Subject: Please use lube next time you decide to fuck me in the ass…
My dearest, most-beloved Mother;
Excuse the typos. I’m finding it hard to see straight through the pain. Next time you fuck me in the ass, please consider using lube. I’ve attached a link to my Amazon wish list. On it, you will find my favorite brand of numbing lubricant. Please keep your brush and ship this to me if the need arises.
Thank you for inviting me to brunch. I have plans to stay at home and memorize the lyrics to Beyonce’s “Lemonade,” so the next time it plays, I can impress my new coworkers.
However, because you’ve been such a great inspiration in my life, I’ve decided to put my plans aside and spend the Fourth of July at the country club with you and all of Eastridge’s finest patriots.
(I heard the Mercer family managed to pay zero taxes on their fifty-million-dollar income last year. They’re living the American Dream. I aspire to be them.)
Please assure the women at the country club I will be there. We wouldn’t want you to look like a terrible mother. I’ll be wearing my black sundress with the wilting roses. Remember that one?
I wore it to Easter mass. You pulled me to the side and told me, in front of all my classmates, that even the Devil wouldn’t take me in that dress. What charming memories we share. I love walking down memory lane. Don’t you?
Speaking of memory lane, I absolutely adored our family trip to Hollywood, where you returned with two ccs of lip fillers and a new butt you swore came from hours at the gym. I feel it prudent to remind you I know many of your secrets, too… including the tummy tuck scar you’ve managed to convince the Housewives of Eastridge is from a C-section.
With so many hugs and kisses…
Your favorite daughter,
Emery
Demon Spawn
- Sent from Beyond Virginia’s Uterus
Darynda, my mother’s assistant, filtered through her emails. Sweet, pearl-clutching, pumpkin-spice-cereal-eating, Prada-obsessed, God-fearing, serial-gossiper Darynda. She had the mouth of a hippo. Always open. Always spilling secrets. Always spreading rumors.
I would love to see my mom explain her way out of that email.
A text from Mother came through my phone a few minutes later. An actual text, which was how I knew I’d entered the apocalypse. Virginia Winthrop didn’t text. She sent emails, wrote letters, and spoke on the phone, but she never texted. Texting was for millennials and the Tide Pod generation.
Mother: Emery, I raised you to behave like a lady, not some untamed animal. I expect you to treat me with the respect and dignity I deserve as the woman who raised you. Darynda will reach out with details for brunch. Kisses.
She followed up with:
Mother: Oh, and honey, you’re old enough now that calling me Mother just sounds silly. Virginia will do.
See?
Apocalypse.
Reed called before I could fixate on the fact that my mom wanted me to refer to her by her first name; I slept in a six by eight closet; my boss had kept today’s meeting from me; and I’d been stuck in an elevator with Nash Prescott, who had torn apart my clutch and stolen my wallet, food, and dignity.
“I need your help.” The first words out of Reed’s mouth as I answered the call.
I flipped onto my stomach and toyed with my sheets, the ones barely holding it together. An accurate metaphor for my life. My bodyweight on my stomach made it feel more hollow, its growl filling the air.
Again, I thought of my trust fund before reminding myself it was blood money.
“What do you need?” I asked, voice low and raspy, knowing it couldn’t be any good after the morning I’d had.
The third sign of the apocalypse, no doubt.
“Why are you whispering?”
Because I don’t know if any stragglers remain in the building I am currently squatting in.
I didn’t say this, of course.
“My neighbors finally finished having morning sex, and I’m afraid if they hear me, they’ll ask me to join again.” The lie slipped out so easily, I felt very much like a Winthrop in this moment.
“Again? As in you’ve joined in the past?”
“Again, as in they’ve invited me in the past. I said no.”
I pictured my imaginary neighbors, a rail-thin rock-star with a two-inch goatee and a redheaded plus-sized model he couldn’t get enough of. Harlan Felt and Alva Grace, in case Reed asked.
He didn’t.
“I swear, the weirdest shit happens to you.”
Probably because I make half of it up, so you don’t worry about me.
“That’s the life.” I fought off the sudden surge of homesickness when Reed laughed. Clearing my throat, I asked, “What did you need?”
“Ideas.” His ragged breathing filled the line. “I want to propose to Basil.”
I switched the call to a video call, so I could see his face as I asked, “Are you sure?”
What I really wanted to do was scream, “What the fuck!” and check him into an involuntary psych hold.
He scrubbed a hand down his face and tugged at his hair before staring at me. The poor lighting made his hair darker. He laid in bed, the silky strands flying in several directions. For a second, he looked so much like Nash.
My stomach flipped with stupid butterflies, and my fingers hovered over the red button, so close to ending the call before Reed asked, “Am I sure that I want to propose or am I sure that I want my best friend to be supportive and give me ideas?”
Point taken.
“Well, Basil likes big gestures.” Huge, ridiculous, ostentatious gestures. “Maybe take her to Hamilton and have the cast weave your proposal into the play? Like, a local version, because I doubt Broadway would do it.”
Perhaps Wicked. I’m sure Basil will identify with the Wicked Witch of the West.
“Can’t do Hamilton. Basil’s dad thinks Hamilton is a bastardized take on American history with too much diversity.”
And that’s the family you want to marry into?
I bit my tongue until I tasted copper and flipped the phone off video call, so I could talk without worrying Reed would discover I was living in a closet like a less-glamorous version of Harry Potter. Only, I was a Muggle, and life couldn’t get much more fucked-up than that.
“How about a helicopter—”
Reed cut me off, “No helicopters. Basil refuses to ride in one that isn’t manufactured by her dad’s aerospace company, and you know he hates me.”
Forgetting why I’d been whispering in the first place, I pushed my face into my make-shift pillow of shirts and screamed.
“What was that?” Reed asked.