The way life should be, p.8
The Way Life Should Be, page 8
It’s been years since he saw her at Matt and Thomas’s wedding—five, to be exact. She was stealing a sip from a glass of champagne, smoothing her hair back with one hand. It was clear she didn’t want to be there and equally as clear that this was not the first time she had tasted alcohol. He walked up to her, getting ready to rag on her, but she was aloof, placing the glass back down and turning her back to him, which was a total turn-on. He asked the DJ to play some old-school 50 Cent, “In da Club.” It was a hit. He watched Abbie start to dance, her body taking over her mind. Marvin’s mom, Mrs. Murphy, heard the first few chords and danced her way onto the floor, unhooking her rainbow bow tie. She had moves, and the gay men were all snapping their fingers, shouting, “Yas, queen!” She moved closer to Conor to dance with him. It was an awakening of sorts, realizing that she was more than just Marvin’s mother. She was a person separate from her relationship to him, which made him question his parents and their relationship to each other and to him.
Sometimes his mom could be a bit much, doting on him and always being so damn positive and cheerful. When his parents dropped him off at college, he saw her in a different light, in the same way that Mrs. Murphy became real at the wedding. His new roommates watched his mom humming and carrying boxes in like they were packed with feathers. Their mothers left the heavy stuff to the fathers, as they breathed heavily, tucking sheets onto the mattresses, pushing their sensible mom haircuts back, wiping the sweat from their brows. They’d stop and stand up when Conor came in the room, smoothing their T-shirts and tugging them back down over their spreading waists and asses, thinking their sideways glances were inconspicuous. When he peeled off his shirt, their eyes practically popped out of their heads. He even caught a couple of the fathers looking. And then his mother would come in and the eyes went back and forth, like they were watching a tennis match or some kind of twisted family porn. After the parents left, he broke out the beer that his mother had hidden in a laundry basket for him.
“Oakley, don’t take this the wrong way, but your mom is a total MILF.”
He felt a great sense of pride, and in his mind, Annie became three-dimensional then. The irony was lost on him.
He packs up his stuff, slinging the tripod and accessories into a backpack. As he walks across the campus, the warm sun on his face, his hair brushing his shoulders, life feels effortless. He has come to expect being noticed, and sometimes when he does not acknowledge those who look at him, those who want him to notice them so deeply, he feels guilty, but it would be like waving hello to every person he passed on a busy Boston sidewalk. When he was in elementary school, he didn’t quite understand that the preferential treatment from teachers, other kids, and parents was in large part because of the way he looked. As he grew older, it became expected, and he used it to his advantage, getting better grades than he should have and faster service, listened to by everyone when he spoke. Babies and children stared at his face longer. But there were downsides too: sexual tension from girls who wanted more than he wanted to give and then, when he didn’t reciprocate, told him he was a conceited asshole. Friends whose girlfriends flirted with him would become angry, as if it were his fault—which in a way might have been true, but he couldn’t walk around all the time with a bag over his head.
He also received more playing time than he should have in sports. Coaches patting him on the ass, sending him back out on the court or the field. He couldn’t say no, even if he was exhausted and still trying to recuperate. He tried it once, and the coach sat back, crossing his arms, and asked, “Are you afraid of messing up that pretty face, Oakley?”
How could he sit on the sidelines then? It was the final game of the season, and he ran out onto the basketball court. It was the last few minutes of the game, and his reaction time was off. Marvin had the ball and was looking to pass. He attempted a fake pass to another player and then shot it to Conor, who was not ready. The ball went high, not to his chest but to his face. Conor immediately fell to his knees and then crumpled up on the floor, blood draining onto the court.
When he came around, there was a ring of faces with tortured expressions staring down at him, as if they too felt his pain. He tried to say something, but the only thing that escaped from his mouth was a high-pitched moan. The only thing that existed in the world at that moment was the all-encompassing, breathtaking pain.
His mother and father ran onto the court, and they were shouting at the coach to do something, anything. Someone call an ambulance. Coach brought a bag of ice and knelt down. Conor wanted to yell at him to stay away, Don’t touch it, but all he could do was scream and moan, and as the sobs poured out of him, blood and snot shot out of his nose. There was a buzzing and a tunnel, and he became very small. The last thing he saw was Marvin’s face, twisted and crying, saying, “Oh God, Conor, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Your beautiful face!” and then the world went black.
When he could finally stand, holding a bloodstained rag to his nose, he’d started walking off the court when he saw a member of the other team laughing and jabbing an elbow into his teammate’s chest. The boy held up his hands to his nose and said, “Oh, my nose!” His teammate laughed and then, twisting his face into a look of horror, said, “Your beautiful face!”
After Annie and Bobby found the best plastic surgeon in New England and the nose was reset, Conor returned to the team, first on the sidelines and then eventually getting to play again. In the showers afterward, several of his own teammates ribbed him. “Your beautiful face!” He shot a look at Marvin, and then avoided making eye contact with him after that, distancing himself from his old friend, especially in the showers. Like many boys, they had messed around with each other before they knew better, trying to make sense of their erections and how they worked. Was there an actual bone? Where did it go when it was little? But Marvin seemed to push it a little longer than Conor thought was appropriate. Marvin would wait around for him after practice or approach him in the halls.
“Conor.”
“Sup?” Conor would say, his face stoic, cold.
“I wanted to apologize.”
“It’s all good, man. It’s all good. Look, I gotta run.”
That was when Conor started looking at himself in the mirror with a different sort of intensity, not just looking but analyzing, evaluating, turning his head left and right, swearing there was a bump, though no one else could see it. He began going to the gym more regularly, upping the weights and going through bulking cycles, creating the perfect body, overcompensating for the imperfect face. He had become so accustomed to getting praise for his looks, he felt like something had been stolen from him. If his face wasn’t perfectly symmetrical, he could make damn sure his body would be.
When he gets back to his dorm room, there is a text from Annie on his other smartphone—not the burner, the one with the images and videos that his mother will never see. There are a few missed calls too. Call me, 911. Pops fell! And then after that one, Never mind. Love you!
Shit, she could never get the 911 thing. He told her 911 meant that she was bleeding from her eyes or someone was dying. “But, Con, if I were bleeding from my eyes, how would I be able to text you?”
“Mom, you are literally missing the point.”
“OK.”
“And when you text me an OK, you need to add an exclamation point; otherwise I’m going to think you’re angry.”
Did you know Marvin is an EMT now? I told him to come and see you when you come home. Is that OK!
Shit. It is hopeless, and how does she know Marvin is an EMT? He pulls out a container of whey protein and carefully measures a couple of scoops. He picks up the water monitor Annie gave him to get the optimum temperature for his body to absorb the nutrients. Last time he was back home, he was going through a bulking cycle, and though he was trying to make it a clean one, he reached for a second slice of apple pie. He was slouching a little at the table. Annie got up, reached into the cupboard, pulled out a container of her powder shit, and placed a water monitor in front of him. She whispered in his ear that the “pooch” would be gone in a week or two with clean eating and patted him on the shoulder. After dinner, he went into the bathroom, peeled off his shirt, and turned to look at his profile. Shit. Two bumps, one at his belly and the other on his nose. Damn Marvin.
Conor strips off his clothes, pulls a tape measure from the drawer, and begins measuring the circumference of his biceps, then his chest, and then he exhales as much air as possible and measures his waist. He wraps the tape measure around his calves and thighs, and then, of course, measures the length of his penis, which responds by growing inches.
It was at a party one night at Kevin Monahan’s house just before the end of their senior year of high school when Conor last saw Marvin. Conor wore a pair of washed-out jeans and a retro pink polo shirt. He saw Marvin in the kitchen, beneath a dim light in the corner, talking to some guy who didn’t go to their school. When he asked Grace who it was, she said it was Kevin’s hot older cousin from the next town over, Hancock. “But don’t worry, you’re way hotter,” she said, running her hand through his hair. Their conversation was animated until Marvin caught a glimpse of Conor from the corner of his eye, his arm hanging on Grace’s shoulder. Marvin smiled at him, and then Kevin’s cousin looked over. He expected Kevin’s cousin to stare at him, like everyone else did, but he turned his face back to Marvin without a second look, and they fell back into their animated conversation. Marvin didn’t glance back at him either. Conor looked at the reflection of his face in a shiny metal pot hanging from a rack. Grace said, “Don’t worry, you’re beautiful as always,” and kissed him. She tried slipping her hand beneath the waistband of his pants, but he grabbed her hand and squeezed it a bit too hard.
“Damn, Conor, give a girl a chance.”
Conor felt foolish and walked through the back door onto the deck. He fist-bumped a couple of his teammates and grabbed a beer out of the cooler and knocked it back, estimating the calories and how many miles it would take tomorrow to work them off. He grabbed another beer, leaning against the railing, and, as it became darker, the speaker on the deck pumping out some Drake and Cardi B, he watched his friends in the kitchen come and go, until it was just Marvin and Kevin’s cousin. There was something about the guy’s face that Conor didn’t like, his teeth too white and straight, the lips fuller than a guy’s should be and eyelashes that were thicker than a girl’s. But it was his nose he hated the most, narrow and turned up just a bit at the end. He watched them both laughing, like Marvin had told the funniest goddamn joke in the world, and then he saw Marvin put his hand on the guy’s arm.
It seemed to happen in slow motion, the guy leaning forward and kissing Marvin. Conor shook his head as if he might be able to erase the image, like an Etch A Sketch board. He ran into the kitchen and grabbed the guy’s shoulders, turning him around, and punched his pretty face and then his washboard abs. Marvin stood frozen with the double shock of the kiss and watching Conor pummel the poor guy, and then he found his voice.
“Conor! The fuck? Leave him alone, you asshole, get off of Ryan!”
Marvin reached out and grabbed both of Conor’s arms.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”
“What’s wrong with me? Are you telling me you liked what he did to you? I should have known, the way you always eyed my dick in the shower. You wanted this Shawn Mendes bitch to kiss you.”
And then it came without warning, just as furious as the ball that had been slammed into his nose. Marvin lifted up his hand, raising it above his shoulder, and then, with all of his might, he slapped the shit out of Conor’s beautiful face right into next week.
THE COTTAGE RULES
The bunkroom is for sleeping. If anyone decides to begin the evening sleeping, everyone else on laptops or other electronics needs to vacate the bunkroom.
CHAPTER 8
The Cottage Rules
“We said goodbye to the shitty apartment.”
Matt is standing up and holding stapled papers in his hand, which he hands out to Bex, Brian, Abbie, and Thomas as they file into the sunroom. He pauses, waiting for his audience’s reaction to the opening joke. There is silence while they take their seats on the sofa and love seat. They look at the papers in their hands with THE COTTAGE RULES at the top in bold. When Bex sits down, it hits her. “Oh, I see what you did there.” She holds up her hand and snaps her fingers. “Hashtag dad joke.”
Abbie shakes her head, and Brian, says, “Wait, what?”
“The city apartment is now the shitty apartment, get it?” Bex says to Brian.
“Oh, right, I get it. Because the shitter backed up into the apartment; now it’s an intra-shitty apartment,” Brian says.
“A shitty-side apartment, one might say,” Thomas says in his old Hollywood transatlantic accent.
“Oh, how droll, my good man,” Bex says, using the same accent and laughing haughtily. “Ha. Ha. Ha. How I will miss the lovely shitty-scape!” She slaps her knee.
Abbie glances back and forth between Thomas and Bex. She closes her eyes and pulls the blanket she brought from her bed up to her neck. It is too early for this shit, this “shitty-shit,” and Bex with her cute little sense of humor. Bex and her newly repaired Mini Cooper. Bex who needs her quiet space at night so she can study and finish high school in the top 1 percent of her class. Bex and Brian who ran away from home because their stepfather yelled at them and now will spend the entire summer in Maine taking up the space that would have been hers alone. How hard could their lives have been? Bex’s fathers bought her a car. They have an escape to Maine. Diabetes? Boo-hoo. She’ll always be able to lose weight. Brian is on the spectrum? Welcome to the real world. Abbie’s head is heavy, and her eyes hurt. If she never drinks Cointreau again, it will be too soon; the sticky-sweet orange flavor threatens to come back up.
She was lying awake in bed last night when she texted Rick, do you even miss me? She watched the three little dots flashing, like he was typing a reply, and then—nothing. She let out a frustrated sound, a noise between a sigh and a growl. Bex asked her then if she wouldn’t mind turning off the light. She was tired and had a long drive to school in the morning. Abbie stomped out of the bunkroom. In the kitchen, while everyone was sleeping, she found the bottle of Cointreau in the corner cabinet next to the triple sec. She compared the alcohol content between the two and decided on the Cointreau with the higher ABV. For each sip of the Cointreau she took, she sent another text to Rick. Hello? Sip. Do you know what you’ve done to me? Sip. I’ll never forgive you. Sip. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Gulp. She replaced the Cointreau she drank with an equal amount of triple sec, knowing that the expensive bottle of Cointreau would be missed more than the triple sec—the “triple-shit,” if you will.
Drunk and unanswered, she blocked Rick’s number before passing out last night, but now she is regretting that decision. She checks Instagram to see if Rick has looked at any of her videos. Scrolling through the list of viewers, she does not see him. Abbie buries herself deeper into the blanket, checking another video for a view from Rick—nothing, but then wait, hello. She sits up a little. Who is this? He is not one of her followers, nor does she follow him. She clicks on his profile. He has thousands of followers, but his account is private. The bio is a little douchey. Pain is the weakness leaving your body. But look at that body. There is no weakness there. She looks at the profile name. “Conman?” she whispers.
“Eh-hmm.” Matt clears his throat. “Living together in a small space requires discipline. In order to foster peace and harmony amongst people living in six hundred fifty square feet, please be courteous and abide by these rules.”
“I love this journey for us,” Bex says.
“‘Discipline’ is a nicer way to say ‘Do not be lazy,’” Thomas reads.
Abbie looks up and asks, “Why are you looking at me, Thomas?”
“I’m looking at Zelda.”
Matt pulls the pen from behind his ear and scribbles something down on the piece of paper in his hand.
“Rule number thirty-one. We are to be called by some form of relation to you, such as Dad, Daddy, Father,” Matt says, reading the new rule.
“Papá,” Bex says, placing the emphasis on the final syllable in a European manner.
“Paw,” Thomas adds, giving it a Southern twist.
“Darth Vader.” Brian raises an index finger and glances sideways.
Abbie does not look up from her phone. “Sperm donor.”
Bex cackles, and despite herself, Abbie looks at Bex, somewhat surprised, and laughs too. Zelda snarls at Abbie.
“She despises joy,” Bex says, reaching for Zelda, “like me.”
“Um, no,” Matt says, “we will not be referred to as sperm donors.”
“Parental unit?” Bex asks.
“Allowed,” Matt replies.
