Page 15 of The Show

Not much had changed.

Lauren sniffed again. “And I miss my stupid dickhead brother, so I need him to snap out of it. I want to have fun with him again. Please help him, Lowey. He’s really smart, but sometimes so dumb. I’m sure he’ll listen to you.”

My memories of Brick screeched to a halt. “I think you’re massively overestimating my ability to influence Penn.”

Lauren reached for the box of tissues hidden in the center console and pulled one free, carefully dabbing her eyes.

“You’ll be better at it than any of the rest of us. He doesn’t like us much right now. I believe in you, Lowey. Please, just keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t get into trouble. Promise?” She held out her pinky finger for me to take.

I looped my little finger into it. “I’ll pinky-promise I’ll try, but I’m not a miracle worker.”

“Thank you,” she smiled. “You know, you really do look another level beautiful tonight.”

I just about stopped myself from touching my lips and grinned back at her. “Thank you. So do you.”

She replied with a Beyoncé worthy hair flick and shrugged nonchalantly, though I knew better. While Lauren might have been born into the Shepherd dynasty and these events were in her lifeblood, there were only a tiny handful of people who knew she absolutely loathed them. You wouldn’t know it from the veneer of bravado she outwardly presented, but she loathed being on display, loathed the monotony of small talk with people only interested in her money, and loathed dressing up. However, she understood the importance of them and pushed aside the anxiety that filled her whenever she was on duty; something brought on when her father died.

If she could have it her way, she’d spend all her time in yoga pants or scrubs, and in the clinic with her patients who didn’t care about her bank balance, only that she gave them a lollipop at the end of their appointments.

“Are you looking forward to seeing your parents?”

I nodded with less enthusiasm than I should have done considering I hadn’t seen them for three months. Just like I knew about her anxiety, she knew about my parents.

To clarify - I love my parents, they’re awesome... But they’re more awesome from a distance, or my mom is at least.

I have two older twin brothers, Ryan and Trey. They were born after a really difficult birth, where my mom nearly died. She was told it was unlikely she’d ever have more kids. Except, somehow, she did get pregnant again, though sadly lost the baby through miscarriage. By the time she discovered she was pregnant with me, she was six months along, and then so terrified she would lose another baby that she did everything she could to ensure I stayed put until it was time to be born.

And born I was; a perfectly healthy eight pounds and six ounces, with ten fingers and ten toes.

My mom called me her miracle baby, and that moniker never really dropped.

My mom loves me; I feel the weight of her love every day. She smothers me in it until it’s stifling, until it’s hard to breathe.

As a kid, I was never allowed to do any of the things my brothers were, in case I broke something, hurt myself, or worse… and the day I met Lauren in prep school was the day I found a freedom I’d never known before. Lauren was my kindred spirit, my other half, and watching her and her three sisters play in the same manner I’d seen my brothers play was exhilarating.

Gone was the structure of playtime under the watchful eye of my fearful mother. We climbed trees, we jumped on the bed, we swam in the lake – in the dark, no less – and we rode horses. Granted, there was a slight blip when I fell off of Saffron’s pony and broke my nose, but thankfully, my mom had been away at a spa and my dad had been in charge, so he’d gotten into more trouble than I did. He didn’t tell her until she got home, and my mom had promptly tried to whisk me off to her plastic surgeon to fix my nose, but I refused to let her. It was the first time I’d ever properly stood up to her, and she was so surprised that for a whole week she didn’t drop the subject. Even now, I see that tiny bump as a reminder of how fierce I could be if I put my mind to it, as well as the fun I’d found in my childhood.

After the nose incident, my mom loosened up a bit. I was allowed to join the school swimming team and the softball team, but she drew a hard line at gymnastics. But then Brick Shepherd died, and she struggled to let me out of her sight for a long time.

My dad was my escape, especially when I became a teenager and wanted to spend all my time with Lauren, and whichever boyfriend I had at the time. He’d tell me to get out of the house before my mom noticed me about to leave. He’d take her away on trips for the weekends and convince her that my brothers would look after me – which they never did. And he took the heat when I told her that I was going to go to Brown and board, instead of Columbia or Yale – somewhere near enough for me to be a day student.

The compromise was that I had to call once a day, and text her throughout the day.

Doesn’t sound too bad. Pretty normal parenting behavior, right?

Maybe… except… you try to remember to call your mom at nine a.m. every single morning when you’re either too hungover to speak, or en route to a lecture and you realized you forgot your study books, and have to rush back to get them. It’s neither practical nor convenient, and would always land me in heap of guilt-ridden trouble.

After graduation, Lauren and I lived together in the city for a few years, and another compromise of me not moving back home was that we stayed close and had brunch every weekend. You’d think we’d moved to the frozen tundra of northern Siberia, but we were only ten blocks away from my parents’ brownstone on the Upper East Side. We hadn’t even been allowed to move to Brooklyn.

And… it never stopped.

When I turned thirty, she really dialed up her new-found need to have me settled into a relationship and produce a couple of grandkids, just like my brothers. When I say dialed up, it was not just the odd, passing comment. No, she turned into a one-woman mission to find me a partner.

Did I mention she’s already got a wedding planner on retainer?

Just the thought brings me out in hives.

Even now, at thirty-four years old, I still haven’t figured out how to cull the daily contact. If you have an idea, please let me know. I’m all ears.

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