This Close to Okay(56)
“Have you two always been close?”
“He’s five years older, and he never let me hang out with him when we were kids. Unless his friends were busy, then he would. But I had to promise not to tell anyone he played with my Barbies. He said he’d kill me if I did, and at the time I one hundred percent believed he would’ve done it. He has a very strong personality. I’m making him sound like an asshole, and he’s really not! He’s just…well, you’ll see,” she said. “He graduated college summa cum laude and went off to New York and came back like Scrooge McDuck, swimming through a gigantic pile of gold coins. He’s one of those guys who knows everybody and is good at everything. Everyone loves him. All my girlfriends have had crushes on him at one point or another—even my best friend, Aisha, and she’s a lesbian half the time!” Tallie laughed. “I guess all of it could make me jealous. Maybe it would if I were a man. He can be difficult, but so can I. I love being his sister. His energy is gold. It’s always been gold.”
“So’s yours.”
“That’s what you think?”
“Yes. And I like how you make your brother sound. Simpatico. Larger than life,” Emmett said through the dark of the car.
*
Lionel’s place was encircled by the forest on his property, and Tallie knew the secret spot where she could park her car. She and Emmett would be able to walk over the bridge leading to the enormous patio with two huge fire pits flanking it and a heated infinity pool in the middle that seemed to spill out into the grass like an illusion. In season, the bridge was surrounded by a copse of fecund apple and pear trees and a bright patch of wildflowers that attracted myriad hummingbirds and bees. It was a genuine certified wildlife nature preserve and sanctuary. They had a gardener, but Tallie loved getting her hands dirty with Zora and River. In the spring, they planted rows and rows of sunflowers, although oftentimes the deer would get to them before long—the big sunny blossoms appearing in the afternoon, disappearing overnight.
She turned down a gravel road with a mohawk of leaves in the middle. The ride was bumpy and louder than the smooth street—popping rocks, wetness sucking at the tires. She stopped the car once they got to the edge of the bridge. There was a wide-bowl clearing under the sky. The landscaping lights leading to the bridge shone like little spaceships across the leafy black. Tallie smoothed her skirt after getting out of the car. She went in the backseat for the cake, which Emmett insisted on carrying. He also insisted on putting her car keys in his pocket, so she did him one better and gave him her lip gloss, too, so she could leave her purse in the trunk. He slipped it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, and Tallie wished she had that on a short video loop the same way she’d wanted one of him shaking the cigarette from the soft pack.
“Li usually has a big screen set up outside with a movie playing on it. Last year it was Psycho,” Tallie said after punching in the gate code. Her heels crunched up the wooden steps of the bridge. Emmett was right behind her, and she reached for his hand.
The quiet that ribboned through the darkness was slowly eclipsed as they got closer. Floody creek water gurgled over rocks below. Peppy chatter and music from the house rose like a heat shimmer, getting louder as they crossed the bridge out there alone. Emmett was fetching in that suit. Tallie imagined the two of them stopping, Emmett taking her in his arms, kissing her neck, her mouth, gently putting her earlobe between his teeth. She held the vision of him wet on the metal bridge over the river against the man in that suit next to her on the wooden bridge. Two completely different bridges, two completely different men. Two jagged, mysterious halves of a whole. The zapping was back—her heart, her body, her blood—like a mad scientist’s creation humming with life and green lightning.
“Ta-daa!” she said, motioning her free hand toward Lionel’s house. Gray stone, glass, and more gray stone and more glass sprawled out and up and over in front of them. A small rolling knot of costumed people hung on the hill to their left, next to a bricked fire pit. A pumpkin-carving station was set up not far from that, and another, bigger crowd spilled into the yard, down the rocky pathway leading to more gardens. No one seemed to mind the mud. Orange and purple lanterns floated atop the infinity pool. One woman wearing not much more than glitter stood near the edge of it with gigantic angel wings sprouting from her shoulder blades, casting two wing shadows on the glowy water. A movie Tallie loved was playing on the large projection screen. She pointed and turned to Emmett.
“Donnie Darko.”
“Aha. And wow, damn,” he said, fully taking in the scene before looking at her.
“It’s extra.”
“I feel underdressed.”
“No. You’re perfect.”
They walked across the patio, Tallie saying hello and waving to the people she recognized. She spotted Zora, dressed in full Athena-goddess-of-wisdom regalia, standing by one of the tall glass doors, drinking champagne from a flute. Zora, looking every bit the former Miss Kentucky she was, wore two armfuls of chattering gold bangle bracelets and a thin gold headband of leaves. Her black curls hung loose and wild around her face, over her bare brown shoulders. When she saw Tallie, she smiled and put both hands in the air.
“Lulaaah!” Zora squealed.
“Zoraaaa!” Tallie squealed back, going to her and hugging her. “Aren’t you cold?”