We were in the kitchen. Jill, Jane, Jewel, and Gwen sat at the counter drinking wine and cutting pasta from scratch and hanging it on a drying
rack. Walter was washing dishes, and Mom was stirring a pot. Dad had come back in from his workshop and was making garlic bread. Grandpa sat in his chair staring at the yard through the window. There were appetizers set out. A penis-shaped charcuterie board that Mom got for Christmas from her best friend, and an Edible Arrangement.
When we came into the kitchen, Briana had immediately started drying dishes.
The second she did, I relaxed a little. She seemed to inherently understand the communal effort that was the family dinner.
She seemed to understand a lot of things.
My anxiety had careened back in full force over the last few hours. A snowball gathering momentum at each unexpected development that was this day.
I hadn’t been braced to be outed about the kidney donation. It was fine, but it was a mental gear change that I wasn’t ready for. And so was this “date” we were on.
I hadn’t planned on asking Briana to do this for me, and now it was happening, and I hadn’t gotten the chance to process any of it or get used to the idea that I was actually going through with this farce. And on top of
that, I hadn’t anticipated how much I was going to dislike what we were doing.
I’d never lied to my family before. And while I knew I was doing it for a good reason, the fear of being discovered was enough to send me into a spiral.
If we pulled it off, the deception would serve everyone. But if we got caught, my family would know how desperate I was. They’d think I’d lied because I wasn’t over Amy and I wasn’t okay. That I’d had to make up an entire girlfriend because I couldn’t find a real one. The pity would be unbearable. The stakes were unbelievably high. And on top of that, I felt horrible for asking this of Briana.
A part of me knew she felt obligated to me, and I didn’t like that because I’d never know how she really felt about agreeing to do this. Was it an inconvenience for her? Was she gritting her teeth and bearing it? Cringing at having to hold my hand? Wishing she didn’t know who Benny’s donor was after all, so she wouldn’t feel honor bound to entertain this ridiculous request?
I would have rather she’d made this decision before she knew, because then I’d know she actually wanted to do it. I was so worried she was being put upon that I’d almost called off the whole thing right up until I picked her up.
And now we were in it. And there was no going back.
Even if we “broke up,” we’d already taken the lie beyond the point of inception—we’d actually seen it through. Put on the charade. And, worse, I’d asked her to participate in it. I’d made her an accomplice in my deception. I’d made her a liar.
But it was done. And so there was nothing left but to feel guilty about it, while also acknowledging that it was probably the right thing. At least for
my family.
The stress of all this brought the live wires back. They cracked and sparked and shot through my fingers, and it had gotten worse the closer we got to the house. And then I’d stopped and picked up roadkill, because of course I’d do something on autopilot that made me look even weirder than I was. Then all the eccentricities of my family met us right at the door. Jafar and Grandpa and the mob of my overzealous family. And I could feel it all pressing on me from the inside, like a scream trying to get out.
But she was drying dishes. And my family was chatting with her and laughing.
If she was nervous after she found out about Mom, she didn’t show it. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. Maybe I was so busy overthinking everything else, the most important thing slipped. But Briana seemed to have rallied. She seemed comfortable and this thing we were doing felt easy and believable, and for the first time I started to feel the relief I’d imagined I’d feel when I’d come up with this plan. At having this weight lifted off me. Having everyone believe I was okay. And it actually did make me a little okay. Because I wasn’t going through it alone anymore.
I started filling a pot of water for the pasta and Briana smiled at me. I smiled back.
It was funny because it was easier to believe I was donating an organ than it was to accept that Briana Ortiz was currently in this kitchen with my entire family, pretending to be my girlfriend. Even broader still, it was hard to believe that she was doing it because Amy was marrying Jeremiah. I think if the me of a year ago had the ability to jump into the consciousness of the me of today for just thirty seconds, the what-the-hell would kill me.
“So,” Jewel said, rolling out more pasta. “You guys gonna tell us how you met or what?”
Briana grinned. “Oh, this is such a good story. Jacob, do you care if I tell it?”
I set the pot on the stove and turned the flame on. “No. Go ahead.”
She bounced a little and turned to face the room, dish towel still in hand. “So my brother was in the hospital and I was running down this hallway to his room and I crashed into this guy coming out of a door. I broke his phone.”
I choked a little on my laugh.
Everyone looked at me. “It’s true,” I said. “She did.”
She went on. “I didn’t even stop to apologize, I was in such a hurry. I didn’t really get a good look at him. And then five minutes later this doctor walks into my brother’s hospital room—and it was the guy I knocked into and he was so cute. Sort of awkward? But in this really adorable ‘I don’t realize how handsome I am’ kind of way?”
I felt my cheeks flush. I had to pretend to be looking for a pot lid so nobody could see.
“What’d you think of her?” Jane asked, looking over at me when I came up from the cabinet, lid in hand.
Briana peered at me, waiting.
I paused for a long moment, debating what to say. Then I decided the truth was best.
“I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
“Awwwwwww!” my sisters said in unison.
Briana smiled. “But I didn’t give him my number,” she said. “Why not?” Jane asked.
Briana threw up her hands. “He didn’t ask for it.” “He’s so shy,” Jill said.
Jewel nodded. “Totally.”
Briana gave them a mischievous grin. “But you know what he did? He wrote me a letter.”
Jill gasped. “He wrote you a letter?” Briana nodded. “Yup.”
“That is so romantic,” Jane said.
“Jacob has beautiful handwriting,” Mom said, stirring the pesto. “I’ve always thought so.”
“Why a letter?” Dad asked. Everyone looked at me.
I thought carefully about the answer. Then I decided again that truth was best. “I wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t know how.”
Briana smiled. “So I wrote him back. Then he wrote me back. And then all I could think about was when was the next letter…Then I stalked him on Instagram and DM’d him for his number. He was up at the cabin. I called him and we spent half the day on the phone.”
Jill looked confused. “He talked to you while he was at the cabin?” She turned to me. “You don’t get cell service up there.”
I cleared my throat. “I was sitting at the restaurant down the street.”
Now Briana looked confused. “You were at a restaurant? But…we talked for like three hours.”
I cleared my throat again. “I know.” I paused. “I wanted to talk to you.”
She held my gaze for a long moment. Then she seemed to decide to drop it and continue the story.
“So he never asked me out,” she said, still giving me a searching look. I had to turn away from her. “So finally I just asked him to lunch, and the rest is history.”
All the women smiled at me and sighed. Well, so far so good.
Everyone chatted casually for the next half an hour. The water boiled, I started the pasta, the sides were placed on the table, and then we took a seat for dinner.
Grandpa sat next to Mom as usual, but this meant he was right across from us and used this position to glare at Briana. To her credit, she didn’t seem bothered.
“So, what do you do?” Mom asked Briana, passing her a plate of garlic bread.
“ER physician, like Jacob,” she said, taking two slices and passing it to me.
“You know, he didn’t always want to be a doctor,” Mom said. “He wanted to be a veterinarian.”
Briana looked at me. “I could see that. Why didn’t you?”
I passed the garlic bread to Jane. “I couldn’t deal with seeing abused or neglected animals.”
Briana laughed. “We just deal with abused and neglected humans instead.”
“There’s a little more recourse for it when they’re humans.” She bobbed her head. “True.”
“And what do your parents do?” Dad asked her.
“Well, my dad left when I was eight. But my mom is a nurse. She’s retired. She immigrated here from El Salvador when she was eighteen.”
“Oh! Do you speak Spanish?” Dad asked.
It occurred to me that I didn’t know the answer. Briana was right. We hadn’t been ready.
Briana nodded. “Yeah. It was my first language.”
“Hmong was my first language,” Gwen said. “It was so hard in school.”
“I did okay,” Briana said, shrugging. “I think it was harder for my mom. She didn’t have any family here or anything.” Briana turned to Walter and nodded at his shirt. “Do you work with that rescue?”
“I own it.”
Briana beamed. “That’s awesome.”
“Yeah, we got almost thirty dogs right now. Springtime’s the worst.” “I’ll make a donation. What’s your Venmo?” Briana asked, pulling out
her phone.
Walter was directing her to the rescue’s website when Jafar started weaving through our feet under the table. He was talking to himself, reciting every bad word he knew, interlaced with the word Bieber. This was particularly horrifying, since, according to my sisters, that was my parents’ safe word. I prayed to God Briana didn’t ask about it.
You could feel him climbing over your toes. I knew exactly when he got to Briana’s because she made a little surprised squeak noise next to me.
“So do you have any baby pictures of Jacob?” Briana asked, trying visibly not to react to the parrot on her foot.
“Oh, lots,” Mom said, serving Grandpa. “I’ll show you after dinner. Wait until you see his third-grade Halloween costume. So cute.”
I internally groaned.
Briana was trying to seem interested in me, which I was certain she wasn’t. I felt bad she had to sit through this. I was not a good-looking kid. I was awkward and had acne. I didn’t hit puberty until I was fifteen.
I bet Briana was one of the cool kids in school. I couldn’t picture her ever having an awkward phase. She probably ruled her high school the same way she ruled the ER. Popular and well liked. Girls like that never talked to me—or maybe I was too afraid to talk to them.
Not much had changed.
“So what was Jacob like when he was young?” Briana asked Mom, twisting her pasta around her fork.
“Oh, he was such a good little boy,” Mom said, putting salad on her plate. “So self-contained, even at a young age. He could play by himself for hours. He loved to be held—a very sensitive child. Couldn’t stand tags on his clothes or wet hair. Do you remember that, Greg? He couldn’t wear anything scratchy.”
Dad nodded. “Yeah. I had to buy the underwear that didn’t have a label in it, or he’d take them off and run around naked.”
Jewel laughed. “I just remember him pooping his pants at school.” “Jewel!” Jill snapped.
I shot Jewel a look.
She rolled her eyes. “What? It was like twenty-five years ago. Get over it.”
“It only happened like eight or nine times,” Jill said. “You make it sound like he did it every day.”
“You guys…” Jane said, looking embarrassed for me.
I flushed and Briana took an extra-long swallow of wine next to me.
“He had a nervous stomach,” Mom explained. “He was always in the nurse’s office, poor thing. It made him a little hard to potty train. But such a sweet boy, truly.”
Jafar shrieked “BIEBER!!!” from under the table at the top of his lungs, and everyone started tittering.
Between this, tagless underwear, and the grade-school diarrhea story, I wanted to curl up and vanish. It was like my family had a competition going for who could embarrass me the most, and even the parrot was in on it.
Lieutenant Dan got up from where he was lying next to me and put his head in my lap. But when I went to pet him, Briana’s hand came down on
top of mine and gave me a reassuring squeeze. My heart jumped the way it had in Dad’s taxidermy room.
I glanced at her, and she smiled gently at me.
“You know,” she said, turning back to the table. “I read this study that said highly intelligent children are harder to potty train.”
Jewel seemed to think about this. “Yeah. I could see that. He’s pretty fucking smart.”
Jill nodded. “Totally.”
“I used to tell my friends that my older brother was a genius,” Jane said. “He’s like, the smartest person I know. Didn’t he skip a grade?”
“Yup,” Dad said. “And breezed through med school.”
Briana squeezed my hand again. I let a small smile crack. My parents shared some sort of private look that I couldn’t interpret from across the table.
An hour later, the night was over. Mom put Briana through only one photo album. I managed to work our catchphrase into the conversation when Mom passed Briana the Edible Arrangement at dessert and it had cantaloupe on it. I blurted, “Not on my watch!” before diving for the fruit like it was going to jump up and bite her. That was my grand awkward finale of the night.
After that, Briana made good on the promise of giving me a break and announced she had to get home to feed the cat so we could leave.
They all hugged her on the way out. They seemed to really like her, which I knew they would. So we pulled it off. At least today we did.
And I wondered how much she regretted agreeing to this…
