Page 102 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
I walk them through how desperate I was to leave Southern California and then getting the childcare job with Bram to help offset expenses.
“Where in Mount Astra are you staying?” Nolan asks.
“Well, I was staying with Bram and his girls.”
“So you were a live-in nanny?” Mom asks.
I frown as I think of how Bram would gently, but quickly, correct her by sayingchildcare provider.
“Sort of... um, so Bram... he offered me his spare room when... he...” I take a deep breath. I’m either telling them the truth or I’m not. I’m fine now. I have an apartment, so any of their worry would be retroactive. “He realized I was living in my car.”
“Maddie!” Nolan and Bee shout just as Mom weighs in with an outraged “What the fuck?”
I sit up again now. “Okay, that didn’t go very well. Though, Mom, I am impressed by your usage of a four-letter word.”
The three of them sound off with more questions and general outrage.
I explain. I don’t expect them to understand. But I explain. I explain that I thought I had to do this on my own and that Bram proved me wrong. Nolan grits his teeth, and I tell him that I love him and that he doesn’t owe me generosity. He grumbles about paying off my student loans whether I want him to or not. I tell them about the girls, and I can feel my whole face light up as I go on about Fern and how she conquered her boy troubles and how Letty and Berry are like salt and pepper and how one complements the other. I tell them a little about Junie and our morning coffee dates. I tell them about Veronica Balentine, and they all seem cautiously optimistic at what the future might hold.
And then comes Bram. With tears on the verge of spilling, I tell them about Bram and his greenhouse and his eco–bad boy past and I tell them about how I was having a hard time in the classroom at first and how Bram helped me find my footing.
I leave out the best parts, of course, even though I’m tempted to tell my brother a little too much to make up for the time I caught him and Bee in his childhood bedroom a few months after they got together.*
“This Bram guy sounds like he likes you a little too much,” Nolan says, his chest puffed out in big brother mode. “You think I need to send Kallum down the road to have a word with him while he’s in KC?”
“Trust me,” I tell Nolan, “if anyone needs a talking-to, it’s me.”
“Oh, Maddie,” Bee says. “What happened?”
I shake my head. “He fell for me. I fell back. Maybe even harder. I don’t know. And then I broke it off, because he is basically enemy number one to everyone who might consider donating to my campaign. Veronica gave me an ultimatum and I’m a heartless power-hungry bitch, so I dumped him.”
Mom grunts at my self-burn. “You are not, Madelyn.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Bee says as she reaches her foot over to lovingly poke me. Nolan might be a total doofus in the eyes of his sister, but he chose well when he chose Bee.
The three of them let me tell them even more about Bram and his group of friends and Hester Prynne and Porcupine the frog and the way I absolutely reinvented the school pickup line. Bee is on the verge of violence as I regale them with the story of Professor Wallace and how I stood up to him with Bram’s encouragement. (The PG version.)
“So does this Bram guy have anything to do with the cactus you were forlornly holding when I picked you up at LAX?” Nolan asks.
My lip trembles. “He gave me that stupid cactus, and we’re not even together anymore and now I’m just responsible for it! I have to keep it alive somehow and I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of me killing it without him.” (Even though that is the exact opposite of how Bram would react.) “So I brought it on the plane so I could keep an eye on it and so that it wouldn’t die of neglect.”
“It sounds like you’re really projecting a lot onto this cactus, little sis.”
“I just think it’s rude that he would leave me with something to be responsible for when I can hardly keep a roof over my own head. It’s like he’s trying to prove how incapable I am without him.”
“Babe,” Bee says with a soft smile. “It’s hard to say for sure without meeting this plant daddy myself—”
“Can we call him literally anything else?” Nolan asks.
“What?” She shrugs, and I love that she organically found her way to Bram’s nickname without me even saying so. “He’s a plant person and a father. Plant. Daddy.”
Mom chuckles. “He sounds lovely. What were you saying, Bee?”
“Before I was so rudely interrupted by the father of my unborn child, I was saying that”—Bee looks down at me—“with love, I think you’re completely delusional, Maddie.”
I roll over onto my back like I’m in a therapist’s office and the pillow is my mother’s lap. “I know,” I concede. “But it’s just easier to hurt when there’s something to be angry about, you know? The pain has a place to go.”
“You’re so much like your father,” Mom says softly.
