All Adults Here(74)

“No, yeah, I’m fine,” Porter said, her mind reeling. “I’ll be right back, are you guys okay? I have to pee. I’ll be right back. Don’t hit Gammy, Cecelia, okay? Rachel, you’re in charge.” Porter patted Cecelia on the head and then rolled her eyes at her mother.



* * *



—

Rather than go into her old bedroom, which was of course now occupied by Cecelia, Porter went into what had been Elliot’s room. It looked much the same as it had when Elliot was in high school: neat as a pin, with a much-used dartboard hanging on the back of the door and several New York Yankees pennants hanging on the walls. Porter thought that his love for the Yankees might explain most of her problems with her brother: more than anything else, more than money, even, he wanted to win. Now he was trying to win a contest with himself, a contest that he (clearly, so clearly) was destined to lose.

The full-size bed was made, as always, with a plaid bedspread and fourteen pillows too many for a normal person. Porter flopped backward onto the bed gently, the way a scuba diver had to fall into the sea. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and then rolled onto her side, shoving two of the pillows in between her knees.

Jeremy answered after two rings.

“Hey,” Porter said. “I just heard.”

“About Sidney’s nose? You’re lucky I’m a doctor! Otherwise I’d charge your crazy brother’s ass.”

“I mean,” Porter said, her voice lowering, “you’re not a doctor doctor.”

“Oh, you want to be like that, do you?” Jeremy asked. He was purring. “Is this how you apologize?”

“I thought I could apologize later,” Porter said. “If you’re free?”

“I’ll meet you in the barn at ten,” Jeremy said. “I anticipate a sick animal. An emergency call.”

“SOS, and sorry,” Porter said, “about the nose.” She waited for Jeremy to hang up, and when the phone clicked to dead air, she stared at Elliot’s bookshelf, which was full of paperbacks he’d read in high school, several volumes of The Guinness Book of World Records, sports trophies, and no sign of a personality whatsoever.

There was a knock at the door. “Yeah?” Porter called, still horizontal.

Rachel opened the door. “Hey.”

Porter struggled to sit up elegantly and failed. “Hi,” she said. “Sorry, I was about to come back down.”

Rachel shut the door behind her and leaned against it. “Pretty funny that Cecelia punched Sidney Fogelman. That girl is a dick.”

“You know, I got that impression,” Porter said. “Is Cecelia going to get in trouble, you think?”

Rachel shook her head. “I’m not sure exactly what Sidney said, but I think it’s covered under the umbrella of ‘hate speech,’ so if anyone is in deep shit, it’s her.”

They were quiet for a minute.

“How are you?” Rachel asked. “You said you were at the hospital?”

“I had some spotting,” Porter said. “But I’m okay. How are you?”

“I’m okay too,” Rachel said. “Josh and I have been talking a little. He came over for dinner. I don’t know.”

“That seems good,” Porter said. “Right?”

Rachel shrugged. “I still want to kill him. I’m just testing it out, just in case I might not always want to kill him. How about you?”

Porter wanted to tell her friend the truth, she did. And even more than that, she wanted to be the kind of woman who wouldn’t stand for bad behavior in herself or anyone else. She wanted to be a woman with standards. And she would be. The dividing line was so clear—the finish line, the checkered flag, the whole thing. That was how Porter saw it—an expiration date. She had until the baby was born—until she grunted and pushed her way from one kind of person to another. She’d push it all out—along with the baby, she’d push out this part of herself, the part that was juvenile and selfish and on the wrong side of her own history. Just not quite yet. “I haven’t seen him much. What was going to happen, really?” Porter was going to say more but found that she couldn’t. Rachel walked over and gave her a tight hug. Lies by omission weren’t as bad, Porter told herself, and she willed herself to believe it.





Chapter 33





Shear Beauty



Cecelia’s punishment, such as it was, was to help Birdie in the salon: an internship, for which she would not be paid. August, who very much supported the punch, volunteered to join her, and so Birdie now had two eighth-grade assistants. Two other hairdressers had chairs in the shop—Ricky, who would only say that he was “older than he looked,” with tight jeans that were always cuffed high enough to show off his colorful socks, and Krystal, who had cropped blue hair and wide hips and a good loud laugh. As everywhere in Clapham, Shear Beauty was a place to chat with neighbors about the weather, the president, one’s offspring, Barbra Streisand, and though Birdie and her employees didn’t know about sports, they knew enough to get through a haircut.

August and Cecelia took turns sweeping up the cut locks of hair, and carrying towels and capes to the laundromat around the corner. On the weekends, they ran across the roundabout to Spiro’s to fetch coffee and pastries. They practiced shampooing each other’s hair, and then helped each other clean up the water they’d accidentally sprayed on the floor. Mostly they chatted up the customers as they waited, which was easy enough, and August quickly taught Birdie how to install a credit card reader on her telephone, so that she could save some of the fees she was currently being charged.