Fake Marriage Box Set

Emma

Friday

I brought the skillet of eggs to the table, serving Daddy before I sat down myself.

“Looks good, Emma,” he said. His clear blue eyes met mine for a long second, his thin lips pressed into a calm line. We’d been communicating this way — with heavy, meaningful glances — for years, starting right after Mama died.

I nodded once, then put a biscuit and a few slices of bacon on his plate before Kasey could take all of it.

Kasey reached for the bacon, taking all but a slice of it, the way she always did. The girl could put away some pork. “What?” she asked when I shot her a look. “I’m a growing girl.”

She flipped her shiny brown hair over her shoulder with one hand while she poked at her eggs with a fork. She liked them sunny side up, but Daddy preferred eggs fried all the way through, so that was how I made them. I had my own brand new place a few miles up the road, but Kasey struggled to boil water without burning it, and I knew Daddy appreciated a home-cooked meal whenever he could get it.

When I was in high school, the three of us used to switch off nights, and Kasey’s nights were always something we had to suffer through. The girl couldn’t cook to save her life. But, damn, could she eat. The only thing she ever showed up with at a potluck was her appetite.

I served myself last with the rest of the eggs, the remaining strip of bacon, and a piping hot biscuit that I broke open and slathered with butter and jam.

“What are you going to do now that you’ve finally finished college?” Kasey asked, mouth half full of biscuit. Everyone had missed my big breakfasts while I was off getting my degree in agriculture in Austin. “Did you decide on a job yet?”

I waited until I’d chewed through my own mouthful of biscuit before I answered. “I need to find something.”

“Do you know what you want to do?” she asked. She was dressed for work in a pair of tight black sh

orts, red company t-shirt with Murdock’s on 6th Street! printed on the front, and comfortable tennis shoes. She had a full face of makeup on, too, with extra sparkling color on her eyelids and bright red lipstick to match her shirt. She drove all the way out to Austin every day for work, but she managed to make pretty decent money in tips. It was nice when I was in school over there. I saw her all the time.

“I’d like to be outside working with animals if I can.”

Daddy was listening to all this as he slowly ate his breakfast, his light eyes traveling from one side of the table to the other. “There’s plenty of work like that around Round Rock,” he said and left it at that.

I nodded to show I agreed with him and then filled my mouth with a bite of cooling eggs. I was going to start looking on Monday. Graduation was only last week. I needed a little down time before I jumped right into the next part of my life.

“I can’t believe you moved all the way back to Round Rock after spending the last four years in Austin!” Kasey said. She flipped her hair again. She’d cut it since the last time I saw her, donating more than twelve inches. But she wasn’t used to it. She kept batting it away from her face. It was cute on her, though. She had it curled this morning, adding extra wave to what had come naturally from Mama. I got Daddy’s hair — bone straight and shiny, with a little tint of red at the bottom, but mostly solid brown.

“I like it here,” I said, simply.

“No place is better than Austin.” She pointed her wide green eyes at me. They were a shade or two lighter than mine. “You should come up with me this weekend. I’m staying over at Amanda’s apartment tomorrow night. She has room for you too. We could party on Sixth Street to celebrate your graduation!”

The last thing I wanted was to go out drinking with Kasey and her wild friends. They got up to all kinds of trouble that I just wasn’t interested in. Even at school, I left the partying mostly alone. Not that I didn’t have fun. It was just that my idea of fun didn’t often match with Kasey’s.

“I have some things to do around the house,” I said. “And after all the excitement of graduation last week, I just want to relax before I start looking for jobs on Monday.”

Kasey rolled her eyes, looking extra dramatic with all the mascara and eyeliner she had on. “You’re so boring, Em. You just graduated from college, but you’re acting like you’re forty years old or something. Why would you ever go buy a house immediately when you could just keep on living with Daddy?”

I didn’t dignify that with a response, just took a bite of my biscuit and let Kasey take the conversation wherever she wanted it to go. Daddy wasn’t even bothering to follow along, or it didn’t look like he was. His eyes were on his rapidly disappearing breakfast. It did my heart good to see him grab another biscuit. I’d brought his favorite blackberry jam from the farmer’s market in Austin. I’d sure miss that market. But it was only a thirty-minute drive from my place in Round Rock if I ever got the hankering.

“I’m never moving out of here!” Kasey exclaimed in a loud voice that echoed in the dining room. We were used to her outbursts. She’d been loud since the cradle.

Daddy and I exchanged a look, his light eyes suddenly weary, but his mouth twitching into a small smile that he swallowed back as quickly as it appeared. Mine lasted a little longer.

“Unless I move to Austin, that is,” she added.

“What time do you need to be to work?” I asked to bump her off the subject of me returning to Round Rock.

She looked down at her watch. “Oh, shit! I have to go.” She jumped up from her seat, ran around the table, and gave Daddy a hug. “Bye, Daddy! Bye, Em.” She waved at me before hurrying from the room without clearing her plate. We listened to her footsteps running back to her room to grab her purse and whatever else she needed for the day before running out the front door. It slammed behind her.

Daddy let out a long breath after the worst of Tornado Kasey blew through the house.

“She hasn’t changed a bit,” I said, still smiling. She’d always been unable to keep quiet for more than a few seconds and cleaning up after herself had never been one of her strong points. It wasn’t that she purposely avoided it. Her mind just moved so quickly that it never occurred to her to double back to take care of the messes she routinely left in her wake.