Page 14 of My Brother's Bad Best Friend

Lizzie

It’s a bright afternoon as I walk fast toward a nondescript strip mall tucked behind some palm trees. I’m pretty sure you can’t have a strip mall in California without at least one palm tree, but I haven’t checked the laws recently.

I tuck my sunglasses back onto my nose. I don’t know why my mom insists on meeting here, at freaking Starbucks of all places. She loves Starbucks, is practically obsessed with them, although I’ll never understand it. There are a million better coffee places in La Mesa, an up-and-coming neighborhood west of Mid-City, little stores run by people that actually care about what they’re serving, but instead she insists on going to this megamart chain place.

The fake sincerity and authenticity of the place always creeps me out. They want Starbucks to feel like that corner café it used to be years ago, but everything has a sheen of falseness to it. The chalkboard is expertly chalked, probably by some outside hire contractor that goes around and chalks tons of boards across the city. The aged-looking brass is actually spray painted aluminum. The mahogany countertops are covered in two inches of lacquer and the wood is probably really plastic.

I hesitate for a second in the doorway. It’s crowded like always, which is so depressing. I guess I shouldn’t judge people on what they like, I just can’t understand this particular place. It doesn’t even have good prices or anything like that.

I spot my mom sitting at a table alone, staring into her phone and jabbing at it with her fake nails. Her fake lips are turned down into a perpetual frown, although you wouldn’t know it to look at her, since the Botox has taken practically all expression from her face. Her eyes are unnaturally wide and her hair is bleached blonde with roots just starting to show. Her hair’s pulled back into a messy bun and she’s wearing trendy exercise clothes, which means she probably plans on taking a long walk while sipping her overpriced and insanely caloric-rich latte, probably in some crazy attempt to work it all off.

I slide into the chair across from her and she glances up from her phone. “You’re late,” she says, lowering it down to the table with a sigh. “I was just liking, like, my fiftieth Insta post.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t know La Mesa that well. I got a little lost.”

She makes a face. We grew up in La Jolla, a little seaside town where rich people hide away and pretend like the rest of San Diego doesn’t exist. My brother and Jonas ran away to La Mesa back before Mesa was getting big and expensive, so they got a little lucky with their apartment. I’m actually surprised I was able to get my mom to come all the way out here to meet me. Maybe that means she feels bad.

“I don’t know what you’re doing out here,” she says to me, her frown deepening with some obvious strain. “I mean, Mesa is fine but La Jolla is… it’s home.”

I shake my head a little. “Do we have to get into that right now?”

“Honey.” She leans toward me, hand across the table, palm up like she wants me to take it. I ignore her. “You have to come home. Royal’s sorry, he really is. You know he’s been stressed lately and drinking too much. He’s getting the drinking under control, and we’ll work on the stress together.” She perks up a little bit. “I got him to promise to do yoga with me, and I’m going to get him on a more vegan diet, and—”

“Mom,” I interrupt her angrily. “He punched me in the face.”

That takes the wind from her sails. Mom has this strange denial when it comes to Royal. He’s a piece of shit, an abusive bastard, but because he never hits her, she thinks he’s not that bad. Really he just takes his anger out on her kids, and somehow that’s better.

“Stop it,” she says, speaking low. “Don’t say that so loud.”

“Say what, that your abusive asshole husband punched me in the eye?”

She pulls her hand back suddenly like I spit fire. I watch as her whole demeanor tightens, her usual defense mechanism. She pulls into herself and builds a shell on the outside, which is maybe why she gets so much plastic surgery, like it’s somehow a buffer between herself and the world.

“You know how I feel about that word,” she says softly.

I sigh and shake my head, my dark hair spilling around my face. She absolutely hates the word “abusive,” thinks it’s too simple a term for some relationships. I think she’s delusional, but I doubt we’ll ever agree on that.

“Okay, fine. I won’t say it again, but you have to know it’s true. He just can’t hit your kids—”

“Enough.” She’s getting angry now. I had hoped she might be able to hold her temper back for a little bit longer but clearly this is going too far for her liking. I can’t say I really give a shit anymore, though. She lets her abusive asshole husband punch her daughter in the eye without saying a damn word, and I’m through with it.

“Royal’s given you a lot,” she says. “When you had your accident, he took care of you. Everything you have, you have it because of him. And now you’re acting like he’s some kind of monster?”

“He just opened his checkbook,” I say softly. “It’s not like he was ever there. He didn’t visit me once in the hospital, did you know that?”

She blinks, a little surprised. “That’s not true. I remember he came.”

“No, he didn’t. You Facetimed with him once when he was on a business trip and that lasted about ten seconds before he had to go. Mom, he never came once.”

She screws up her face, or at least as much as she can. “I don’t believe you. But that doesn’t change my point.”

“Yes, it does. He’s been avoiding me for years, pretending like I don’t exist. And when I say something he doesn’t like, he just—”

“That wasn’t a big deal,” she interrupts. “That wasn’t just some small thing. Honey, you know why Royal got so angry.”

“He was drunk.”

She puts a hand on her stomach. “He was defending his children.”

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