But that morning I did, so I carefully pinned big curls to my head and while they cooled down, I cleaned up my eyebrows and applied my makeup. I took extra time pulling together a fantastic outfit and threw together a few choice pieces of jewelry, got dressed, and pulled on my trusty boots. I searched through my bag for my bottle of vanilla and found it on the bottom of the case, of course. Since I didn’t hear the house stirring at all, I decided to kill some time and rearranged my bag for optimal fittage. In the bathroom, I dabbed a few generous drops of vanilla on all my pulse points.
I put my hands over my pinned curls and felt they were cool enough so I pulled the duckbill clips and let the curls fall, setting them with a little hair spray and a little hair serum to smooth any strays. I turned my head over and shook them out, letting them tumble down my back. The effect was exactly what I wanted.
I sat on the edge of the bed, reading for a few minutes, when I started hearing voices drift into the kitchen down the hall. Doors opened and boys spilled out when the smell of bacon permeated the whole apartment.
My blood started to race knowing I’d be seeing Ezra soon. I was so eager yet so hesitant, my stomach that strange mixture of anticipation and queasiness. I started to doubt whether what happened last night was really as I remembered it. I knew enough of boys from Frankie to know they often got some twisted sense of buyer’s remorse after a night of pasión. Not that hands really went anywhere but around the facial/shouldery area. I started to lose it, overanalyzing everything that happened, then recalled the words Ezra gave me. He wasn’t a liar. He was a boy, no, man of integrity, and I needed to give him a little credit.
I stood, checked my reflection, touched a jittery hand to a door handle and pulled open the door. I stepped out into the hall and closed the door. There was one thing I didn’t take into consideration when I stepped out, and that was that the open kitchen was settled across the main hall, perpendicular with the hall my room was in, and everyone had the perfect view of me as I took the fifty-foot walk. And they watched. All of them. All four boys. Mike and Rosie glanced at me but returned to their business. I almost turned around and sprinted back toward the room but knew how ridiculous that would look, so I owned the walk.
I was slow at first, but picked it up with as much pep as possible. Confidence! The speakers in the kitchen blared something young, letting me know one of the boys picked the station.
It got all quiet as all of them, save for Rosie and Mike at the stove together, their backs to me, stared my direction. I checked behind me. There was nothing. Hot dog! This is for me! Well, well, well.
All of them were still in their PJs and I hesitated again. I was halfway down the hall. It was too late, so I kept going. I’d thought they’d have gotten control of themselves, but all four boys were frozen where they stood.
I reached the kitchen and waved. “’Allo, govnas!” I greeted, hoping to wake them up a little.
It worked, they all scrambled around, back into their morning routine. All except Ezra. Wonderful, beautiful Ezra. He smiled at me and bit his bottom lip to keep from grinning too widely. He made a little twirl motion with his fingers, asking me to turn around, so I did. I curtsied, ’cause I’m a gosh dang lady, when I met him face to face again.
Nice, he mouthed.
He still had on his track pants, but he’d thrown a T-shirt over his Adonis chest and abs, which was a crying shame, but I had to respect his acknowledgment of a social norm, you know, because it’s a social norm and lest be thrown into the dregs of society. Jeez.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Kai. He looked at me, then back at Ezra, then back at me, and put it together at a Joey-from-Friends kind of pace. He pointed at me and Ezra at the same time, smiling like an idiot. We ignored him.
Ezra patted the area next to him on his side of the bench at the table where he was reading the paper like he was a grown-up. I walked over to him and sat with my back to the table so I could swing my legs over modestly because I was wearing a skirt. He looked right through me, it seemed, and I froze in place. He leaned imperceptibly my direction and inhaled.
“You smell good enough to eat,” he whispered, making my stomach drop.
I threw my legs over the bench and swiveled around, maintaining an appropriate distance from him so as not to alarm the parental units of the shenanigans we’d gotten up to during the night.
Acting as apathetic as he could, Ezra said, “Coffee, Jupiter?”
“Thank you, yes,” I said. “I’d love some.”
He leaned over me, his chest brushing against my arm, and flipped a coffee cup in his hands, settling it in front of me on an agate coaster. He grabbed the French press in the center of the table and poured a cup for me.
“How do you like it?” he asked me.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing, shattering all pretense of maturity. Ezra’s cheeks flushed red when he realized the suggestion, and I giggled, resting my forehead against his shoulder trying so, so hard not to laugh out loud. We both choked down our amusement as Milo and Kai joined us at the table.
“What’s so funny?” Kai asked.
“Oh, nothing,” I told him. “Ezra was just getting me coffee.”
Kai looked at my coffee cup then at Ezra. “Heh, heh. Yeah, that Ezra. Such a trip,” he teased.
He shook his head, leaned over, and started to fish through the paper, landing on the sports section, and plucked it out, setting it in front of him.
Ezra cleared his throat. “Cream? Sugar?” he asked.
I didn’t know. I’d never really had it before.
“Both,” I told him to be safe.
He put both in, took a small spoon from a pile next to the coffee pot, stirred my coffee for a few strokes, handed it over to me, and encouraged me to keep stirring. When I didn’t feel any more resistance from the lumps of sugar, I picked up the cup and took a trial sip.
HOLY MOTHER OF MOSES! It was amazing. I kid you not, the nectar of the gods.
Like it? Ezra mouthed.
“You have just created a monster,” I warned.
“Jupiter!” I heard across the kitchen, startling me. I spilled a little coffee on the table. Ezra took his napkin and wiped it up for me.
“Thank you,” I told him. “Good morning, Rosie!”
“Mornin’, child!” She came around the middle island toward the table, a spatula in her hand. “Sakes alive, girl! You look prettier than a glob of butter melting on a stack of pancakes.”
“Thank you!” I think.
“You like bacon, baby?” she asked.
“Does Kai like girls?” I answered.
She laughed. “So what you’re saying is you like bacon now, but once it comes to the table, you’ll change your mind ’bout it and want ham instead,” Rosie chimed in.
The whole kitchen erupted into laughter including Kai, but his smile fell quickly. “Hey, a pig’s a pig,” he bit back.
Rosie slapped Kai on the back of the head and walked away, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “Come on!” Kai said, laughing. “Can’t stand the heat, get out the kitchen!” he said, mimicking her accent perfectly.
“Hey, respect your mama,” Mike said, flipping something.
“Don’t worry,” Rosie said sweetly to Kai, “one day you’ll learn. One day you’ll meet a pretty girl and you’ll wrap yourself around her finger. I’ll watch with pure glee as she runs you around in circles.”
Kai looked shell shocked and swallowed hard.
“Where are you boys going to take Jupiter today?” Rosie asked, pulling something from the oven.
“What about the aquarium?” Bear suggested.
Ezra laughed. “We live in the Florida Keys, Bear.”
“So?” he asked, confused.
“What about the Chicago Shakes?” Milo asked. He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s near the Pier, but who cares?”
“What’s Chicago Shakes?” I asked Milo.
He smiled a brilliant smile at me. “The Chicago Shakespeare The
ater.”
“That’s cool!” I said.
“He only wants to go because he’s got a paper due the first week of school next week on Othello. Our prep school makes all the new seniors read the play over the summer, and he didn’t have time,” Kai dug in.
Milo’s eyes blew wide.
“Milo!” Rosie said, whipping around. “Is that true? Did you not read Othello?”
Milo bent across the table, making like he was going to get up. “Your ass is grass,” he told Kai under his breath then fully stood. “Ma, don’t worry, I’ll read it this week. I swear,” he tried to appease.
I watched as Milo buttered up his mom, and she fell for it hook, line, and sinker. She was putty in these boys’ hands, I could tell.
“Listen,” she told everyone, “make sure whatever you do, you guys get back by five.”
“What for?” Kai asked, scanning the paper.
She placed a large platter of French toast on the table. She looked exasperated. Note to self, being a mom to boys is aggravating but a blast.
“Kai, I have the library fundraiser here tonight. You know this, boy! The caterers will be here by three. I want you all out of the house until five, but home in time to shower and dress. Your tuxes are in your closets, pressed. Do not, under any circumstances, walk into this house five minutes until seven. Guests arrive then, and I expect you all to be dressed and ready to go, with smiles on your pretty faces.” She looked at Ezra. “I had one of Kai’s tuxes pressed for you as well, Ezra.”
I swallowed. Was I expected to be here? Surely not.
I smiled up at Rosie. “Uh, Mrs. Brandon?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s Rosie, baby. Or Mama. Whatever,” she said, then offered a gorgeous smile.
“Um, what time does this party end?” I asked, trying to figure out what I would do while they threw this fundraiser thing. I wanted to see Chicago but didn’t want to walk the city on my own at night.
“Not sure, honey. They go pretty late. Does that make you uncomfortable, babe?”
“Oh no,” I said to reassure her. “I just didn’t know what time I should come back to the house.”
Her confused face matched Bear’s. “Whatcha talkin’ ’bout, honey?”
“Uh,” Kai chimed in, his voice a bundle of nerves, “Jupiter, my mom would like to cordially invite you to a fundraiser we’re throwing at our house. We throw one every year. It’s a formal affair.”
Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at Kai.
“Kai!” Rosie yelled. “My God, boy! You get sorrier and sorrier every day.”
He laughed. “I’m sorry, Mama. I just forgot to tell them.”
Ezra leaned into me and whispered, “More like smoked it away.”
I would have found that hilarious if I wasn’t a little panicked that I didn’t have anything decent to wear.
Rosie noticed my face. “Now, don’t worry. It’s no big thing. Did you bring anything?”
“I really didn’t,” I told her. I felt all the color drain from my face.
“Okay, don’t get hysterical now. We’ve got hours yet.”
She got up to get a big plate of bacon and set it next to the French toast. Kai reached over for a piece, but she slapped his hand away.
“Ow!” he said, rubbing his hand.
She sat down as Mike brought over a big platter of scrambled eggs and settled in next to her.
She snapped her fingers. “I got it! Melissa!”
The boys nodded their heads as they filled up their plates. Ezra offered eggs and I nodded, still a little stunned by the morning’s progress. He filled my plate for me.
“If I don’t do this,” he said in my ear, “the rest of them will wipe the platters clean and you’ll miss out.”
I turned and smiled at him. “Thank you,” I told him.
I picked up my fork and took a bite of eggs after we prayed. “Um, Rosie?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Who is Melissa?”
“Oh, she’s the corporate lawyer who lives across the hall. She’s ’bout your size. She’s sweet as cherry pie and a good friend. She’ll be more than happy to help out, I just know it. I’ll call after breakfast and we’ll head on over there.”
“She’s also hot as a tamale,” Kai mocked his mom’s accent.
Mike looked over at Kai and Kai shrank into his side of the bench. Mike was the silent, calm type, but it worked for him.
“Kai Brandon,” Rosie said sternly.
“Sorry,” he said, looking remorseful.
“Should I look up matinee times of Othello?” Ezra asked the table.
I looked at Ezra and he smiled. “Definitely,” I told him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
After breakfast, Rosie called Melissa the corporate lawyer across the hall and yanked me to her door, chatting me up and making me laugh. Rosie was the best.
She knocked on Melissa’s door a few times and quicker than I would have thought, Melissa pulled the door open with flourish.
“Welcome!” she said, making way for us to pass.
“Melissa,” Rosie said, dragging me through the foyer and main hall to the main living room, “this is Jupiter!”
I took the hand Melissa stuck out to me. “Hello!” she said. “So nice to meet you.”
“It’s a pleasure,” I told her, returning the pleasantry.
Melissa was my height with gold hair cut at the shoulder. She wore it wavy and ultra chic. It made me want to bolt out the door to the nearest hairstylist.
“I hear Kai, and I quote, left you up the creek with no paddle?”
I laughed. “Yes, he did.”
“Come on,” she said playfully.
She and Rosie walked into the main hall and I followed. Melissa’s house was similar to the Brandons’ floor plan, but she decorated it so eclectically it felt different. I followed her into the master and around a corner, through a kick-ass bathroom that would have been my favorite room in the house, if it had been mine, and into a giant walk-in closet.
My eyes followed rows and rows of expensive-looking clothing and shoes and suddenly I wondered what the hell cases Melissa fought. She didn’t look any older than twenty-eight or so, and I thought she must have come out swinging after college. It damn near made me whoop with pride. She awakened a rivalry in me, a healthy kind of contest. Success looks good on women, I thought.
“You like clothes?” Melissa asked.
“I like clothes just fine,” I admitted, “but you know what really tickles my pickle?”
“What’s that?” Rosie asked, rummaging through Melissa’s closet.
“Textures. I’m a touchy-feely kinda gal.”
“Oh my God!” Melissa yelled. My eyes blew wide. “I know the perfect outfit for you then.” She ran to one corner of her closet. “I bought it about a month ago in New York while arguing a case. No, after I won a case.” She pulled out a zippered bag and hung it on a hook to unzip it. As she did, she said, “It’s by Max Gengos. It’s so unconventional I knew I couldn’t really wear it anywhere often, but I couldn’t help myself.”
She took a silky, creamy white skirt and top from the bag and held them up in front of me, shoving me in front of her floor-length mirror. Rosie and Melissa stood beside me, trying to imagine what I would look like in it, I guessed.
“Oh my God, it’s perfect,” Melissa said.
I dragged the fabric through my hands and resisted the urge to moan. It was a heavenly feeling. My fingers caught a tag at the end of a sleeve.
“Melissa, you haven’t worn this yet?”
“Oh not yet, hadn’t found an occasion to. Why?” she said, cocking her head to look at the tag.
It was a seventeen-hundred-dollar outfit.
“Melissa, I can’t wear this! Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful, really beautiful, but I can’t wear something this expensive, especially if you haven’t worn it yet.”
I started to push the top and skirt back at her, but she only scoffed at
me. “I don’t care about that kind of stuff, Jupiter. Trust me when I say I bought this so it would be worn, and if you take it on its maiden voyage then I would be honored.”
“Oh my gosh, I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you wear it tonight?” I asked.
She sighed. “I would have but I forgot about it and bought something else. I have my heart set on my newer dress. Just wear the Max Gengos, Jupiter. I really don’t mind.”
She’d convinced me. “Are you sure?”
“Very,” she said, smiling wide. “Here, go try it on in the bathroom while Rosie and I pick out shoes for you. What size are you?”
I gulped. “Um, an eight.”
“I’m an eight and half, but it’ll work.”
I left the women in the closet and undressed in that kind stranger’s bathroom. I looked at the inside tag of the top. Fifty-one percent silk, forty-nine percent wool body. One hundred percent silk charmeuse lining with silk organza tipping. I ran my hands over the top of the fabric. It was without a doubt probably the highest quality garment I would ever put on.
The skirt was tight fitting and came to about three inches above the knee, but there was a high slit over the left thigh. Despite it’s mature fabric, the style was very young looking. They were so well made you couldn’t even see the zipper closure. The top was fitted and long sleeved, and slightly cropped, with two peekaboo squares under each shoulder that left an inch or two of fabric between the collarbones.
I felt dizzy remembering Ezra kissing me at the dip between my collarbones earlier that morning. My face flushed a bright red, my skin growing hot. It felt very appropriate for a piece of fabric to cover that part of my body, as if it belonged to Ezra now and I wanted to keep it that way.
When I gained a little bit of my self-control back, I opened the closet door and stepped inside. Both women gasped.
“Is that a good sign?” I asked, a little embarrassed.
“It is a very good sign.” Rosie giggled. Her hands went to her face. “Jupiter, Ezra is going to keel over when he sees you.” That burning in my cheeks returned. Rosie laughed at me sweetly. “Oh, please, child, nothing gets past a mama. Nothing.”