Breed Me On The Bike

CORA~ I get off twenty minutes early and treat it like a win. The last client call dies at 4:41. Nobody drops another one on my calendar, so I sit in the parking lot with the AC still running and check the wedding group chat. Miles’s mom sent three more photos of napkin folds. Avery hearted every single one and typed *obsessed* under the sprig of greenery. She has been my stepsister for six years and my maid of honor for four months, and she lives in this chat more than I do. Vivian sent a voice note I do not play. I already know what it is. My stepmom has been running this wedding like it is the only job she has. I put the phone face down and pull into traffic. Chicago in the late afternoon is just heat and brake lights. I take the same stretch I always take and let the next two weeks sit in my head in order. My wedding is in fourteen days. We picked the date in January. I stop at Target because Miles texted at lunch that he was out of the chips he eats when he works late. I told him I would grab them. I walk in with my work badge still clipped to my blouse because I forgot it was there. Sour cream and onion Pringles, the tall can. The frozen taquitos he eats standing over the sink at midnight. The gray body wash he finished two days ago. A six-pack of the same beer that has been in our fridge since we moved in. I stand in front of the bakery case longer than I need to and take the little white box with the cake-topper sample. At self-checkout I add yogurt pretzels and put them back because I have a fitting on Saturday and I have been good. I am nineteen. I turn twenty in three weeks. The dress is already paid for. His SUV is in the driveway when I pull up. That is not strange. He said he might work from home. I grab the bags and the little white box and bump the car door shut with my hip. My keys are in my right hand. The Pringles can keeps trying to roll out of the plastic bag. I almost call out when I get to the door. I do not. I am balancing too much. I kick my shoes off in the entry the way I always do and set the beer on the bench. The living room is quiet. The TV is off. His laptop is closed on the coffee table next to a water glass with a lipstick mark on it that is not mine. I look at the glass for a second. Then I hear it. It is not loud. That is what makes me stop. A short sound from the hallway. A mattress. A woman’s voice I know, because I have heard that voice at Thanksgiving and at the venue walk-through and on speakerphone while she told me the florist was cheating us on the peonies. I set the bags down carefully. The Pringles can tips anyway and rolls under the bench. I leave it. The bedroom door is not closed all the way. I put my hand on it. My badge clips against the wood and I push. Miles is on his back in the middle of our bed. The white sheets we bought last month are twisted around his hips. Vivian is over him, my father’s wife, my stepmom, one knee outside his thigh, her dress unzipped and shoved down to her waist. Avery is on his other side. My stepsister. Her mouth is on his throat. The sage bridesmaid robe we picked together is open. Nobody sees me at first. I stand there with my keys cutting into my palm and I count because if I do not count I am going to make a sound I will not be able to take back. One. Two. The cake-topper box is still in my other hand. Three. Miles makes a sound I have heard in this room before. Avery laughs against his skin, that same little laugh she uses when she gets caught eating off my plate. Vivian turns and sees me first. She does not flinch. She looks over her shoulder like I am late to a meeting she scheduled. Her lipstick is smeared. Her eyes go down to the white box in my hand and then back to my face. “Cora,” she says. Miles shoves at Avery hard enough that she hits the headboard. He sits up and drags the sheet higher. “s**t. Baby. It is not—” “Do not call me that,” I say. My voice comes out flat. I want it to come out harder. My throat is already tight and my eyes are already burning and I blink until the doorway stops swimming. I will not give them that. Not standing here with Target bags in the hall and a cake topper in my hand. Avery pulls the robe shut and starts crying immediately, loud, the ugly kind, like she is the one who walked in. She says my name twice. She says she can explain. She says it was not supposed to happen like this. Miles talks over her. He says look at me. He says it was a mistake. He says Vivian came by about the seating chart. He says Avery was already here. The sentences do not connect. He is still hard under the sheet and he is trying to hide it with his hand. I set the cake-topper box on the dresser. The little groom falls over inside the plastic window. “Get out of my bed,” I say. Vivian laughs once, under her breath, and climbs off him like she has all the time in the world. She pulls her dress up and does not bother with the zipper. She walks to my side of the bed, picks her heels up off the floor, and sits on the edge of the mattress to put them on. Avery is still crying. “Cora, please. Please do not look at me like that. I did not mean—” “You are even wearing my robe,” I say. She looks down at it and yanks the tie tighter. Miles stands up with the sheet wrapped around him and comes toward me. I take one step back into the hallway and he stops. He is taller than me. He has always been taller than me. “We can talk,” he says. “Just us. I swear to God, Cora, I love you. The wedding is in two weeks. This does not have to blow up our whole life.” I look at the bed. I look at the lipstick on the glass in the living room. I look at Avery’s phone face-up on my nightstand, screen still lit, our group chat open to the napkin photos. I swallow once. It hurts. “How long,” I manage to ask. Nobody answers at first. Vivian finishes the strap on her second heel and stands. She smooths her dress down her hips with both hands. “Long enough,” she says. Miles turns on her. “Vivian.” “She asked.” Vivian looks at me the way she looked at the florist when the quote came in high. “You want the version that keeps you standing there, or do you want the rest of it?” Avery makes a sound and covers her mouth. I keep my eyes on Vivian because if I look at Miles right now I am going to break and I am not doing that in this hallway. “What rest of it?” Miles reaches for my wrist. I move it. “Cora, do not listen to her right now. She is angry about the money and she is saying things she cannot take back.” “What money?” I say. The hallway feels smaller. I can still smell the Target bag from here. My badge is hanging crooked. I unclip it because the weight of it is suddenly the most annoying thing in the house. Vivian walks past him and stops in front of me. She is close enough that I can see the smear of his mouth on her throat. “Your Daddy owes people he should not owe,” she says. “He has owed them for years and now they're here to collect it. He used the company. Then he used what was left of the house. Then he ran out of things that were his and you're the only option remaining.” I shake my head once. “What are you even talking about?” “David,” she says, like I did not hear her. “Your dad has a heavy debt on his name. That is what I mean, Cora.” “I know my dad has had a bad year,” I say. “I know the shop has been slow. That does not have anything to do with you being in my bed with my fiancé and your daughter.”