Such a Pretty Face by Annabelle Costa

Chapter 27

Brody calls me on Friday night to ask if I’m busy the next afternoon. Of course, he knows I’m not. He has not once called me to ask if I was busy on a Saturday or Sunday and discovered that I was, in fact, busy. Nobody has a less exciting social life than I do.

Even so, it’s sweet that he asks.

“I’m not busy,” I assure him. “What’s going on?”

“I thought we could get tickets to the new Avengers movie,” he says. “I can reserve them in advance.”

“Sure,” I agree.

“Also,” he adds, “my mom is going to be in the city and was wondering if you’d like to have lunch.”

“Oh.” That prospect sounds less good to me. I’ve never gone through meeting the parents. What will Mrs. Nolan think of me? I break out in a cold sweat.

“My mom is nice,” Brody says quickly. “She’s completely crazy, but she’s nice. And she really wants to meet you.”

“She does? Why?”

“Well, because you’re my girlfriend…” Brody sounds a little embarrassed.

“Are you close with her?”

“Sort of.” Brody takes a breath. “I mean, when I was a teenager, I never listened to a word she said, so that didn’t make for the best relationship. But then after my accident, she and my dad took me in, and… they did a lot for me. She did a lot for me.” He pauses. “But it wasn’t so great in a lot of ways. I got a little too reliant on them. When I was twenty-three, Sean basically told me I had to move out, and my mom was against it. She’s still irritated that I moved out.”

“Why did Sean tell you that you had to move out?”

Brody snorts. “Um, because you can’t have a decent social life when you’re in your twenties and living with your parents? Especially if your mom is the one dressing you.”

Touché.

We’re supposed to meet Brody’s mother at noon on Saturday. The amount of time I spend deciding what to wear is a little ridiculous, especially since my clothes are all pretty much the same, and all varying shades of black. I wear a skirt again, pairing it with black stockings. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find a pair of stockings that don’t cut into my waist like a knife. Why do they make stockings so goddamn tight? I’ve tried thigh-high stockings, but those never stay up.

So I’m only mildly uncomfortable as I stand with Brody in front of a restaurant, waiting for his mother to appear. Before Brody even points her out, I recognize her immediately from the photo. Even without the photo, I’d recognize her. She looks so much like Brody—same clear blue eyes, same nose, same infectious grin when she waves at us. She’s an attractive middle-aged woman, and I bet she was pretty when she was young.

“Emily!” Mrs. Nolan cries. And before I know what’s happening, she’s enveloping me in an enormous bear hug. I don’t get hugged a lot, even by my parents, and this completely throws me off balance. And then she kisses me too. Kisses me! What’s wrong with this woman?

“I’ve heard so much about you, sweetie,” Mrs. Nolan says, pulling away from me, although still stubbornly holding onto my arm. I glance at Brody, who is bright red. “It’s just so great to finally meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Nolan,” I reply automatically. Well, at least she seems to like me.

“No, you’ve gotta call me Maggie!” she says. She’s got a New York accent that’s as thick as my mother’s. It’s weird how many people in my parents’ generation seem to have that accent, while Brody and I don’t, even though both of us have lived here our whole lives. Then again, if we met someone from Georgia, they’d probably know we were New Yorkers the second we opened our mouths.

I force a smile. “Okay. Maggie.”

Mrs. Nolan (that is, Maggie) descends on Brody next. She throws her arms around him while he tries to return the hug best he can. She kisses him on both cheeks and musses his hair. It’s adorable.

“My mother is very affectionate,” Brody points out unnecessarily.

“Well, I haven’t seen you in ages!” Maggie complains. She puts her hand on his shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “You used to come home every weekend.”

It occurs to me that the reason Brody isn’t coming home every weekend anymore is because of me. “Sorry about that,” I say.

“Don’t you apologize!” Maggie snaps at me. “This is the happiest I’ve seen Brody since he was a kid. You think I got a problem with my son being in love?”

And now both of us are blushing bright red.

The hostess has a table for us, although it’s not as close to the entrance as either Brody or I would like. Brody has issues with navigating a crowded room with his wheelchair. My issue? My butt. Sometimes it’s like my goddamn butt has a mind of its own. My butt has an amazing ability to knock things over without my even realizing that it happened. At work, my butt has typed on other people’s keyboards. One time, I swear to God, my butt stapled something.

I hate my butt. Even Sir Mixalot would think it’s too big.

Anyway, we’re two tables away from our final destination when I hear someone yell out, “Hey! My drink!”

I turn around, knowing how everything will unfold before it even happens. A guy is standing up, his shirt splattered with water, his glass overturned on the table.

“Your butt just knocked over my drink!” the guy yells at me.

He’s so angry, like I did it on purpose. It’s amazing how people sometimes seem angry at me just for being fat. Does he think I gained all this weight just so I could come over to this restaurant and knock over his drink?

“I’m sorry,” I mumble.

Fortunately, a waitress hurries over, assuring him that she’ll get him a new glass of water. I wish I could say that ended the whole ordeal, but the guy still seems pissed off. “It’s all over my shirt,” he whines.

“Calm down—it’ll dry,” Maggie snaps at him.

The guy settles back down in his seat. But as I’m turning to go to my table, I hear him mutter loudly: “Why don’t you go on a diet or something, lady?”

I don’t feel much like talking after that. Thankfully, Maggie says nothing more about the incident, and she fills the silence with loud chatter. She’s even more outgoing than Brody is. It’s endearing.

“Brody was impossible as a teenager,” Maggie confides in me.

“No, I wasn’t.” Brody grins. “I was delightful.”

“Actually, he was delightful,” Maggie agrees. “Sean used to tell us to go to hell, but Brody was always very sweet and nice—used to always say he loved us and all that. But then he’d go do the opposite of anything we told him. Like, we’d say he was grounded and couldn’t leave his room. Then we’d go to his room and find out he climbed out the window.”

So basically, she’s telling me that my boyfriend is a liar.

“You shouldn’t have given me a bedroom right next to a tree if you didn’t want me to climb down it,” Brody says.

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Anyway, thank God he grew out of that phase. Now he’s sweet and nice and he’s a wonderful son.”

Of course, it’s probably easier to keep your son from going out against your wishes when he’s confined to a wheelchair. I’m betting after Brody broke his neck, he didn’t climb out the window anymore. Part of me wonders how frustrating it must have been for a rebellious nineteen-year-old kid to be stuck living with his parents and having to do everything they told him to do.

“Are you close with your parents, Emily?” Maggie asks.

“Not really,” I admit.

Maggie’s face falls. “No? How come?”

I can’t very well explain to her that every conversation I have with my mother involves her nagging me relentlessly about my weight. So I just shrug.

When the check arrives, Maggie snatches it up and pulls out her purse. Brody sees her do it and frowns. “I wanted to pay,” he complains.

“Too late,” Maggie says as she plunks down her credit card.

“You always pay,” he grumbles. “I’ve got money. Why can’t you let me treat my mother to a meal sometimes?”

Maggie’s eyes twinkle. “Okay, tell you what. Next time I eat with you and Emily, I’ll let you pay.”

I get what she’s saying. She wants to turn this into a regular thing—me, her, and Brody going out for meals. At the very least, I’m going to have to do this on a monthly basis. I wonder what my butt will knock over next month.

“All right.” Maggie scribbles her signature on the check. “You two go on to your movie. I don’t want to keep you.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Brody says. He flips on the control panel on his wheelchair, which juts just off the joystick that he uses to drive the chair. He frowns, then fiddles with it a little more. Which isn’t that easy for him, because he can only hit the buttons using the joint of his little finger.

“What’s wrong?” Maggie asks.

“Controls just died,” Brody mumbles, still frowning.

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Let me look.”

Maggie gets up and leans over Brody, looking down at his control. He puts his hand in his lap and watches her fiddle with his control panel, arguing with her about what she should try pressing. At one point, he shoves her away and starts messing with it himself. But after a few minutes, it’s obvious they’re not having any luck.

“Did you charge it last night?” Maggie asks him.

“Of course I did.” Brody sounds irritated. “Mike plugs it in to charge every night. You think I want my chair dying on me randomly?”

“Well, it looks like the battery is dead,” Maggie says.

Brody sighs. “Yeah, no kidding.”

Brody swats at the controls on his chair, although I can tell what he’d like to do is give it a good punch. But he can’t do that.

“I can push your chair for you,” Maggie offers.

“Yeah, fine.” Brody hangs his head. “I’m sorry, Emily. I don’t think this movie thing is going to happen.”

“Don’t be silly,” Maggie says. “I’ll help Emily get you to the movies.”

“No,” Brody says firmly. “I just need to get home and get this fixed.” He looks between the two of us. “Please.”

“Of course, no big deal.” I squeeze his shoulder and he shoots me a grateful look. “We’ll go some other time.”

With the controls on Brody’s wheelchair now dead, his mother has to push his chair out of the restaurant. I can hear her grunting with each step because his chair is pretty heavy, but when I offer to help, she waves me away.

“I don’t think I can push this thing all the way back to your apartment,” Maggie puffs. “Can we get on the bus?”

“Sure, whatever,” Brody agrees, looking down at his lap and appearing miserable. “Emily, you should just go home. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay,” I agree, because it’s obvious that Brody would rather me not be here for this ordeal. I want to lean in to kiss him goodbye, but I feel weird about it with his mother here and the fact that she’s controlling his wheelchair right now. So I sort of wave and take off. When I look back, I see Maggie pushing Brody toward the nearest bus stop.

_____

That night, Brody calls me as promised. He’s full of apologies. “I would have called you earlier,” he says. “My mom insisted on sticking around for a while to make sure everything was okay.”

“It’s fine,” I say. Even though I had been sitting at home, waiting for him to call for the last three hours. “Did you get your chair working again?”

“Yeah, it was the battery,” Brody says. “Hopefully, Mike just didn’t plug it in right or something. If it starts dying all the time, that’s going to be annoying. I just got this wheelchair a year ago, and I don’t need to start having problems with it.”

“Do you want to meet up for dinner somewhere?” I ask him. Even though I’ve peeled off my uncomfortable skirt and stockings and have put on my most gigantic pair of sweatpants. The waistband is practically nonexistent.

“Um…” Brody hesitates. “It’s just that my chair is still charging, and I’m using my spare, which isn’t the greatest. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable going out. But… you could come here, if you want. Or we could just talk on the phone. Or…” His voice lowers a notch. “We could do something else on the phone.”

I grin and slide my hand into my baggy sweatpants. “Something else sounds good…”

“That would be awesome,” he says eagerly, then he clears his throat. “I want you so bad, Emily. I’m ripping open your shirt, then I’m climbing on top of you…”

I pull my hand out of my pants. He’s doing it again. Telling me all the things he would do to me that he can’t really do. I mean, what’s the point of having a real boyfriend if the sexy stuff is all made up?

“Brody,” I interrupt him.

“Yeah,” he breathes.

“Look,” I say. “It’s okay if when we have phone sex if you’re, like, disabled in the story. Because, you know, you are.”

Brody is silent for a minute. Finally, he says, “But that’s not sexy.”

“Yes,” I insist. “It is sexy.” My cheeks grow warm as I add, “You’re sexy.”

Brody heaves a sigh. “I’m not used to… I mean, girls mostly aren’t into…”

“I want it to be real,” I say. “Please.”

There’s another long silence on the other line. “I rip your shirt open,” he begins again. I feel my face fall, and he adds, “With my teeth…”

I smile. And my hand slides back into place.