Page 17 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
And okay, the twins are adorable and funny and make me forget for a few hours every day that my life is in shambles. Fern is pretty great too, even though she’s barely spoken to me.
But I have to find another job. Then I have to move out of my car. And then I can quit working for Bram Loe.
My phone buzzes in my bag, and I dig it out to see Nolan’s contact photo. My brother, who’s several years older than me. I swipe to ignore the call. I’ll talk to him soon. Mom too. But first I need to get on my feet and I need to do it on my own.
Nolan was in a boy band ages ago, and after a few rough years (which were perfectly timed with most of my adolescence), he’s back in the public eye.*He would help me if I asked. I know he would. But I was the one who dealt with the bills when Nolan was busy or gone, and with Mom’s medications, and leaky sinks and broken-down cars. After doing all that, I know I can handle my shit myself—plus, if my teenage years and splitting up with Gentry have taught me anything, it’s that relying on anyone other than yourself is a fast track to disappointment.
Anddddd, okay,fine. Admitting the truth about my abrupt move and vehicular lodging to Nolan would require admitting he was right about Gentry and Gentry’s overall suckery and that I had indeed been turning into someone Nolan didn’t know anymore. SomeoneIdidn’t even know.
And that is a conversation best had with a roof over my head. One I paid for myself.
Chapter Five
Bram
Daddy!” Letty yells. I look up from my potting bench to the glassed-in breezeway that connects the house to the greenhouse I built the year I got divorced.
(Sometimes a thing can be the right choice—like a divorce—and alsoleave you feeling weird and bored after it’s done. Building a greenhouse seemed like a better alternative than a more destructive hobby, like online dating or getting intoWarhammer.)
“What is it, sprout?”
Letty runs through the breezeway, my phone in her hand. “Berry was trying to show Mommy the new things we’ve put in Porcupine’s tank, and Porcupine got out, and now Hester Prynne won’t come out from under the bed.”
“Really sorry about that, Bram!” Sara’s voice comes from the phone. “I didn’t expect my hundred-pound German shepherd to be terrified of a frog.”
Letty sets the phone down on the potting bench and then tears off, probably back to monitor the dog situation with Berry. I pull off my gloves and pick up the phone to follow in Letty’s wake. “In fairness, I didn’t see it coming either. Hey, Asher. How’re you doing?”
Sara and Asher got engaged two years ago, and the minute I met the environmental researcher and activist, it was like solving forxafter years of scratched-out answers. Sara and I had made the marriage thing work for so many years because we’d been bound together by the girls, because we’d been horny enough, because we’d been even hornier for science and science was a thing we did together anyway. But over time, our connection started to fray, cardboard puzzle tabs repeatedly forced to fit in the wrong cardboard sockets.
And from the first words Asher spoke—bitingly intelligent, charged with meaning—I immediately understood why Asher was the right puzzle piece for her, and I hadn’t been. I’ll never be a mix of tattooed mystery and charisma; I’m not in demand as a guest on podcasts or television segments; I don’t get any joy sparring with congresspeople about climate change. Ilikethat people don’t notice me, that they underestimate me. I like not arguing, I like staying put, I like anonymity.
I like rules and gentle routines and the soft quiet of my greenhouse in the mornings. I like being the invisible person behind someone visible, taking care of them, supporting them, making sure they get enough to eat and that they get enough sleep. Sara needs something different. A co-activist. A co-performer.
“Hey yourself,” Asher says, giving me that enigmatic curl of a smile that I know must have killed before they settled down with Sara.*“Seems like a busy Sunday over there.”
“About the normal amount of chaos,” I say as I go into the house and make for the stairs. “I did ask Maddie to come over today so I could have some time to work on the book.”
I’m tenured now, so it isn’t quite publish or perish these days, but the book is a project meant for a general audience, not an academic text, and finding time to write among parenting, teaching, and all the behind-the-scenes curriculum and committee work of academia has been next to impossible. So in a moment of desperation—and despite having done my best to avoid extended time spent with Maddie over the last couple of weeks—I asked for a weekend shift at double her normal rate.
“You should take some time off,” Sara says seriously. “See if Joey wants to grab a drink or something. Have a Best Night Ever.”
Just the idea ofa drinkmakes my stomach turn. “We actually hit it hard a couple of weeks ago to celebrate Sloane’s divorce, and I don’t think I have another Best Night Ever in me for a while.”
“I’m bummed I missed that.” Sara sighs. “I’ve been waiting for Sloane to leave that knoblord since the day she married him.”
Sloane is the only one of us who didn’t go to high school in Mount Astra—she went to a prestigious day school in Kansas City instead—but she and Sara have a certain bond as the only women in the group.
“Andyou were her divorce coach too,” I say. I can hear Hester Prynne whining as I reach the top of the stairs.
“In fairness, we quickly reached the limits of my expertise. Lucien made leaving as hard as he could on her, whereas divorcing Dr. Bram Loe was more about keeping track of filing deadlines. I think the only thing we fought over were the bonsai scissors.”
“They’re Sasuke.”*I push open the bedroom door to find Porcupine looking out onto the room from the top floor of a Barbie Dreamhouse and Hester Prynne partially wedged under one of the twin beds, quaking.
Porcupine gives a magisterialribbit.
“They’remine,” Sara says smugly. And then, more seriously, “I meant what I said about taking a break, Bram. I know you never let anything bother you, but it’s okay to be alittlebothered and need a night off once in a while.”
It’s true that I don’t let much get to me—save for one very curvy, very feisty exception.
