1
Rules, as far as I was concerned, were the only thing keeping the universe from collapsing in on itself.
Not just the official ones, like no running in the hallways, pay your taxes, don’t steal a cop car. I meant the other rules. The secret ones that everyone seemed to know somehow. The rules that decided who you sat next to at lunch. The rules that told you how long you were allowed to be sad about something before people started getting uncomfortable. The rules that meant “I’m fine” actually meant “I’m furious,” and “do whatever you want” meant “if you do what you want, I will never forgive you.”
I liked rules. They were a way to decode things that didn’t make sense. If you could figure out the rule, you could predict the outcome.
Friendship had rules.
Don’t date each other’s exes. Don’t tell their middle school crush about the time they peed their pants in second grade. Even if it’s funny.Even if it’s really funny.
Being the older sister had rules. You were the test run. You walked home alone first. You were the one who had to know better, even when you didn’t. You went first into the dark and reported back that it was safe.
School had rules too. Who was allowed to sit on which staircase. How much eye contact with a teacher got you called on. How late you could turn in an assignment before the apology became more important than the work.
For a long time, I’d been good at those rules. Even when everything else had gone to shit, the idea of rules still made the world make sense.
What never stopped bothering me was how few people just said what they meant. “We should hang out sometime” means we probably won’t. “It’s not you, it’s me” meant it’s definitely you. “We’re so proud of you” came with a fine print and an asterisk. And if you wanted living proof that humanity had too many rules and not enough honesty, you planned a wedding.
Weddings had dress codes and speech codes and codes about when you could go to the bathroom during the ceremony without being considered disruptive. There were rules about plus-ones and whether kids were invited. Rules about what you could wear. Not white. Not flashy. Not a “statement.” There were rules about who walked down which aisle in what order.
There were also, I discovered, rules about being the sister of the groom.
Rule 1: be supportive.
Rule 2: drink the free champagne.
Rule 3: do not, under any circumstances, enjoy your mother’s suffering.
I had already failed rule 3.
“Mae, you’re going to get a headache,” my mother said, watching me drink.
“That’s future Mae’s problem.”
My mother shook her head. She had her own glass in her hand. She’d taken exactly one sip, made a face, and was now just holding it like a prop.
The consultant Heather, darted past us for the third time carrying what appeared to be a bolt of lavender fabric and a pincushion clenched between her teeth. She looked like she was going to cry.
“Should we be concerned about Heather?” I said.
My mother watched her go. “She’s had a day.”
“She’s had a life, from the looks of it.”
“Be nice.”
I leaned back into the velvet loveseat and crossed my legs. My mother was sitting next to me in what I had come to think of as Family Observation Seating. The little designated area where loved ones were supposed to sit and clap and cry while the bride emerged in a cloud of tulle. There were tissues on the table. A little sign that said This Is Your Moment.
From behind the curtain, a crash. Then a muffled “I’m fine!” Heather flinched and reversed course, disappearing into the back with the lavender fabric trailing behind her like a cape.
The curtain moved. Heather emerged first, walking backward with her hands clasped in front of her.
“Okay!” she said. Her voice cracked on the second syllable. “So, option number 12.”
And out walked my brother.
He was wearing a three-piece suit in a truly heinous shade of magenta. The vest had a paisley print. There was a brooch.
“Soooooo... thoughts,” he said. Not a question. He put his hands on his hips.
“Benjamin,” my mother said.
“I know,” he said, smoothing the lapels. “It’s a lot.”
“It’s... yes. It is a lot.”
“But see, that’s the thing. I was thinking about it back there, and I realized, why not a lot? You know? Why not just go for it? It’s my wedding. Our wedding. And Audrey said I could wear whatever I want — ′
‘Audrey is a very patient woman,’ my mother said.
“—So I figured, why play it safe? Nobody remembers safe. I want to be the moment.”
I leaned forward. “Is that a brooch?”
His face lit up. “It’s a brooch.”
“I love it.”
“Right?”
My mother looked at me for help.
“He wants to be the moment,” I said.
“I heard.”
Benji turned to the mirror and did a little spin. He checked himself over one shoulder, then the other. He adjusted the brooch.
“Heather,” he said, “what do we have in emerald?”
Heather blinked. She looked at my mother. My mother looked at the ceiling. I finished my champagne.
“Emerald,” Heather repeated.
“Green,” Benji clarified, like that was the issue.
“I — yes, I know what emerald is. I’ll... let me check.” She disappeared again. I could hear her footsteps accelerating down the hallway. Possibly fleeing.
“Okay, I have a question,” I said.
“Shoot.”
“Does Audrey know how much money you’re planning to spend on these suits?”
Benji paused. “Audrey supports my creative process.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Audrey told me to wear what makes me happy.”
Here’s what you need to know about Audrey Kim. She was five ten. Benji came up to approximately her collarbone, a visual that never stopped being funny and that neither of them seemed to notice or care about. She was a fourth-year dental student. Her father was a retired Army general. She didn’t smile much. She didn’t laugh much. She was terrifying.
My brother on the other hand was a sweet little guy. Gentle. Growing up, he named every stuffed animal he owned and once tried to organize a funeral for a dead bird he found in the backyard, complete with eulogies. He liked cooking shows, Rupauls Drag Race and interior design magazine. He spent his teenage years rearranging his room every two weeks, complete with velvet wallpaper.
Everyone thought he was gay. I mean, everyone. Our grandmother, who once pulled my mother aside at Thanksgiving and said, “Jennifer, the boy is clearly a homosexual, and that is fine, but someone should tell him.”
But, to everyone’s shock, Benji was, in fact, aggressively heterosexual.
Despite their very obvious difference, Audrey was somehow fell for my five-foot-four brother. She had proposed to him on a Tuesday afternoon in their apartment, and Benji, who had been in the middle of alphabetizing their spice rack, burst into tears.
That was love, I guess.
Benji emerged again. This time it was a green suit with a velvet collar and what appeared to be crystal buttons.
“Oh, that’s actually nice,” my mother said, sitting up.
“Nice?” Benji’s face fell. “Nice is death, Mom. Nice is a greeting card. Nice is what you say about someone’s potato salad when you don’t want to hurt their feelings.”
“What’s wrong with nice?”
“I don’t want to be potato salad on my wedding day!”
I choked on my champagne. Actual liquid came out of my nose. My mother handed me a tissue from the little table display without missing a beat.
“You are not potato salad,” she said to Benji. “You are a very handsome young man and you will look wonderful in whatever you choose.”
Benji looked at me.
“Don’t look at me,” I said, wiping champagne off my chin.
“You’re useless.”
“Go try on something with sequins. I know you want to.”
His face broke into a grin. “Heather!” he called, already heading for the curtain. “Do we have sequins? I need to see sequins!”
From somewhere deep in the back of the store, Heather’s voice: “Please God, no.”
My mother leaned toward me. “This is your fault.”
“How is this my fault?”
“You encourage him.”
“He doesn’t need encouragement. He’s self motivated.”
“He’s going to walk down the aisle looking like a figure skater.”
“First of all, figure skaters are athletes and artists, and that’s actually a compliment—”
Benji came out in full sequins. Head to toe. Silver. He looked like a disco ball that had wished upon a star and become a real boy.
“No,” my mother said. But she was laughing.
“Hear me out — ”
“Benjamin.”
“Just hear me out —”
“You look like you’re about to perform at a casino.”
“A nice casino, though, right? Like, a classy one?”
She put her face in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking. Benji caught my eye in the mirror and winked.
“Heather!” Benji yelled. “What do we have in gold?”
From the back, silence. Then the sound of a door closing. Possibly locking.
***
We got home at four. No suit. No progress. A disastrous failure of an afternoon, if you asked Benji.
My father was in the kitchen when we walked in. He was sitting at the table with a crossword puzzle and a cup of coffee. He was wearing a shirt that said I’m Not Sleeping, I’m Teaching With My Eyes Closed. He’d bought it for himself. He thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.
“How’d it go?” he asked without looking up.
Benji dropped into the chair across from him. “I’m fat. I’m ugly. Nothing fits right. I have the proportions of a fire hydrant. The wedding is ruined.”
My father filled in a word on his crossword. “So it went well.”
“Dad.”
“Sounds like a real suit-uation.”
Silence. My mother set her purse down. I opened the fridge. Benji stared at him.
“Did you just — ”
“I’ve been waiting three hours to say that.”
“Three hours?”
“I had it ready before you left. I’ve been sitting here. Waiting.”
“You’ve been sitting here for three hours waiting to make a pun?”
My father looked up from his crossword for the first time. “I also did some grading. But mostly the pun thing.”
This was my father. Professor of American history. He was smart. But he was also the kind of person who would make you argue about whether a hot dog was a sandwich, and he’d somehow connect it to the Treaty of Versailles. He’d gotten so comfortable being underestimated that he’d turned it into a lifestyle.
“Nothing worked?” he asked Benji.
“Nothing. I tried on fourteen suits. They all looked wrong. I looked wrong in them. My neck is too short for lapels. I have a short neck. Did anyone know that? I didn’t know that until today. Heather measured my neck and I could tell by her face that it was bad.”
“Your neck is fine,” my mother said.
“You’re my mother, you have to say that.”
My father caught my eye across the kitchen. He raised his eyebrows. I raised mine back. This was our thing. The silent check-in during a Benji spiral.
“Benji,” my father said, “you’re going to find a suit. You’ve got four months. That’s plenty of time. And if all else fails, you could always go nude.”
“Tony,” my mother said.
“What? It’s an option. Historically, the Greeks — ”
“We are not doing the Greek thing again.”
“The Greeks had some very valid points about the human body and — ”
“Tony.”
He went back to his crossword.
Benji went upstairs to shower and FaceTime Audrey, presumably to report that his neck was short and his body was a fire hydrant and the wedding was off. My mother went to start dinner. My father and I were alone in the kitchen.
“So,” he said, still looking at his crossword. “Taylor stopped by while you were out.”
My stomach dropped.
“Oh,” I said. “Cool.”
“She seemed excited to hear you were home.”
“Mm.”
“Said she didn’t know you were back.”
“Yeah, I haven’t really... I’ve been busy. With the move and everything.”
My father filled in another word. He didn’t look at me. He was giving me the space to be full of shit.
“I was going to call her,” I said.
“Sure.”
“I was. I’ve been meaning to.”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s only been three days. That’s not even that long.”
“Totally reasonable.”
“Stop agreeing with me, it’s making it worse.”
He put his pen down. “Kid, she lives next door.”
“I know.”
“You’ve been home for three days.”
“I know.”
Taylor and I had been best friends since we were eight. I’d moved in next door the summer before third grade and within twenty-four hours she’d told me my bike was ugly, taught me how to do a cartwheel, and informed me that we were best friends now. I hadn’t gotten a say in it.
And then I’d left for college and I’d come back for holidays. Then I’d stopped coming back for holidays and then the texts got slower and the calls stopped and at some point I just... stopped. Not because I didn’t love her. Not because she’d done anything wrong. I stopped because I was bad at responding and the longer I went, the worse it got, and the worse it got, the harder it was to respond, until eventually I could no longer text her back ever again.
I hadn’t told her I was coming home. I hadn’t told her because I didn’t know what to say. Hey, sorry, I ghosted you for months. I’m back now. Want to hang out?
“I’ll go over tomorrow,” I said.
“You could go now.”
“Tomorrow’s better.”
“What’s happening tomorrow that makes it better?”
“I’ll be more... prepared. Mentally.”
“You’re going next door, not into combat.”
“You don’t know what Taylor’s like when she’s mad.”
“I’ve known Taylor since she was eight.”
“Then you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
He leaned back in his chair. “You know what your problem is?”
“Oh, are we doing this?”
“You think that if you wait long enough, the hard thing becomes easier. It doesn’t. It just becomes harder and also you’ve waited too long. Double bad.”
“Is ‘double bad’ a technical term, Professor?”
“It is. I coined it. I’ll be publishing a paper.”
I picked at the edge of the counter. He was right, of course.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go see her. Just... let me think about what I’m going to say first.”
“Don’t overthink it.”
“I won’t.”
I took a breath. Okay. Okay. I would go next door. I would knock on Taylor’s door. I would say... something. I would figure it out. I just needed five minutes. Maybe ten. Maybe I’d change my shirt first. Did I look okay? I should probably look okay. Was it weird to change your shirt to go to your best friend’s house? It was weird. I wouldn’t change my shirt. But maybe I’d brush my hair. Was my hair —
The pantry door exploded open.
I screamed and stumbled backward into the counter, knocking over my father’s coffee, which went everywhere.
Taylor was standing in the pantry doorway.
She was smiling so wide it looked like her face might split in half. She was already laughing. She’d been laughing before the door was even fully open. She’d been in there the whole time. The whole fucking time.
“YOU DICK,” I said.
She launched herself at me. Full body. Arms around my neck, still laughing so hard she could barely breathe. I was shaking. My heart was pounding out of my chest. The coffee was dripping off the counter onto the floor and my dad was just sitting there, watching, looking pleased with himself. He’d orchestrated the entire thing. The speech about going to see her, the guilt trip, all of it, while Taylor was three feet away behind a door.
“You ASSHOLE,” I said into her shoulder, but my arms were around her and I was squeezing and I couldn’t stop. “You absolute piece of shit.”
“Me?!” She pulled back but didn’t let go. Her hands were on my shoulders. “ME?! You’ve been home for THREE DAYS, Mae. Three! I had to find out from your parents. YOUR PARENTS. I am your best friend. I have been your best friend for eighteen years. And you didn’t come see me for three DAYS?”
“I was going to — ”
“Three days! I could see you from my bedroom window!”
“I was going to call you — ”
“When? When were you going to call me? Next month? On my birthday? From your deathbed?”
“I was working up to it.”
“WORKING UP TO IT.” She turned to my father. “Did you hear that? She was working up to it. Like I’m a dental appointment.” She squeezed me tighter.
“Careful, “he said. “If you pop her, we don’t have a spare.”
“You are a terrible texter,” she said.
“I know.”
“You are a terrible friend.”
“I know.”
“I sent you eighty-three unanswered messages. That’s not ghosting, Mae, that’s a federal crime.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m... Taylor, I’m really sorry.”
“I know you,” she said. “You think I don’t know you by now? You think I don’t know that you disappear when things get hard and then you feel too guilty to come back and then you disappear more? You think I haven’t been through this before?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “You’re stuck with me.” She pulled me back in. Hugged me tighter this time. “Don’t ever do that to me again. I will find you. I know where you live. I literally live right there.” She pointed next door.
“I know.”
“Good.”
“How long were you in the pantry?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Twenty — ”
“Your dad texted me when you guys pulled into the driveway. I came in through the back.”
I looked at my father. He was doing his crossword again. Whistling.
“You traitor,” I said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“You did the whole guilt trip speech knowing she was right there.”
“That’s a very serious accusation, and I resent it.”
I heard Benji yelling from upstairs that Audrey said his neck was perfectly proportional and everyone could go to hell.
It was nice to be back home.
