All Adults Here(82)

“What building?” Nicky asked.

Elliot poured the rest of his drink down his throat. “What did she tell you? When? Did she call you?”

“Wendy and I had lunch.” Porter turned to Nicky. “Our big brother bought the building on the corner of the roundabout. But it’s top secret.” She lifted a finger to her lips. Being in a bar at night with her brothers was enough to make her feel a little bit drunk, even though she’d only siphoned a single sip of Nicky’s beer.

“The corner? The wine store?” Nicky asked, turning his face back and forth between his siblings.

“That was one of its recent occupants, yes. Seventy-two Main Street. Next to Sal’s. I can’t believe Wendy told you.” Elliot fumed. “I just didn’t want it to be a big clusterfuck, you know, with everyone telling me what to do and what not to do. I’m an adult, and this is literally my job, building things.” His glass was empty now, but he brought it to his lips anyway.

“I think that’s exciting, El,” Nicky said. “What are you going to put there? Are you going to move your office? Or rent it out? Build something new? That’s major. Putting yourself right at the center of it. Does Astrid know? She’s going to throw a parade. She’s going to send an email and not bcc anybody, and we’ll all get five hundred replies.”

“Oh, god,” Porter said. “You know, it might be better if Birdie were actually really young and could teach her how not to do things like that.”

“No, Mom does not know. And I would very much appreciate it if you two wouldn’t tell her. I’m working on a couple of potential deals, and I just want everything to be set before I tell her.” Elliot rolled his glass along the edge of the table. “Whatever choice I make, it’s going to be the wrong one, and I’m not looking forward to it.”

Bells chimed. Nicky dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “That’s me, it’s Juliette, let me take this. I was supposed to call her when I got in, but then I fell asleep.” Porter scooted over and moved out of the way. Nicky nimbly jogged to the front of the bar and pushed open the heavy door back outside.

Porter held out her hand and Elliot waved it away, making his way to standing by himself. They walked to the bar together and leaned against the smooth glossy wood. Another drink appeared in front of Elliot, and another seltzer in front of Porter. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this close to her brother after dark. She could see him more clearly in the dark, the familiar shape of his nose, the way he held his elbows when he was nervous. Being an adult was like always growing new layers of skin, trying to fool yourself that the bones underneath were different too.

“Why don’t you want to tell her?” Porter asked. It felt kind of like being in Groundhog Day, being in a family. No matter what happened, the next morning, Elliot would still be her big brother, no matter if they’d had fun tonight or pissed each other off as usual. Her mother would still be her mother. Her brain was trying to do the math to figure it out—if she and Elliot and Nicky had all had different sets of parents, did those different sets continue, on alternative timelines, all the way to the present? Was there a reset button? Their father’s dying had been a reset, that much she knew. Maybe that was when Astrid had started to change, and they were all too busy being heartbroken to notice.

“Do you not see how much harder she is on me? Than the two of you? Do you remember when I stayed out too late with Scotty and she made me sleep on the porch?”

“That didn’t happen,” Porter said.

“It did. I mean, she came out an hour later and let me sleep in my room, but she did it. Do you remember when Dad died and you came home from school and you and Nicky slept in the same bed for a week? I stayed in my apartment.” Elliot sipped his drink.

“You never said you wanted to come sleep over!” Porter said. “Were we supposed to read your mind?”

“You don’t get it yet. But you will. And who knows, I probably do it to my kids too. At least right now they’re too young to remember.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound ominous at all,” Porter said.

Nicky breezed back in and kissed them both on the cheek. “Juliette’s coming tomorrow,” he said. His beard and breath stank of weed. “We’ll surprise Cecelia. Oh, before I forget—I have a question for you guys. Who the hell is Barbara Baker? Mom has mentioned her, like, six times, and I have absolutely no memory of her.”

“She was married to Bob Baker, you know? He always used to drive the float at the Harvest Parade? What’s most fucked about it is that Mom was right there, like right there when it happened. It could have been her so easily. That’s what I keep thinking about.” Elliot took another sip of his drink.

Porter had just opened her mouth to begin to explain that, in fact, Barbara had been more than a wife to her husband and an unlucky standin for their mother when, across the bar, a woman in her midthirties narrowed her eyes at them, a look they all recognized.

“Uh-oh,” Nicky said.

The woman slid off her barstool and staggered toward them. “Are you Jake George?” Devotees of Nicky’s movie were between the ages of thirty and forty, waist-deep in their life decisions, with a pulsing soft spot for their teenage crushes, those dreamboats who had offered glimpses of what love could be. Cecelia had told Porter that some of the kids in her class had seen the movie, too, and quoted lines that were now screamingly racist and sexist at each other—how had it been less than twenty years ago, when jokes like that seemed permissible, let alone funny? Nicky had been horrified then and he was horrified now, but he was polite, and so he stuck out his hand and said yes. The woman squealed and spun her body around quickly to take a selfie. Nicky had a no-selfie policy, but the woman worked astonishingly fast, given her obvious intoxication, and so after the flash he grabbed his siblings and retreated to their corner. Safety in numbers.