Page 19 of Best Woman
Mom’s car is full—her, Randy, the twins, and the mountain of leftovers no one will eat—so Aiden offers to drive me home.
Despite his obsessively neat appearance, Aiden is a huge slob, and his car is littered with empty energy drink cans, tissues, stray gym clothes, and reusable shopping bags. I tease him as we pull out of the club. “Is Rachel not allowed in here?” He grins.
“We usually take her car. The last time she was in here she almost called the wedding off.”
Rachel’s car is probably just as tidy as their little house, where there’s a place for everything and everything is in its place.
Rachel is the kind of girl who stocks her guest bathroom full of travel-sized toiletries and absolutely notices if you take them with you.
What can I say, I was running low on toothpaste the last time I stayed with them.
Aiden turns the car on, and the speakers immediately start blasting a song from Hannah G’s last album. I can’t help but giggle. “Aiden, are you a Bananah?” As in a Hannah Bananah, the official name for her biggest fans.
He smiles sheepishly. “Rachel and I are kind of obsessed with her. I still can’t believe you’ve met her.”
“I did poppers with her a few weeks ago.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he yells. “That is so cool. You’re so cool!”
I’m really not, but I love the way everyone here sees my life.
It sounds much more sophisticated and cosmopolitan when I tell my little stories than it felt to live them, but I suppose compared to life here, mine is chic and glamorous.
Although I tend to leave out details like sweating on the subway when I’m loaded down with throw pillows or the way I’ve started to live off take-out Thai food and bodega sandwiches because one of my roommates broke our microwave and I can’t cook anything more complicated than hard-boiled eggs.
“Hold on, how do you know what poppers are?”
A smirk. “Rachel is kind of a top.”
I retch. “Please don’t say another word. I hate you so much.” He reaches a hand out to ruffle my hair, laughing as I swat him away. “Watch the road, you little whore!”
He’s still laughing. “What can I say, my proximity to queerness has expanded my mind…among other things.”
“I will grab the steering wheel and kill us both.”
“Like you almost did when Mom taught you how to drive?”
He’s got a point.
“How is Rachel?” I ask, turning the music down. “Excited for the big day? Or is Bridezilla stomping the streets of Boca, terrifying the locals?”
“Oh yeah, she’s a total mess.” He laughs, shaking his head fondly. “Every day there’s some new meltdown. Today it was the band not knowing ‘Single Ladies,’ yesterday it was her shoes pinching her feet, the day before that it was—”
“Firing her transphobic maid of honor?” I hadn’t meant to say it, but we only have a few minutes, so might as well get on with it. Aiden sighs, long-suffering, a sound I’ve heard at some point during every argument we’ve had since puberty.
“Look, I know we probably should have talked more, but the past few weeks have been insane.”
“No, it’s fine, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.
” A sunset of brilliant pink and orange has cracked open the sky.
The truck in front of us is carrying demolished trees, their leafy limbs shuddering as it changes lanes.
I think of Final Destination, of one of those trees coming loose and smashing through our windshield.
Aiden might prefer that to having this conversation. Come to think of it, I might too.
Aiden’s face is unreadable behind his sunglasses. “I feel bad about dumping that on you and not having a longer conversation about it. Rach does too.”
Aiden, flying in the face of every straight-guy stereotype, loves to talk about his feelings.
After our parents got divorced, we were forced into family therapy and he discovered the joy of processing.
It’s a testament to how busy he’s been with the wedding that we didn’t have an hour-long video call to work through how this made me feel, possibly with a PowerPoint presentation and a few bell hooks quotes.
“It’s OK, we’re good,” I say, aiming for reassurance.
Because the more I see how clearly concerned he is about how this might have affected me, the more I’m haunted by everything I said or insinuated to Kim in that booth at the Cheesecake Factory.
She’s only miles away right now, fully convinced that my brother is some emotionally constipated, mildly bigoted asshole, and it couldn’t be further from the truth.
“After the wedding and the honeymoon and all this craziness dies down, let’s do something. Maybe a trip somewhere?”
“I don’t know if I can afford that right now,” I say sheepishly. “Weddings are expensive for everyone involved. Couldn’t you have just gone to Vegas?”
“Why don’t I come visit you in New York again? I can finally meet your friends.”
“Ah, I see what you’re trying to do. You want me to introduce you to Hannah G.”
He grins over at me. “It would make one hell of a wedding present.”