The Do-Over, page 13
“Then what are we supposed to talk about?”
There it was. The wrong question.
I jumped up and crossed to the sink, wet the bristles of my toothbrush, and welcomed the much-needed minty relief.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I muttered through the building foam in my mouth—almost entirely attributable to toothpaste, I assured myself, and not a result of my frustration with her manifesting as rabies-like symptoms.
“I get that you’re independent and all that, but hasn’t there ever been someone?” She jumped up from the edge of the tub and stood behind me again. “Some guy that you looked at and said”—she pointed at my reflection in the mirror, as earnest an expression as I had ever seen on her face—“‘I’m going to marry that guy someday.’”
The slight acknowledgment of relevance that took place in my brain must have made its way to my eyes, because hers opened wide. “You have to tell me everything! What’s his name?”
According to the US justice system, there are five elements of self-defense:
Innocence. In other words, it had to be established that the situation was of her doing.
Avoidance. I had to have tried to get out of the situation. If “I don’t know what to tell you” wasn’t given as legal precedence of avoidance in textbooks, I couldn’t imagine what was.
Imminence. Clearly demonstrated by her arms once again wrapping around my shoulders and refusing to let me go, even as a bit of mint slobber ran down my chin.
Proportionality. Don’t bring a knife to a pillow fight, and don’t bite your sister’s head off just because she’s irritating.
Reasonableness. Because the laws that protect us in instances of self-defense don’t require us to make perfect decisions—only sensible ones.
“Jeremiah,” I muttered through my foam.
“Oh, Kenna,” she sighed. Kenna. Her affectionate name for me ever since she learned to speak and the “Mc” was just a little more than she could handle. “I’m so sorry.”
Her grip on me tightened. As if none of the pain she had been feeling on her own behalf had ever happened and my presumed pain was all that mattered. It was sweet and all, but it did make it difficult to spit without making a mess. I tilted my chin and did the best I could and then stretched out constricted arms and straining fingers and grabbed the towel to wipe the excess toothpaste and slobber from my lips. Through it all she never relented in her attempts to hug the misery right out of me.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Not really—”
“And before you answer, just know that I won’t ask you to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me.”
“I’d really rather keep it to myself, if it’s all the same—”
“I know how private you are. How private you’ve always been. So seriously, if you don’t feel like talking about it, that’s fine.”
“Taylor, I really don’t—”
“For the record, experts say that the longer you keep heartbreak inside of you, all bottled up, the more likely it is to grow and fester, and before long there’s a pretty decent chance that you’ll either suffer a complete mental and emotional breakdown—the kind that carries with it the high likelihood that you’ll spend the rest of your life in a near-catatonic state—or that your heart will release so many toxins into your bloodstream—a result of, basically, emotional blood poisoning—that for all intents and purposes, your head will explode. I mean, your head won’t literally explode, of course. It’s more like your brain will explode inside your head. Some people say that’s just a myth, but I say you can’t be too careful with this stuff.” Her reflection bounced back at me from the mirror, and a sly smile spread across her lips. “So, tell me, Kenna. What happened with Jeremiah?”
I chuckled. “You’re a mess. You know that?”
Her smile widened, her arms released me, and her hands swept down to grab the towel from my hands and throw it on the counter. And then, before I could register what was happening, I was being pulled into her bedroom. With all the finesse of a magician whose hands were trying to convince me a woman had been sawed in half, she shut the door behind me, cleared off a space for me to sit on the edge of her bed, pulled her desk chair over and sat down in it knee to knee with me, and began holding my hands.
“When did you get a desk in here?” I asked as soon as I got my bearings enough to realize what was happening.
She looked behind her at the desk and then back at me with a bewildered expression. “Um . . . sometime around 2008, I think. Where else would I write term papers and cram for exams?”
The truth? The truth was I had never really pictured Taylor writing term papers or cramming for exams at all. But if I had envisioned those things, I probably would have imagined them taking place in her Barbie Dreamhouse, which used to sit where the desk now was.
“I guess I just haven’t been in here in a while.” It looked completely different than I remembered, but it was still a bedroom. Taylor was not relegated to a reading nook by the window to make room for an ironing board. I swallowed down the threatening flare-up of injured pride by reminding myself Taylor lived a few miles away and probably stayed over all the time, while I would soon be returning to the Stearns & Foster Reserve Hepburn mattress I had splurged on with my 2019 end-of-year bonus.
“So, tell me about this guy. Tell me about Jeremiah.”
Referring to Jeremiah Burkhead as “this guy” felt to me about as absurd as every other aspect of the whole scenario. But as my mind raced and attempted to follow every potential conversational direction to its eventual destination, I realized that all I had to do was acknowledge some vague truth and Taylor’s romance-addled brain would handle the rest. It was all about buying a little time until there was nothing to hide.
“He’s an attorney.”
She nodded compassionately, as if the utterance of his occupation had confirmed all of her suspicions as to the intense level of my heartbreak.
“And you thought you might marry him someday?”
I sighed and answered honestly. “Yeah. I guess I sort of thought I might. Maybe. Someday.”
She squeezed my hands and looked into my eyes until I had no choice but to meet her compassionate gaze. “So . . . what happened?”
It was ludicrous. I knew I was pouring gasoline on a fire that I might never be able to put out. If I opened this door and allowed her to walk through, what chance would I have of ever getting her to understand that she and I didn’t care about the same things? What chance would I have of ever getting her to acknowledge that not caring about the same things was okay? I knew all of that. But as her eyes began to glisten in response to whatever emotions she believed herself to be interpreting from my silence, I realized that, strange as it was, I understood how to put my reality in terms she would understand.
“He broke my heart.” I paused, expecting her to ooh and aah and ask the wrong question and say the wrong thing, but she didn’t. “I, um . . . I guess I thought we were heading a certain direction, but we weren’t. Or, I mean . . . We still are. We just hit a snag.”
I cleared my throat and attempted to clear my thoughts. This wasn’t a good idea. My vague attempts at connection with my little sister had just gotten messy. How could I reconcile the heartbreak I was supposedly feeling with the determination that it was, in fact, just a snag? I had to keep believing the snag was temporary. I had to believe that phone call from HR was due any minute. Because if I didn’t . . .
“How long had you been with him, Kenna?”
I forced myself to measure my breathing, in and out. There’s no reason to panic, I assured myself. It’s all a stupid mistake. You know that, and Jeremiah Burkhead knows that. This investigation is your friend. Due process is your friend. The facts won’t lie. The facts never lie.
I took one more deep breath and was no longer able to feel my heart pounding in the base of my throat. “Off and on for about . . . well, about thirteen years, I guess.”
“Thirteen years?!” Taylor’s eyes were nearly the size of the inscribed gold plates hanging on her wall.
Hang on. Gold plates?
“Taylor, are those Jordan High Model UN trophies over there underneath your Justin Timberlake wall art?” It was a total toss-up as to which part of that sentence was most ridiculous, but it all combined to form a glorious distraction.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Yeah.”
“How in the world did I not know that you did Model UN?”
“Silly.” She chuckled, hopped up from her chair, and walked over to the wall. “They’re not mine. They’re yours.” She beamed at me, then seemed to think better of her beaming. “I hope that’s okay. I mean, they were just in a box after you went to college, and I thought they looked pretty cool. And then once I got into high school, I realized that you were kind of a legend around there. And I have Erica’s debate team trophies too.” She pointed to the shelf in the corner, where I had last remembered there being an entire village’s worth of American Girl dolls. “I guess those things sort of made me feel like you were both still around.”
I had founded Jordan High’s Model UN club my freshman year, and when not even Erica would go to after-school practices with me, it looked like it might be dead in the water. But then, in a stroke of genius, I petitioned the school board to count Model UN as a half credit toward the honors diploma. At the very next club meeting, there were Jared Pierson and Henry Blumenthal. There was no way they were going to miss out on a half credit that I had in the bag. Before long, we were about twenty members strong, and by senior year we were sending a team to the National Model United Nations Conference in Washington, DC.
It probably overstated things a bit to call me a legend, but I did consider the Model UN club part of my legacy. A legacy I’d never known my little sister knew about, much less cared about.
“That’s sweet, Tay. Thanks.” Admittedly, that did make more sense, considering she was the same kid who had once asked me if Great Britain ever thought about downgrading their “Great” status after the Revolutionary War. “So, what were you part of in high school? Art club, right? Was Mrs. Holson-Brack still there when you were there?”
She was off, welcoming me into her world from a decade prior. A world I’d never asked to step into before. And thankfully, my heartbreak was momentarily forgotten.
Chapter 10
When the smell of bacon began wafting up the stairs, Taylor abandoned our conversation, and I was able to shower and get dressed. By the time I made it to the kitchen, the rest of the house was energetically greeting the day. And it seemed the world was still abuzz from the excitement of the visit from Durham’s favorite son the evening before.
“I can’t believe you missed it, Mom,” Taylor was saying as I walked in. “He’s so cute.”
“Well, I’ve seen him on TV.” Mom served scrambled eggs onto four plates and set the first two in front of Dad and Taylor. “But it would have been nice to see him in person.”
“You’ve seen him in person,” I said with a laugh.
“You have?” my dad asked her.
“Yes,” I answered on her behalf, my tone drawn out and somewhat annoyed. “And so have you,” I added in my dad’s direction. “Before last night, I mean. I’m glad he’s done well for himself, and trust me, I’m a fan of his work too. But don’t forget this is ultimately just a guy I went to school with.”
Taylor didn’t do a very good job of hiding the smirk on her face even as she lowered her head and studied her eggs.
Mom placed a plate in front of me as I sat. “Thanks, but I don’t usually eat breakfast.”
“You have to eat breakfast,” she insisted.
Being an adult who comes back home is all about picking your battles. “Yes, ma’am.” Being an adult who comes back home is also why they invented Pilates.
Dad prayed a blessing over the food—while I silently put in a request with God to move that blessing over to our arteries. But even as my bowed head hovered over the plate, the scent of my mom’s fresh buttermilk biscuit clouds, as we’d always called them—which were just barely visible beneath the bacon sawmill gravy with the perfect amount of black pepper, as always—was enough to make me add on the silent prayer amendment, But if this is my last meal, you won’t hear me complaining.
“And you said he’s going to be by again today?” Mom asked Dad as soon as he’d said amen.
I looked up from my plate—thick, crisp bacon practically melting on the inside of my mouth and dangling in a very uncouth fashion on the outside. It’s possible I had jumped the gun on the amen.
“I’m sorry . . . What? Why? Henry? Henry’s going to be by again today? By here, again, today? Why? Henry?”
Way to go, McKenna. That will get that smug, knowing smile off Taylor’s face.
No big deal. I could dig myself out. “I mean, I just ask because . . . Well, he’s a busy dude.” A busy dude? Really? “I just don’t think we should be nagging him about our little ancestry project—”
“He called this morning and said he had found something he wanted to show us,” my dad replied with a shrug. “I don’t really understand his interest, either, but who am I to discourage him?” Dad had mastered the appearance of blasé better than I had, but he’d checked his watch three times in the amount of time it took him to say that. So, yeah, I wasn’t really buying it.
One thing I could say about Taylor: she had never been worried enough about what anyone would think of her to bother with faking blasé. She was practically bouncing in her seat, and she felt no shame.
“What if he wants to do a documentary on our family?”
I scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”
Taylor and my mom exchanged amused glances over their coffee cups.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing.” Taylor set her cup down and daintily dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “I just said earlier that you’d say something like that.”
“Because I have common sense.”
“And I also said,” she continued, “that he probably isn’t coming over here for genealogy stuff at all. He’s probably coming to see you.”
What do you know? Bouncing in her seat and emphatically trilling the last word of every sentence had been Taylor’s attempt at blasé. But all attempts were put aside as I looked up at her in dismay—or was it hope?—and she took my interest as permission to say all she wanted to say. At least I hoped so. It was very possible, I feared, that she was still holding back and there was about to be a Chernobyl-type situation on Morningside Drive when all of that energy released. Or if it didn’t. I honestly didn’t know which would be worse.
She turned in her chair to face me and scooted up until the fronts of her knees were saddled up against the sides of my leg. “You should have seen the way he was looking at you last night!”
I stuffed a bite into my mouth. “Presumably, I did see the way he was looking at me.” My voice was muffled by fluffy egg and unamused. Even if my brain was engaging in battle again—wanting to implore her to stop, wanting to beg her to go on. Well, since she was bound and determined to go on whether I begged her or not, there didn’t seem to be much reason not to just let it play out.
“See, I don’t think so. I think you were too busy looking at him the way you were.” She winked at me and then faced our mother. “The whole thing made me feel like I was watching Beauty and the Beast.”
Laughter (and, unfortunately, a few little egg chunks) spewed from my mouth. “Henry may be a little bit of a rough-edged, independent, adventurer sort, but I would hardly compare him to the Beast.”
“I wasn’t, silly.” Taylor giggled and rolled her eyes.
Hang on . . . . Am I the Beast?!
She was talking to Mom again as she said, “You know when he saves her from the wolves and she nurses him back to health and he gives her the library—”
“I love when he gives her the library.” Mom sighed.
“—and they both have to acknowledge to themselves that there’s something between them? It was like that.”
I will not let this get to me. I will not let this get to me. I will not let this get to me.
After all, I’d fallen asleep analyzing every glance and every incidental touch. There was nothing Taylor could point out that I hadn’t already dissected. And in the end, no matter how much I acknowledged I was attracted to him and would love to spend more time with him—and no matter how much I replayed the confession of his high-school feelings for me—I knew that nothing would come of any of it. And that was fine. That was better than fine. Within six to eight weeks, I would be back at work. Busier than ever. Happier than ever. Eating more Swiss-and-tomato-on-pumpernickel sandwiches from Barney Greengrass than ever.
Okay, sure . . . Maybe I had a crush. Maybe Henry had made me feel things I didn’t usually feel. But that was to be expected. The facts were, though I hated to admit it even to myself, I was in an extremely vulnerable state of mind. The facts were that Henry Blumenthal was no longer the dorky kid who never once seemed to find a barber who knew how to control his cowlick.
And the facts were that there was nothing more pathetic than unrequited love.
“Henry and I always got along really well in school,” I said calmly as I spooned a dollop of butter into grits so creamy they made me wonder if my mom had found a recipe on Pinterest that combined cornmeal and unicorn dreams. “Do you remember, Mom, when he used to give me a ride home from school whenever my old Buick was in the shop?”
“When wasn’t that Buick in the shop?” Dad groaned.
“I’m just saying, Kenna,” Taylor resumed, turning back to me, “maybe Henry is just what the doctor ordered to get your mind off Jer—”
