Kiss Her Once for Me (92)
“I told the family the news about your graphic novel,” she says, in a voice that’s nothing like sandpaper, nothing like a drum. It’s hollow and monotone and absolutely devastating. “You know,” she spits, “the one about the girl who fakes an engagement for money and lies to an entire family at Christmas.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I can feel my throat start to close, but I force the words out anyway. “I—I can explain,” I say. Everyone in the room is staring at me, but I can only see Jack and the stubborn set of her jaw and the coldness of her blank expression. “Please let me explain.”
It’s not Jack who answers me, though. It’s Alan. “You’re going to explain how you came into my home with the intention of stealing part of my father’s money?”
“I wasn’t trying to steal anything. Andrew agreed to—”
“That’s what your webcomic is about?” Jack asks cuttingly. “It’s about how you deceived our family? How you deceived me?”
“No, it’s… it’s… fiction.”
Jack snaps the laptop closed. “It seems pretty true to life from what I’ve seen.”
“I mean, ye-yes… yes…” I stammer. “It’s based on my life, but I didn’t come here to deceive anyone. I didn’t want to deceive anyone! I just—I needed the money, and I didn’t expect to fall in love with all of you.”
Katherine’s arms are folded across her chest, her expression like a closed fist. “I showed you hospitality. I treated you like a daughter. And this—”
“Mom—” Andrew tries, but I’m the one who has to make Katherine understand.
“I know, Katherine. I know! And I’m so sorry. You don’t understand what it meant to me. Every moment of family bonding time. All I’ve ever wanted is a mom like you.”
Katherine cuts her gaze away from me, and it’s clear from her silence that I’m never going to have a mom like her.
I turn to Lovey, but Lovey just shakes her head and slowly rises from the couch. “I—I think I need a joint.”
I finally pivot to Meemaw, who’s clutching her sangria and giving me a pitying look. “Listen, everyone, let’s not overreact to a little light deception,” Meemaw tries. “If anyone is to blame for this whole quagmire, it’s my douche-canoe of an ex-husband. No offense, Lovey.”
“None taken. Where is my lighter?”
“Richard is the one who made it so Andrew can’t inherit without getting married,” Meemaw continues. “He practically forced the poor boy into this situation.”
Alan turns to his mother. “So it’s true? What it said in her silly little cartoon? And you knew, Mother? About this stipulation?”
Meemaw takes a sip of her morning sangria.
“Is it all true, then? The stuff about… about the Sam and Ricky characters…?” Alan slices his gaze between Andrew and Dylan, and there’s an undercurrent to this question that makes me hold tighter to Andrew.
“Yes,” Andrew says, in a shadow of a whisper. “It’s all true.”
Alan erupts. “You’ve been sleeping with Dylan? Under this roof?”
“What is it that upsets you, exactly, Mr. Prescott?” Dylan snaps up from the arm of the couch. “The fact that your almost-thirty-year-old son has sex, or the fact that he has sex with me?”
Alan advances on Dylan. “How dare you speak to me like that in my own house? After everything this family has done for you?”
“Your house?” Andrew screams back. “You’re never here! You never, ever show up for this family, and we all know the real reason—”
“Can we not shout, please?” Katherine interrupts harshly. She presses two fingers to her left temple. “This whole thing is giving me a migraine.”
Alan continues to shout. “The real reason is that I’m busy providing for this family like a man is supposed to, which you would know if you ever—”
Andrew barks a laugh. “Spare me your gender essentialism. You’re never around because you cheat on Mom.”
“Andrew,” three people say at once, their voices blending together in the anxiety vortex that is my brain. I can’t think about Andrew and Alan, can’t think about what this news means for Katherine. All I can think about is Jack, still sitting on the couch, holding onto the laptop like it’s another shiny shield that might protect her.
“What? We all know,” Andrew spits. “He has an apartment on the waterfront for his twenty-three-year-old girlfriend, so tell me, Dad: how, exactly, is that providing for this family?”
“I’m not going to stand here and be insulted like this,” Alan declares, and then he promptly storms out of the room. Katherine whimpers, only once, before she straightens like the terrifying force of a woman she is.
“Look, none of this is Dylan’s fault. Or Ellie’s!” Andrew says, quietly enough to appease his mother’s apparent migraine. “Ellie works at one of my investment properties. I asked her to do this. I practically begged, and I knew she would go along with it because she desperately needed the money. All of this was so I could claim the inheritance, so if you need to be mad, be mad at me.”