Page 103 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
I hardly knew him. Nolan remembers more than I do, but my father is more foreign than a mythical creature to me. The sadness in my mom’s voice, though... For the first time I feel like I truly comprehend the way her voice sinks and then floats anytime she mentions him. Sad to have lost him but happy for what they had.
Bram is alive. Thank God. And we were so short-lived, but our relationship feels more impactful in a matter of months than mine with Gentry did in four years. For as angry as I want to be, for as much as I want Bram to fight me, I can’t find it in me to regret a thing. Like Mom, I’m sad it’s gone but happy it existed at all.
The conversation shifts to Bee and Nolan, and they swear us to secrecy as they list out potential baby names. We watch our first Christmas movie of the season, the Hope Channel’s attempt at a lower-budget ode toDie Hard. I slip in and out of sleep, as does Mom. Nolan offers to walk her out back to her studio, and she holds a hand out for me to come with so we can cuddle up like we did when I was a child and Nolan was away on tour and it was just the two of us and the act of sleeping in separate beds seemed like a useless boundary to maintain when all we truly had was each other.
I feel like myself. Telling them everything, even if they don’t have all the answers, feels like fresh air. And it feels so, so good to be Maddie again instead of the Gentry-shaped fiancée I had folded myself into. The girl who spent each holiday with her family, trying to make them see how lucky she was to have such a handsome and smart guy from a wealthy, established family interested in her.
Being fat for much of my life always meant trimming myself back until all that was left was the version Gentry wanted to see. Especially because he was this traditionally attractive guy, and if I let myself become anything other than what he needed, his light might stop shining on me. It was already hard enough to get anyone to take me seriously, but with Gentry by my side, I was so certain we could be this power couple and that the world would see what he saw in me. Worth.
But I and my desires would always come second, so maybe I owed a thank-you to Penelope Pike for breaking up with me. I definitely wouldn’t have found Bram, and even if he and I are over, now I can say that I know what can be. Thanks to myself, of course, but thanks also to him and his encouragement of every good girl, bad girl, sharp, hungry girl part of me.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Maddie
On Sunday morning, I try to give my mom the cactus. I tell her how happy it will be in her mild California climate, and how, unlike me, she will actually keep it alive.
She gently pushes it back into my hands as Nolan loads my suitcase into the trunk of the car.
Then she gives me a crushing hug that pushes the air from my lungs. “I love you, my sweet, fiery jalapeño of a girl.” She steps back and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear as her other hand runs over my bob, like she’s memorizing this image of me and replacing the blond stranger that she’s had to live with for the last few years.
We say our goodbyes and Bee wonders if maybe we should make a last-minute change of plans and do Christmas in Kansas so Nolan and Mom can see some old friends and help me settle into my new place.
The airport is holiday chaos, and as I go through security, I feel like an overprotective mother as I try to shield my cactus from any rough handling, but I and the prickly little thing make it through.
Because the LAX drop-off math is a constant mystery and you can only be there way too early or five minutes before your flight, I am at my gate three hours before it is time to board.
I perform the required act of confirming that, yes, my gate does indeed exist, and then I’m off in search of overpriced food that doesn’t taste like cardboard.
After settling on a dumpling place with my ideal ordering process—free of humans and from the safety of my own phone—I settle in at the bar to read a few bookmarked articles on my phone with my cactus currently taking up residence on the counter.
Two dumplings in, I hear the stoic voice of a reporter coming from the giant screen above say, “... Gentry Cooper Wade the Third, the California assemblyman elect of a notoriously upper-middle-class suburban district that is a stronghold not just for one party but for the Wade political dynasty in general. Political pundits have been eagerly awaiting the debut of the youngest of the Wade prodigies, and it seems that he isn’t waiting for his swearing in for his first political scandal. And viewers, I have to be honest when I say, it might just be his last.”
My heart skips a beat as I allow myself to look up. Whoa. This is national news. What the hell could Gentry have done to get himself in the national spotlight?
“For those who did not follow the race, Wade announced a rather controversial policy proposal just a week before Election Day and made a name for himself as he rallied support for his California Sex Worker Registry plan. Well, we here at CTB have confirmed with a reliable source that the youngest Wade’s interest in pornographic material is perhaps more personal in nature.” The reporter, her hair a short brown crop, her eyes twinkling with glee, continues on as I sit there with a half-eaten dumpling hovering in front of my agape mouth.
“Footlicker95, also known as Gentry Cooper Wade the Third, was identified in what is being called a guerrilla data leak similar in nature to the Fasse Global leak investigated by this reporter ten years ago.”
My dumpling and chopsticks clatter to my plate then. My chest is alight with a burning excitement and something akin to hope. But above all, I feel like a predator satisfied.
Bram. Holy fuck. He’s still got it.
I am way too turned on right now to be sitting in an airport eating dumplings. Oh god, and I am still so, so sad. Sad and horny. What a combination.
I don’t care that Gentry watched porn. A handful of times we even watched it together—though it was rather vanilla and definitely free of foot fetishes. But I do care that he was so dead set on vilifying sex workers and also framing porn as a dirty little secret.
I push my lust and curiosity aside as I force myself to metabolize the rest of the report.
“The leak appears to be targeted, as no other identities outside of a few financial heavy hitters and a US House representative from Kansas have been named. The leak also includes services rendered, featuring receipts for video chats and escort services paid for by Wade. We can also confirm that Wade, over the time frame the data leak covers, was in a serious relationship with his longtime girlfriend, Madelyn Kowalczk. While Kowalczk had only just begun to venture into the limelight, what many didn’t know was that she is the younger sister of Nolan Shaw and sister-in-law to Bee Hobbes. This reporter can’t help but wonder if Gentry was a fan of Bianca Von Honey, Bee Hobbes’s adult film alter ego. When asked for a statement, Gentry’s office did not respond.”
Gentry never did like Bee, and I wonder now if his breakup with me was preemptive in anticipation of this new front-running policy of his. Among many other things.
“I told him that registry would kill his campaign, but did he believe me? Of course not.”
I glance over and right there just two seats down is Penelope Pike with two glasses of half-drunk wine (one red and one white) sitting in front of her, along with a bowl of edamame carcasses.
“Penelope Pike,” I say. “I hope you’re not planning on flying a plane after double-fisting two glasses of wine, are you? Not after all the lectures you gave me about not giving a shit if I ever actually drove drunk, but only caring if I got caught.”
