Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone

Chapter Thirteen

Eliot

The minute, no, the second I finish work, I’m up out of my chair and ripping at my dress shirt like I’m Clark Kent mid-transformation. I shrug into a sweatshirt and jeans and grab my keys and wallet. I have to get out of my apartment ASAP before I do something stupid. Like call JD thirty times in a row until she answers.

She hasn’t called me since the night at the club and it’s been a few days and I might be, ya know, starting to lose my marbles over it. I really, really don’t want to push her, but I also really, really want to talk to her. So, I decide to take a stroll through my neighborhood in an attempt to control my baser urges. She’ll call me when she wants to call me.

I’m three blocks from my building, hands in my pockets, when I back up a few steps and peek into the window of a Mexican restaurant I just passed by. I’m squinting at my sister hunched over the bar, pecking away at her phone with one hand and chewing on the fingernails of her other hand. We live in the same neighborhood, so I’m not completely shocked to see her, but it’s always strange to unexpectedly observe someone you know out in the wild. For a moment, I see Vera through the eyes of a stranger. There are lines of worry on her face, lit blue by the glow of her phone, and there’s a plate of tacos going ignored next to her. This . . . does not look healthy.

I head in, pull up the barstool next to her, and wait for her to notice me. Ten seconds pass and she’s still typing on her phone. She’s apparently done with the fingernails and has moved to pistoning one of her legs up and down a mile a minute. I reach over and take a bite of one of her tacos. She still doesn’t notice. The bartender does notice though, and I mouth the word “sister” to him with a shrug and a roll of my eyes. He nods and smiles and pantomimes giving me a drink. I point at Vera’s michelada, and within moments, I’ve got one of my own in front of me. There’s only half a taco left when Vera finally looks up.

“Hey! Hey!” She looks like she’s about to throat-punch the taco-stealer and then, when she realizes it’s me, she looks like she’s about to titty-twist the taco-stealer.

“At first I was just waiting to see how long it would take for you to notice me, but then the tacos were really good,” I say with a shrug.

She mumbles something that I can almost guarantee involves a creative way of making me see stars and then motions to the bartender for another plate of tacos.

“You a little busy there?” I ask, motioning toward her phone. “You didn’t notice I was here for like ten straight minutes.”

And just like that, the obstinate, irritated expression on her face melts away and concern furrows her brow. “Yeah. I was emailing with one of the organizers of that expo I’m doing next week. And I guess I’m a little stressed about it.”

“Stressed why? Are things getting messed up?”

She glares at me. “No, nothing is getting messed up. It’s just a lot to coordinate and I want to make sure that everything is perfect.”

“Sure.” She’s prickly, irritated again, and I’m not exactly sure why. “Look, if you need help with anything . . .”

“I don’t need help,” she says immediately. “I can do it on my own. I am doing it on my own.”

“Okay,” I acquiesce. Vera is normally a very easy person to get along with. She’s funny and loose and open. But when it comes to her new business, a care package subscription service, she’s tense and closed-off and, apparently, unwilling to accept help of any kind.

A minute of silence passes, both of us sipping our drinks, when finally, Vera sags at the shoulder and turns to me. “What if . . .” she starts. “What if, for once, you weren’t the perfect one?”

Bubbly, salty, lime-y michelada goes up my nose, and for a moment, I think I might have done permanent damage to my . . . whatever you call those. My olfactory thingies. By the time I’ve finished getting the drink out of my nose, Vera is halfway through the tacos that have just been delivered to her and she seems to have regained some of her humor. She’s peering at me with one raised eyebrow.

“You all right there?”

“Did you just refer to me as the perfect one?” I am seriously unsure if I heard her right.

“It’s a shame there are only two of us,” she says. “It’s constantly a direct comparison. There’s Mr. Perfect and Ms. Cut-Up. If we had another sibling, maybe there’d be some middle ground.” She gets a dreamy expression on her face. “I’d love to live in the middle ground. Sounds like heaven.”

I’m blinking at her, trying to process this line of thought. “You’re referring to me as Mr. Perfect and you as Ms. Cut-Up?”

She fiddles with the decoratively cut radish on the side of her plate. “I guess I’m just wondering what would happen if I . . . started doing better. If my business took off. You think there’s room for both of us to be perfect? Or would one of us get bumped down automatically? You know . . .” She lowers her voice menacingly. “There can only be one.”

I laugh, but it’s only cursory. I kind of can’t believe what I’m hearing right now. “Vera . . .”

Just then her phone buzzes in her hand, and she gets that line of concern between her brows again. “Shoot. It’s the organizer. I hate to dine and dash, but . . .”

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “Go ahead.”

She reaches for cash in her purse but I frown and give her a playful shove toward the door. I’m not trying to be patronizing, but I’m her big brother and there are some things I like to do for her. I can buy my baby sister some tacos every once in a while.

She leaves, answering the phone as she gets onto the sidewalk, and I watch her go. I sit at the bar on my own for a long time.

Mr. Perfect.

A blooper reel of my own life is playing in my mind.

I laugh and shake my head. If only Vera knew.