Such a Pretty Face by Annabelle Costa

Chapter 32

“So when do we get to meet this boyfriend of yours?”

I had been mostly tuning out on my conversation with my mother. She was describing some new sort of diet to me. The diet involved something like, I don’t know, eating only rat droppings or something like that. Anyway, it doesn’t matter—I’ve officially given up on her fad diets. All she has to do is say the word “diet,” and I zone out automatically. It’s like I’ve been hypnotized.

“Huh?” I say.

“The boyfriend,” my mother says impatiently. “The man you’re seeing. The crippled one.”

“That’s not very PC,” I say. Although actually, Brody will sometimes refer to himself as “crippled.” It’s like the N-word. If you’re black, it’s okay to use it, but if you’re not, it isn’t.

“I didn’t realize I had to be politically correct when I’m talking to my daughter on the phone,” Mom sniffs. “So are you still seeing him? What was his name? Brandon?”

“Brody,” I say. “But you said he was no good. That he was taking advantage of me.”

“Why? Do you think he is too?” Mom asks anxiously.

I sigh. For a moment, I debate pretending that Brody and I broke up. But she’d find out the truth eventually. So I reluctantly agree to bring Brody over for dinner at the Davisons.

Brody is very agreeable about the whole thing when I tell him. He likes the idea that we’re getting serious enough to meet each other’s parents. Of course, there’s the problem of how he’s going to get out to my mother’s house, which isn’t very accessible by bus. Finally, Brody’s mother eagerly volunteers to drive both of us over.

As we pull onto the street where I used to live, my parents’ house comes into view. Including the two steps to the front door. Damn. How did I forget about those stairs?

“I forgot about the stairs,” I say miserably.

“Don’t worry!” Maggie says cheerfully as she pulls up to the curb. “I always carry a portable ramp. Believe me, Emily, this happens all the time.”

The portable ramp is made of metal and sort of looks like half a ladder. Maggie shoos off my offer to help, and she lays the top part on our top step and the bottom part on the ground. With the ramp, Brody can drive up the stairs without a problem, at which point Maggie takes down the ramp. I notice that our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Jenkins, has stopped mowing her lawn and is just staring at us, slack-jawed.

“So I’ll come get you when you call,” Maggie says to Brody. “You’re going to spend the night at our house, right?”

Brody nods. “Yeah.”

Maggie looks over at me. “You’re welcome to stay as well, Emily.”

“Oh.” I am momentarily surprised by her offer. “Do you have a guest bedroom?”

Maggie laughs. “A guest bedroom? You’d sleep with Brody, wouldn’t you?” She seems amused by my pink cheeks. “My son is a grown-up. I certainly don’t mind if he shares his bed with a young lady.”

“I’ll just go home after,” I mumble. I glance over at Brody, whose cheeks are just as pink as mine feel.

Maggie smooths out Brody’s hair and straightens his tie out, until he says, “Please, Mom. Quit it. I’m fine.” After she finally leaves, I ring the doorbell, although I have a bad feeling that my mother has been peeking under the window shade and witnessed the entire spectacle.

Sure enough, roughly one second after I ring the doorbell, my mother throws open the door. She has a smile plastered on her face that doesn’t even come close to reaching her eyes.

“Hello, Emily,” she says. She looks at Brody and squares her chest. “It’s nice to meet you, Brody.”

She holds out her hand to him, which is a normal thing to do if I hadn’t told her he’s a quadriplegic. Brody, to his credit, tries to make it work. He bats at her hand with his, and my mother looks properly horrified.

“Shoes off,” Mom reminds me as we enter the house. I slide my loafers off, and Mom looks critically down at Brody’s wheels. “Brody, I’m sorry but we have a lot of carpeting in this house that I like to keep clean.”

“Oh!” Brody glances down at his wheels. “I, um… I could go back and forth a few times on the welcome mat…”

Brody and I spend the next ten minutes attempting to get his wheels clean. I end up grabbing a towel from the linen closet to help, because the last thing I want is my mother complaining about tire marks all over her carpet. I’d never hear the end of it.

“I’m sorry, Emily,” Brody murmurs to me.

“Don’t be sorry,” I whisper back. “It’s my mother’s fault for having this stupid white carpet. She’s tortured us with it for years.”

And of course, while I’m on my knees, cleaning the tread of Brody’s dirty tires, that would be the moment my sister Camille walks into the room.

“Brody Nolan!” I hear her say. I look up and see her standing in front of him, all long legs and shiny yellow hair. The dress she’s wearing is tight enough that you can see every curve of her perfect body. Is she trying to impress Brody? If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was. It’s also suspicious her handsome new husband is nowhere in sight.

“Cammy Davison,” he replies, sounding less than thrilled.

I struggle back into a standing position. Screw the tires. They’re clean enough.

“Actually,” Camille says, “I go by Camille now.”

“Camille,” he repeats obediently.

“Brody.” She lays her hand on his shoulder, and I cringe internally. “You look good. Really good.”

Brody laughs. “Okay, whatever. It’s good to see you too, Cammy.”

I want to give him a hug for calling her “Cammy” two seconds after she instructed him not to.

“Where’s Rob?” I ask.

Camille waves her hand. “He had to work late. But I didn’t want to miss this.”

“Emily said you got married,” Brody says. “So congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Camille beams. “And you’re dating Emily then, huh? That’s, um… very nice.”

My mother comes into the foyer then to recruit my help in the kitchen. I always end up helping in the kitchen—never Camille. Camille would always complain that working in the kitchen made her too hot and sweaty, although I’m the one who sweats like a water fountain.

“Carrots.” Mom points out a pile of ten large carrots. It seems like an awful lot of carrots for five people. Is this the start of some new all-carrot diet? “Peel them and chop them.”

“Okay,” I agree.

I peel carrots for a minute in silence, trying not to think about what Brody and Camille are discussing in the next room. My mother breaks the silence: “Emily, this is too much.”

I put down the knife, relieved. “I knew it was too many carrots. How many do you want? Three?”

“Not the carrots,” Mom says. Damn. “That boy. Brody. I can’t believe you’re really seeing him romantically.”

I should have known this was where the conversation was going. “Well, I am.”

“It’s so weird, Emily,” Mom says. “Nobody dates men like that.”

I don’t respond. I just focus on the carrots. Peel, peel, peel. Chop, chop, chop.

“You know,” she continues, “Camille said he was on drugs in high school. Drugs.”

When I don’t answer her, she keeps talking, “He’s probably trying to get more drugs from you, Emily. I bet that’s his game. Did he ask you for drugs? Are you getting him drugs?”

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Brody doesn’t even drink alcohol, much less take drugs. And if he wanted drugs, I’d be the last person who would know how to get them for him.

My mother puts down the spoon she was using to stir her sauce. “I’ll give you five thousand dollars right now if you break up with him,” she says.

I almost choke on carrot fumes. My parents are not wealthy, and offering me five thousand dollars is a big deal. That’s not money they would just throw around.

“Stop being ridiculous,” I snap at her.

“That’s a serious offer, Emily.”

“Please stop.”

She huffs. “Don’t act so offended. Sometimes I have to convince you not to do things for your own good. Remember when you had that ridiculous fantasy about becoming a singer?”

I lay the knife down on the table. I’m scared if I don’t put it down, I’ll do something dumb with it. “I need to go to the bathroom,” I say to my mother before she can offer me more money.

There’s one bathroom in my parents’ house located under the stairwell. Usually, I hate that bathroom—it’s so tiny that I feel like I have to take a deep breath just to fit inside. If there’s anything on the rim of the sink, my butt knocks it over before I can get out.

But right now, going to the bathroom serves a dual purpose. Well, three purposes because I do have to go to the bathroom—I’ve been peeing practically every hour lately (I hope I don’t have a urinary tract infection that I need to return to Dr. Richmond to treat). But the second purpose is I get to escape my mother. And third, you can hear absolutely everything going on in the living room from the bathroom. The minute I get inside, the voices that were once distant are now loud and clear.

“She’s a school principal now!” Camille is saying. “Can you believe it?”

Oh, thank God. It’s just Camille talking about her stupid friends from high school.

“Uh-huh,” Brody says politely.

“You remember Charlotte, don’t you?”

“Um, not really, to be honest.”

“Well,” Camille sniffs, “you probably don’t remember much from high school.”

Brody laughs. “Yeah. That’s kind of true.”

I get an uneasy feeling. So far, Brody has denied all of Camille’s allegations. But he doesn’t seem to be denying it right now.

“So Brody.” Camille’s voice takes on an almost flirtatious tone. “You and Emily. What’s the deal with that?”

“We’re going out. I thought you knew.”

“Ha ha,” Camille mutters. “You know what I mean. Emily doesn’t remind me too much of the girls I used to see you with.”

“Yeah, well. I’m a little different than I was when I was sixteen. You know?”

“But you can’t really like her, Brody.”

I flinch at my sister’s words. There’s a long pause while I press my ear against the wall so hard that it starts to ache. Finally, Brody says, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just wondering what your game is here.”

“Game?”

“Come on, Brody. I know you pretty well.”

“You don’t know me at all, Cammy.”

“Is it that you think you can’t get anyone better?” she asks. “Do you get high all the time so you don’t have to think about who you’re actually hooking up with?”

“How could you talk that way about your own sister?” he snaps at her. “This is… disgusting.”

“Is it about money? Because if it’s about money, let me assure you, she doesn’t have money.”

“Jesus…”

“What will it take,” she says slowly, “to get you to leave Emily alone?”

And then there’s a very, very long silence. I realize I’m holding my breath.

“Cammy.” Brody’s voice is first to break the silence. “You need to understand something. I like Emily. I like her a lot.”

“I don’t believe you,” Camille retorts. “I can tell you haven’t changed at all since high school. I have to protect my little sister. I know what kind of person you are, and I know there’s no way you could like Emily.”

“You haven’t changed at all either,” Brody says. “You’re still a self-righteous bitch.”

“Fine, don’t ‘fess up,” Camille says. “I’ll just tell Emily you hit on me while she was in the kitchen. She’ll believe anything I tell her.”

“Whatever, Cammy,” Brody says. “Emily’s a lot smarter than you seem to think she is.”

“Book smart maybe,” Camille concedes. “But not smart enough to see through your little act.”

“It’s not an act.” Brody’s voice is so quiet, I have to strain to hear. “I love her. And if you’re not cool with that, then you can go f—”

His profanity gets cut off by my mother banging on the bathroom door. “You okay in there, Emily?” she calls to me. “You didn’t get stuck in there again, did you?”

I swear, that only happened once.