American Babe (7 page)

“Making dinner?” I asked.

“Yep, hope you like lasagna!”

My heart sank to the ugly tile floor and shattered. How would I tell him that I don't eat cheese or pasta or regular-sodium tomato sauce? From the looks of the room, he'd been prepping this meal all day.

His little head popped up from behind the bowl. There was a smear of tomato across his cheek. “It's vegan and raw.”

“Oh my God,” I blurted, “you scared the actual fuck out of me!”

“I figured,” he said with an adorbs laugh, emptying the contents of the bowl into a large baking dish, which was almost already filled. “No, no, no. No way I'd make a conventional lasagna in this house. That's, like, so boring.”

“And just, like . . .”

“Unhealthy,” he said for the both of us.

“Exactly.”

I grabbed a glass of unsweetened mint tea from the fridge and took a seat on one of the stools at the counter. I watched Knox in his element. He used the flat side of a large spoon (ladle? lasso?) to smooth what looked like a semi-chunky tomato, basil, and yellow-pepper salsa over the top of the lasagna and did so with such grace and command that it almost made me weep into my iced tea. I once had a boyfriend that could cook, like, super well or whatever and everyone was always screaming and losing their shit about how “amazing and oh my Gooodddd so simple!” his food was, but he was a full-grown adult so I wasn't impressed. But
this
was like watching a baby breakdance or a dog skateboard. It made zero sense, it was a little strange, but it was beautiful and life-affirming nonetheless.

He put a sheet of parchment paper over the lasagna and slid it to the side.

“How are you five years old?”

“I'm ten,” Knox said seriously.

“Whatever. That's what I meant.”

“I don't know. Cooking just comes naturally to me. My mom always says ‘be natural.' ”
That could be a good mantra
, I thought. He threw a dishrag over one shoulder, kicked his footstool over to the sink, and started to wash his hands with his back toward me. “Like style does for you.”

“That's maybe one of the sweetest things anyone's ever said to me probably.”

“I loved reading your books. I already told you that, I think, right? I read them two summers ago. Both of them—one right after the other. My mom said they were too adult for me, but I told her that was bullshit and she took them away so I had to buy them on iBooks and read them on my iPod touch.”

“Wait,” I stopped him, “what's an iPod touch?”

“It's like an iPhone but without the phone part.”

“Got it.”

“So anyway, I had to find a way to finish the second book because I really wanted to know what happened with Robert and—”

Donna, Veronica, and Cara walked into the kitchen, and Knox stopped talking. He just finished washing a few things, wiped down the sink, and came to sit next to me at the counter.

“Hey, guys,” I offered. None of them looked at me. Cara was wearing something yellow and fleece. Donna came over
and put her hand on my shoulder. Through the sheer Prada tank dress I was wearing, her fingers felt long and thin and cold and pointedly chic.

“You sleep all right?” she asked in a condescending tone. Why was she being weird to me now? Did I hit a nerve before with the maternity thing? Was she threatened by my investigative prowess? Having Veronica around must've been stressing her out.

“Yep!” I gloated. “I needed that! Lot on my mind lately and my psyche was like, ‘Whoa, you need to sleep!' So I'm glad I slept all day. What did you ladies do? Go to Barneys? Just kidding.”

“We had a great day, beautiful spring day out there. Some fresh air might do you good, Babe,” answered Veronica.

“Was that a hint of shade I just detected in your voice, Veronica?”

But without acknowledging me, she just kept on, “We ready for dinner, Knoxers?”

“Yep,” he said, hopping down from the stool. “Let me just grab the salad out of the fridge and I'll take it out to the table. You guys go ahead and sit.” He was so cute.

The shit my grandfather had said was still eating away at me. I felt phony as fuck. It just wasn't like me to pretend like things are cool when they're simply fucking not. As we walked over to eat, a lump grew in my throat. Like I knew I was going
to say something about it that I shouldn't even be thinking. Like when you're already paying for three Dior skirts and out of the corner of your eye you see a gorgeous, supple camel Loewe bucket tote, and you know you're going to run over and add it to your tab. But you shouldn't buy it. You don't even like bucket bags. You don't want it. But you need it so fucking bad it hurts.

They had a small dining room with a six-person table next to the kitchen. Knox had set the fuck out of that table. It was basic because he didn't have much to work with, but the ideas were strong. He'd put a tiny bundle of fresh-cut flowers on each of our plates and the placemats were laminated collages of fashion magazine cutouts from the 1970s and '80s. I was excited to move food around on top of Candice Bergen's face.

We sat at our designated seats; Knox had made place cards, obviously. His calligraphy could use some work. I was at the head of the table, which, to be honest, made me feel a little awkward. I deserved the esteemed position because I'd traveled the farthest and probably dealt with the most hardship in my life of anyone there, but I could tell that the rest of the women in my “family” were annoyed that Knox was giving me spesh treatment.

“This looks delicious!” Donna said as the raw lasagna was placed on the table next to a colorful salad and a
large bowl of fresh cashew pesto tossed with raw zucchini angel hair. It really did look like some shit I would eat at home at Café Gratitude, one of my favorite Larchmont haunts. This little boy just understood me. They all started to dig in. I decided to refrain until the vulturing had stopped.

“This is a really awesome dinner, Knox. Is this from your show?” Cara said through a mouthful of lasagna.

“What show?” I asked.

“
MasterChef Junior
. A reality cooking competition for kids. It's on Fox. I really want to be on it. And NO, Cara, this is my own original recipe. I don't learn recipes on that show, I'm not a copycat.”

“Can we please not talk about this again?” Veronica interjected, loudly. “You are not going on that show. Is it possible to get through one meal without talking about that damn show?”

“Yes, Mom. It's completely possible to not talk about
MasterChef Junior
. As long as you're willing to accept that you are crushing my dreams and hopes.”

Awkwardness.com

“So . . .” I said, breaking the dull hum of chewing sounds. “I slept, Knox cooked, what did
you
guys do today?”

“Tried to kill myself twenty different ways,” Cara kindly shared.

“Cara, please,” said an annoyed but totally deadpan Veronica.

“What. It's true. You know I can't stand that girl.”

Veronica put her fork down and took a sip of the beer she was drinking (out of a can . . . ?). “Cara had her physics tutor today because Rebecca, the tutor, wasn't able to do their regular Wednesday meeting this week.”

“Sucks,” I said.

“I shouldn't have to go to her on the weekend. It's cruel and unusual.”

“Point taken, Cara. Get over it now. You can't get another D this term so we gotta do what we gotta do, okay?”

“You actually
can
get Ds and be totally fine,” I assured her.

Maybe that's my mantra?

“Babe.” Veronica and Donna said at the same time with scolding looks. Cara and Knox both lit up.

“Okay, okay. Just kidding. Listen to your mom or whatever. Always listen to your mom.”

“Babe, can you pass the salt?” Veronica asked me.

“Sure.” I said with a smile as I passed it to her with the pepper—you always pass the two as a pair; my Tai Tai once slapped me for passing the salt alone. “See, I never had a mom to listen to.” I then said with a glance to Donna who was strategically not looking at me, “I had a dad, though, he was fabulous, still is. One day you'll meet him.”

No one uttered a word. I still hadn't taken any food, which I guess was rude of me judging by the look on Veronica's face, so I scooped some rawsagna onto my plate and moved it around. What was her damage?

“Anyways, so isn't it weird that you guys are so different? Like, Veronica, you're basically the opposite of Donna. I mean, you look like her as fuck, but your—”

“Language, please,” Veronica said.

“Sorry, AF. But your lives are so completely opposite of each other's. Donna is never in one place, never sleeping with the same person, never addicted to the same drug, and you're, like, super normal.” They both seemed a little disturbed by my statement, but I cared zero much. It was the truth! It's not my fault that Donna was a huge mess of a nonmother. An absentee mom, if you will. “And Knox is the opposite of Cara,” I continued. “No? It's almost as if they have different parents or at least different moms or something. Like, Knox is so me and Cara is so not. Don't get me wrong, Cara, you're very interesting and, like, totally a real American teenager and that has its merits, but it's just so not me.”

The table seemed to be looking anywhere but at me. Donna just shook her head as if I was an embarrassment. Whatever, Donna.

Hey, I was feeling this way so I just put it out all there. Fuck it. Not to mention, I was a little bit
boo whore
about
Veronica ignoring me before dinner and then telling me to alter
my
speech. I don't alter my speech. That's just not a thing that I do or am told to do. I say what I mean,
Veronica
. Did she not know I was a writer? Words are, like, my thing.

“Knox,” Donna said, “I feel like you're tall for your age. Are you taller than the kids in your grade?”

“Being tall is chic,” I told him, but he wasn't tall.

Knox smiled at me. “I guess I'm kind of tall? The other boys in my grade are pretty big. They all play sports and so they're definitely bigger than me.”

“Are there bullies in your school?” I asked, concerned.

“No,” Veronica interjected. “There aren't bullies, right, Knoxie?”

Knoxie? . . . Cringe.

He forced a grin. “No, Mom. Not really. They're pretty strict about it now.”

“What would they have to bully you about anyway?”

What? Was she blind? Veronica seemed oblivious to the fact that living under her very own roof was a delicate flower of a boy whose interests were fashion, health, and Babe Walker. I mean, this boy was clearly a gay princess goddess angel from heaven and EXACTLY the type of fragile flora that idiot grade-school boys like to prey on. I didn't say anything.

“That's right,” I said. “You can take care of yourself.”

“I think so. And when anyone messes with me, I just have Cara deal with it.”

Cara smiled.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Veronica asked.

“Nothing,” Knox said. “Nothing. I'm fine, Mom.”

“Do you need me to talk with one of your teachers, Knox? I'm going to see them in a couple of days at Back to School Night.”

“Really, Mom. I'm fine.”

It was getting a little tense, so I took a bite of the food. It was delicious. I felt another wave of pride and awe wash over me. I never let food get involved in my emotional being but I truly couldn't help it this time—Knox's lasagna was just that good.

Veronica and Donna started having their own conversation, something about my grandfather's house, which left my end of the table to talk to each other, or not.

“Were you always tall?” I asked Knox.

“Yeah, my mom said I was a big baby, but to be honest, Babe, I don't really like talking about when I was a baby.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Yeah, babies are just kinda gross to me.”

“Same,” Cara agreed.

“Great, fine, totally get it. Not gonna talk about babies. Fuck babies.”

“Hey, maybe tomorrow after school, do you think we could go through my closet and do a heavy edit?” Knox asked me.

“Are you kidding?”

“Um, no. Is that rude to assume you'd wanna do that?”

“Sounds like a fucking nightmare,” Cara muttered.

“I would honestly like nothing more!” I shouted. “I live for the fact that you live for fashion. How did that even happen?”

“The Internet, duh,” he said.

“Right, duh.”

Cara was Snapchatting herself pretending to vomit the lasagna. It was horrifying to see.

“So you just watch the shows in Paris, New York, et cetera, from your computer? That's so unchic slash chic! I commend you. Living in the woods and still devoting yourself to style like that.”

“We don't really live in the woods.”

“But, like . . .”

“Okay, fine. We live in the middle of the woods.”

“And you eat at carpeted pizza places.”

“And we're basically troll people.”

“Who shower in a swamp,” I said, bursting into obnoxious laughter. I couldn't believe the supremely sophisticated level of banter I was enjoying with this ten-year-old! He was
really good at making fun of himself. Was I falling in love? With my cousin?

After our belly laughs had died down and Cara asked us three times what it was we were laughing at to no avail, Knox and I exchanged a look that I SWEAR was him telling me that he knew that I knew that he was my half brother. I hadn't found much hard evidence yet, and my probing at dinner was clearly getting me nowhere, but there was something in his eyes that said it. They said exactly what I wanted to hear.

I'm the gay little brother you've spent your entire life begging your father for. It's me. Hello.