Love in the Time of Cynicism Page 3

  “You look, ah…” He trails off, trying to find the right compliment.

  “I know the dress is hideous,” I laugh, the struggle not to be sarcastic real. “You don’t have to say it. My mom has-”

  “That’s not what I was going to say,” he interrupts with a shake of his dark curls. The movement sends his once perfectly in place hair into a frenzy, the way I saw him this morning. I like it better messy. “I was going to tell you how cool your hair looks and how rockin’ you look in that dress and how I’m really glad you’re letting me pretend to be your boyfriend, but now I’ll just keep my comments to myself.”

  He’s joking, obviously, but I still kick myself; it seems I have a gift for saying the wrong thing to Rhett.

  “And I would tell you how you clean up nice and all that jazz, but it seems we’ve reached an understanding about our personal appearances.”

  “Yeah,” he rolls his eyes, which I’ve noticed is a fairly common state for him, and replies, “we’re both absolutely bammin’ slammin’ bootylicious.”

  I nearly double over in laughter at not simply the phrase alone but how he managed to deliver it with a straight face. Before long, he joins in until we’re both convulsing with giggles. A tear slips down my cheek as I reach the point of laughter where it’s been reduced to gasping for air in silent shaking.

  We slowly calm down and proceed to shuffle awkwardly for a moment, both inwardly debating how to make the transition to the inside of my house without it being weird, until he busts out laughing.

  “I knew this was going to be uncomfortable.” He romps past me happily and inside before I can speak. Thank god. Then he pulls out this really cheesy Shakespearean type voice and stares me dead in the eyes while saying, “But I will endure a night of endless difficulty to spend even a moment with thee.”

  I grin goofily and ask, “Do you always talk like that?”

  He snaps out of it immediately. “Like what?”

  “Like…” I struggle for the right words. “You. I mean, this morning you called Amanda ‘a waste of two billion years of perfectly good evolution.’ How many people actually say things like that?"

  “Probably about the same number of people who know the name of the original Flash

  “I take a lot of pride in my nerducation.”

  “Oh my god, Cordelia Kane, did you really just say that? Seriously?” He rolls his luminous brown eyes and goes on, “You’re giving me some second-hand embarrassment, and we’re the only people here.”

  “This is America. I have freedom of speech. It’s my right to say things that bother you.”

  He smirks but it slowly widens into a proper smile that crinkles up the corners of his eyes. His joy is infectious and I feel myself smile. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  I playfully shove his arm and ask, “Ready to go?”

  He inquires lightly, “May I ask how we’re getting there?”

  “Walking?” I suggest automatically, “We’ll have to cut across the golf course, but it’s the fastest way.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  With that, I lead him out the back door and on to my lawn, which is directly adjacent to the open golf course. As we walk away from the illumination of streetlamps, the darkness surrounds us and our feet crunch over the dying grass before sliding across the boundary of the course, where the turf if pristinely manicured and watered. Stars suddenly appear scattered across the inky blue night sky and I stop walking abruptly to get a better look. Even with the twinkling lights of the Twin Rivers party in the distance, the pinpricks of pure silver are more majestic than I’ve ever seen them. No moon to dim their purity, no rush to diminish it.

  Unfortunately for my inner stargazer, Rhett hasn’t noticed my pause and is still walking, hands in pockets, toward the country club. His silhouette against the pasty yellow lights is nearly as mesmerizing as the stars themselves. Then, when he spins around to face me, I can only stare.

  He chuckles, face obscurely intriguing in the lighting, “Having second thoughts about your fake boyfriend?”

  Dashing forward to meet him, I shiver and respond, “The opposite, actually.”

  Seeing my chills, Rhett asks, “You cold?”

  “Yes, but if you try to pull any of that chivalry bullshit, I might sock you in that chiseled jaw of yours.”

  He laughs and bumps into me softly, “I loved everything about that sentence. Besides, it’s not wuite cold enough to justify chivalry.”

  We arrive at the front of the building overlooking the golf course, and Rhett and I take simultaneous deep breaths. The professionally cleaned, normally antiseptic white walls are bathed in warm buttery light and, for the first time in my six months of working and living here, the place feels inviting.

  A true gentleman (at least to some degree), he reaches out with fingers covered by too-long sleeves and pulls the glass door open for me. Some uncharacteristic hope seeps into my mind and I can’t help but think, maybe everyone will like him. Maybe this will be easy and fun and I’ll get a dance out of it.

  But of course, even I know I’m lying to myself. Because the second we walk in the grandiose doors of the ball room, it feels like that awful moment in the movie where the music stops and everyone stares. Though only a few people turn around (and exchange muted, horrified glances), to me it seems like Rhett and I are suddenly under a microscope in a packed elevator. But I push it down and try to smile reassuringly, mostly for myself and partly for Rhett, who surely feels as out of place here, in this room washed with pale pink light and prudish people, as I do. The large ballroom is ringed in neatly arrange tables – white tablecloth, pale pink runner, an assortment of tidbits and drinks of all sorts – surrounding the huge teak dance floor coated in a layer of stiff white people trying to dance. A band of clean cut teenage guys plays soft jazz on a pink stage.

  There’s a lot of pink, to be honest, even for my mother.

  Thoughts racing through me, my eyes dart around the large room. Since we’ve walked in, ten or so of the Twin Rivers guys have started nodding in our direction and are stealing quick, amused looks at me and Rhett. Sharp darts of panic take root under my ribs and I find myself drawing in shorter and shorter breaths as my eyes scan the room for mom and Michael and Amanda and maybe even Trent.

  Then, suddenly, as if knowing my heart is racing and jumping and fluttering and stopping, Rhett’s fingers brush against mine. Careful, tentatively gentle, the kiss of his thumb whispers across the back of my hand and I’m rooted to the ground and in myself. My nerves grow electric, having been thoroughly unaware of how intense a sensation could exist in the tiniest gesture until now. His eyes clap mine and give me a questioning gaze, to which I respond with a permitting nod.

  “You okay?”

  “Are you?”

  Then, together, both of us answer, “Always.”

  “Then, Cordelia Kane,” Rhett says just loudly enough for me to hear over the band playing on the stage. God, I love the sound of my name on his lips. “May I have this dance?”

  “Only if you’re good,” I reply quickly. He smirks and pulls me to the middle of the dance floor. Music swings and swirls around us as he rests his hands lightly on my waist. There’s a wide ring of space around us because nobody wants to be near the freaks; weirdness might be catching.

  But right now, I could care less about everyone else. Right now I am in the arms of the only interesting person I’ve met since moving to Lightfoot, and my forehead is nestled in the crook of his neck. And he smells like leather and rain even though it never rains here. And he’s warm and real and bright and he’s singing the song under his breath into my ear. His voice is soft and mellifluous against my neck and the sound is impossibly intoxicating. I lean into it. Time stops, if only for a few moments, and we’re lost in the middle of a sea of people I can’t stand on an island where nobody else exists.

  For a minute of time and space, perhaps the first in the year I’ve lived here, I am perfectly content to
remain in this moment.

  He breaks from the chorus of a song I’ve never heard but already love to speak, “What are you thinking about right now?”

  I shake my head into his shoulder. “Not much.”

  “Bullshit.” Rhett’s honey eyes are alive when I pull slightly away and look into them. “You’re trying to tell me the most captivating person in this room is thinking about absolutely nothing?”

  “I wouldn’t know what the most captivating person in the room was thinking unless he told me.”

  “Fine.” He tries to look displeased with me but can’t hide the smile waiting to escape on his lips. “Tell me about yourself; I’m itching to find out more about you and exactly how someone who has hair as stellar as yours ended up with a family who spends time here.”

  “I don’t even know where to start.” I shake my head sadly, thinking over everything my family’s been through the past few years and even in my childhood.

  “Your parents,” he instructs. “Tell me about your parents.”

  “Well.” I swallow the lump that always rises in my throat when my dad’s brought up. But I push through because I like Rhett, really enjoy being near him and talking to him. “My dad was the most amazing person in the entire world, for a while. He used to take me and Trent – that’s my older brother, by the way, the one who’s actually related to me – to the park at least three times a week after school. We still lived Oregon then, so it was always raining, but he didn’t mind. Pushed me on the swings even when he thought we were too old. He was always doting on us and telling us how awesome we were. And he was in love with me mom, the kind of love you only ever see in chick flicks and can’t really exist in real life. Dad was always buying her flowers and chocolates and jewelry. He was really, really great.”

  We stop dancing for a moment and Rhett’s eyes pierce mine. “But?”

  “Does there have to be one?”

  He shrugs and resumes turning to the music. “All I can see from here is that you talk about your mom and ‘Michael’ like they’re Satanists or something, so I want to know how that went down.”

  “Alright, but you have to go next.” He nods his agreement and I go on, “Dad lost his job. He was a higher-up at some business center city and raked in cash like nobody’s business. But they fired him for reasons unknown to me, so we moved to a tiny apartment in Portland and dad started working odd jobs wherever he could find them. I was about eight when mom decided she wasn’t going to put up with a lower standard of living. I was impressed at the time; she was taking her life into her own hands: getting a job, refusing to be dependent on a man.

  “We left in the middle of the night. Dad was working some late shift and mom just went nuts. Packing bags like mad and throwing in whatever could fit. She took the money in the house and anything worth more than a few dollars. Then, she very calmly explained to me and Trent that it was our choice if we wanted to stay with mom or dad and she’d be okay if we stayed behind. If I knew what I know now, I sure as hell would’ve stayed with my dad. But I was a kid and I was freaking out. Trent wanted to go with mom and I didn’t want to be separated from my biggest ally in the house. And that was that.”

  “You left,” he finished with a curious lilt to his voice. “Where’s your dad now?”

  “No idea,” I reply, my voice almost broken. There’s a pit in my chest filled up with regret and loss and guilt. “Haven’t spoken to him since. There’s no way he could find us. We went so far so fast. The second we moved to Lightfoot, mom got a job as a teacher. And ‘fell in love-’” heavy sarcasm “-with the superintendent, who was recently divorced and happened to have three perfect kids and a couple hundred thousand dollars coming in annually. Mom quit her teacher job pretty fast and moved in with them just after Trent’s eighteenth birthday. This time, I had the common sense to hang back. Trent and I lived in Dallas for a year or so, waiting for mom’s relationship to fail because they all did after a while. But it didn’t. They got married and Michael wanted us to live with them so we could be a ‘big united family’ and all that jazz.”

  “He doesn’t sound like such a bad guy,” Rhett reasons, clearly trying not to be confrontational and piss me off.

  I allow my mind to drift back into my memories. “He wasn’t, at first. You could tell he was trying really hard to be good to us because he honestly likes my mom, but it was hard. And he changed my mom a lot. She used to be pretty chill, if a bit materialistic, but now she’s the kind of person who throws ‘I-don’t-have-a-baby’ showers to remind everyone how rich her new hubby is. That’s probably what this is, judging purely by the obscene amount of pink.”

  “Tell me more about Michael,” Rhett interrupts. “I want to hear about why you don’t like him.”

  “Well, I guess after three kids who were utterly perfect, suddenly being in charge of a drop out and a crazy chick wasn’t that appealing to him. Mostly, he ignores us and we only speak when absolutely necessary. When we talk, it’s never pleasant. Normally he just bitches about how disappointed he is in us and how much we’re hurting our family and blah blah blah.” I pause and debate how to verbalize my thoughts without losing it. “Of course, he doesn’t realize he’s the one who’s destroying my family.” Rhett makes a meaningful noise and pulls me closer to his chest, changing our dance into a strong embrace. Though I feel tears stinging at my eyes, this is no place to cry. I loosen myself easily from his arms and return to locking my hands on the nape of his neck. I ask, “What about you, then?”

  “What about me?” As if it’s no big deal. As if I’m not dying to know everything about him.

  “Start with your family, then tell me everything you possibly can about yourself, including why you’re so willing to pretend to be my boyfriend after knowing me for an hour.”

  “The second half’s pretty simple.” He laughs honestly, and I realize that’s the main thing I like about him. Everyone’s so afraid to show off how they’re really feeling because they’re afraid of coming off as too fake or too emotional, but not Rhett. When he’s happy, he smiles. I imagine when he’s sad, he lets himself cry. And that fact is more beautiful on him than any other quality. “I’m willing to pretend to be your boyfriend because you are quirky and kind of sexy in a really alternative young Julia Roberts sort of way and also you are aware of obscure comic book history, which is a good quality for any pretend girlfriend to have. The first question is significantly more complicated and should probably be left for our second pretend date.”

  “Come on,” I protest lightly. “I bared my soul. Your turn. Only fair.”

  Before he can speak, my mother takes the stage in a pale pink, form fitting dress which exactly matches the balloons and table runners and stage. Michael’s next to her sporting imported Italian leather shoes and a Manhattan suit, the two things he’ll bring up in a conversation if you let him speak too long. They appear to be modeling for MTV’s newest show, Barbie and Ken: the later years.

  This would be as good a time as any to give you a look at Michael, I suppose. He’s got dark, thick brown hair which he gets treated so it doesn’t thin. He’s very skinny and probably used to be muscular or athletic but is now a bit squishy around the edges. Michael’s face is permanently dressed in an overly nice smile, perfectly tweaked with years of practice to hide the burgeoning wrinkles on his forehead. Next to my once effortlessly beautiful mother who’s now nipped and tucked in all the wrong places, he almost fits. I can’t even imagine how ridiculous it would be if he ever met my real dad, with his long sandy hair and the facial hair he was perpetually experimenting with. The universe would explode.

  And Michael speaks first, one arm protectively wrapped around my mother. “Firstly, we’d like to thank each and every one of you for coming out tonight in support of Veronica and myself.”

  Rhett corrects his usage of the word myself under his breath. “He never used an antecedent.”

  I snort and he shoots me a sideways glance.

  “Second, I would like to ta
ke this minute of your time to explain why we’re gathered here on this joyous occasion.”

  I lock eyes with Rhett the second someone claps a hand on my shoulder. I turn around to see Trent grimacing down at me, wearing one of Michael’s nice suits with his floppy hair combed. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

  Of course, now I’m freaked out. But I stare up at him and ask, “Why would I freak out?”

  Instead of replying like a normal, functional human being, my big bro tosses an arm around my shoulders, though I get the sense he’s trying to restrain me. Rhett shoves his hands into his pockets and eyes the pair of us nervously, as unsure as I am now.

  Michael, drawing my attention back on stage, has resumed talking. “As I’m sure many of you know, Veronica’s been having fertility treatments over the past few years and-”

  No.

  “-we’re so happy to announce-”

  NO.

  “-that we’re about to be new parents again!”

  “No!”

  The word is out before I can stop it and it’s a shriek of defiance. Everyone else is clapping and grinning with happiness, but mom hears me. Her eyes rip away from her happy husband and fall on me. Her beam turns to a cold frown with everything – seeing my hair and my clothes and hearing my shout for the first time. Immediately, she rushes to take care of her deviant child but Michael stops her.

  “Stay calm.” Trent’s talking in my ear, saying nothing that matters and trying to hold me back from running out. But I can’t. I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’tIcan’tIcan’t.

  Without thinking of anything but getting out and away from this, I jab my free hand into his stomach hard enough that he doubles over. My heart slams against the rocks of my ribcage while my head is a jumble of words and images I can’t place and full of feelings I can’t define. My vision is blurry, out of focus and I can’t quite see straight. Suddenly I feel like I’m falling and crashing all at once and one thought punches through my haze of panic: get out!