Page 97 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
“Yes.”No. Maybe. Don’t leave me. Don’t look at me with those cat-green eyes, I can’t take it.“It’s what’s best for the kids, I agree. And you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need, Maddie. I mean that. I’ll do everything you need to feel comfortable here.”
Quickly, so fucking quickly, she blurts, “No. No, I-I can’t. I can’t stay here.”
My capacity for being hurt by a person I’ve known for less than three months is astounding. “Okay,” I say softly. “We’ll figure it out.”
Hester Prynne clicks over to Maddie from her spot near the vent and noses Maddie’s hand for attention. Maddie gets down to a knee to pet Hester with both hands. I wonder if she does that so she doesn’t have to look at me.
“I can see if Junie will have me for a bit, or Sloane,” she says, her eyes on Hester’s panting face. Then she glances up with a weak smile. “Or maybe Joey and Riley will need some preemptive childcare and take me in on a barter system.”
I give her a weak smile back. “Maybe.”
She stands up and steps a little closer. Not much, but enough that I can see the infinitesimal quiver of her chin. “Bram... I want you to know that even though this was a physical relationship and even though it’s ending, it was still important to me. You are still important. And the time we shared, and getting to hang out with the girls, and all the advice you gave me—it mattered. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend these last two and a half months any other way.”
A cynical part of me feels like she’s already playing the role of politician, throwing a bone to a demographic that’s about to be sidelined.We value your voice; we won’t actually change our existing plans for you, but you should feel appreciated all the same. Because we said so.
But I do think she means it.
“You are important to me too,” I say. And then I add, because I know it’s the only time I’ll say these three words to her and I want that, selfishly, at least once, “I love you.”
A broken exhale, like she’s fallen from a height. “I never asked you to.”
I nod, because I know.
“And I never wanted this to hurt.”
I know that too. I step closer and allow myself one last liberty: I take her hand in mine and give it a careful but lingering squeeze. “It’s okay,” I tell her, meeting her eyes. “It’s going to be okay.”
“It would have hurt worse if I dragged it out, right?” She bites her lip, her brows lifted in a kind of plea. Begging me to absolve her. “If we carried on until I felt too trapped or until Veronica caught us again. It’s got to be better to make a clean break of things, you know?”
“That’s right.” My voice is soothing; I squeeze her hand one last time and let go. “Tomorrow, we’ll light up the phone tree and find a new place for you.”
I leave her in the kitchen with another weak smile and then go to my room. Hester Prynne, the canine Judas, doesn’t follow and stays with her most recent admirer instead. Which is fine, I know what to do. I did it for years coming home with schoolyard bruises. I did it before then as a little kid scared of the dark and knowing that if I asked for comfort, I’d be told to be stronger, braver.
I go into the empty corner of my room and slide down to the floor, wedging myself as far back as I can so it feels like the walls are holding me. And then I wrap my arms around myself in a hug and pull my knees up to my chest. And just like I did when I was a lonely little boy, I pretend that in a minute someone will come in to turn on the light.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Bram
Two days later, and Joey and I are carrying plastic totes of clothes up the narrow stairs leading to an apartment above The Dry Bean, and Sloane is on the phone with a plumber, trying to get Robbie’s DIY shower up and running before Maddie stays her first night.
“So when Robbie said he was renovating up here, he didn’t mean renovating in the commonly understood sense, did he?” Joey observes, setting a tote down on the kitchen table and gazing around at the shag carpet and faux wood paneling. The carpet is a shade of orange that I last saw on a couch in my grandparents’ farmhouse before I hosted the estate sale.
“It’s clean at least,” Sloane says, coming around the corner. “I had the same team that does Persimmon Hill come out and give it a once-over.”*
“Well, it looks like they got most of the nicotine residue off the walls,” Joey says cheerfully, and then squints upward at the jaundiced tiles of the suspended ceiling. “Maybe not everywhere, though.”
“It’s too bad.” Sloane does a slow, sighing spin. “This building is a hundred and thirty years old. Hardwoods, brick, tinplate, all sorts of lovely things just hiding behind layers of bad decisions, and all it needs is time and money. And those are precisely the two things I can’t give it right now.”
As Joey agrees with her, I go downstairs to get the last of the totes. I’ve just looked at the latest polling numbers in California and it appears like Gentry is all but guaranteed to win his district, and stomping up and down the stairs is the only release of aggression I have time for right now. After that, Joey volunteers to run to the store to get a few basics for the kitchen. Sloane and I watch him lumber down the stairs, meowing the tune of Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” and then we look at each other, realizing at the same time that Joey Fucking Kemp probably thinks kitchen basics are Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Gatorade Zero.
“I’ll go with him,” Sloane says.
“I think that’s a good idea.”
She gets her purse from a questionable recliner Robbie left behind. “I’m really glad I had this unit open,” she remarks. “There’s supposed to be a tenant moving into the second apartment in January, but this one is still unleased, and there’s no reason for it to stay empty.”
“It was nice of you to cut her a deal on everything,” I reply. “Thank you, Sloane. Truly. She needed this.”
