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“I’m not angry mom, I’m fucking livid. My entire life I’ve done nothing but try to please you. Even when I’m doing something that I love with my life, I’m trying to make you proud. I’m one of the best hair and make-up artists in the state. I’ve got contracts on three major movies later this year, and regularly go to Nashville to work on major theatre tours, but by all means, let’s give the money to my sister who knows jack shit about art.”
I hear a small gasp behind me and turn to find Lillian standing in the door, hand on her stomach. Anger and determination fill her gaze. “I know about art, Diane.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap.
Lillian pouts. “I don’t know why you can’t ever be proud of me. I’ve tried so hard to be friends with you, to be your sister, and it’s never good enough. And now I’m trying to bring some culture to this town, and you’re stomping on that too.”
Tears flood my eyes and the room goes hazy with them. You will not cry. You will not cry. You. Will. Not. Cry. None of this is true. Lillian has done nothing but paint me as the petulant child, while she reaped the benefits. And I took it, because life was hard for us. Our parents are assholes and I knew what it was like to be under that pressure. But she’s just like them.
“If you wanted to be my friend,” I whisper, because that’s all I can manage. “If you wanted to be my sister, then why did you sleep with Alex? Why did you tell everyone that he dumped me before you started sleeping with him?”
She looks at me, and there’s nothing but smug satisfaction there. I’m done.
The thought is a relief and I say it out loud. “I’m done.”
“You’re what?” my mother says.
“DONE!” I shout. “I’m fucking done. All I ever wanted from you all was approval. One little bit of it. And I’m tired of chasing something that you’ll never give me. You’re not capable of it. Enjoy your miserable, shitty lives.”
I walk out the door, the assistant staring after me, and I don’t make it to the parking lot before I’m collapsing into tears.
My phone chimes, and I see a text from Glenn. Three words.
Can’t make dinner.
My stomach drops further. If he can’t make it then I have to go see him. Right now. I need to scream and cry and the only place I want to be is wrapped up in his arms. I wipe away the tears streaming down my face as best I can and start to drive.
15
Glenn
When the doorbell rings I’m not at all surprised. I knew that she would come when I cancelled. That’s the point. She has to know the truth. See the truth. That this can’t work. It’s over, at least for now, because I have to stand by the pledge that I made.
Her face is like a punch in the gut. “Diamond,” I say, and she pushes past me into the house before I can say more. She’s been crying, that’s very clear. But it’s not because of me. Diamond isn’t the kind of person to cry because someone cancelled dinner plans.
“It’s so fucked up,” she says. “They’re all so fucked up and they don’t even care.”
I follow her as she storms into the kitchen and tosses her bag onto the counter. “It’s the building. They’re not going to give me the money. They’re going to give it to Lillian and fucking Alex. To open a business they know nothing about because I didn’t go to college, and I hate them. But I’m done. Completely and utterly done.”
She stops, and I’m trying to make sense of her words while also trying to figure out how to tell her what I need to tell her. But she takes care of that for me. Her eyes stray to the calendar on the wall behind me and the words written at the top of it. “What’s that?”
“We need to talk about it,” I say.
She gives me a look, and I hesitate. But no. I have to do this. I will not be my father. I will not back down from commitments that I have made.
“Glenn, what’s going on?”
I clear my throat, and cross my arms. “When I was seventeen, me and Wallace and Frankie took a pledge. We named it the Dirty Thirty pledge. It stated that when we turned thirty we’d give ourselves a month of pleasure by sleeping with thirty women in thirty days. The only way out was getting married. Frankie and Wallace did. I didn’t.”
“You can’t have been doing this,” she says. “We’ve been together so much.”
“I haven’t done it,” I say. “But I’m going to. You were supposed to be the first one, and I put it off. But I made a commitment—a promise—and I’ve been planning on this for more than ten years. I can’t just walk away from that.”
