Hailey

“I’m so glad I made the decision to come out early,” Anna said.

“Me, too, and thanks for the wine. All five bottles of it.”

“With me, it’ll hold us maybe two days,” she said, grinning.

“Are you all right, Anna? I mean really. You’re a week and a half early.”

“You saying you want me gone?”

“Not at all, you crazy bat. I’m just worried about you. As your sister.”

“Well, I’m not, but that’s a later topic. You’ve been pretty cheery on our phone calls lately. Things with the gallery going well? Will I get to see it soon?”

“Things with the gallery are going well,” I said, smiling. “It looks like things will be wrapped up by the end of July.”

“Wow. That was the earlier date on the paperwork. I’m impressed. Must be a hell of a construction crew.”

“They really are,” I said. “But there is something else.”

I couldn’t stop grinning, and my sister began to squeal. She hopped up from the couch and took my wine glass, pouring us another round before she sat back down on the couch.

“I knew it! You found yourself a man. Tell me all about him. What’s his name? What’s he look like? Does he work? Girl, he better work.”

“Slow down,” I said, laughing. “His name’s Bryan McBride, and he’s very handsome. Muscular. Tattoos. Chiseled abs. Wonderful hips. Oh, you’d love him.”

“Bryan McBride? Why does that name sound familiar?” she asked.

“Because he’s the owner of the construction company I hired.” I expected her to be ecstatic. I expected her to squeal with me and demand details. I expected her to hug me tightly and swirl me around and tell me it was about time I got my body filled with more than just the spirit of my art.

But instead, I watched her face fall into what I called her lawyer-land mode.

“You’re having sex with someone on your construction team,” she said.

“Not just anyone,” I said. “But yes?”

“How did this all come about?”

“Well, I asked him to dinner. We hit it off. I wanted to thank him for all he’d done for me and the deal he cut me on the gallery. We came up here for coffee, it was storming—”

“And he made a move on you,” she said.

“Not exactly. I mean, we sort of made the moves on each other. But yes, he was the first to kiss me, I guess. Technically.”

“He used your art gallery to pressure you into sex.”

“Wait. What? No. Not even kind of. I was the one that suggested dinner,” I said.

“Hailey. You know you didn’t have to sleep with him, right? Did he tell you that you had to in order to keep the deal going? I’ve heard of filthy fuckers doing that kind of shit. Taking advantage of women like you. Like us. You can tell me. I’ll take him to court and get the fucking work for free.”

“What the hell’s wrong with you? No. Nothing like that happened. He kissed me, he told me he wanted to have sex with me, and I told him I wanted to as well. It was a mutual thing. Calm down, Judge Judy.”

“I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I just ...”

I saw that look roll over her eyes, that look she first gave me when I told her I was dropping out of school. At first, I thought it was disappointment or anger masked as exasperation for what I was putting our family through. We hadn’t talked for days as that look boiled behind her eyes, but it wasn’t until later that I figured out the look was jealousy.

And Anna was jealous now.

“You want you a construction hunk, huh?” I asked.

“Who the hell wouldn’t? Oh, fuck. I bet he’s sexy, too. What’s he look like?” she asked.

“Strong. Tall. Tattoos on his arms, his back, and his chest. Rippling abs and large hands. One of his hands stretches across my entire butt cheek, Anna.”

“Oh, shit,” she said, groaning. “I wish I had your life.”

“You could, you know,” I said.

“No. I really couldn’t.”

“Yes, you really could. You could follow your dreams. Take off to Europe. Audition for opera houses and find you a wonderful bass whose notes tickle your ribcage and whose facial tickles your thighs.”

“You’re insane,” Anna said, giggling. “I can’t pack up and leave. Not like you could. I don’t have those kinds of guts.”

“It doesn’t take guts,” I said. “It takes being fed up with the way things are. Anna, what really brought you here early?”

Just then, the doorbell rang. Anna hopped up and took the money out of her bra and opened the door for our food. The smell of pizza and cinnamon sticks wafted into my little studio apartment, and my mouth instantly began to salivate. I quickly checked my phone to see if Bryan had sent me anything regarding his parent’s dinner, but I didn’t have anything new.

Not since he told me he’d gotten there safely.

“I swear, this is the best pizza joint, and they deliver right to you,” she said as she sat back down.

“I single-handedly keep them in business,” I said as I reached for a slice. “Now, no more distractions or derailing. What’s going on?”

“Why don’t you regale me with Bryan a little while longer, all right? I’m still not drunk enough to tackle that subject.”

“Well, I mean. He’s the whole package, right? Intelligent, strong, handsome. He even has this passion for art. He draws. Designed his own tattoos. And they’re magnificent, Anna. If you come to the gallery while he’s there, you’ll see them.”

“Oh, I intend on meeting him while I’m here. I wanna see the hunk who has my sister pinned in bed,” she said.

“Hey! How did you know he pinned me in bed?” I asked.

“Holy. Shit. I meant that metaphorically, but now you have to spill every fucking detail right now.”

“How about this? I will once you tell me what’s going on with you,” I said.

“Just a few more minutes,” she said as she got up again.

“Well, he really believes in my gallery and what I wanna do in the community. You know, with my art therapy and my classes and stuff.”

“That’s good. It’s nice to have a man who believes in you,” she said. “Want some more wine?”

“Just bring the bottle over here and sit down,” I said.

“Honestly? He seems a bit too good to be true. What’s the downside to this guy, huh? What’s the nitty-gritty?”

The problem was, she was right. There was no nitty-gritty about him unless you knew what I did. Unless you’d seen what I’d seen.

Unless you’d experienced what I had with John.

“He has his hardships like everyone else but nothing that tarnishes him as a man. You know, he understands having a strained relationship with his parents, that kind of thing.”

“He got any brothers I could call?” she asked.

I winced at her comment. My mind threw me back to L.A. and to my time at the small little space I’d rented where I could do my art therapy classes. I remembered seeing John for the first time coming off his first stage of withdrawals. He stumbled into my shop, so he could get out of the rain, and he was mesmerized by the artwork I’d hung on the walls.

“Nope. No brothers you could call,” I said.

“Damn. Better luck next time. So, I think I have enough wine.”

“Good. What’s going on?”

“Well, it begins with Mom and Dad. They want me to position myself to make partner next year.”

“At the firm,” I said.

“Yep. We’ve been having these regular family dinners where they plan out my entire life right there in front of me like I don’t fucking exist.”

“Family dinners, huh?”

I felt my heart sink to my toes in that very instant. They were still called family dinners even if I wasn’t sitting at the table. I felt tears rise to my eyes as I looked away, grabbing another slice of pizza before Anna could see how much that phrase had hurt me.

But Anna had always been quick with her ability to read people, and it didn’t take much before I felt her hand descend onto my knee.

“Hailey, they’ll come around,” she said.

“They won’t. I call them, and they don’t call back. I tell them I’m coming into town, and they’re conveniently not home. I haven’t talked to them in years, Anna. They don’t give a shit about me.”

“Yes, they do. You’re their daughter.”

“Who abandoned their plan for my life and followed my own,” I said.

“Hey. It takes a hell of a lot of strength to do that. I wish I could. I’m doing all this shit they want me to do to make partner, pulling late nights, taking pro bono cases. Fuck, I’ve got so many on my plate, I’m barely breaking even with my own bills most months.”

“Anna, you can’t let them do that to you. You’ve got to make a living,” I said.

“And I’ve backed off on some. The firm saw the workload I was taking on, and they hired me a secretary. She can’t do a lot of the legwork, but she can do the preliminary stuff. My schedule’s stacked to the brim, though.”

“Then how are you here early?” I asked. “I mean, visiting me if you have that much work?”

“I may or may not have told Mom and Dad to go screw themselves at our last family dinner.”

“Okay. Can we stop calling them that, please? And what? Good for you! I’ve been waiting for you to take a stand on your life my entire life.”

“Oh, no. Hold your applause. I had to put it in terms they would understand. They don’t care that I’m burning the candle at both ends, that I’m taking sleeping pills to sleep and then shit to wake up. They don’t care that I’m about to be prescribed anti-anxiety pills just to walk into my place of work every day. But the moment I told them I wasn’t able to save back for my early retirement, that I wouldn’t be able to afford the dresses for their social calendar this year, that’s when they listened. When it affected them.”

“How does your early retirement affect them?” I asked.

“Because Mom may or may not want me to eventually take over her business.”

“Oh, come on, Anna. When’s it going to end? You’re miserable as a lawyer. Does Mom really think you can make partner, retire early, and then live her own legacy?” I asked.

“I don’t know what to do, Hailey. I dumped some of my pro bono cases onto my other workers, selling them on how it would look good on their fucking scorecards, and then hit the airport.”

“I bet if I got rich off my art, they wouldn’t give a shit that I wasn’t a doctor,” I said.

“Probably not, honestly,” Anna said, sighing. “I admire you, Hailey. My job, it isn’t fulfilling. I never wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to sing. I wanted to perform on grand stages with tenors whose voices pierced my heart. I wanted to be serenaded by basses whose notes rattled my bones. I wanted to travel to Germany and Austria and Belgium and Australia. I wanted to sing on the world’s biggest stages and serenade my family in the audience.”

“Don’t you see that you still can, Anna? It’s never too late. Some of your idols in the opera world didn’t start their careers until their late thirties. If you don’t feel comfortable quitting your job yet, then take voice lessons. Allow those lessons to find your passion again. Save back money. Build up four years of savings. Then, just go. Sell your stuff, buy a one-way ticket, and just go, Anna.”

“How do you have that kind of confidence?” she asked. “How can you just go?”

“I can do that because I know I’m worth it, and all you have to do is convince yourself you’re worth it. Our parents lived through us long enough. We don’t have to fit their mold. We’re grown women with lives and personalities and degrees.”

“Well, one of us has a degree,” she said, grinning.

“The point is, save the money. Promise me that. Even if the money goes right into your savings account, do two things for me. Take the voice lessons once a week and save the money back. Open up another account, dump money from each paycheck there, and when you have four years saved up, re-evaluate what you want to do,” I said.

“How do I know what four years will cost me?” she asked.

“We can do some research. What the average living cost in Germany is yearly, multiply it by four, add the plane ticket, and tack on another two thousand just to be on the safe side.”

“For someone who’s so free, you’ve always been good with money.”

“Being free means knowing how to get the best bang for your buck,” I said, winking.

“Okay. Promise. I’ll save up the money, and when I get home, I’ll schedule my voice lessons.”

“Good,” I said, grinning. “You have no idea how happy that makes me.”

“I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I dropped everything and went now. I’ve got to do this gradually. Change is a big thing for me.”

“I know. You’ve always been weird about it.”

“But gradually? And with a few wine-filled weekends with you? I think I could have something going here.”

“That’s the spirit!” I exclaimed.

“But I’m going to need more wine before I really sink my teeth into it.”

I giggled as I watched my sister drain the first of the five bottles she brought. We finished off the pizza we ordered and talked, gossiping about everything from her lack of a sex life to my fulfilling one. She wanted more information on Bryan, so I tried to conjure as much as I could, and then we talked about what we needed to do in order to find her a man. I suggested finding her someone while she was here. At least for a night or two, to help her loosen up a bit. She was all for the idea until the pizza hit our systems. Then all we wanted to do was crawl into bed, turn on the television, and lay there until we fell asleep.

I got a message from Bryan just before we passed out, and I fell asleep with a smile on my face that night.

Dinner went as well as could be expected. Kept thinking about you. Hope your sister’s okay.