American Girls(14)

“I think you should take Roger up on his offer,” she said.

“Really, because I think you should stop taking Roger up on his ‘offers,’ or whatever you two are calling that movie of his. He doesn’t even know what he’s shooting. Why would you do this? He’s an idiot. Haven’t you figured that out yet? He probably just wishes he were Charles Manson. Did you know that if a girl wore glasses, Manson would break them because he thought they should all be ‘natural’? He wasn’t just a psychopath, he was an *. Who cares why anyone wanted to listen to him?”

My sister broke it down for me like she was some mafia boss. “I’m not saying you should care about Charles Manson, I’m saying it’s a good business opportunity. Do you know they’ve hired television writers as young as seventeen? It’ll be a great credit for you when the film gets released. Roger is going places. We stopped sleeping together at least a year before we broke up, not that it’s any of your business. He thinks he might like men. Okay? You happy now?”

I wanted to say “Ewwwww,” not because of the men part, but because it was my sister and Roger and ewwwwwwwwwww. The thought of the two of them having sex was scarring, then I wondered if maybe she was just dating our mother, but in reverse, which was doubly scarring. Third-degree-psychic-trauma scarring.

“So if it’s so innocent, why can’t you tell your new boyfriend?”

“Dex? You don’t know men at all, do you, Anna?”

“Am I supposed to?”

Delia’s phone was ringing and she answered in a completely different voice from the one she’d been using. Good morning, sunshine.

“Hey, honey, yup, we’re on our way. Okay, I’ll pick some up but they’re poison and you know it. Love you too.” She clicked off. “Keep your eye out for Doughnut Dynasty; it’s coming up on the right.”

“Actual doughnuts? Fried with real sugar?”

“You’ll like Dex. You both have the palate of five-year-olds.”

We pulled into Doughnut Dynasty, and Delia ordered a half dozen of the daily selection at the drive-through: one pink coconut, two chocolate sprinkles, what looked like a jelly or custard, a caramel pecan, and a Nutella banana.

“I’m just gonna have a chocolate sprinkle,” I said. “There are two of them.”

“Want to rephrase that as a question?”

“No.”

The minute I ate the doughnut, I wanted all five more. I wanted a dozen, all to myself, in some closet where I didn’t have to hear about what they cost or how many empty calories they had in them.

“Ohmigod, please tell me you’ve at least tried these.” I was shaking down the napkin for any sprinkles I might have missed. They were that delicious.

“Sugar makes my face swell.”

“Sugar makes my face smile.” I was practically salivating at the thought of chocolate. Since Birch was born, my mom didn’t even notice if I ate brownies for breakfast. Maybe my sister was right, maybe I was a sugar junkie.

“And then you’ll crash and complain about how tired you are all afternoon.”

“Do you talk this way to Dex?”

“Dex lives on sugar.” Delia honked at the too-slow driver in front of us. “He never crashes because he’s completely addicted. Sugar is as toxic as any poison.”

“It’s not that toxic. I remember when you used to drink Mountain Dews on the way to drop me off at school. You weren’t, like, dying or anything.”

“But my skin was terrible. It’s your body, Anna,” she said. “And I’m only concerned because I want you to be your very best self while I’m at work.”

“You’re not taking me with you?”

“This week you’re going to Dex’s work.”

“Okay, so pretend that I’ve forgotten everything you’ve told me about Dex. Who is he and what does he do again?”

“See, I knew you weren’t listening. Was that so hard to admit?”

Yes, I thought, because it is a lie. I couldn’t hear something she never said.

“Well, where to start—he’s biracial, but probably whiter than I am.”

While Delia was equal opportunity about the BMWs she would borrow, when it came to actual dating, frat-boy white was last year’s color. In high school, she was strictly interested in black guys. She found the one Nigerian exchange student to take to prom. She once broke up with a perfectly nice biracial kid from the suburbs because he was “too white.” I think Roger slipped in because he had an accent and wore eye makeup on a semi-regular basis. By sheer virtue of his awesome command of Euro-weird, she must have overlooked the pasty glow of his flesh. Never mind that she herself had a lack of pigment rivaled by the walking dead. If I could have rolled my eyes, Exorcist-style, into the back of my skull, I would have.

“But he can’t be whiter than you because you’re actually white.”

“Ha-ha,” she said. “You’ll like him. He’s a writer.”

“Roger is a writer,” I said.

“I know, I know,” she said. “You hate Roger. But he’s not a writer like Roger is a writer. He writes for Chips Ahoy!”

It is a miracle that I didn’t spit my doughnut onto her dashboard.