry-blond hair seems to have dulled out to the color of straw, and her dimpled cheeks are pale. She calls herself plush-sized. She has a spectacular bust line and a bottom like a heart. Her every line connected to a joint is curved, like she’s been drawn with a pinkish calligraphy pen. I wish things were different, so I could marry her. I will hate whoever she chooses.
Except no one would marry me. I’m insane.
I look at the completed underwear. Ten in a stack. I begin counting. There have to be three hundred pairs done, easy. Probably more. “How long have you been doing this?”
“What time is it? And what day is it?” She’s not even kidding.
“Tuesday night.”
I put the glass aside and take her cold hand in mine. She closes her eyes as I gently try to straighten her fingers. The tendons resist me like wires. I begin to rub. I don’t think she can feel anything by now. “You are destroying yourself.”
“My website glitched and double-sold. Two . . . hundred . . . and . . . fifty . . . pairs. I cried for over an hour.” She’s detached. “Five hundred pairs total.”
The Jamie part of my brain works out what kind of money that would look like. Math isn’t my forte, but it’s a lot. “You should have just reversed the transactions.”
“I just . . . couldn’t. People would have been disappointed.” She takes her hand from mine and holds out the other one. The fingers are curled and this time, when I flatten them out gently, she whimpers in pain. “Ow, ow, ow.”
“You don’t owe anyone anything. The money isn’t going to be worth it if your hands turn into lobster claws. Carpal tunnel is no joke.”
The urge to ask her if she has been to the doctor is almost overpowering me, but I hate it when people ask me. I bite the tip of my tongue and go into the kitchen again. Her fridge is about on par with mine. I find bread in the freezer and put some slices in the toaster.
“If I can just clear these orders . . . ,” she says from the other room, her voice drowsy. “I’ll get this lot done and sent, and then . . .”
“Then you’ll think of another great swear word or insult, and this entire process starts again.”
Underswears are high-waisted, organic cotton underwear with thick, seamless trims and sturdy bulletproof gussets. Your butt cannot eat these undies. They all have an insult or offensive phrase printed on the butt. I’m wearing a pair right now that say FUCKER in graffiti script.
While I wait for the toast, I look at the new release. They are red with a blue sailor stripe, with the words HUMAN FLOTSAM. I photographed the prototype a few weeks back. “Human garbage, nautical style,” I say to myself. “I need a pair of these. Are they missing something?”
Truly groans. “Li’l anchors. Why did I decide to add the anchors?”
“Whimsy. You’re all about whimsy.”
“Well, my whimsy means five hundred miniature anchors. That’s your job, please.” She gestures to a tiny parcel.
“Sure.” I’m no stranger to sewing on tiny fixings, ironing, and packing. I lug crates of underwear down to the post office. The sheer number of anchors momentarily overwhelms me, but I squash it down. Truly must feel so much worse. Besides, I need to take my mind off what I’ve just done.
I just pushed down the Looney Tunes red ignition handle and imploded my fragile friendship with a person who really didn’t deserve that.
The manual task is exactly what I need: something to focus my entire being on. Anything less than perfection risks being deemed a second. I check the cotton color, measure the exact center of the waistband, thread a needle, and stitch the anchor on, using five not-overly-tight stitches. Tiny neat knot, clip, next. Only 499 to go. I show it to her, and she nods without saying anything. Her phone is lighting up with rapid-fire text messages.
“Who’s that?”
“My secret fake lover,” she drawls, tucking the phone in her back pocket. She could have a real lover if she wanted one. I watch her expression and realize that she’s got a secret; it’s caught in the upturned corner of her lip and the spark in her eyes. Someone’s been thrilling my Truly.
“I’ll let you keep this secret a little longer. Then you’re gonna spill it.”
“I’m sure I will. You’re hard to lie to.” She’s the second person who’s said that to me tonight. I stitch and try to not notice how my bottle of wine has a sexy cold bloom on the glass.
“I’m going to give your number to a girl I work with, Holly. I think she’d be good at this. I think it’s time you got yourself a more reliable drone than me.” I begin again. Stitch five times, knot, clip. “And I’ll get a new phone. Come and get me next time.”
“Sorry. I just freaked out and started sewing.” Truly’s voice is drowsy.
“If you ever double-sell again, I’ll draft the email and cancel the orders. I’ll be your faceless management asshole. They can deal with their disappointment.”
“I kind of need the cash,” Truly says, which is very unlike her. “If I want to scale up, I need to get a loan. This looks good in my account.”
We sit together for a long time in silence, Truly’s eyes closed. I begin a new anchor. “Tom’s in town. The renovation is starting.”
Truly’s mouth tips downward. “That means you’re leaving, doesn’t it.”
“No, I’m going to stay for the renovation. I’m going to work on the house.” I sigh in a big grandiose way so she doesn’t know I’m about to be serious. “My stupid way of trying to apologize to Jamie for breaking his financial heart. And I want to make sure the house turns out how I want it.”
I think about money for a bit. I don’t like to. But how can I get more for Truly? Jamie works in a bank. “Maybe Jamie’s got a contact who could help with your loan. Or”—I perk up—“once the house is sold, I could—”
“No.” Truly shakes her head, eyes closed. “No connections. No Barrett savior. I’m doing it on my own.”
“Jamie would hardly be a savior if he gave your name to a colleague.”
“I meant you.”
“Me.” I laugh and reach over to the wine bottle. The dewy glass wets my hand and it makes me recoil. I can’t risk getting even a single cotton thread damp and screwing this up for Truly. I wipe my hand on my leg.
“You were my start-up capital, back in the day.”
“You paid me back for that.” I have a twinge of embarrassment in my stomach.
“You do all the photography and don’t charge. You sew on five hundred miniature anchors—”
“I’ve only done five.”
She won’t hear my protests. “You get my groceries and unbend my fingers. You’re the best.”
“I’m human flotsam.”
“You’re the best,” she repeats until I smile and I don’t need that wine bottle anymore. “So how’s Tom? Still a hot dork beefcake?”
“I have to put a muzzle on myself every time he walks past me.”
“Just like high school.” Truly sighs. “Your brother’s big shadow has always gotten you like that.”
“I thought I wasn’t that obvious. Well, here’s news. The wedding is off.” I count my stitches carefully. I wait for her exclamation of shock.
“I’m not completely surprised.”
“I was so surprised I pulled the cabinet doors off their hinges in my kitchen. They’re just in a big pile on the floor. Then I told him to get in my bed.”
“Ha,” Truly barks with her eyes shut.
“It’s not a joke. I told him to . . .” I trail off and swallow the big lump in my throat. “I told him to get in me.”
She’s shaking with laughter. Spluttering, she says, “Megan never seemed that into him. It was weird, because they’re both gorgeous. They were more like brother and sister. I bet she’s never once ordered him to”—she opens her eyes in a vivid green flash—“get in her.”
“She better not have,” I snarl.
“I bet she put it in her bullet journal. Saturday, six P.M. A special gold star sticker indicating sexual intercourse completed.” Truly drifts half-asleep again, emitting the occasional cackle.
In my diary, written in the little gaps of time where I let Tom sleep, I’d be writing, Sex, fucking, sucking, nearly dying, need sustenance—with smudged ink and a weak hand. Me and my romantic heart.
I will always defend him. “You can’t know what things are like for a couple when they’re alone.” I stretch and groan in misery. “I bet he’s absolutely spectacular in bed. He’s so . . . competent. She would have had zero complaints.”
“Did you ever, ever see them kiss? Even once? I thought it was weird. I would have liked to see them kiss.” Truly’s slurring. Milk and toast are obviously strong opiates.
“Maybe she didn’t want to when I was there.”
Because I’d probably plunder and stab and burn. I’d watch from a hillside as her village burned to the ground, the flames crackling in my Viking eyes. I mess up my current anchor, have to clip all the threads out and start again.
Truly’s a mind reader. “I’m so glad you’re on my team. You’d be a terrifying adversary.”
“You’re mixing me up with my brother.”
“He’s not that bad.”
“He’s like the boss you fight in the last level of a computer game. Anyway, I never did anything to break up Tom and Megan. I was so polite to her.”
“With your giant gray eyes staring at her during every Christmas dinner like she was flattened onto a microscope slide.”
“She’s so beautiful,” I groan, my needle sliding in and out on autopilot. “I think I was half in love with her myself. Her skin and hair are just . . . beautiful.” There’s no other word I can use for her.
“So are yours.”
“Hair?” I wave a hand at my bare neck. “What is this hair you speak of?”
“Darce,” Truly says like I am a pitiful dweeb, “you are one tough cookie, but gosh, what a pretty cookie. Anyway, what does it matter? He doesn’t care about looks.”
I pause, knot, and clip. “Tom is the best person. The ultimate human man. I was used to her having him. But now . . .” I drop the needle into the carpet and curse, scratching around for it. “He’s single and I think I need to shoot myself out of a cannon into space. I was sexually threatening to him just now.” I prick my finger and swear. “He was afraid of me.”
“Oh really.” She starts giggling, delirious. She walks to the bathroom, which is very close by in her tiny apartment. She audibly pees for ages.
“He lied and didn’t tell me. He was planning on telling me after the renovation was finished. He said it was safer.” The word just makes me cringe. “Safer. What am I going to do, maul him?” I think back to the kitchen. “Okay, fair point.”
Truly spits toothpaste into the sink. “Maybe he doesn’t trust himself.”
“That’s really not it.” I think back to the kitchen. I was so sure I’d felt one firm press on my stomach from the truthful part of Tom Valeska’s anatomy. “He wants to get the renovation done without me hanging around, trying to smell him. I’m just going to have to keep a lid on myself and get through these next couple of months. Can I stay here with you?”
She smiles sweetly. “No. You stay with him.” I drag her into her bedroom and turn on a lamp. I pull off her cherry-print Keds and she crawls into bed, still dressed. She starts to cry.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m so tired,” she says in between little sobs. “Lying down hurts.”
I smooth her hair neater on the pillow. “I know, but you’re going to pass out any second. I’m going to be here when you wake up and help with the packaging.”
“I bet Vince’s never made you wreck a kitchen,” Truly says, eyes closing, tears running down her cheeks and into her hair.
“No. He really hasn’t.”
“Interesting. Better not tell Jamie.” For a dizzy second, I misunderstand and think she is talking to herself. She’s my one person I’ve kept ruthlessly quarantined from him.
She’s mine, 100 percent.
“No shit. He’d be on the next available flight. Business class, window seat. Snobby blond snob, drinking wine in a suit, frowning down at the world below, swooping in to save Tom from my clutches.”
“That’s sorta hot,” she slurs as she fades off, her head rolling to one side.
Good Lord. Several barrels of Chemical X must have rolled into the reservoir. Echoes of Holly’s breathy He’s so good-looking reverberate around the room. I wonder if Jamie has buried himself into Truly’s primordial lizard brain, like a tick.
If he has, I’ll tweezer him out.
In the living room, I sit back down with my needle and thread. I miss my hideous handsome brother. It’s moments like this, in the dark, with no music or anyone to talk to. The absence of him is the void inside me, and I don’t know what more I can stuff into it. And on top of it all, I’ve just fucked up, big-time. I think of Tom’s abject terror. I was too honest. And I was stone-cold sober.
The cheap wine bottle is just sitting there on the rug like a penguin.
“What?” I say to it. “Leave me alone for a minute.” I sew, keeping my eyes on the needle.
It won’t stop staring at me.
I relent after a few more anchors and unscrew the cap to smell it. I take a small sip from the bottle, then deepen my swallows. About a glass burns down the hatch. I think about Tom looking in my recycling bin. I think about the task Truly has trusted me to do.
“I’ve got to concentrate,” I say sternly to the bottle, and put it in Truly’s fridge. Getting up and down a couple of times gives me some ghostly chest flutters. I’ve forgotten my medication at home.
For the first time in forever, I feel concerned for myself. This is worse than when I let my Furby die under my bed, mewling and crying. How do I correct this monumental neglect? I pat my chest. “Hang in there.” I really should go have a review and an ECG, but Jamie always comes with me to those appointments. I’m a baby. I’m just Princess, playing at being a grown-up, and failing.
I’m going to sew every single anchor before Truly wakes up. I’m like the elves helping the shoemaker. I will sew and sew. Maybe it will take my mind off Tom’s walking around in the world, single and resplendent.
Maybe I could convince him, my brain suggests optimistically, and my needle goes into my finger.
How could I risk hurting and losing him, just to have his body? I’d have to be the worst person. The most reckless, careless person. A rebound kind of girl. Oh wait. I am.
“Human flotsam,” I say to myself, and I stitch on, and on, and on.
