Dolores throws me the stink eye.
“Don’t you know how long it takes to fold all of those, Double D?” I started calling my aunts this long before I knew—or appreciated—what it meant. They’ve always found it hilarious, but after twenty-plus years of hearing it, my mom no longer finds humor in Double D: The Twins. She gives my aunts a reproachful look for encouraging me by laughing. I adjust the bags in my hands and follow her as she moves to another table.
“Honey,” she says. “Tell me what’s bothering you. Are you in some kind of trouble? You know, I saw this episode of Law & Order where it talked about the underbelly of Hollywood.” She lowers her voice on that last part, the tiny bells on her earrings jingling as she sorts through shirts. “Anyway, they exposed it all. About the prostitutes and gangs, the drug dealers.” She looks at me with wide eyes. “You’re not near that, are you?”
“No, Mom. I think the underbelly is on the other side of LA. The side Jonah is on.”
This time the reproachful look is all mine.
“Mom, I’m fine. Was just thinking about him, actually. Wondering if he’s going to be all alone on Christmas.”
I am an excellent manipulator, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned growing up in this family, it’s that the way to change the tide of any conversation is to steer it directly toward Jonah.
Mom frowns, and even though I’m sure she knows exactly what I’m doing, her desire to defend her can-do-no-wrong son wins out. “You know how busy he is,” she says to me, but also toward Dolores and Doris, who’ve stopped to listen. “He said he’d be fine. He has friends. I’m sure he has some important job he’s wrapped up in, it being the holidays and all.”
I nod, remaining silent on the topic of Jonah’s schedule. Old Carter would have spilled all the details about my brother’s fall from grace, his money troubles, his current adventures in bankruptcy, because—at least for a few minutes—it would mean I’m the good one. But this strange guarded sensation in my chest feels something like protectiveness.
Toward Jonah. I think . . . I might be starting to like him?
“He does have a lot on his plate,” I say.
My mom puts down a particularly hideous shirt and pins me with narrowed eyes. “This is usually the point where you call him something colorful and tell me how many days it’s been since he last visited.”
“Maybe I’m being a grown-up.”
“Maybe you’re full of it,” she counters. And there it is, there’s that little spark I love. I sometimes wonder how much Mom knows about the particulars of Jonah’s life. They obviously talk because he told her about Evie, but he rarely comes home, and getting my parents onto a metallic death tube piloted by alcoholics (their words) is unlikely.
I’m twenty-eight years old and moved out of my parents’ house when I was nineteen, but I still miss my mom sometimes, my dad, the rest of my crazy family. I’m really not sure how Jonah does it. Then again, maybe that’s exactly how. If he came home, she’d probably figure out what a mess he is right now. Maybe he’d rather be the perfect Jonah they all remember than the one he actually is.
“LA is just . . . a lot,” I say finally, lamely.
It must communicate what I mean it to, because Mom nods, refolds the terrible shirt. “Just be sure you don’t become a lot, too.”
I sit in the backseat next to Doris on our way back to the house. Ten minutes into the drive, she’s asleep, which doesn’t make for the best conversation but does allow me to scroll through my texts and maybe mope a bit without anyone reading over my shoulder.
I’m not going to lie: it’s a little depressing to open my text window with Evie and realize how much time has passed since things were so good between us. I start to reread some of our exchanges, wondering if it’s possible I made then-Evie out to be funnier, smarter, or sexier than she really was.
I didn’t. The Evie in these texts is just like I remembered, and basically just like the one I see every day—maybe with just a touch more fire.
? ? ?
My phone rings as I’m carrying packages into the house, and I double take when I see the name on the screen.
Zach Barker is one of my stage-to-film clients. He was offered a last-minute role in an action movie when one of the supporting cast had to be replaced. Despite the fact that he and his wife, Avya, were living in New York and expecting a second child, he was needed on set right away. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but the last I heard, Avya decided to stay behind and wait for their son to finish up the fall semester before joining Zach in California around the time the baby is due.
“Zach, hey,” I say into the receiver, looking up to see snow beginning to fall. “You back in New York?”
“I’m still in LA. Avya and Josh are there. That’s why I’m calling.”
My heart speeds up and my mind races with thoughts of impending disaster. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Jason broke his ankle,” he says, and I wince.
Jason Dover, the lead.
“Okay, what does this mean?” I ask, walking to the edge of the driveway.
“We’re almost done, so they think they can shoot the remaining scenes around him and use a double for the rest, but they had to rearrange the shooting schedule and I won’t be home until tomorrow.”
“Do you want me to call someone, or . . . what can I do?”
“I need to call in a favor from Friend Carter, not Agent Carter.”
“Yeah, whatever you need.”
He laughs. “You might regret that in a second.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I was supposed to make it back yesterday, in time to go with Avya to birthing class tonight.”
“To what?” I bark out a laugh and a cloud of condensation hangs in the air in front of me. My mom’s little garden is frozen over, forgotten vines covered in ice and snow. A group of teens huddle together on the corner a few houses down, the end of a joint glowing in the fading daylight.
“Yeah . . .” Zach says, trailing off before laughing again. “I told you.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “No, no, it’s cool.”
“You are such a liar.”
“Are you sure Avya’s fine with this?” Avya and I knew each other before she started dating Zach, but I don’t want her to be uncomfortable.
“She’s the one who suggested you.”
I open my eyes, staring up at the foggy, snowy sky. I love the day-to-day interactions with my clients. This is just . . . an odd one.
How could I possibly say no? Birthing class it is.
? ? ?
If you were to have asked me what I thought I might be doing tonight, there are a lot of answers I could have given you: Xbox with my cousins, wrapping presents with Double D, rereading Evil’s old texts again and again until I eat a box of ice cream sandwiches solo and blame it on my dad somehow.
The possibility of ending up with someone else’s wife in a room full of pregnant women and their partners would not have occurred to me.