CHAPTER 12
Brett
“New Year’s Eve?” I vault a puddle in the street, barely clearing its littered shoreline. I’m feeling wildly precious in the shoes Steph bought me, which I’m only wearing because Arch asked so nicely. With the lace dress, she suggested. The last time Arch was in L.A. for work she brought me home a tea-stained, bell-shaped floral paneled caftan. It looks like something straight out of the Green Menace’s closet, but I must admit, it does look rather fetching on me. I think it would have paired cutely with my sneakers, but what’s that old sexist adage? Happy wife, happy life.
I need to say something here, which is that I didn’t set out to own a pair of five-hundred-dollar sneakers. I ended up with them by way of bad weather and distracted walking. I stepped into a puddle on my way to check out the construction at the Soho studio one morning, and I popped inside the first store I came across that featured sneakers in the window display. I didn’t even think to check the price—how much could a pair of sneakers cost?—and the salesgirl had been so sweet and helpful, with nothing but wonderful things to say about SPOKE. I wasn’t about to kill her commission when she rang me up, though I almost fainted when she announced the damage. You’ll wear them every day, she promised when she saw my face, and so to justify the splurge, I have, to the point that Arch has asked me to stash them in the hall closet so that they don’t stink up our bedroom.
The truth is, five-hundred-dollar sneakers are not a splurge for me anymore. I can’t afford to spend like that every day, but to occasionally treat myself and those I love to some big-ticket items without breaking a sweat? Yeah, I can do that. I am in a different tax bracket this season than I was in previous years, and I haven’t figured out how to square that with my role as the “low-income one.” I am proud of how far I’ve come, but I don’t want to alienate the women who relate to my former financial struggles. Unsurprisingly, my colleagues seem dead set on outing me before I am ready to address the discrepancy. They want to punish me for their own cowardice. Yes, I asked the network for more money and I got it, okay? That doesn’t prevent my castmates from stepping up and doing the same.
“I always pictured myself getting married outside,” Arch says, bearing down on the hand I’ve offered her and stepping off the curb like a praying mantis. She’s wearing high sandals too, only hers tie at the ankles with two furry pom-poms.
“We could do New Year’s Eve destination,” I say, looking both ways before crossing the street. “Anguilla?”
“It’s already going to be such a haul for my family.” Arch slips her thin body sideways between two parked cars. “Thank you.” She smiles at me winningly as I hold the door for her.
“We don’t have a reservation,” I tell the hostess at L’Artusi. “Anything at the bar?”
She hmmms, jamming a fist beneath her chin as she scans her tablet. “Actually, we just had a cancellation.” She punches various coordinates on the screen with her finger and locates two menus, pinning them under her arm. “I have a table open upstairs.”
My eyebrows practically fly off my forehead. No wait at L’Artusi on a Saturday night? Money!
Arch steps ahead of me, grabbing my hand and leading me through the restaurant. I pass a girl who drops her bread knife in recognition. “Brett!” she calls, waving drunkenly. “I love you!” Her friend seizes her hand, groaning, Oh my God, Meredith.
“Have a good night, Meredith.” I laugh over my shoulder, and Meredith rips her hand away and gets in her friend’s face as if to say, See? She liked it.
“What about a destination wedding at a midway point?” I shout over the Saturday-night racket, clomping up the stairs behind Arch. Pick up your feet, Brett, Mom used to complain as I shuffled into the kitchen, wondering what low-carb nightmare she was making for dinner that night. There are countable moments of silence between Arch’s steps. Another reason my mother probably would have preferred her to me.
At the top of the stairs, Arch pauses, waiting for me to catch up. My first reaction is that there is a glitch in the reservation system, because there are absolutely no tables available up here. There are no tables, period, only people standing around, champagne flutes resting at their hips. Then I see the cameras and Lisa, Arch’s parents, Kelly and Layla and Jen and Lauren and Vince and most staggeringly Jesse, and the collective congratulatory cry is the last piece of the puzzle.
“Arch!” I clasp my hands over my nose, tears springing to my eyes.
“Mom and Dad wanted to surprise you,” Arch says, laughing a little, but her eyes are misty too. “Oh my God, come here.” She grabs my wrist and tugs me into her chest. Everyone aws, and Arch’s parents approach us first, Lisa, Marc, and the rest of the camera crew steps behind.
“You are really surprised?” Arch’s mom asks, sweetly skeptical. Her smile makes me feel like a hot, hair-covered turd. I don’t deserve to have you or your daughter in my life, I think as I wrap my arms around her neck.
“I am so surprised,” I promise Dr. Chugh, sinking into her warm, plump body like a cushion. This is how my mom would have felt if she had let me hug her more. This is how a mom should feel—soft but solid, with some weight on her, some permanence. Arch gets her stature and long limbs from Satya, her father. I wasn’t sure how the parents of a first-generation Indian woman would react to their daughter dating a tattooed American with a nose ring and nipples that lactate, but Arch pointed out that she introduced her first girlfriend to her parents when she was twenty-three years old, that she’s thirty-six now, and have I seen her ass? Do the math; there have been many who came before me.
The filthy family money comes from Satya’s side and the progressive female ambition from Dr. Chugh, a retired surgeon at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital who thrust scientific literature onto her wary husband when Arch first came out. There is no medical cure for homosexuality and we have one daughter, Dr. Chugh said, extracting tolerance from reason. She has offered to talk to my father the way she talked to Satya, but the problem is, my father has two daughters.
I release Dr. Chugh and lean back to get a better look at her. Dr. Chugh wears the same uniform whether it is day or night, summer or winter: a dark blazer, dark soft jeans, red or navy loafers, and always, a colorful silk scarf that starts exactly where her gray-streaked bob ends. “Thank you so much,” I tell her. “You planned this?”
“We suggested Per Se but Arch says that is not your style.” Dr. Chugh deploys the bunny ears after she finishes speaking, though it’s clear the words they are meant to bracket. “We are not cool.” The bunny ears come after, again.
“I said Per Se is not cool, Mom,” Arch says, planting a kiss on the top of her mother’s head.
I laugh. “You are the coolest, Dr. Chugh. You too, Satya.” I rise up on the balls of my feet to hug Arch’s dad. His hug is weak; but it is a hug.
“We are happy for you both,” Satya says. He pats me on the shoulder and his hand gets tangled in my hair. We laugh, awkwardly, as I weave him free.
Arch rests her elbow on her mother’s shoulder. Like Kelly, she’s a head taller than the woman who bore her. “Mom and Dad want to know if there is any way they can convince you to have the wedding in Delhi.”
“We were married at the Roseate,” Dr. Chugh says. She swoons, remembering. “Beautiful.”
Satya nods, eyeing the boom pole above our heads uncertainly. “It really was.”
Arch walls her face with her hand and speaks out of the side of her mouth to me. “We’re not getting married at the Roseate.”
“What did you just say?” Dr. Chugh swats her daughter.
“We’ll think about it!” Arch laughs. “Oh, Brett,” she says, as the crowd starts to press forward. “I think you need to make the rounds.” I look up in time to see Jesse, moving through the room like an ambulance blaring. Women step out of her way as though lives depend on it.
“I can’t believe you’re here!” I cry, as she jumps into my arms and—oh, God, no!—straps her legs around my waist. I check quickly to make sure my future in-laws aren’t looking, but they are gawking. I pretend to stumble under the double-digits of Jesse’s weight, hoping she will take a hint and unravel herself from me.
“It was that or plunge headfirst into a bottle of Casamigos.” Jesse sets her feet on the ground, to my great relief, and locks her elbows around my ribs so tightly I grunt, like I’m being given the Heimlich maneuver. “You’re breaking my heart, woman.” She sighs, peering over my shoulder. I don’t have to turn my head to know she’s eyeing my fiancée. “If I had to lose you to anyone, I’m glad it’s to someone as special and, honestly? As camera friendly as Arch.” She rests her forehead against mine and whispers, loudly, “You are going to bring in a shit ton of wedding advertising dollars for me on your spinoff show and for that reason I am supremely happy for you.” She lays a kiss on the tip of my nose. “What do you think about Bride Pride as the name of the show? We could time it to Pride month.”
I wave a hand, unenthusiastically.
“We’ll work on it.” She turns to the camera and addresses Lisa. “Obviously this does not make final cut.”
“It doesn’t?” comes Lisa’s sarcastic, piercing voice. It’s impossible to see her on the searing side of the Fresnel.
Jesse lays her hand on my shoulder, in a departing sort of gesture.
“You’re not staying?”
“It’s my only night off from the aftershow this week,” Jesse says. “And this, Miss Bride, is work.” She spins me and steers me toward the crowd. “Please clock in now.”
I shield my eyes and scan the crowd that has formed a small circle around me. I’m looking for Layla, but I lock eyes with Lauren first. “Congratulations, gorgeous!” she cries, throwing her arms around my neck and sort of collapsing against me. She smells like an old blowout and a bender, and she’s wearing short jean shorts and a prissy white top. It makes no sense, but she looks incredible.
The Green Menace, on the other hand, greets me looking asexual as ever in a sack the color of an old Band-Aid. She tells me she likes my dress and it’s the meanest thing she’s ever said to me.
Vince is right behind them, with a hug that lifts my feet off the ground. “Steph is so sorry she couldn’t be here but she asked me to take a picture of your shoes to see if you’re wearing the ones she bought you.”
Vince slips his phone out of his pocket and turns it sideways at my feet. There is a burst of bright light, my blush shoes the star. “Whoa, Brett,” Vince says. “Those are a little sexy for you.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Sorry. I’ve just never seen you in shoes like that before.”
Lauren sets down her glass of water (questionable) and takes my left hand in hers, swinging it like we are two schoolgirls turning a jumping rope for a third friend. She is rougher than she realizes—I feel like she might pull my arm out of the socket. “Have you seen the woman she’s marrying? Of course she’s feeling sexy.” She brings my knuckles beneath her nose, examining my engagement ring at cross-eyed length. “Were you so surprised?”
“No. Not really surprised.”
“Not really, huh?” Lauren smirks. “That’s the problem with relationships today. There’s no mystery. No spontaneity. You have a mature talk about where you are headed and then you go to Cartier and buy classic yellow-gold bands together.” She doesn’t just drop my hand, she slams it down, like you would an old-timey phone into its cradle after a heated conversation. “Where’s the romance?” Her voice catches on what she pretends she doesn’t want.
I laugh at the cameras as though I am confused by Lauren’s angry, despairing reaction, although I’m not. Lauren is tired of being defined by her colorful sex life. She’s getting older. She’s getting lonelier. But she has a role to play. I feel for her. “The reason I wasn’t surprised,” I say, “is because I was the one who did it.”
“You did it?” Vince gapes.
Technically both Arch and I did it, but for whatever reason, I’ve found myself telling people this version of events when Arch isn’t around to fact-check. Taking ownership of the decision is helping me feel more confident about the decision. Leap when you’re almost ready is an idiom in the business world, because you will never actually be ready to do something that has the power to change your life for better or for worse.
“Yeah,” I punch Vince’s pecs, playfully, “don’t sound so shocked.”
“It’s just, I don’t know. She’s the older one.” Vince runs a hand through his hair, distraught. “I guess I thought she was the . . . you know. The man in the relationship.”
“The man in the relationship?” I look at Lauren and Jen, assuming they find this stereotypical understanding of same-sex relationships just as offensive as I do.
“Mmm-mmm. Mmmm-mmm,” Lauren says, shaking her head in vehement agreement with Vince. “Arch is definitely not the man in the relationship. She’s so thin.”
I guess I should have known better than to have expected an enlightened rebuttal from Lauren when her eyes are approaching half-mast and her jaw is dangerously still. Tonight, it’s Xanax and whatever is masquerading as water in her glass.
A server penetrates our group with a small silver tray. “Sorry to interrupt. But dayboat scallops with lemon, olive oil, and espelette?”
“Bless your heart . . . what’s your name?” I raise my eyebrows in wait.
“Dan,” he says.
“Dan the man.” I knight him, spearing a scallop with a toothpick and popping it into my mouth in one bite. “Don’t apologize, Dan,” I say, chewing. I hold up a finger, chew, chew, chew, and swallow. “Interrupt me anytime, Dan. Especially if I’m still talking to this crowd the next time you see—” Before I can complete my sentence, a piece of scallop wedges in my throat, triggering another one of those goddamn coughing fits. I thump my chest with a fist, pointing desperately at Lauren’s “glass of water,” but she holds it out of my reach.
“I have a cold!” she exclaims.
Jen is staring at me, dead-eyed and comically unconcerned. Had Vince not been there, willing to thrust his glass of red wine into my hands, I might have died at my own surprise engagement party. I manage three sputtering sips. “Ahem,” I declare, “Ahhhh-hem.” My fist expands into a palm, covering my heart. I release a long, centering sigh. “Thanks, Vince,” I say pointedly to Lauren.
“You just got engaged,” Lauren says, lamely. “I wouldn’t want to get you sick.” She sniffs, twice.
“Aunt Brett!” I hear from the sidelines, and I see Layla, wearing the graphic tee I recently bought her from Zara. The ends of her hair are a lighter color than her roots, which is new. Also new is Kelly’s decision to leave the house without wearing a bra. Vince checks to be sure. Twice.
“What’s this?” I tug on a piece of Layla’s hair. Layla has been begging for ombré highlights for the last year, but Kelly has been adamantly opposed.
“We went with Jen to get her hair done and they had dye left over,” Layla explains. “It’s all-natural so Mom said okay this time.”
A knot forms in my stomach. Kelly and Layla went with Jen to get her hair done? How did I not know about this?
“Layla signed up for lacrosse tryouts this year,” Kelly adds. “And I’m proud of her for trying something new.”
“Why not basketball?” Lauren asks with remarkable oblivion.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Vince says to Kelly, laughing awkwardly.
“I know I don’t have to answer that,” Kelly snaps at him. It is the exchange of two people who know each other better than I thought they did.
Vince’s eyes get very big and he puffs his cheeks, actively holding his breath. He digs his hands in his pockets, rocking from the balls of his feet to his heels and back again, trying to think of a way to change the subject. “So. Um,” he says to me. “When is the wedding?”
“No date yet. But sometime within the year for sure. Neither of us has any interest in planning a wedding for too long.”
Kelly makes an inflammatory sound.
“What was that, dear sister?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Kelly says, but she doesn’t have to. She thinks I’m rushing into this. She doesn’t understand what our hurry is. A freeze settles upon the group, everyone stiffening, compacting their shoulders.
“Steph and I had a short engagement too,” Vince offers, idiotically.
“Well, in that case,” Kelly says, and Jen covers a cruel smile with her hand. Her compassion for all living creatures does not extend to turkeys or to me, evidently.
“Layla’s here,” I remind my sister in a low voice.
“What do you want me to say?” Kelly sighs.
“Um, how about congratulations?”
Kelly regards me for a brief, mean moment. “You have red wine on your new dress.”
Dan the man is taking too long to bring me the club soda I requested, so I head downstairs and ask one of the bartenders at the back end of the restaurant. I’m blotting out the stain when I feel my phone buzz.
Not sure where you are but it’s late so taking Layla home, Kelly’s text reads. See you at Soho tom?
I’m just about to respond that I’m on the lower level when I see Kelly and Layla descend the stairs. I’m behind them, near the kitchen, so I know before they do that Vince is following them. He catches up to Kelly by the hostess station, reaching out and brushing her elbow, tentatively, almost as though he knows he shouldn’t be doing this. I’m too far away to hear them, but I watch as Kelly points out the bathroom in the front of the restaurant for Layla. Layla disappears inside, leaving Vince and Kelly alone.
Vince’s back is to me, but he must be speaking, because Kelly’s lips are still. Puckered but still. When she finally opens her mouth, she jabs a finger at Vince’s chest, never actually touching him, and I’m able to read her lips because she’s speaking slowly for emphasis, punctuating each word with her finger, Leave. It. Alone.
Suddenly, Kelly drops her hand by her side. She sees me. She says something dismissively to Vince, before rapping on the bathroom door, yelling at Layla to hurry up. I spin on my heel, giving Vince my back as he turns and retraces his path through the restaurant and up the stairs. I’m fast enough that he doesn’t notice me, but not so fast that I don’t take a mental snapshot of his expression. He is dejected, I realize, my chest ablaze with panic. Because if Stephanie finds out that her husband is chasing my sister down darkened stairwells, having what appears to be a lovers’ quarrel in the middle of the West Village’s sceniest restaurant, I don’t know what she would do. Worse, I don’t know what she would say.