“What does your father do for the Postal Service?” This is like tag team wrestling, perfectly synchronized to take the opponent out with a power bomb. I glance at the other end of the table to find Pat Reynolds’s cold, rapt attention on me.
“Jesus Christ!” Reagan cuts in, tone exasperated. “Can we talk about something else? I saw Brian. Why don’t you take some interest in him.”
He’s close to losing it. I know what his tipping point looks like now. A beat of tension-filled silence ensues in which Reagan’s dad does his best to stare him into submission and fails. Also noteworthy, the Richardsons don’t seem fazed by any of this.
“We’re not discussing your brother today,” Dr. Reynolds declares. “I’d like to have a peaceful meal if you don’t mind.”
That has me biting back the urge to laugh. I guess I’m not entitled to the same courtesy. I sit up straighter and somehow summon the courage to stare Pat Reynolds in the eye. “My father delivers the mail.”
You can hear a pin drop. His parents exchange a look. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” his mother has the audacity to say with a stiff smile. With a smile!
“Mom,” Reagan growls, a storm brewing on his face.
“No, it isn’t,” is all I say out of respect for my friend. I’ll walk out of here basically unscathed. But he’ll never be rid of these people.
Reagan
“Hi, Olga.” My parents’ housekeeper is bent over the kitchen sink, rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher. After twenty years of handling all the household business like clothing, feeding, and caring for me and Brian, all the stuff my mother never had time for, I guess I should call her part of the family.
She glances over her shoulder and smiles once she realizes it’s me. “Reagan!” I don’t come around often. Last time might’ve been three months ago so it’s startling to note the changes. The lines along her eyes more pronounced, the hair completely white.
She dries her hands and closes the distance between us. “So handsome,” she tells me as she pats my cheek. “You have new girlfriend, I see.” I return a smile because I can’t very well tell her the truth.
Her smile cuts off and her expression grows troubled. “You see Brian?”
Brian has always been her favorite. When we were kids, during the summer, the two of them would spend hours by the pool. Olga reading and Brian yelling at her to watch him swim laps. She loved indulging him. And maybe because she doesn’t have kids of her own, she thrived off his need for her attention. I shake my head and her mood gets darker.
My mother walks into the kitchen with a smile on her face, completely unfazed by the skirmish at dinner. That’s her superpower. Her ability to completely block out the fact that my father is an epic asshole and that she sometimes comes in a close second. Ignore the problem and it ceases to exist. The Reynolds family motto. She did the same with Brian.
“Olga, you don’t have to do that,” she says. “Leave it. Consuelo can do it tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Dr. Reynolds. Good night.” Olga’s worked here for twenty years, lives in this house, and never once has my mother given her permission to address her by her first name. It has pissed me off since I was old enough to understand.
Olga’s grin returns when her attention shifts back to me. “It’s so good to see you, Reagan. You come home more, okay?”
“See, even Olga thinks you don’t come home enough.”
Ignoring my mother’s constant nagging, I focus on Olga. “Good to see you too, Olga. Happy Thanksgiving.” Yeah, some Thanksgiving.
Nodding, Olga smiles one last time before she leaves the kitchen. Mom grabs a bottle of white wine out of the wine cooler and sets it on the kitchen island.
“Where’s Alice?”
“Looking at old family photos.” She retrieves a bottle opener from a drawer, places it on the marble counter next to the bottle, and stares at it.
“Honey…” She glances up at me and her expression softens. “She’s a sweet girl and I’m sure she’s got a bright future ahead of her, but she’s not for you.” She starts picking at the plastic seal with her nails. “Dammit,” she whispers less than a moment later and stops what she’s doing to inspect the damage done to her pale nail polish.
I take the bottle out of her hands and rip the seal off, set about uncorking it. “Relax, Dr. Reynolds. No need to plan a wedding…it’s casual.”
A self-satisfied smile replaces her carefully crafted neutral expression, the same one she wears every time she thinks she has the upper hand. “I see the way you look at her, Reagan. Give me a little credit for knowing my own son’s mind.”
Instinct kicks in, the pressing urge to protect Alice from my parents at all cost. Because I don’t trust them not to tear her apart. Quietly, patiently, with a million tiny cuts. That’s how they do it. The same way they did it to Brian. The same way they’ve been trying to do it to me.
“Then I guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do because I have no feelings for her and she’s got even less for me.”
The minute the words are out of my mouth I recognize them for the absolute bullshit lie that they are. Do I have feelings for Alice? I think so. The thought of her being with anybody else makes me break out in a cold sweat and want to kill someone. So, yeah, I’d say I have feelings for her.
But what do I do about them? My life is so complicated right now I can barely keep my head above water. And Alice…she’s the only good thing in it. I can’t risk losing her by asking for more and then not giving her what she deserves.
And that doesn’t even speak to the fact that she’s told me repeatedly that I’m not her type––whatever the fuck that means. Essentially, we’re both completely unavailable.
“You’ve got your entire life ahead of you. Medical school is hell on relationships and residency even worse. You’ll be in your mid thirties by the time you have a minute to spare. Do you really want to do that to her?”
“You and Dad survived it,” I find myself saying, defending a nonexistent relationship that I know for a fact Alice does not want.
“Barely. And only because I was just as busy.” My mother walks around the counter and brushes the hair off my forehead. “If you care about her at all you’ll put a stop to it now. Don’t string her along. It’s not fair to her.”
Chapter 22
Alice
That was fun. Heavy sarcasm. Only a few hours in the presence of the esteemed Dr. and Dr. Reynolds and the secondhand pressure nearly suffocated me to death. It’s impossible to breathe around those people. And it breaks my heart for Reagan and Brian. I can’t even imagine what it was like for them as children, growing up with all those expectations placed on them.
We drive back to Malibu in complete silence, the tension so thick you need garden shears to cut it. I guess it’s the observer in me that made me stop and listen when I heard Reagan talking with his mother. I should’ve kept walking to the bathroom. I should’ve stayed home and read my shitty book. But I did neither. Instead I came, I saw, I overheard. I have no one other than myself to blame.
After the “I have no feelings for her and she less for me” remark, I walked away. I know conviction when I hear it. There was force behind those words. And I have my pride. I’m not a complete glutton for punishment.
Speaking of Reagan, he has yet to look at me once since leaving Roxbury Drive. He’s definitely not one prone to broody moods. He’s naturally chatty and bordering on almost annoyingly upbeat. Our conversations have always had an easy rhythm, a steady flow. Which is why this behavior is throwing me for a loop. I don’t know how to handle this version of him. I’ve never seen him this shut down before with the exception of the night we saw Brian.
I wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to ditch me and spend some time alone. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting, though. The last thing I want to be to him is another burden he can’t wait to be rid of.
“Want to crash at my place? No one’s home,” he says, staring out at the empty highway, tight grip on the steering wheel, broad shoulders at a perfect ninety-degree angle he’s so tense.
Okay, I was a little bit off the mark. A slow-spreading warmth that started in the cavity of my chest swiftly travels up my neck and over my face. We’ve never had a sleepover. This is highly irregular for us, but I don’t question it. He doesn’t want to be alone and I get it. I know how it feels. Sometimes to ride out the storm all you need is someone to hold on to, a fixed point, a steady presence that doesn’t tax you emotionally because you’re not invested that way. I’m that to him. Someone he’s not worried about impressing. Someone he’s not invested in.
Reagan’s gaze cuts back and forth from the road to me.
“I don’t have anything with me,” I remind him.
“You can borrow my stuff.”
An image of Reagan in nothing other than his underwear immediately crops up and once again I curse my ability to visualize in fine detail.
You can do this, Bailey. Your friend needs you. Buck up, bitch.
Because isn’t that what friendship is? Putting your own feelings aside when you’re needed. Stepping up to the plate knowing your heart’s on the line, the one that will take the hit.
“Okay,” I tell him.
An undeniable urge to gauge his reaction makes me glance his way again and I’m just in time to catch it, the subtle softening of his features, the relaxing of his shoulders. That’s when I know I made the right choice.
“Patrick,” he cryptically announces out of nowhere. “My middle name is Patrick…I’m ashamed of it.”
My heart hurts. It literally hurts for him. “You’re nothing like him,” I assure him. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Reagan
“I sleep naked.”
Maybe this is a mistake. Judging by the way Alice stands stiffly in the threshold of my bedroom, I would say it is. The abject fear on her face knocks a burst of laughter out of me. “Kidding. I keep my skivvies on.”