Okay, the first two chapters were kind of an introduction of sorts. Things start to fly from here. Thank you all for the reads and reviews. Please keep it up! You guys are all kinds of wonderful.
Enjoy.
My mother's apartment is shiny.
You know, in that way where you're afraid to touch anything in fear you'll break or crack something. Kind of like a museum. Everything is shiny. Tabletops. Counters. Cabinets. Refrigerator. A lot of these things are white, too. And not off white, white white. Sterile white. When you walk in, the table in the foyer has a vase on it with shiny flowers. They look fake. They are fake.
"Mom?" I yell out into the expanse of the apartment.
"In here, dear." She answers back from what I think is the living room.
I walk further in and see my mother perched on the couch with a fancy glass in her hand, liquid as clear as the glass. She's watching TV, flipping through a magazine.
"Hi mom." I greet her and sit down on a couch next to hers.
She doesn't say anything. She waits until the segment of The View she's watching is over. When it's done, she turns to me and gives me a tight-lipped smile. Because of the Botox, probably.
Botox scares me.
"How are you Ashley?" She asks, her eyes glancing over my appearance. I'm wearing ripped jeans, a tight black Misfits t-shirt, my glasses, and a plain grey zipper sweatshirt. I'm comfortable, but to my mother I look disheveled.
I shrug in response. Sometimes, there are ultimate shrugging moments. When a shrug is really the only answer that completely embodies what you're trying to say. How was the baby shower? You shrug. How was the plane ride? You shrug. Are you sure you want to go rock climbing? You shrug.
How are you? You shrug.
"How are you mom." I say, not ask, just out of politeness.
"Wonderful. Donald and I just got back from Cancun, it was lovely…" She trails off about her vacation with her new man of the month. She's always got one. They come and go, like mood swings.
Just as she's talking about swimming with the dolphins, or something equally cheesy, her doorbell rings. My mom excuses herself to go buzz the intruder up, and I wonder who it is.
When I see my half-sister trailing behind my mother, with her clicking high heels and jingling bracelets, my mind wonders why she's here. My mother only ever invites both of us over when something important is happening. Like the time she called us both over to announce her third Botox installment. Or when she told us she was getting a divorce from her third marriage. Or was it her fourth? I can't keep track.
"Hey Ky." I say and smile at my half-sister. She sits down next to me.
"Hi Ash!" She says just a little bit too bubbly.
Kyla and I get along the way a sister and her half-sister get along. Pleasantries, niceness only because we met when I was eighteen and she was seventeen. We didn't have time to build a foundation so we're stuck in that limbo. But we're working on it.
"So, Christine, what was so important that I had to come over? I have to go interview for a job in about an hour." Kyla says, playing with the expensive piece of jewelry around her neck.
"Well." My mother starts. She's all wide smiles, as wide as they can get. Her eyes are looking around frantically. "I'm getting married!" She bursts out excitedly. I shoot Kyla a look. If it was one thing we can always agree on, it was how crazy my mother is.
"Again?" I ask lamely. Because I know what this means. This means rehearsal dinners, talking to people I don't know and don't like, eating fancy food like duck, big weddings, uncomfortable dress fittings, and lots of flowers.
"Yes, again, Ashley." My mother answers in an annoyed tone. "Donald asked me in Cancun!"
"Congratulations." Kyla tries to say excitedly, but she gives me a secret eye roll and I stifle a chuckle.
"Jesus, I thought you two would be happier for me." She says, putting her hand out for us to admire her new rock. It's large. And very shiny. It fits her apartment quite well.
"We are. Congrats, mom." I give her a real smile. "Your ring is beautiful." I say, because it is.
"I know." She smiles giddily like a thirteen year old girl trapped in a forty-five year old woman's body. "Anyway, the wedding is relatively soon, so I want you both to be prepared. I'm having an engagement dinner here in a week or so, and I need you both here."
Kyla and I nod. We're used to the drill. Except this time my mother seems much more excited than the last times.
My mother continues. "I really think this one will stick." She smiles and sighs in a loving way into the cold air around us. My mother's apartment is always colder than it needs to be. She says it keeps her skin young. Whatever the hell that means.
I zone out as she starts to talk about what we have to do, when the dinner is, and who's coming. "Have you talked to her recently?" My mother directs this question towards me. I don't know who she was talking about, I had been watching a commercial for laser eye therapy on TV.
"Uh, who?" I ask.
My mother rolls her eyes. "Please pay attention Ashley. This is important. Spencer."
My head snaps unnecessarily fast in her direction. "Spencer?" I ask quietly.
"Yes, Spencer Carlin. That is your best friend right? Kyla's boyfriend's sister." She says like it is the most normal thing.
I can't blame her, though. My mother has no idea that I only talk to Spencer Carlin sporadically, maybe once a month. That we really aren't best friend anymore. Hell, we're more like acquaintances. She doesn't know that her question and indifference kills me. But she doesn't know, so I can't blame her.
But Kyla knows and she gives me a sympathetic look. She kind of cringes at the bluntness of Christine.
"Uh..." I trail off, now knowing what to say. "Why?"
"Because she's coming, and I asked her to help you with some things for the dinner and the wedding."
"Why?" Kyla asks after a minute of me not answering due to the shock.
My mother makes a disgruntled noise. "Look." She says, ignoring Kyla's probing eyes. "I just need you two to really help me out with this."
"Why? It's not like you're working or anything, I thought you live for this stuff." I say caustically. Because it's true.
"I know, but I really want to get this one perfect, and it's going to be bigger, and I need my daughters' help, alright?" She answers harshly, giving me a rough look. "And please, Ashley dear, you're one to talk about not working."
I stiffen at her words. "I have a job." I say through gritted teeth.
"You give guitar lessons." She says dryly.
"Christine." Kyla says softly. "No problem, we'll take care of it. Just tell us what needs to be done." I thank my half-sister with my eyes for saving me from smacking my mother across the face.
It's ridiculous the way my mother thinks of me. When our father died, Kyla and I got his trust fund. It was enough to keep me living safely for pretty much the rest of my life, even when split in half. I used it to buy an apartment and put the rest in the bank. I don't splurge and I don't buy cars and jewelry and things like that. I took a job giving guitar lessons because I felt like I needed to have some kind of job. It might not be the noblest thing, but I enjoy it. And it gives me extra money that is purely mine. My mother sees the fact of her twenty-two year old daughter that didn't go to college as a dent in her perfect life. Well, what she thinks is perfect.
But what really eats away at me is the fact that Kyla is the exact opposite. She bought a fancy car and goes shopping on Fifth Avenue like it's recess, and I get criticized. Perhaps Christine doesn't see Kyla as her actual daughter. No, that's mean. Or maybe she just is so used to criticizing me that it doesn't matter what I do.
"Good. Let me go get my list." My mother says and gets up from the living room and strides into her bedroom.
I look at Kyla with tired eyes as my mother leaves. "Thanks." I murmur softly.
Kyla nods. "I can't believe she's doing this shit again."
"I know. I swear, this better be the last time." I laugh quietly.
"Yeah. So," Kyla starts hesitantly, "Have you talked to her?"
I take a deep breath and sigh. "Um, like a month ago, that's pretty much it."
"Ashley I-" Kyla starts but I cut her off.
"Ky, I don't wanna talk about it." I say roughly and my mother comes back in before she can say anything else.
The TV starts playing a commercial for some music store and the images of a girl sitting at a piano makes my mind turn my mother's living room into a memory from four years ago.
I sit motionless at the grand piano in my old house. My fingers brush over the keys and they feel very cold. The black of the piano is so shiny it doesn't fit in the living room with the comfy carpets and soft paintings.
I don't even wipe the tears from my eyes because I refuse to acknowledge them. I refuse to accept that they are real, that this is real. My fingers start to hit keys, and I'm not playing a song, it's just unintelligible notes and rhythms.
I hear the door slide open and close and footsteps come near me. She sits down right next to me, side touching side on the small bench.
You would think that giving someone whose father just died space would be the appropriate thing to do. And if it were anyone else, I would have yelled at them to get the hell out and leave me alone. But Spencer's presence doesn't bother me. It comforts me and I let her sit. And she knows she's allowed to.
"Hey." She says softly.
I don't know how she knew to come over. Maybe I texted her when I was in a daze and I just don't remember.
"My dad died." I say in a very monotone voice. I don't turn towards her, I keep my eyes focused on my fingers pushing down on the black and white keys.
"I know. That sucks." She says quietly, with emotion, emotion that I don't have right now. And with those simple words, all I want her to do is just hold me. Because she didn't say I'm sorry or Are you okay? Everyone has asked me those two questions over and over again for the past five hours and I was sick of it.
You can't be sorry unless you know. And asking me if I'm alright is ridiculous. Of course I'm not alright. Fuck, my father just died, do they think I'm having a parade? So I appreciate Spencer's blunt and true words with all my heart.
"Thank you." I say as I turn to her. Her blue eyes are shiny and sad and I know she understands why I am thanking her. She always understands.
I haven't been crying much. Only a few tears dropping now and then. It should have devastated me. I was sad, don't get me wrong. I just didn't sob hysterically or throw a fit, or fall to the ground. I was mad at myself for having such a weird reaction.
My hands stop pressing on the keys and they slide off the piano slowly. I look at Spencer for a second before I wrap my arms around her waist and press my face into her neck. She holds me close to her and I wait for the sobs to come. And they do. I love that she waited for me to come to her, knowing it would do no good for her to hug me first. She understood me.
I feel my body start to shake in her embrace and she just rubs my back affectionately, whispering quietly, soothingly, in my ear. I try to take myself away and tell her I'm getting her shirt wet with tears but she just holds me tighter, not caring about her shirt.
After what seems like hours, I finally pull away from her.
"Will you go with me?" I ask her. Her clear blue eyes are now very shiny with tears of their own. She knows I mean the funeral, but I would never say it out loud.
Spencer leans close to my face and gives my cheek an affectionate, soft kiss, catching a tear on her lips. "Of course." She says quietly and gives me a small, tilted smile.
I nod, and let her hold me again because the pain disappears slightly in her arms.
Kyla and I make our way down the steps of Christine's building. I immediately light up a cigarette, taking advantage of the Sex and the City scenario again.
"You should really quit Ash." Kyla says, sitting next to me.
I shrug.
"So this should be fun." She says dejectedly.
I snort. "Yeah, these are always loads of fun. Have you met Donald?" I ask her.
"Yeah, like once. He was alright. Standard business man, I guess." She says, looking down the street at the busy traffic and violent honking of New York taxis.
"How's Glen?" I ask her, because it's the nice thing to do. And because I'm secretly hoping she'll tell me about Spencer.
"He's good. He just got a job at um, that sports thing..." She trails off, her eyebrows scrunching together, trying to remember.
"ESPN." I say easily.
Kyla snaps her fingers. "Right, that. How'd you know?" She asks, looking my way.
I blow some smoke out of the side of my mouth before grinning slightly. "I'm gay Ky, of course I know about sports."
Kyla chuckles loudly. "Right. Well, you should come over for dinner sometime." She throws the suggestion out like it's the first time. When really, she offers every single time she sees me. She's a good half-sister like that.
I shrug. "Yeah, maybe." I say, like every other time.
But this time I think I'll actually go.