“Oh, see if you can get her to drink more water, Zach,” Maeve said as she came outside with a tray of homemade veggie burgers for the grill.
“Water is really the only thing I drink,” he said, leaning his elbows on his knees, admittedly impressive biceps flexing. “That and the occasional cup of green tea.”
“Jesus Christ,” Iris said, chugging back some more soda.
“What was that?” Zach said, leaning closer to her. His salty-piney cologne washed over her—a tsunami rather than a gentle wave—and she coughed a little.
“I said cheese and crackers,” she said, slapping the table and standing up. She tugged at her cropped green sweater, which just barely covered her midriff. “I think we need some.”
“Cheese and crackers, cheese and crackers!” Ava and Ainsley both chanted in between giggles and squeals from the yard, where Aiden had them both hoisted over his broad shoulders. Their long auburn hair nearly brushed the grass.
Aiden deposited the girls on the top porch step, and Iris immediately pounced, grabbing their tiny hands with her own. She moved so fast, she imagined she looked like a vulture descending from the sky, but honestly, she didn’t care. She would one hundred percent use her adorable nieces to get her out of this situation.
“I can get it, honey,” her mother said, depositing the platter of burgers into her husband’s hands and moving back toward the door.
“No!” Iris yelled. She slapped on a smile and softened her voice. “I can do it, Mom, you take a load off.”
And with that, she pulled Ava and Ainsley into the house, walking so fast their gangly legs nearly tangled with hers. She managed to get all three of them inside without ending up in a heap on the floor and bustled the two little girls into the kitchen through some carefully curated tickles.
Aromas of baking bread and sugar greeted them. Emma’s husband, Charlie, was mashing potatoes in a giant blue ceramic bowl, forearms flexing, while Aiden’s wife, Addison—resplendent in a belted shirt dress and ruffly apron—laid strips of pastry over what looked like a rhubarb and strawberry pie. It was like a fucking Norman Rockwell painting in here.
Iris waved at her siblings-in-law, then quickly located the charcuterie platter on the butcher block island her mother had already prepared. She immediately stuffed a rectangle of cheddar in her mouth, then spread a smear of brie onto a sesame seed cracker before dipping the whole thing into a tiny stainless steel cup full of locally sourced honey.
“Easy,” Addison said as the twins reached for their own snacks. “Don’t ruin your appetites.”
Iris stuffed another delectable, meal-ruining square of bliss into her mouth. Addison was nice, and she and Iris had always gotten along okay, but the woman still dressed the twins in matching outfits, braided their hair in the same styles, and ran a mommy blog about how to balance style with efficiency in the home. She also had a tiny long-haired chihuahua named Apple, cementing their only A-names allowed household.
Not that there was anything wrong with any of that, but Iris, whose apartment was an amalgam of mismatched furniture and housed a drawerful of various sex toys in both of her nightstands, was never quite sure how to bond with her sister-in-law. Especially when Addison said shit like Don’t ruin your appetites to kids eating tiny cubes of cheese.
Iris made a point to slather the honey extra thick onto her next cracker. Conveniently, this also meant her mouth was practically glued shut when her mother bustled into the kitchen, eyes aglow and fixed on Iris.
“So?” Maeve said. “What do you think?” Behind her, both Aiden and Emma, along with baby Christopher, spilled into the room.
“Yeah, Iris, what do you think?” Aiden said with a smirk, popping a square of pepper jack into his mouth.
Iris glared at him. Growing up, she and Aiden had been pretty close. He was only two years older than she was, and he worked as a designer at Google. He and Iris were both creative, both prone to dreaming, but ever since he married Addison and became a dad, they hardly ever talked except at family events like this one.
Not that Iris didn’t understand—he was busy. He had a family, kids to feed and mold into responsible human beings, a spouse. He was needed, while Iris spent most of her time lately staring up at her dust-covered ceiling fan wondering why the hell she ever thought writing was the correct career choice after she closed her paper shop last summer.
“What do I think about what?” Iris said, playing ignorant.
“I think he’s cute,” Emma said, swaying while Christopher dozed in her arms. He squirmed a little, wrinkled eyes closed, mouth a tiny adorable rosebud.
“You would,” Iris said to Emma. Emma was . . . well, she had her shit together. Always had. Three years younger than Iris, she’d married the perfect man at twenty-four, already worked her way to junior executive at a lucrative advertising agency in Portland by twenty-six, and popped out a kid at twenty-seven. Incidentally, this timetable had always been her plan, from age sixteen when she skipped her sophomore year and made a perfect 1600 on her SATs.
“There’s nothing wrong with being health conscious,” Emma said. “I think someone like that would be good for you.”
“I can feed myself, Em,” Iris said.
“Barely,” she said. “What did you have for dinner last night? Potato chips? A Lean Cuisine?”
Needless to say, Emma and Addison were BFFs and co-chairs of the Perfect-Women-Who-Have-It-All club. Iris imagined it as an elite group that probably met in an opulent, password-guarded penthouse apartment, where all the members brushed each other’s gleaming hair and called one another names like Bunny and Miffy and Bitsy.
“Actually,” Iris said, popping a green olive into her mouth, “I fed on the repressed tears of uptight women who need to get laid, thanks very much.” She eyed Charlie. “No offense.”
He just laughed, cutting cubes of butter into the potatoes, while Emma’s mouth puckered up in distaste. Iris felt a twinge of guilt. Unlike Aiden, she and Emma had never been close at all. As a kid, Iris had relished the idea of being a big sister, and there were myriad pictures of the precious Emma—the youngest, the surprise blessing, the completing jewel in the Kelly family crown—cuddled in Iris’s arms. As the years passed, their roles shifted, the line between older and younger sister blurring, as Emma always seemed to know the answer, the right behavior, the correct choice, a split second before Iris did.
If Iris figured it out at all.
“Iris, really,” her mother said, taking Christopher from Emma and patting his back. “Your father and I worry about you,” Maeve went on. “All alone in your apartment, no roommate, no steady job, no boyfriend—”
“Partner.”
Her mother winced. Maeve and Liam Kelly, both survivors of Irish Catholic upbringings, had always accepted Iris’s bisexuality with open arms and hearts—even going so far as to set her up with Maeve’s queer, guinea pig–loving hairstylist—but they still got trapped in heteronormative language sometimes, particularly when all of Iris’s siblings were straight as fucking arrows.
“Sorry, honey,” Maeve said. “Partner.”
“And I have a job,” Iris said.