Isn't She Lovely (12 page)

“Okay, so what
do
I need to know?” I say, increasingly aware that the bubbles are disappearing and the bath water is growing tepid. “Is there a particular political stance I should take? Religious views I should be passionate about? Interests that are too gauche for the Prices
and should be stifled?”

“Liberal, Protestant, and sports,” he says. “As in the Prices
don’t
discuss sports.”

“I’ll try to refrain from reciting all those football stats I know backward and forward.”

“Good girl. You’ll be fine. And um … the earrings …?”

“Will be removed by Sunday dinner, per our agreement,” I say. “And does this mean I shouldn’t show your mom my python tramp stamp?”

His eyes flick briefly to the water. “You have a tattoo?”

I smile enigmatically.
Wouldn’t he like to know
.

“Don’t worry, Price. We’ve got this,” I say to reassure him.

And the thing is, even though I hate this whole business, we really
do
have this. Because while my fake smile might be rusty and I may not be able to name different types of oysters, once upon a time I could play the game with the best of them.

Ethan Price chose better than he knew when he picked Stephanie Kendrick to play Barbie to his Ken. Because Stephanie Kendrick was once Steffie Wright: cheerleader, student council president, and prom queen.

Impressing parents?
Please
. I used to do that shit in my sleep.

Chapter Ten

Ethan

On one hand, the stupid dinner with my parents is going so much better than I imagined. Stephanie is like a freaking gold medalist of fake girlfriends. Seriously. The girl’s on fire.

But it’s also going a hell of a lot worse than I imagined, because my mother is in full matchmaking mode. Mom doesn’t seem to care how fantastic my new girl is; she’s still dropped Olivia’s name something like seven times, and we’ve only been here half an hour.

It’s so interesting that Ethan would choose a brunette. He’s always been partial to blondes
.

How wonderful to have a dinner guest again. Olivia used to join us every Sunday
.

Ethan honey, did I tell you that I saw Olivia at the club the other day? She’s looking a little thin, but I think it suits her
.

Before we arrived Stephanie told me she’d be taking mental notes all night for a meet-the-parents scene in our screenplay, and Mom is rising to the occasion beautifully. She could be reading straight off a script for a manipulative mother character.

I glance at Stephanie to make sure she’s not going to go all stabby on my mother, but she’s gracefully dislodged herself from Mom’s side and is chatting it up with my dad, who’s loving every moment of it.

I can’t blame him. Stephanie is … she looks …
shit
, she looks good. When she emerged from her bedroom after an hour of primping, I was speechless for a full five minutes. I’d seen the new hair and the new makeup before. I’d even seen parts of the new wardrobe from when I sat in the dressing room waiting area.

But seeing the whole look together? Damn. She’s the perfect Stepford girlfriend.

I was worried she wouldn’t be able to resist going all raccoon eyes on me, but she must have been paying close attention to the cosmetics woman in Bergdorf’s. Gone is the shadowy, angry eye makeup, and she has some pink stuff on her cheeks, so she no longer looks like she’s dedicated her life to banning color from her complexion. The white sundress and light blue cardigan are icing on the cranky cupcake. Ideal for meeting the parents.

The whole thing is also completely un-Stephanie.

And for some reason that’s bugging the crap out of me, even though creating a nonStephanie is exactly the point of this whole stupid plan.

My dad doesn’t seem to mind, though. Unlike my mom, Dad seems completely willing to accept an Olivia replacement.

“I’m sure Natasha’s already asked this,” my father says, “but how did you and Ethan meet again?”

“Oh, we have a film class together this summer,” Stephanie replies, shooting me a quick glance for reassurance. We agreed on the way over to stick to the truth as much as possible to avoid getting trapped in any lies.

“Oh, right, Martin’s class,” my dad says, nodding approvingly at the mention of his old friend and Hollywood hotshot.

“Right.
Martin
,” Stephanie says, and I know she’s dying to know how my dad is on a first-name basis with an Oscar-winning screenwriter. Just like she knows she can’t ask, because I would have told her that already if we were really dating.

I take a breath and hope there won’t be too many more of those should-know-this-but-don’t moments between us before we can have a further getting-to-know-you session.

“So are you taking that class on a rebellious whim too, then?” my mother asks, walking to the minibar to refill her wineglass.

Not for the first time, I curse my family’s old-fashioned insistence on “cocktail hour.” It’s nothing but small talk. Translation: total hell.

I brace myself for Stephanie to start glowering and babbling about how film is the soul of this country, thus triggering my mom’s unending disdain for “pop culture,” but again Stephanie surprises me. She gives a tiny shrug and takes an even tinier sip of the white wine my parents have poured for her as she rolls with my mother’s snobbishness. “Oh, sort of. Just one of those summer things kids do, I guess.”

My mom gives a whisper of a smile, just enough to be polite, before turning back to me. “Olivia’s interning with her father’s company. Did you know that, Ethan?”

“Nope.”

Actually, I do know that. Or at least I figured that Olivia interned at her father’s bank every summer. Just like I interned at my father’s company every summer—except this one.

Mercifully, my dad announces that he’s hungry and we’re able to move this fun-for-all to the dining room to commence what’s sure to be an endless number of courses accompanied by endless questions.

My mom squeezes my dad’s shoulder before sitting down at her spot across the table, and I look away quickly. I know she’s my mom and all, but for a second I hate her. Not even so much for sleeping with Mike senior, but for fucking
lying
about it. For creating a mockery of her marriage to my dad and of everything I thought family was supposed to be about.

I catch Stephanie watching me, and I give her a reassuring smile. She tilts her head and
gives me the same smile right back. Like
she’s
the one doing the reassuring.

I probably should have given her some background information before we did this shit. It would have been easy enough. She’d obviously been fishing for details the other night when I’d barged in on her bubble bath like a common perv.

I really can’t blame her for prying. Of course she’d want to know why I’d create a fake girlfriend instead of just manning up and telling my parents that Olivia and I are over and that I’m moving on like any normal twenty-one-year-old dude. And for a second I’m actually tempted to tell her every detail. But I stop myself. I haven’t told anyone, and I’m seriously contemplating telling
her
? I don’t even
know
her.

“So, Stephanie, tell me about your people,” my mom says as our chef—yes, we have one—places some sort of weird cold soup in front of us.

I watch as Stephanie picks up the correct spoon and takes a sip of the strange-looking green goo without even a slight widening of eyes at the temperature. Even though she seems okay with it, I’m wishing that I had a regular family where the mom cooks lasagna and throws bagged salad into a big dented wooden bowl. A family where my mother wouldn’t use phrases like “your people,” as though everyone belongs to a clan as fucked up as this one.

“My people?” Stephanie asks, as though reading my mind.

Stephanie’s features are arranged in a perfect semblance of pleasantness, but her eyes are a different story. I watch her closely, waiting for disgust at my mother’s blatant snobbery, but it’s not disgust at all. She just looks … guarded. And I hate that.

“Your family,” my mom says, taking a dainty sip of soup. “Are they from New York?”

“I grew up in Rhode Island.”

My mother gives a little shrug of patronizing fake interest. “Oh, how tiny!”

When my mom says “tiny” in that condescending voice, she doesn’t mean “adorably quaint”; she means “trivial.” And I can tell from Stephanie’s stiffening shoulders that she knows this.

“It is the smallest state, yes,” Stephanie replies, admirably dodging my mother’s condescension.

“Do you get back there often?”

I remember Stephanie’s crankiness about discussing home, and alarm bells go off in my head.

“What’s with this weird soup?” I interrupt rudely, hoping to distract my mother. “It tastes like cold mud.”

But Stephanie’s already speaking. “Actually, my father lives in North Carolina now. He moved down there when I was eighteen.”

“Ah, lovely. And your mother?”

“She’s dead.”

Stephanie says the word so quietly, so easily, that it takes the rest of us at the table a second to register it.

Holy shit
.

I’d sort of figured she wasn’t from one big happy family, but I didn’t realize we were dealing with death. Suddenly I feel like the worst kind of ass for going on about my parents. At least I have both of them.

I sort of forget about my dad’s naïveté and my mom’s affair as my eyes lock on Stephanie’s face. Her eyes are sad but also resigned, and I’ve got this crushing urge to wipe that haunted look from her face.

I also have a billion questions. Like was it her mother’s death that started the whole hate-the-world thing she has going on? I also kind of want to ask why she didn’t tell me.

Shit. And now I’m asking myself why I even
care
that she didn’t tell me.

But the questions will have to wait until after this hellish dinner. Because this is
definitely
the sort of thing I should already know about my “girlfriend.”

“You poor thing,” my mom says, giving Stephanie a sad smile.

Stephanie lifts one shoulder, and for a second it’s like she’s the old Stephanie again: angry, defensive, and sullen. No, not the old Stephanie. The
real
Stephanie. She’s so damn good at this nice-girl routine that I keep forgetting that beneath the soft clothing and makeup she’s hard as nails.

My parents exchange a glance, and by silent agreement my dad swiftly changes the subject back to his favorite topic: work. His work.

Stephanie’s polite, asks all the right questions, and laughs at the right spots in his tired stories. And somehow we get through dinner and dessert without my parents catching on to the fact that we’re not exactly in love.

I think we’ve made it successfully through the first round of our Pygmalion experiment, but it’s like my mom secretly knows we need more villainess material for our screenplay, because she follows me into the foyer when I go to fetch Stephanie’s bag.

“I just wanted to let you know I won’t tell the Middletons about this,” she says in a quiet undertone.

“Tell the Middletons about what?” I play dumb.

She presses her lips together. “About your new fling.”

I shrug. “Go ahead and tell them. Also, I’m bringing her to Paige’s wedding, so maybe by then you can stop bringing up Olivia in front of her.”

Mom studies me. “Paige’s wedding isn’t for a couple of weeks.”

“And?”

She gives a brittle smile. “Well, how do you know that you and Stephanie will still be seeing each other?”

“I just know.”

“Ethan …” My mom places a hand on my arm and I look away, because she really does look distressed, and deep down I know she wants me to be happy. “This Stephanie seems like a nice enough girl, but you and Olivia—”

“Are over, Mom.”

“But why? You were always so happy together.”

Were we?

I mean, we were content, sure. Up until the end, we were also drama free, and I know enough other females to be aware how unusual
that
was. So yeah, I guess we were happy. Enough.

But then things imploded. And does my heart feel like it belongs in a boy-band ballad about being brokenhearted?

No.

I start to head back toward the living room, where Stephanie’s talking with my dad, but I stop and turn back to my mom.

“Why is it so important to you that I reconnect with Olivia? What’s it even have to do with you?”

My mom blinks, as though surprised by the question. “I just … I thought … I want you to be happy.”

“I
am
happy, Mom. With Stephanie.”

Apparently I’m better at this whole charade thing than even I knew, because the words are out before I even have a chance to think them.

My mom holds up her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. You’re young; I guess I should expect that you’d want to play the field.”

I meet her eyes. “Is
playing the field
limited to the young?”

Her back stiffens slightly as she squares her shoulders. “What is that supposed to mean, Ethan?”

“You know what it means,” I mutter.

And then I walk away.

I know I should have the balls to just talk to her about it. To confront her about what I saw.

But I don’t know how to have the conversation. Don’t know how to tell her I saw her with Mike senior that day. Don’t know how to tell her that I know she’s having an affair with my best friend’s dad.

Someday maybe I’ll be able to laugh at the farcical fortuity of learning about my mother and Olivia in the same day. Hell, in the same
hour
.

That
someday
is not today.

Today I do not feel like laughing.

“You ready?” I ask Stephanie, itching to get out of this house.

My dad winks at Stephanie. “My boy wants to get you home.”

I search my dad’s expression, trying to determine if his choice of words is intentional. I haven’t exactly told them that Stephanie and I are living together, and although they’re not prudes, they’re old-school enough that I don’t exactly want to advertise the fact that we’re shacking up. Although this is the first time in my life that I actually hope my parents mistakenly believe that I
am
sleeping with a girl, rather than her being a 110 percent platonic roommate—a living arrangement that I suspect is going to be the death of me.