My One and Only(7)
“And how do monkeys screw?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Fast and furious,” she laughed, clinking her glass against mine.
Kim and Lou were happily (if sloppily) married. Not exactly my role models, but reassuring nonetheless. They’d moved in a couple of years ago; Kim appeared on my doorstep with a box of Freihofer’s doughnuts and a bottle of wine and offered friendship. My kind of woman.
“Mommy!” came the voice of one of the twins.
“I’m busy!” she called. “Ask your father! Honest to God, Harper, it’s a wonder I haven’t sold them into slavery.” Kim often claimed to envy my single, working woman’s life, but the truth was, I envied hers. Well, in some ways. She and Lou were solid and affectionate, completely secure in the happy way they bickered and bossed each other around. (See? I had nothing against marriage when it was done right.) Their kids ranged in age from seven to two. Griffin was the oldest and had the soul of a sixty-year-old man. Once in a while, he’d come over to play Scrabble and admire Coco. I liked him; definitely preferred him over the four-year-old twins, Gus and Harry, who left a path of chaos, blood and rubble wherever they went. The two-year-old, Desmond, had bitten me last week, but seconds later put his sticky little face against my knee, an oddly lovely sensation, so the jury was still a bit torn over him.
“So are you engaged?” Kim asked, settling in the chair next to me. “Tell me now so I can start my diet. No way am I going to be a bridesmaid weighing this much.”
“I am not engaged,” I answered calmly.
“Holy shitake!” Kim, who tried not to curse in front of her kids, had invented her own brand of swearing, which I’d latched on to myself. “He turned you down?”
“Well, not exactly. My sister called during negotiations, and guess what? She’s getting married.”
“Again?”
“Exactly. But it gets better. She just met him a month ago, and guess what else? He’s…” I paused, took another slug of liquid courage. “He’s my ex-husband’s brother. Half brother, actually.”
She sputtered on her wine. “You have an ex-husband, Harper? How did I not know this?”
I glanced at her. “I guess it never came up. Long ago, youthful mistake, yadda yadda ad infinitum.” I wondered if she bought it. Both of us ignored the screeches that came from her house, though Coco jumped on my lap, channeling Chihuahua, and trembled, cured from her terror only by a potato chip.
“Well, well, well,” Kim said when I offered no further information.
“Yes.”
“So Willa just…ran into your ex-brother-in-law?” Kim asked. “Sure, it’s a small world, but come on. In New York City?”
I hadn’t asked about that, a bit too slammed by the mention of…him…to properly process the information. After all these years of not thinking about him, his name now pulsed and burned in my brain. I shrugged and took another sip of wine, then leaned my head against the back of the chair. The sky was lavender now, only a thin stripe of fading red at the horizon marking the sun’s descent. The tourists who’d come to watch the sunset clambered back into their cars to head for Oak Bluffs or Edgartown for dinner and alcohol—Chilmark, like five of Martha’s Vineyard’s other towns, was dry. Ah, New England.
“So will you be seeing him again? The ex? What’s his name?”
“I guess so, if they actually go through with it. The wedding’s supposed to be in two weeks. In Montana.” Another sip. “His name is Nick.” The word felt big and awkward as it left my mouth. “Nick Lowery.”
“Yoo-hoo! Harper, darlin’! Where you at? Did you talk to your sister? Isn’t it just so exciting! And romantic? My stars, I almost peed my pants when she told me!”
My stepmother charged into the house—she never knocked. “We’re out here, BeverLee,” I called, getting up to greet her—bouffanted, butter-yellow hair sprayed five inches off her scalp (“The bigger the hair, the closer to God,” she often said), more makeup than a Provincetown drag queen, shirt cut down to reveal her massive cle**age. My dad’s trophy wife of the past twenty years…fifteen years younger than he was, blond and Texan. Behind her, my tall and skinny father was almost invisible.
“Hi, Dad.” My father, not one to talk unless a gun was aimed at his heart, nodded, then knelt to pet Coco, who wagged so hard it was a wonder her spine didn’t crack. “Hi, Bev. Yes, I talked to her.” I paused. “Very surprising.”
“Well, hello, there, Kimmy! How you doin’? Did Harper here tell you the happy news?”
“She shore did,” Kim said, immediately sliding into a Texas accent, something she swore was unconscious. “So excitin’!” She caught my eye and winked.
“I know it!” BeverLee chortled. “And oh, my, Montana! That’s just so romantic! I guess Chris worked out there one summer or some such…whatever, I can’t wait! Hoo-whee! What color’s your dress gonna be, honey? Jimmy, what do you think?”
I glanced at my father. He rose, put his hands in his pockets and nodded. This, I knew from experience, would be his contribution to the conversation…Dad was silent to the point of comatose. But BeverLee didn’t need other people to have a conversation, and sure enough, she continued.