“Bet it’s just the lever,” Susannah says. “Probably not the gearbox or the whole thing would’ve frozen up. I bet you got a piece of plastic that fell down in there somewhere.”
“Is this like that thing people do during the Olympics, where suddenly they’re experts in curling or whatever?” I ask. “Or do you actually know what you’re talking about?”
Susannah snorts. “If I had a dime for every time some guy asked me that—”
“You’d have a dime-ond mine,” I say.
“That’s terrible,” Susannah says. “I mean, like legitimately so bad it’s almost good.”
We sit quietly for a minute, wrapped in our own thoughts. As mine have done recently, they float toward Marisa. Having makeup sex with her in my office closet was insane, even a little disturbing—what if we’d been caught?—but I can’t deny how even the thought of it makes my pulse quicken, sends a surge through my spine. But I don’t want to talk about her with Susannah, who would latch on to her and suck all the joy and newness out of … what do Marisa and I have? Is this a relationship? It’s been a sufficiently long time since I have seriously dated anyone that I’m hesitant to use that word, and it’s early days yet, but what else would I call it? Not that I’m going to bring this up with my sister—if I mention Marisa at all, Susannah will sense my hesitation and pounce. Hell, she might pick up on my thoughts about Marisa through some sort of telepathic osmosis.
I shouldn’t worry, because in true Susannah fashion, without any preamble, she says out of the blue, “You know what I was always jealous about with you and Frankie?”
“Our fly fashion sense?” I reply.
“All the errands you both used to run for Uncle Gavin,” she says. “Y’all were out on the street having adventures and doing all this secret brotherhood shit, and I was stuck at the house with Fay.”
“Fay took you to the aquarium and the World of Coke,” I say. “She didn’t exactly chain you to a radiator and make you fold laundry for hours.”
“Yeah, but she was a pain in my ass.” Susannah is slumped low in her seat, legs spread wide and feet flat on the floor.
“Remember when Fay took us all to see The King and I and wanted to make a special night of it? You brought your friend Ashley and snuck in vodka for your Diet Cokes. She threw up all over the front of my shirt at intermission.”
Half of Susannah’s mouth quirks up in a smile. “Ashley couldn’t hold her liquor,” she said.
“Fay talked about going to see that play for weeks. And that’s the night you pulled that stunt. We had to leave in the middle of the play. And that same night, Fay left. She walked out on our uncle after eight years together.” Because of you, I almost add, but I don’t. I don’t need to.
What I most vividly recall from that evening was the fight Uncle Gavin and Fay had when we got home, what they said about Susannah.
“She’s cruel, Gavin,” Fay said. “She likes being cruel. You saw what she did to her friend tonight. I bet she planned this out from the start, you know? Making Ashley her friend and then ruining it. Ruining her. That’s what she does, Gavin. She knew that the one thing I wanted to do tonight was go enjoy a play and at least pretend we are some sort of functioning family, and she fucking ruined it!”
My uncle, with an almost infuriating calm, said, “She doesn’t want you to do anything kind for her. She’ll take that and turn it around on you like a knife.”
“Do you not realize how fucked up that is?”
“She’s in pain.”
“So am I!” Fay shouted.
My uncle did not move or offer any sort of reconciliatory gesture. He simply said, “She’s my sister’s child, Fay.”
The sheen in Fay’s eyes broke, and angrily she wiped away her tears. “Well, she’s not mine,” she said. She stalked across the room toward the front door. When she was about to pass me on the couch, she stopped. “I’m sorry, baby,” she said, then bent forward and pressed her lips to my forehead. I closed my eyes to receive that kiss, drinking in the coconut scent of her hair. Then Fay stood and walked past Uncle Gavin and out the door, slamming it shut behind her.
Now, as we sit in the customer lounge of the Toyota garage, Susannah glances at me, then looks toward the TV, where Mama Bone, the leader of the urban dog rescuers, is trying to coax a pit bull out from behind a dumpster. “I actually do feel bad about that,” Susannah says.
“Better late than never, I guess,” I say.
“Fuck you, Ethan.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, you want me to be proud of you for actually feeling guilty?” I’m mad now, but some detached part of me registers how quickly this escalated, how we are at each other’s throats.
But then Susannah looks at me, and while she’s still slumped in her seat, her glance is searing. “I hated that Fay tried to be our mother,” she says, her voice low and almost even. “I was a horrible bitch to her, and I’m sorry. But Mom died, Ethan. Basically in front of us. Dad too.”
It takes me a moment to find my voice. “I know,” I say.
Susannah turns back to face the TV. “I resented her,” she says.
After a moment when she doesn’t say anything else, I say, “I mean, I get why you resented her. We didn’t know her, didn’t even really know Uncle Gavin either, and she steps in and—”
Susannah
