Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) (16 page)

“I never thought I’d appreciate this day more than any other,” he says, his smile lifting at the sight of Jane covered in confetti, “but I do. I am.” He looks to each one of us. “Thank you.”

“It was mostly Rose and Daisy,” I tell him since my part was so small. Rose planned the event, and she left a lot of the details to my little sister, who volunteered to be a big role in today’s execution.

Connor and Daisy exchange this friendly smile, and he nods at her in thanks.

“We ordered salmon from your favorite restaurant,” Rose explains, “and we’ve all agreed to read passages from your favorite books before dinner.” I was given
The Sound and the Fury
by William Faulkner. I reread the passage Rose highlighted
fifteen
times so I don’t stumble over the words, but I still have no idea what any of it means.

Lo and Daisy said they’d trade with me. They have
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens and
Middlemarch
by George Eliot, but I didn’t want to learn their passages, only to find out they were just as confusing.

Connor grins. “I’m intrigued.” He looks entranced mostly by his wife holding his son.

I whisper to Lo, “He’s going to kiss her.”

“They’re not close enough,” Lo replies, just when Connor takes two steps forward.

“Ha.”

Lo munches on a chip. “He has the
I want to fuck you
look, but he’s not going to do a goddamn thing until he’s alone with her.”

I frown. Maybe he’s right. We’re the two that cling to one another in public. Even if intensity brims off their shoulders like electric sparks, magnetizing Connor to Rose and Rose to Connor, they won’t act on the
pull
if we’re around. Not unless they forget.

And they rarely forget anything.

Rose tries to fasten a cold glare. “Today is about you, but you have one rule.”

“I’m listening.”

“You must contain your ego for the sake of your children. It’ll asphyxiate the room.”

“My ego won’t hurt them, darling.” He steps even closer.

She snaps in French and raises her hand at his chest.

He smoothly replies back in the same language and clasps her hand, only to kiss her knuckles. I perk up like I won a prize, but his lips never move to her lips.

“Even their sons are bored by this,” Lo says. Beckett has fallen asleep in Connor’s arms like Charlie has in Rose’s.

I poke Lo’s arm. “Hey, this is
love
. Love isn’t boring.”

Lo mockingly yawns. “What was that, Lil? I just woke up from a nap.”

He can be so mean. I rest my chin on his shoulder, still clinging onto him tight. I instantly forget my thoughts at the sight of a tabloid…next to the bowl of salsa.

“Hey,” Garrison greets Lo before sitting on the counter. They begin a short conversation, and I fixate on the headlines in view.

Lily Calloway, Pregnant Again!

False, but they put an unflattering picture of me on the front. My face is all red and splotchy. I wear a gray baggy sweater that reaches my knees while exiting Superheroes & Scones, hand-in-hand with Moffy. At least they didn’t say anything rude about him.

Sometimes I worry about the day where they go from
Little Maximoff Watches a Philadelphia 76ers Game!
to
Maximoff Hale Has a Zit! He’s just like us!
I can’t even imagine my own awkward puberty phases put on blast. Neither can Lo.

Look away from the magazines. Look away.

I do, only to see Connor, Rose, Daisy, and Ryke in a conversation together. “I wonder if Connor’s DNA is superhuman too,” I mumble beneath my breath. And his eyes flit to me!

I’m
not
making this up.

Maybe he truly does have superhuman hearing. “Lo,” I say softly, breaking up his short conversation with Garrison.

“Hmm?” he asks, swishing around the salsa with a chip. His other hand clutches my leg while I’m on his back.

“Do you think Connor might be Batman or Superman?”

Lo drops me.

I land on my ass, and I gape up at him. “Lo!” It’s not the first time he’s dropped me mid-piggyback for speaking about a DC character.

He waves his chip at me. “There are a goddamn
thousand
superheroes, and you chose two that I can’t stand?”

“They make the most sense.”

“They make about as much sense as calling Connor the Swamp Thing.”

I pick myself off the floor. “That’s just silly. Swamp Thing isn’t even
close
to being Batman and Superman.”

His sharp glares simultaneously says
they’re all DC characters
and
you’ve betrayed me, love.
“Please let me know where I can find my other wife. This one in front of me is a sellout.”

I touch my heart. It’s like he shot an arrow through it. “I’m not a sellout.
I just happen to not be an elitist about the whole Marvel versus DC thing, and I can appreciate
all
superheroes equally.”

“You think they’re all made
equally
?” His passion about comics brims to the surface, so alluring that I actually near him, despite his double-edged glare. “Do you want to talk Green Lantern? We can talk Green Lantern.”

“Okay, okay,” I immediately concede on this front. “So I have my favorites, just like you.” I have my fingers in his belt loops, staring up at him.

His arms are already around me. “My best friend is
not
Batman or Superman.”

“Then what is he?”

“Connor Cobalt,” Lo answers without hesitation. “He’s Connor fucking Cobalt, and whatever powers he has, they’re all his own.”

I smile. This feels more accurate than anything else. My gaze drifts to that tabloid behind Lo, and my smile quickly fades. “What is…” I snatch the tabloid before Lo realizes where my mind wandered. In the right margin,
Celebrity Crush
fit tiny script that says:
[POLL] Which Calloway sister has the cutest baby?

My jaw drops.

They did not pit our babies against each other.

Lo rips the tabloid out of my hands.

“They polled our babies by cuteness,” I exclaim. “They can’t do that.”

He gives me a look. “They can do whatever they want.”

“I just wish there were
some
ethical limitations,” I say while he flips to the page. I try to push his hands together to stop him. “Don’t! What if Moffy is ranked the ugliest.” I lower my voice at that. “We’ll know and we’ll feel bad and it’ll give him a complex.”

He pauses long enough to say, “That’s not going to happen. We have an
adorable
baby.”

“So do Rose and Daisy.”

Lo is so biased. He doesn’t see it. “You don’t have to look.” But he’s still going to.

I back away to distance myself from the tabloid. It’s a bomb. He’s holding a bomb. I still hate
Celebrity Crush
.
At one point, I felt as compulsive towards reading them as I did towards sex.

“How’d that end up here?” I ask. Ryke hates
them more than anyone. I look to Garrison but he shrugs, out of the loop with me.

Lo keeps flipping the glossy pages. “Just found out that Ryke bought Sullivan something online—a pajama set or bath robe, I can’t remember. He forgot to uncheck the 30-day free subscription to
Celebrity Crush
during checkout.”

Makes sense.

Lo pauses on a page, and he begins to read. When his eyes lift to mine, I ask, “Is it bad?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“I don’t.” This is a test, and I’m going to pass.

{
10 }

January 2019

The Meadows Cottage

Philadelphia

LOREN HALE

[POLL] Which Calloway sister has the cutest baby?

It’s really dumb. They’re all sisters, and so they share similar features, which means that our kids do too. It’s like asking who’s the prettiest sibling in a giant family. I know I’m an asshole, but this shit from
Celebrity Crush
is Grade A assholery.

Familiar bitterness slides down my throat like acid.
Let’s see what we have here.

A recent picture of Jane. Dressed in a pale yellow tutu and zebra-print sweater, she reaches for a sequined purse in the Calloway Couture boutique store, the one across the street from Superheroes & Scones. Huh. It looks like someone
in
the store snapped the photo instead of paparazzi from outside. Most likely a shopper.

I could just shut the tabloid. It wouldn’t be hard to throw it out, but I keep reading. If this
one
poll about our kids gets to me, then I’m not goddamn ready for the future. Because I know it’s going to be a hell of a lot crueler than this.

Moffy doesn’t need a drunken, apathetic father. I know that he needs someone better. Even if I’m scared, even if I lack that same conceited optimism my friends might have, I have to persist and be aware. I
never
want to be blind to Moffy’s battles or what might hurt him. I want to understand his
struggle the same way my brother tried to understand mine.

I glance at Lily one more time. She drifts towards Garrison, and they chat quietly about movies. As much as I want to read about this poll, I’m grateful she doesn’t. In the past, tabloids consumed Lily, and I see that pull. I know that pull.

To trade one vice with another.

I’m glad she doesn’t.

I return to the article that first details the children being polled.

Jane Eleanor Cobalt, daughter of Rose and Connor Cobalt, can best be described as a mini Rose Calloway.

I shake my head at that line, and I can feel my jaw clench. I grew up with
young
Rose Calloway, horns and seven hells beneath a pleated skirt, tucked-in blouse, and crisp, ironed collar.

Jane isn’t neat like Rose. She sits upright, but she’ll also roll around on the floor. And she’s definitely not fashionable. I don’t know much about fashion, besides a brief stint as a model, but I don’t need to be a designer to know that this girl is
not
stylish.

Jane is a goof. She wore striped blue and yellow stockings and a bonnet with plastic butterflies to a ballet. (We all went; it was Greg Calloway’s idea of a giant family outing.)

I glaze over part of the article that says Jane is following Rose’s footsteps.

Next up: a photo of my son. They chose a picture of Moffy in red Vans, jeans, a backwards baseball cap, and a Spider-Man shirt. Holding my hand and Lily’s, he crosses the intersection with us. We’re headed to Lucky’s Diner.

Maximoff Hale, son of Lily and Loren Hale, is nothing but cool.

Lily would love that line.

Last picture: a blurry baby. A blanket partially shrouds Sulli as Ryke carries her against his chest. My brother—he does a good job at keeping his daughter out of magazines. Bitterness drips further down my throat.
Let it go.

I do, much easier than I used to.

I remember that it’s easier for him. That it’d be nearly impossible if I mimicked his steps. The result wouldn’t be the same. He’s just not as famous as me, and Ryke would tell me, “You’re a good fucking dad, Lo.”

I can’t compare myself to him. Not about fatherhood, athletics, alcoholism—we may be cut from the same fucked-up cloth, but we’re not shaped the same. I’m different.

I will always be different from Ryke Meadows. I love him way too much to resent him. The malicious bone in my body that attacked him, that screamed at him, that bit him until he bled—it’s gone. Part of me is ashamed that I hated him
that
much when I met him, but the other part is just happy that I’m no longer living with that person inside of me.

Self-hatred is exhausting.

Ryke sits on the back of his couch. Jane and Moffy clutch his calves like koalas, and he swings his legs upwards and side-to-side while making an airplane noise. I don’t think I’ve ever met a better person in this entire goddamn world than my older brother.

I’m proud that I know him and that my son will know him.

I look at Sulli’s description in the article.
Sullivan Minnie Meadows, daughter of Daisy and Ryke Meadows, is always caught smiling.
That’s true. I rarely see Sulli cry.

I skim the rest and hone in on the actual poll results.

23% Sullivan

41% Jane

36% Maximoff

No matter which way the numbers go, it’s still the same shit. I roll up the magazine and ditch that for the bowl of salsa. “Little ‘puff.” I come up behind my wife, and she startles only for a second.