Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Reagan giggles.
“I had this boss, this guy named Ricky,” Anna says, turning the page to come at her drawing from a new angle. “I’d worked for his parents for a few years, but then he took over the store. He was a lot younger than me. Like seven years.”
“But you’re only like twenty-five.”
“Right? With an eighteen-year-old for a boss. And one day, he asked me out on a date.”
“He what!”
Anna nods. “I said no, of course, and he fired me not long after.”
In the shadows, I suck in a breath to keep from reacting audibly to this. Is this why she was fired the night before I came to her apartment?
“That isn’t fair!” Reagan protests.
“It isn’t fair, you’re right. It’s terrible. And there isn’t much I can do about it because lawyers are expensive. But you know what? Drawing terrible pictures of him made me feel incrementally better.” She turns the paper to face Reagan, who bursts out laughing. “I don’t know what Eileen looks like, but you can make it accurate.”
She hands Reagan the lip pencil. Reagan works for a bit, before Anna quietly says, “Give her a pimple.”
With another giggle, Reagan bends, drawing on the paper.
“Oh, a mustache, love it,” Anna says, leaning in. “I’ll have to give poor Eileen my waxing lady’s number.”
Reagan pulls back, admiring their handiwork, and Anna puts her arms around my niece.
“I’m sorry, honey. This is hard, but we’ll have as much fun here as humanly possible.”
Reagan’s next “okay” is muffled by Anna’s shoulder, but I hear it anyway, watching her thin, pale arms come around my wife’s waist. “Thank you, Auntie Anna.” Anna stills for a moment, and I think it hits us both at the same time; she’s not just my wife, she’s Reagan, Lincoln, Nixon, and GW’s aunt, my siblings’ sister-in-law, and my parents’ daughter-in-law. As an only child, she’s never had those things before, and this suddenly feels so much bigger than just the two of us. I knew what I was asking her to give while we were here, but had no idea what I was asking her to give up at the end of this.
Just then, over Reagan’s shoulder, Anna’s eyes go wide as she spots me, watching her give my niece something I’m sure she rarely gets anymore—the pure, undivided attention of an adult. Anna lifts her fingers in a subtle wave.
What an asshole I was for thinking she snuck out with Jamie. What an archaic, bullshit reaction. I can’t help the smile, can’t help the thought as it rises like the dark tide only a handful of yards away: it’s complicated, but I’m so grateful that Anna’s here.
Seventeen
ANNA
Well, West Weston isn’t a liar, I can say that much.
A little cuddly? The next two mornings I wake up plastered to him, with one leg thrown lustily over his hips and one arm around his rib cage. And today is the worst. If mornings one through three were cuddling, morning four is a full-body dry hump.
I’m not just plastered to him, I’m on top of him. My legs are on either side of his hips, my face is in his neck, my fancy tank top has ridden up, and my boob is just right there! Pressed to his! Every morning so far we’ve been super “cool” and very “chill” and not awkward at all as we get out of bed, pretending like I haven’t migrated over to his side of the bed. But this morning it takes me exactly seven seconds of drowsy, cozy bliss to realize why I’m so warm, why the bed is so soft, but somehow also really… really… hard?
I peel myself away and carefully—oh my God, so carefully—slide from the bed. I’m sure I leave a boob imprint on his chest. But to be fair, his enormous boner probably leaves a matching imprint on my thigh. I’m doing everything I can to not think too much about that, but Goddamn.
I’m also trying not to think too much about how he gets up ten minutes after me, pulling on running shorts and leaving to go for a jog on the beach barefoot and gloriously shirtless. Or about the way he doesn’t even make a millisecond of eye contact. Odds are good he’s aware that I spent most of the night sleep-humping him, and now I must live the rest of my life with that humiliation.
To distract myself, I reach for the small watercolor palette I packed, my brushes, paper, and a cup of water, and walk out to the balcony to paint the sunrise. The view is just… unreal, a horizontal rainbow that touches everything with rose-colored light. Even if I woke up to this every morning for a hundred years, I would never get sick of it. The sight of it changes by the second and, flat brush in hand, I wet the paper and start with a section of cobalt blue near the top, letting the color diffuse at the bottom. I drop in gauzy streaks of raw sienna, rose, and violet. I’m still learning how to paint with these nails, but manage to add my horizon and mirror the sky in the water, laying down a touch of vermilion where the rising sun is most intense.