David
EMILY HAD INSISTED that David not take any more Vicodin until she got back from her dress fitting, but once she was gone and the coast was clear he took one anyway. It wasn’t too hard to find the bottle. He had seen her hide it inside her old American Girl prairie wagon while he pretended to be asleep. He would have felt guilty about this betrayal if Emily’s fears of an overdose were justified. He hadn’t taken enough to do that—just enough to stumble around the bedroom for a while trying to find his pants.
The kitchen was empty. Starving, he opened the fridge. When he had first arrived at the house, there had been nothing substantial in there, but at some point over the past week, Emily’s parents appeared to have filled it to the gills with gourmet food from the hot section of Whole Foods. His mouth watered at a half-eaten container of buffalo chicken salad. It would be high in protein, but unfortunately the mayo in it was most likely made from canola oil or soybean oil, both strictly forbidden by LifeSpin. He considered this quandary. It was only chicken salad. What percentage of it was mayo—two? Five at the most? There were much worse things he could eat. He would need the protein for his recovery anyway, and the mayo was merely collateral damage.
He took the container out of the fridge and used his bare hand to scoop chicken salad into his mouth. This is fucking amazing. So salty, so creamy, so tangy—he would have to find out how to recreate this at home. With the correct oils, of course—avocado, coconut and olive were the only truly nontoxic ones. He shoveled more and more of it into his mouth until it was all gone.
He was still starving. He was too hungry to ask himself if it was rude to raid his future in-laws’ fridge. He felt his phone vibrate, but he didn’t pick up. He was too focused on a container of shrimp scampi. It was untouched, pristine. Perhaps if he ate the entire thing, Marla would forget she ever bought it. And there was pasta in it, but so what? He had already eaten the mayo. Maybe he was due for a cheat day.
He scarfed down the shrimp scampi and burped a long, decadent burp that tasted like roasted garlic. Now he needed something sweet. For the past two years, he hadn’t eaten any desserts other than one extremely disappointing coconut milk–based gelato. He went to the pantry. One piece of candy would do, if they had any.
In their pantry, Marla and Steven had stocked at least twenty boxes of Pop-Tarts of varying flavors, none of which seemed to be expired. Was this a treat intended for their visiting kids, who presumably liked Pop-Tarts when they were little? Or was this Steven’s plebeian guilty pleasure, which he ate while allowing himself one episode of Hardcore Pawn? David had no idea, and it wasn’t long before his mind was flooded with his own Pop-Tarts–based childhood memories. His mother used to buy them in bulk, and yet he and Nathan would always argue over which one of them was eating an unfair amount.
Wildberry was always David’s favorite, and there it was, with an expiration date still two years away. He tore open the package. Fuck LifeSpin.
As he stared trancelike into the glowing slots of the toaster, he heard footsteps. He quickly tossed the empty food containers into the trash before Jason appeared. He was freshly showered and wearing a T-shirt that said Me Love You Long Time next to a cartoon geisha. “Morning,” he said. “How’s your ass?”
“Hurts. What the fuck is your shirt?”
Jason looked down. “Funny, huh?”
“Did you buy it in the fifties?”
“That’s a lot for a T-shirt. It was just twenty-five bucks, actually.”
David was too tired to say anything else. For a moment, he felt fleeting respect for Lauren. How did she maintain the energy to call Jason out when he did something offensive every five seconds?
Jason opened the fridge and surveyed its contents. “Huh. I thought there was some shrimp scampi in here.”
“Maybe Matt ate it.”
“Where is everyone?”
“The fit. Getting fit.” The Vicodin had kicked in and was making him foggy.
“Huh?”
“Fitting.” David burped.
“You mean the dress fitting? Avec les bridesmaids?” He mixed up French and Italian stereotypes and began wiggling his hands around with his fingers pinched together like Tony Soprano.
“I think.”
“Then I’ll be on my way.” He closed the fridge, grabbed his car keys, and was out the door. David retrieved the Pop-Tarts from the toaster and started lustily eating one. His phone buzzed again. He took it out and squinted at the screen. It wasn’t Emily calling—it was Zach.
“Hey, Zach, what’s up?” David held the phone with his greasy Pop-Tart fingers.
“Thank fucking goodness I was able to get ahold of you. This is nuts.”
“What happened?”
Zach sighed. “Well, for one, we both officially don’t have jobs anymore.”
David felt his legs go weak. He dropped to the floor and sat in front of the fridge, his brain still not entirely sure how to make sense of what he just heard. “What? How is that possible with the funding from BluCapital?”
This was a joke. Robert must be hiding behind Zach’s desk as Zach muffled the receiver so they could giggle together. For sure, that was what was happening.
“It’s worse,” Zach said.
“Worse than Zoogli going under? How is that possible?” His hands had started trembling involuntarily and his stomach felt like it was about to expel all the contents of his binge onto the floor.
“Robert took off with the BluCapital money. Deposited it to his personal account in the Cayman Islands, and he’s left the country. The SEC is investigating.”
His mind immediately went to Robert, surfing in an ocean of money. “What the hell am I going to do now?”
“I don’t know, man, I’m worried about myself too! I may have to move back in with my parents.”
David took a small moment to revel in the fact that “rock star” Zach, at twenty-nine, might have to move back home. At least Emily’s job at ClearDrop could buy them a few months while David looked for another position.
Then his vision went slightly blurry as it dawned on him that all the glory and comfort he had imagined he and Emily would soon step into was gone. There would be no house, no new car, no retiring young. They might need to move out of their already-overpriced one bedroom and start subletting a spare bedroom in the Tenderloin. Maybe they’d even have to move to Idaho or something, and all of his old friends from high school would laugh about how he effectively flunked out of San Francisco. And Zach was no longer his competition. They were just two sad men on the phone with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
“Are you still there, man?”
“Yeah. I’ve got to go. Thanks for telling me, Zach. Good luck.”
He hung up and reached for another Pop-Tart. Fuck it.
Kevin
Kevin had texted with Jennifer all night, finally jerking off to one of her bikini photos she tweeted from 2012. He wasn’t as interested in porn as some other men were. He vastly preferred women he knew wanted to sleep with him. He woke up the next morning fully recharged and went to the hotel gym for a quick cardio session. On his way from the gym back to his room, he heard a man arguing with the woman at the front desk. It took Kevin a moment to recognize him. It was Emily’s dad.
“All I’m saying,” Steven said, “is that just because I touch one of the bottles in the minibar doesn’t mean I should be charged for it. I had a change of heart and I didn’t drink anything, so why am I being charged thirty dollars?” This was the loudest Kevin had ever seen him talk. Normally, he was so quiet it was hard to hear him at all.
The young woman behind the front desk tried to keep her composure. She spoke calmly and politely. “The sensors charge you every time you touch a bottle, which means you shouldn’t pick up anything you don’t plan to drink. Our records show that you touched bottles of Bombay Sapphire, Jack Daniel’s and Grey Goose.”
“Yes, but I didn’t drink them. This is Kafkaesque!”
“This is just our hotel policy. Can I ask why you picked up all of those bottles and drank none of them?”
“Why does it matter why I picked them up? This isn’t psychoanalysis.” Steven turned away from the front desk in a huff and found himself face-to-face with Kevin.
“Dr. Glass?”
“Yes?” It was clear from Steven’s blank expression that he didn’t recognize him.
“Kevin. David’s best man.”
“Oh! Yes, of course.”
“So, um, you’re staying here?”
“Ah. Yes. Well, you know, with the full house and everything, it seemed like a good idea.”
“Okay. Well, see you at the rehearsal dinner?”
“Yes.”
Once Steven was out of sight, Kevin took his phone out and texted Jennifer: Guess who I just saw at the Ritz? You can’t tell anyone.
Emily
“It’s not that I think Joyce’s daughter is stupid,” Marla said. “She just isn’t as smart as my kids, and if they didn’t get into Yale, I don’t think she has a chance in hell.”
Emily and Lauren arrived at the fitting to find Marla deep in conversation with Diana, the sixtyish owner of the wedding dress boutique. Gabrielle, Jennifer and Maddyson were waiting on the blush velvet love seats, staring at their phones.
“Hello, Emily!” Diana said, turning around. “And... Lauren? It’s been forever!”
“Yes, it has,” Marla said. “I’m just going to get this out of the way to avoid any awkwardness because I know you’re too polite to say anything—I apologize ahead of time for—”
“Mom, it’s fine,” Emily said. “Diana isn’t offended.” Perhaps she should have let her finish. There was a hell of a lot for which Marla needed to apologize.
“I’m not offended by what?” Diana asked.
Marla struggled to get all the words out. “I just think it’s a bit...millennial...for Emily to have bought a dress from some megastore in San Francisco instead of your boutique. But I suppose I can’t blame her for that.”
“Millennials actually avoid brand names and big chains,” Maddyson said. “That’s a Gen X thing.”
“Why would I mind that?” Diana said. “Emily lives in San Francisco. Of course she would prefer to buy a dress from someplace close to her. If she bought a dress from my shop, she’d be flying back and forth across the country just for dress fittings! Either that, or FedExing a two-thousand-dollar dress across the country!”
Diana said these things as if they were clearly ridiculous options, unaware that Marla had once suggested both of them to Emily in earnest. Diana turned to Emily. “I hope you don’t mind me embarrassing you for a moment, but you have really turned into a beautiful woman. I can’t wait to see this dress on you.”
Although a small part of Emily worried that this was a subtle reference to her looking old—nobody called anyone a woman anymore, you were a girl until you were fifty—she was mostly thrilled that anyone could find her beautiful that morning. She hadn’t slept well, and her eyes looked sunken and purple.
She had seen Diana a few times during her childhood when she went with Marla to her shop. Diana would tailor Marla’s dresses at a discount, in exchange for Marla listening to the depressing details of Diana’s marriage. “You’re not really her friend,” a nine-year-old Emily had said to Marla on one drive home. “You just use her to get discounts.” Marla had responded, “All friendships require give-and-take, Emily. Besides, she’s basically getting free therapy, and trust me, if there were more people doing what I do with Diana, the world would be a mentally healthier place.”
“By the way, Emily,” Marla said, procuring a tissue from her bag and blowing her nose. “I want you to know that I am missing Aunt Ellen’s funeral. I knew you needed me here, so, once again, I put your needs above my own.” She sighed dramatically.
“I thought you said it was just a shindig at cousin Hannah’s house,” Emily said. She then wondered why that was the detail about which she chose to argue.
Marla crumpled up the tissue and tossed it into a fancy garbage can in the corner that looked like a hatbox. “Funeral, celebration of life, whatever you want to call it. The point is, I’m missing it because of you. I just want you to think about that for a second. I’m not saying I need you to apologize, just think about it.”
“The alternative would be missing my wedding, or at least missing the rehearsal dinner, to attend the funeral of a woman who you purposely didn’t invite to the wedding.” Emily considered that Marla was actually only staying because of her argument with Steven, but she didn’t say anything about that.
Marla sighed. “Well, Emily, that’s an entirely different topic. I wanted to invite Aunt Ellen, but if I invited her, I’d be very concerned about her taking advantage of the open bar, plus, suddenly Hannah would start to wonder why she wasn’t invited and I refuse to have Hannah anywhere near children. She has some very problematic issues around her sexuality. Way too obsessed with horses as a girl. It was creepy.”
“Okay, Mom.” Her mind went to her art show, her senior year of high school. Marla had every intention of coming, but routinely threatened that she might “have to miss it” because her friend Karen’s fifty-fourth birthday party was that night. Apparently Karen’s husband recently left her for the family veterinarian, and it meant a lot to her that all her friends be there for her first birthday as a divorcee. When Emily insisted that her art show should come first, Marla cocked her head and said, “You’re a profoundly gifted artist, I’m sure you’ll have more opportunities to show your work. But Karen will only turn fifty-four once, and to be honest, the poor woman looks about sixty-eight. Is your high school show really worth more than the complete dissolution of my best friend’s life?” Emily was too young to realize that Marla was merely testing her, or that Marla actually hated Karen, for that matter. She had cried to her father, who explained to her that he would still be at the show, and many kids at the art show weren’t going to have either parent there, and many people’s parents are dead anyway, so what was the big deal? Picasso’s parents never showed up to cheer him on, and he did just fine. Sure enough, once Emily had accepted that her mother wasn’t coming, Marla graciously announced the night before the show, that after a great deal of reflection, she was putting Emily’s needs before Karen’s and would be attending the art show, because if she didn’t, God knows what kind of resentment Emily might hold for years to come. Emily was embarrassed that it took her ten years to discover that this was her mother’s go-to move to get attention when someone else was in the spotlight.
Diana called Maddyson to try on her bridesmaid dress, and Emily sat next to Lauren on one of the love seats, laying her dress over the arm and smoothing it out. She whispered to Lauren, “Have you heard from Dad?”
“He accidentally dropped a location pin at the Ritz Carlton. I was going to tell him, but then I thought, fuck Dad.”
“Fuck Dad? Mom cheated on him.” She hated that she had to say these words. Cheating didn’t even seem like it did the affair justice. Cheating was a one-night stand, something people did in college. This was something else, and it had presumably gone on for years.
“That’s not necessarily true. We still have no idea what she was referring to. They’re friends, anything else is speculation. For all we know, Dr. Leibowitz might not be attracted to Mom. He might not be straight. He may not even identify as male.”
“I think the beard kind of gives the ‘male’ part away.”
“Still, society is way too harsh on adulterous women. I’m not saying it’s okay for her to cheat on Dad, but there are two sides to every story. Maybe Mom fell in love with someone else because Dad was a shitty husband. Maybe Dad is just possessive and jealous, and Mom didn’t even cheat. You know, so many men just want to control ‘their women’ because they fear that if they allowed them to do what they wanted, they’d finally realize their true power.”
“Okay, well, I don’t think Mom screwing our old shrink is particularly empowering of her, but agree to disagree.” She barely wanted to look at her mother, and now that extended to Lauren. How could anyone be so cavalier?
Diana was pinching loose fabric around Maddyson’s bust and chatting with Marla. “I told Jerry, yes, I’m happy he’s made a friend, but it really is inconsiderate of him to rush off with Michael to East Hampton every other weekend while I’m stuck taking the dog to the vet and dealing with the plumbers. Trust me, I like my alone time too, but it seems like he’s just trying to get out of—”
“Having sex with you?”
“What? No, he’s just trying to run away from adult responsibilities. Guess who had to get the dog’s anal glands expressed and weed the garden all by herself? Meanwhile he’s at some tiki bar with Michael sharing a scorpion bowl.”
The door swung open and Jason appeared, wide smile on his face. “Ladies...”
Marla frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“Wanted to show my support.”
Diana smiled at Jason. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
“This is Jason,” Emily said. “He’s my brother.”
“Ah! Little brother?”
“Actually, he’s seven years older.”
“I’m terrible at guessing ages. Okay, we’re ready to take a look at your dress.”
Alone in the fitting room, Emily took off her shorts and tank top, kicked off her shoes, and looked at herself in the three mirrors. Under the harsh lights, she could see herself from the front and both sides. She didn’t look as bad as she had expected. She had a dimple here, a lump there, and two heaving boobs that made her feel like a cow, but she looked nice. She had to think about the attributes of her body that had nothing to do with attracting men. At the very least, she had successfully conceived a child. That had to count for something. Unfortunately, having children was something a lot of people could do, including idiots and assholes, so her sense of pride in having gotten knocked up quickly dissipated.
“Emily, hurry up in there!” she heard Marla shout. “Are you staring at your nose in the mirror again? I’ve told you a million times, big noses add character.”
“Stop it, Mom. I’m just getting my dress on.”
She pulled the dress off the hanger and stepped into it, careful not to rip the delicate white silk. She tried to zip up the back, but the zipper wouldn’t budge.
“Um... Diana?” she called out. “Can you help zip me up?”
Diana parted the curtains and tugged at Emily’s zipper. The dress stopped zipping right at her bust. “Ah, did you gain a little weight?” Diana asked.
“Maybe... Is there anything we can do?”
“I can take it out in the bust a little. A lot of women would dream of gaining weight in the bust. Your hips seem to fit fine!”
Emily gulped. The last thing she needed was to draw attention to her growing boobs. After all those years of wanting them to get attention, now she dreaded it. If Marla found out she was pregnant before David did, it would be a guaranteed shit storm.
“Voilà!” Diana said, opening the curtains. Emily faced the others in her dress for the first time. Gabrielle began to tear up, raising her hands to her mouth.
“You...look...stunning! Doesn’t she, Jennifer?”
“She looks amazing,” said Jennifer, eyes on her phone. She looked up. “Oh yeah,” she added. “You really do. Sorry, I’m texting Kevin.”
“Mom?” Emily asked, turning to Marla. All she wanted was a sign of approval. Even a nod would do.
“Well,” said Marla. “You look a bit like you came out of a porno, but otherwise, fine.”
“Mom, no porno features a woman in a floor-length wedding dress.”
“The boobs,” Marla said. “They’re just too much. You looked so much classier in the pictures you sent me from San Francisco. Why is it so tight all of a sudden?”
“It looks like she gained some weight,” Diana said. “Nothing to worry about, I can take out the bust a little.”
“I’m not paying for that,” Marla said frostily. “Emily chose to gain weight.”
“Mom, you said you weren’t paying for alterations if I lost weight.”
“Implicit in that statement was that I would not pay for alterations resulting from a weight change in either direction.”
Gabrielle stood up. “I’ll pay. Emily, consider it part of my wedding gift to you.”
“Thanks, Gabrielle.”
“Let’s not paper over this,” Marla said. “I think there’s a bit of an elephant in the room.”
“And which elephant would that be, Mom?” Emily said.
“I think everyone here is very worried about your unhealthy relationship with food.”
“What?”
“I don’t mean to speak for your friends, but I think it’s clear to all of us that you have an eating disorder.”
Gabrielle opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it.
“Mom, you haven’t eaten anything other than yogurt in twenty years,” Emily said.
“That’s not true, I ate buffalo chicken salad yesterday. I’m saving the rest for lunch today.”
“This is so stupid. I don’t have an eating disorder.”
“Well, what am I supposed to think? You’re part of this LifeSpin thing, with the wheat restriction and the sugar restriction, and now I see you’ve gained all this weight. You’re binging.”
“Mom, I’m not binging. I didn’t even gain that much. And I don’t know why you think it’s appropriate to bring this up in front of my friends, in public no less.”
“I don’t mind,” Maddyson said. “I find it interesting. I’m live-tweeting it right now.”
“Can you stop that?” Emily asked. Maddyson shrugged and put her phone down.
“I think this binge eating is something you need to work on in therapy,” Marla said. “Don’t you see what happens when I’m not permitted to be in contact with your therapist? It’s ridiculous to expect a person suffering from anxiety to have the self-awareness necessary to raise the important topics.”
“Oh, so you want to have sex with my current therapist too?”
“Emily!”
“Well, you obviously needed to sleep with Dr. Leibowitz to get the important information about me.”
“Emily, you need to stop this right now. This is extraordinarily embarrassing for Diana.”
“No, Mom. We’re talking about it. How could you do this to Dad? I don’t care how long ago it was, it’s so fucked up. And you wonder why I have all these so-called trust issues.” Between Jason and her mother, Emily was certain that she could never, for even a moment, relax in her marriage. Monogamy wasn’t really a vow, it was just a suggestion. Her mind went to her wedding vows. Well, at least I can write a compelling paragraph on how I’ll never cheat with our kid’s psychologist. That’ll be touching.
Gabrielle looked mortified. “Um, do you want us to—”
Marla wheeled to face her. “No. I don’t care who hears this. Stay where you are.” Gabrielle froze. Marla turned back to Emily. “As a person who has never been married a day in her life, you have no right to judge my actions. Abe is a wonderful, intriguing soul, and for years we were just friends. But then your anxiety began to crop up and he was there to help. You have no idea how hard your anxiety was on me. And when one is under such severe emotional stress, it makes sense that one might attach oneself to the person who is the most supportive. Abe Leibowitz was a saint. He saw you at a discounted rate. He prescribed you all those meds. And when it was time for you to take your SATs, he wrote you the note that got you extra time.”
“Got it. So you fucked Dr. Leibowitz so I could get extra time on my SATs?”
“This is ancient history.”
“How ancient, Mom? When did it start? Wait, is Dad even my real father?”
“Of course he is. You inherited his inability to read social cues.” She turned back to the bridesmaids. “Well! Shall we try on our dresses?”
Emily slumped into an ivory armchair and looked at her mother, a slideshow of disgusting images of her and Dr. Leibowitz running through her mind. A drunken kiss or a flirty text was one thing, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around how her mother could have kept an affair going for years without remorse. Or for that matter, how her father could have forgiven her whenever he first discovered it. What did she even see in Abe? Granted, Emily couldn’t figure out what she saw in her father either. Or what either of them saw in her mother.
Despite all of Marla’s shortcomings, Emily never would have expected this. She knew her parents’ marriage was littered with cutting intellectual putdowns and snide remarks, but an affair almost seemed too trashy, too plebeian for Marla. If Marla couldn’t be trusted to stay faithful in a marriage—even an admittedly dull one—who could? At the very least, Marla’s desire to be right all the time should have prevented her from making such a huge mistake. A whole new wave of terror washed over Emily as it occurred to her that David might be no better. He might frame his affair differently, perhaps he would just “fall in love” with a cute new sales rep at Zoogli and tell Emily he still loved her but wasn’t in love with her. People would do anything to justify their own terrible actions, and the worst part was that anyone was susceptible.
Jason
While Gabrielle tried on her dress, Jason took Gabrielle’s empty seat to get closer to Jennifer. She looked like a real ice queen, but Jason chalked that up to the shameless display of dirty laundry she had just witnessed being aired.
“Hey, Jason,” she said. She was texting, her eyes glued to her phone. The one thing Jason liked about women over twenty-five was that they were less likely to be obsessed with their phones. He already had to compete with an iPad when it came to getting Mia’s attention, now he had to try to conquer technology with twenty-nine-year-old women too? He glanced over at her phone to see she was texting Kevin, that pretty boy.
“Texting Kevin, huh?” Jason asked. “He’s a little young for you, don’t you think?”
Jennifer’s lips thinned. “Only one year.”
“How many kids do you have?”
“Uh, I’m single. I don’t have any kids.” She turned away slightly.
“Sorry about that. You just have that mom look.”
“What the fuck? That’s incredibly mean.”
“I’m just playing. How else would I get the attention of a woman who looks like you? Come on, give me credit for trying.”
Jennifer flipped her hair over her shoulder. “You’re my friend’s brother, and we’re at a bridal boutique. Also, I’m pretty sure you have a front row seat to your parents’ marriage falling apart. Is this really the time?”
“When would be the time? The wedding? Come on, give me a chance! Give me just five minutes of conversation and I promise I’ll be way more interesting than that penisless Ken doll you’re texting.” He wondered if this was getting dangerously close to begging, which would be the exact opposite of demonstrating high sexual-market value. Oh well, the words had already come out of his mouth.
She put down her phone. “Okay. Go. What’s your story?”
“I’m an amazing dad, I lift weights three times a week and I’m an extremely generous lover.” He had to be careful not to make himself seem too generous. There was a difference between men who loved giving oral sex because they loved controlling a woman’s pleasure, and men who did it to make up for a tiny dick or otherwise lackluster ability in bed. It was a bit too early in the conversation to discuss dick size, but hopefully she’d figure it out eventually.
“What do you do for a living?”
His favorite question, other than “My place or yours?” What a lucky moment! “I’m the CEO of a technology start-up. I know, I know. I’d be better suited for San Francisco than New York. But look, once we get married I can move out there!” He grinned.
She smiled back. “So you’re wooing me with marriage talk?”
“You’re nearing thirty and single. It usually works on chicks like you. Let me guess—you were fat as a kid.”
Her brow flattened. “How did you know?”
“You take way too good care of yourself not to be compensating for something. I feel you. I’m divorced, and that’s what fuels my desire to lift at the gym—stronger and harder each time.” Luckily Lauren was trying on her dress and not close enough to start scolding him for being “creepy.”
“I got off a relationship fairly recently too.” Her voice finally softened. She might as well have taken her dress off, he was so in. He was practically balls-deep in her brain.
“What happened?”
“Well, we had been together for a while. I was at the point of wanting marriage, or even just a guarantee that it was going in that direction. He told me that he wouldn’t be making enough money to afford the kind of ring he knew I wanted. He did pro bono work as a pediatrician for a free clinic—it sounds great, but I had to pay for everything. And I don’t mind paying for some things, but sometimes I want to be taken care of, you know? And I just knew, right then and there, he wouldn’t be able to support my lifestyle the way I wanted. I’m not a gold digger or anything, it’s just...if I am going to have a date night with my boyfriend, I don’t want it to be at Chipotle.”
“You have expensive taste. I get that. Luckily, you’re hot enough to be that much of a bitch and get away with it.” He winked.
She gave him a half smile. “Heh. I guess!”
“Jennifer,” Diana called over from the fitting area. “You’re up.”
Jason watched as Jennifer went behind the curtains and began changing. With Diana and Marla deep in conversation, and Emily, Gabrielle and Maddyson stuck on their phones and looking bored, Jason knew he could pull his greatest move yet without immediate detection. He crept behind the dressing area and whipped open the curtains from the other side, so none of his family members would see him coming in. “Hey there,” he said. “So are we doing some oral, or what?”
“What the fuck?” Jennifer looked like she had just opened a Tupperware full of mold.
“What’s going on in there?” Marla asked.
“Jason just asked me for a blow job,” Jennifer said, opening the curtain. Everyone looked aghast.
“Whoa, whoa,” Jason said, stepping backward. “I wasn’t asking for head. I was going to eat her pussy out.”
“Ugh,” Jennifer groaned in conjunction with the other women. “Could you have phrased it in a more disgusting way? Besides, I don’t let guys do that.”
“Jennifer,” Lauren said, “while I agree Jason is being a complete piece of assgarbage, you need to examine your internalized misogyny. What’s so bad about receiving oral sex?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Marla said, putting her hand on Jennifer’s shoulder. “I actually hated cunnilingus until I was well into my thirties.”
“Ugh, Mom,” Emily said. “You’re clearly talking about Dr. Leibowitz.”
“Well, this entire dress fitting has become somewhat of an airclear, so I’ll just say it: your father could label every city on a map of China, blindfolded, but couldn’t be bothered to locate my clitoris.”
“Mom, that’s so disgusting,” Jason said.
“You’re such a fucking dickpipe, you know that?” Lauren said, stepping closer to Jason. “You think words like clitoris are so gross, but you completely fail to see how gross your own behavior is, literally every second of the day. No wonder Christina left you.”
“Oh yeah, Lauren? Well, at least I’m not a wannabe activist who conveniently hides all the things that make me just as privileged as the people I claim to hate. Question, do Mom and Dad mail you your rent checks, or do you have some sort of direct deposit thing going on?”
In a move that seemed almost instinctual and out of her control, Lauren charged at Jason and pushed him over. He fell on his ass, knocking a bunch of safety pins off a wooden stool.
Marla gasped. “Jason!”
“I...I...think I broke my coccyx.”
* * *
“How is your posterior, brother?” Nathan asked.
“The Vicodin David slipped me is helping. It really is the wonder drug.”
Nathan’s bedroom had the unmistakable smell of Cheetos. A large bookcase stood against one wall, cluttered with thick paperback fantasy books and action figures still in their boxes. His bed was unmade, with an empty bottle of Mountain Dew peeking out coyly from the sheets.
“You seem glum, milad,” Nathan said.
“You don’t even want to know. I just had one of the most humiliating experiences of my life.”
“It couldn’t be more humiliating than getting banned from a LARPing convention—only because you were being historically accurate!”
“I don’t even want to know what that means. Okay, let’s get started. Before we figure out what you’ll wear to the bachelor party, I feel the need to address...this whole thing.” Jason gestured in Nathan’s general direction. “You need to fix it.”
“What’s to fix?” Nathan sat at his computer chair, arms folded in his lap. He was wearing a ponytail again, which masked his greasy scalp slightly, but made his face look wider and exposed the acne by his sideburns. He wore a gray T-shirt that read Religion: the Opiate of the Masses.
“Your whole thing. This whole look, this whole strategy, whatever you want to call it. Girls don’t like this. They like Ryan Gosling, not Comic Book Guy. Do you shower?”
“I do shower, verily.”
“More than a few times a week. Every day. You need to actually wash your hair too. It’s not like you have a regular job that takes up all your time, so this should be pretty easy.”
Nathan scowled, but nodded.
“You also need to get into shape. Obviously you can’t lose weight before the wedding, but if you want to attract the ladies, at least get to an average BMI. You don’t need to be a bodybuilder or male model, and frankly I don’t even think that’s possible, but if you get all this—” he indicated Nathan’s body, making a giant blob shape “—under control, then you might have a fighting chance with the girls.”
“My good sir, we only have a few hours before the bachelor party. I cannot alter so much about myself. I only summoned you here to help me decide which cape I should wear.”
“No capes. And another thing—this weird medieval dialect just freaks women out. Stop it.”
“With all due respect, good sir, I only wish to attract the type of lady who enjoys such courteous talk.”
“What is your type?” Jason sat on Nathan’s bed. “Paint me a picture.”
“I like petite women: delicate, slender and feminine. Preferably eighteen to twenty. Once they get older than twenty-one, they become entitled and hardened, demanding a man be employed, live on his own, have his own car. Their looks decline and their standards rise to the point that no normal man could fulfill them! It’s laughable.”
“You’re really making me not want to help you,” Jason said.
“Oh? And why did you agree to help me in the first place, if you could not handle the truth about decaying Western society?”
“Because you—well, first of all, you asked for my help, and second of all, I just...” He paused. Why was he helping Nathan? He doubted there was any chance for him, and yet, despite all the things that made Nathan unappealing, Jason had a small glimmer of hope that perhaps Nathan would find his own girl, a nerdy redhead who wore retro clothing and studied fictional languages. Maybe Jason was an asshole, but at least he would have done one good thing. “Fine, Nathan. I don’t want to see you wind up like me. Although actually, given your current trajectory, winding up like me would be a gift from God.”
“Ah, you’re a fundamentalist,” Nathan said. “No wonder you have such inane ideas about relationships. I suggest you read this atheist blog I found called The True Enlightenment.”
“Isn’t that your blog?”
“Yes, but I found it.”
Jason pursed his lips together in frustration. “Look, what I meant to say was...you only get one life. And I fucked mine up. I married the wrong person, I treated her like shit, my daughter probably wishes I was a giant blow-up doll of Olaf from Frozen. And if you keep going the way you’re going, you’ll be a hell of a lot worse off than me. Because it’s not just about your weight or your hygiene. At the end of the day, you’re afraid of women. That’s even more of a death sentence than being an asshole like me. You could be the most attractive guy in the world, but with your attitude, you won’t get anywhere.”
“I don’t have time for this feminist nonsense,” Nathan said. “Next thing you know, you’ll call me a ‘misogynist’ just because I think women hit their peak at eighteen, which for the record is reproductive age and perfectly legal.”
Jason put his hand on Nathan’s sweaty, T-shirt covered shoulder. “Look, I’m the furthest thing from a feminist. I have a Reddit username called FuckBitchesChuckBitches. But the point is, you need to change. You can’t stay fourteen forever.”
Nathan looked down at the floor in between his feet. “You say this like I can be turned around. Like I’m the girl in the romantic comedy who’s only ugly because she’s wearing glasses.”
“No, I think you’re pretty ugly all around. I’m just saying some minor improvements could take you from being a two to a four. And—voilà—if you finally have the confidence to speak to women and treat them like humans, maybe you’ll bag yourself an average-looking girlfriend.”
“I shall consider it. Now enough with this emotional dribble.”
“It’s drivel.”
“I’m speaking in Middle English. Anyway, let’s focus on the basics. Is this ensemble acceptable for tonight?” He motioned to his T-shirt.
Jason grimaced. “Of course not. It’s so far from acceptable, it’s an abomination. Do you have a decent blazer?”
“I wore one for my college graduation. It’s in my closet somewhere.”
“Cool. Wear that. Wash it first, if you have time, because I imagine it doesn’t smell great. Just a feeling I’m getting. Maybe pair it with a collared shirt, no tie—or a T-shirt. But not these argumentative, weird T-shirts with quotes on them. Just a normal T-shirt. And no stains or holes. Actually, just go with the collared shirt. I’m afraid of what might happen with a T-shirt.”
“I suppose I could do that.”
“As for pants, no cargo shorts. This is not a Blink-182 concert. And please, no dirty white sneakers. Do you have a good pair of dark-wash jeans and some dress shoes?” He was trying to imagine a well-groomed Nathan, but was having quite a bit of trouble. He hoped this advice would help him, as opposed to somehow making him look worse the way makeovers tended to make women look more masculine if they went too heavy on the eye makeup and contouring.
“My stepmom got me jeans for Christmas. And I have a pair of shoes from my dad’s wedding.”
“Wear those tonight. Oh, and shave the beard. Or at least trim it, especially all the hair on the neck. And promise me, whatever you do, no weird hat or trench coat. It makes you look like Jack the Ripper.”
“But women like mystery.”
“Not that kind of mystery. Women don’t want to feel like they’re being followed by a flasher.”
“I would never sully the delicate eyes of ladies with such lewd and indecorous behavior! Is that really what you think of me?”
“No, I think you’re an awkward kid who needs some help with girls, and unfortunately, the way you behave sometimes makes you seem like a sexual predator. I know it sounds harsh, but I’m only saying this because I’m your friend.” He got off the bed and put his hands on Nathan’s shoulders. “You’re an awesome guy waiting to happen. Tonight, you are going to make it happen.”
Emily
The kitchen looked like it had been ransacked. Dirty plastic food containers and silver Pop-Tart wrappers littered the counter. A half-eaten Twix bar and several Chinese food delivery menus sat next to the landline telephone.
Upstairs, Emily found David in bed, chomping on a raspberry Pop-Tart.
“Sweetie, are you okay?” she asked.
“Under the circumstances.” He let out a little weird laugh. “Ready to hear something fucked up?”
“What? What the hell is going on?”
“I heard from Zach. I can’t reach Robert. All the money from the second round—all the BluCapital funding—Robert transferred it to his personal account in the Caymans. He’s left the country.”
Blood drained from Emily’s face. “What?”
“You can read it for yourself—it’s all over the internet. Zoogli was a Ponzi scheme. The SEC is investigating. They’ve padlocked the offices.”
She sat down on the side of the bed and tried to breathe deeply. On some level, she hoped that asking enough questions would change the narrative—that this would all turn out to be not nearly as bad as it originally sounded. But her gut knew better. Something was wrong. She should remember this feeling and compare it against all the other times she felt something was “definitely” wrong, like the month she suspected her landlord was a serial rapist because he drove a white van. This went beyond anxiety. Her whole body felt like it was prepared to literally fight an incoming enemy. But what enemy? Financial ruin? Great instincts her caveman ancestors gave her—if only they could be used for modern predicaments. “So you...you don’t have a job?”
“Nope,” David said, finishing off his Pop-Tart and licking crumbs off his fingers.
Emily’s vision blurred and she felt like she was going to faint, just like how she felt right before her first pelvic exam. If only seventeen-year-old Emily knew how much worse it was going to get. And the doctor didn’t even put a finger up her butt like she had feared. “What are we going to do?”
“Don’t you realize?” He sat up in bed. “We can do anything. That’s what’s so amazing about this.”
“Amazing?”
“Look, you hate working for Linda. So quit. Let’s travel for a few months. We have enough money saved up. So many of our friends are still in student loan debt, we’re better off than you think. We can stay at hostels—it won’t even cost that much. You’ve always wanted to go to Italy!”
“Italy?”
“Totally! I mean, when else are we going to get to do this? This is the kind of thing we should be doing while we’re still young and don’t have kids.”
Emily put her head in her hands and began to quietly weep.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“You’re just so sweet.” She hugged him and tried to disguise her tears by letting them soak into her hair. Between them there was the baby, still blissfully unaware of how shitty his life was going to be.