I can’t focus. Brynn pressed a tissue under her eye, trying to mop up some of the excess liner. Can someone go shut him up?
My mother sprayed a fat sausage curl, so crisp it looked as if it had sprung from a mattress. Can I give him some juice?
Hell, give him the rest of this Coke if it’ll quiet him down.
I’ll find him those animal crackers he likes.
She opened the door and left us there, hallway full of kitchen sounds and the steady hum of the vacuum.
He’s gonna get icing all over his little suit, Brynn said. She rubbed at her neck. I stared at the ring that Milo had given her, barely a chip of diamond. I’d helped him pick it out at Sears. After he proposed, he came home and told me she was so happy she cried. I didn’t really believe that. My brother was so overjoyed that he couldn’t stop smiling. Who was I to tell him that the thing he thought was truth was really just a woman trying to manufacture a normal life for herself?
Do you really care? I lay back on my parents’ bed and rolled onto my side, propping my head up with my fist. Icing? Who gives a shit.
She sighed and her bangs fluttered a little to the side, showing a big red pimple cropping up on her forehead. Oh fuck.
You can barely see it. I was lying; it was huge. White-capped and angry-looking, it could burst at any second. Just put your bangs over it.
I can’t, it feels all weird now. I need to pop it.
That’s a bad idea, I said, but she was already pressing it between her thumbs, biting down hard on her lip until her teeth were stained crimson with lipstick. She yelped and a bright splat of pus and blood hit the vanity mirror. A chunk of waxy buildup sat in the middle of it, an island of gore.
Are you kidding me? I pressed my face into a pillow, wanting to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. The love of my life popping her humongous zit in my mother’s vanity mirror while she prepped herself to marry my brother. And here we were, pretending it was normal. Normal for me to feed her shots the night before, licking sweat from her neck. Totally acceptable to dance together at a club with some of her work friends, grinding to the bass notes until I could feel her dampness on my leg. Completely fine for me to fuck her in the back seat of her car later that night, Cheerio crumbs stuck to my ass as we sweat and cried and came, over and over.
What was normal? Normal for Brynn was marrying a man. That was what she wanted; that was what she’d get.
Help me, she said, waving. The blood’s gonna get on my dress.
Grabbing the tissue, I pressed it hard to her forehead to stanch the blood. I told you not to.
Well, it’s too late now.
We didn’t look at each other. I watched my hand where it held the tissue, the cake of her makeup scrubbing off, showing the little line of freckles that dotted her skin, cinnamon-colored. I’d licked those freckles, tasted them to see if they were sweet and thought, yes, they were.
What if I throw up, right in front of everybody?
You won’t.
I look fucking gross. She picked up a tube of lipstick and uncapped it before recapping it.
You look great. Lifting the tissue from her forehead, I waited to see if the blood would well again. It didn’t. You know you always look good.
You’re the only one that thinks that. She grabbed my wrist, fingers trembling. I don’t know if I can do this.
It had been simple enough to set in motion. Like splashing my hand in the lake and watching the ripples spill out, farther and farther, until I had no control over them anymore. Brynn had a kid and needed someone to take care of her. She wanted a husband, stability. Milo loved her, I knew that. He would do anything for her. They’d been dating for only a few months before he told me he was ready to marry her. It was painful, but part of me wanted it too—her to feel secure, to have everything she needed. How could I complain of hurt when I was getting what I’d asked for?
Of course you can do it. Picking up the face powder, I dabbed it over the pimple, which was still red but not as severe as before. She closed her eyes and I lightly trailed the brush over her cheeks and down her nose, across her chin. This will be easy.
Her skin was pasty and damp from the alcohol she was still sweating off. She smelled like her fruity perfume and the very strong odor of her body, which curdled the edges of my heart. Everything inside me cooked at a low boil.
How do you know? She leaned back, and the spiny weight of the flowers in her hair stabbed through my T-shirt. Tell me how you know.
Smoothing gold shadow across her lid, I worked to cover the mess of black liner and tiny veins that had sprouted after her third time puking in my bathroom sink. What’s so hard about it? Just stand up there and repeat the lines. If Milo can do it, you sure as hell can.
Brynn smiled up at me and her dimples deepened into crescents and I loved her, I knew, I loved her more than I’d ever love myself. Uncapping the mascara, I pulled the wand swiftly along her lashes, which were already so long and curled and golden that even a small amount made her look like a doll blinking.
What if he winds up hating me?
I laughed and blew against the mascara, trying to dry it. He loves you. Don’t be dumb.
Yeah, now. Now he loves me.
Her blush was too dark. I dabbed at it with a tissue, tenderly, apples pinkening to a soft glow. I would not say what I felt, which was that we all loved her a little too much. That Milo was a smart choice because he had a job lined up at the dealership and that he was kind, and always giving, and that he would never ask her to be more than what she was. He was something I could never be for her, which was a husband, something her mother would envy. I knew if she stayed with Milo, she’d always be close, that I’d never have to lose her, even if I couldn’t have her in the exact way I wanted. That was what mattered to me. Never losing her. Never losing what I wanted.
The one woman I’d ever loved. The person I’d allowed to see me at my most vulnerable, the only one who’d really known me at my worst and still wanted me around. A person that I found beautiful, even when she was terrible. I looked at her, looked hard, and she looked back at me, and I knew. She didn’t want me to say it. Brynn wanted something else.
There. I closed the powder and leaned back, looking at her face. All done.
I pulled together the sides of the dress and zipped her up. We split what was left of the Coke, me taking the last few sips. She kissed me, leaving lipstick on my tongue that tasted like crayons. I left her there, in my parents’ bedroom, wearing her dress from the mall, with beaded flowers in her hair that looked like they came from someone’s homecoming corsage.
Bastien threw the rings on the floor as he walked in the procession. His little blue suit was stained with the icing from his cookies, white smears on his gold-striped vest. Everyone who wasn’t in the wedding sat perched on folding chairs in the middle of our backyard. Everything was green, as if all the plants had soaked in the moisture and you could have wrung them out like washcloths, if you’d wanted. The overgrowth had been tamed a bit for the event, but there was still a wild amount of vines creeping up the fencing along the back. Our yard was mostly patchy weeds that got mown down to look like a lawn. Leftover pallets lined the left-hand side of the yard. The birdbath to the right had been sprayed out, and a few jays were squawking in the bowl of sun-warmed water. The plants were neon-fluorescent in the light. I wanted to remember everything, exactly as it was in that moment. Never, ever forget it.