Not So Goode Read online

  I laughed. “Fair enough, I suppose.” I frowned. “What if it’s your husband?”

  She shrugged. “He better love me for me, and not for the shape of my titties.”

  I shook my head. “Why do you call them that?”

  “What, titties? It’s fun. It’s a fun word. And if you think about them objectively, titties are kinda funny. Like, they’re these big bags of fat that just hang off your chest jiggling like fuckin’ Jell-O with every move you make, and are largely useless for the vast majority of your life.”

  “They’re not just fat, Lex.”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Well thank you for that helpful anatomy lesson, Charlotte, because I’ve never taken an anatomy or physiology course in my life and have absolutely no clue what my breasts are made of. Whatever would I do without your invaluable insight?”

  I cackled. “Still got the sarcasm, I see.”

  “Why yes, I am the holy mother of sarcasm, Char-Char.” She wiggled her fingers at me. “I dare you to go a whole day without a bra.” She stuck her tongue out at me, and wiggled it side to side. “Double-dog dare you.”

  “What are we, five?”

  She grasped the hem of her shirt, lifted it, and shook her boobs at me—and, annoyingly, despite being only three years younger than me, hers were perkier and bigger than mine. “Come on. Off with that titty-prison. Try it.”

  “No! I don’t find it comfortable.”

  “What’s the longest you’ve gone without a bra, aside from sleeping?” She asked.

  I frowned. “Why? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Because you’re probably just not used it.” She rubbed her breasts in her palms, under her shirt. “You know that feeling of taking off a bra at the end of the day? Imagine that feeling, but all day long. It’s amazing. Try it.”

  I sighed. “You know what? Fine. We’re just going to be in the car all day, so why not?”

  I slipped my arms out of the sleeves of my T-shirt, unfastened my bra, slipped it off, and put my arms back out. And boy was that weird. Loose, airy. Jiggly.

  I shrugged my shoulders, wiggled my torso. “That’s just odd. I don’t mind it at home, but I’m going to be self-conscious as hell if we go in anywhere.”

  She just waved. “Because no one has ever seen a woman’s nipples through her shirt before. Oh, the horror. The everlasting shame. It’s NIPPLES. Whichever unlucky soul sees you might pass out from sheer scandalized mortification, because they saw your titties.”

  I sighed. “Are you done?” I dangled my bra—yellow, as a matter of fact—from a finger. “I took it off—happy? Now can we go? I thought you wanted donuts? Also, I need a real breakfast.”

  She tugged my shirt up with a finger, baring my boobs. “Also, when I said ‘unlucky soul,’ what I clearly meant was damned fortunate soul, because girl, you got some nice titties.”

  I yanked away from her. “Lex. Are we quite finished talking about breasts, yet? I feel like this conversation has gone on for a very long time.”

  She just grinned at me, and went about yanking clothes out of her drawers and bins, placing them into stacked outfits. “What? You have really nice boobs, Char. A nice firm C cup, round, a little pointy, not too far apart and not to close together.”

  I cackled. “What, are you boob expert, now?”

  She continued laying out clothing, along with a pair of well-worn Birkenstocks, a pair of TOMS, and a pair of sneakers. Some underclothes, including two actual bras. Most of her clothing was…as unusual as the outfit she was wearing—unique, colorful, wild, daring.

  “Yeah, I guess I am. Or, I’m just trying to build you up. You’re self-conscious because you keep them imprisoned all day every day.” She quirked an eyebrow at me. “I bet you’ve had sex with a bra on, haven’t you?”

  “I’m not telling you that, Lex.” I rolled my eyes at her.

  “Because you have!” she shouted, laughing. “You totally have, or you’d just deny it.”

  “So? So what, Lex?”

  “So what? So what’s the point of fucking if you don’t get your titties sucked on, Charlie?”

  I blushed so hard I thought my face would catch on fire. “Alexandra Rochelle Goode. That is inappropriate.”

  “Oh shut the fuck up, Mother.” She flipped me off, both hands. “You are so fucking uptight.”

  “And you are a serious potty mouth.”

  “And you are a serious Goody Two-shoes. Loosen up. Drop an F-bomb. Fuck a dude without caring whether he liked it or not, and don’t call him the next day. Get hammered before noon—just because.”

  I hissed. “That last one I have done. More than once, and recently.”

  Lex clapped a palm over her mouth. “No, you have not!”

  “I have too!” I started helping her stack the piles of outfits together, and then shoved them into her hard-sided four-caster suitcase. “You’re not the only one in crisis mode, Lexie.”

  She set a pile of clothes down on the bed, tilting her head and staring at me. “You? Really?”

  “My life is not as neat and orderly and perfect as you girls all seem to think it is.” I fixed my eyes on the suitcase, fixing the piles of clothing so they were more neatly stacked. “It’s kind of upside-down right now, actually.”

  “So this road trip is for you, too.” She stuffed shoes willy-nilly into the suitcase, which I then promptly began rearranging to fit more neatly.

  “Yes,” I answered. “I need this, too.”

  “So, here’s the deal,” Lexie said. “We are officially the no-bra, man-hating, day-drinkers road trip club.” A broad, giddy grin. “Membership, two.”

  I shook my head. “That’s a terrible idea.”

  “It’s a great idea. It’s completely irresponsible and stupid, which is exactly why you, more than anyone, need it most. You’ve been the epitome of a good girl your whole life. Four-point-oh every semester from eighth grade to graduation. Valedictorian. Three-letter athlete all four years of high school. Accepted to every school you applied for, including at least two Ivy League schools that I know of. Full athletic and academic scholarship to Yale, where you double-majored in business and law.” She yanked my bra out of my hands and tossed it into her suitcase and zipped it up. “You dated the same lame dickbag all five years you were at Yale. Right out of college you got a zinger of a job at a big hoity-toity real estate law firm, a classy apartment with your lame dickbag boyfriend…”

  “Okay, you think Glen is a lame dickbag and I’m an overachiever. I get it.” I huffed and rolled my eyes. “No need to rub it in any further.”

  “My point, sister of mine, is that you have done exactly everything in your life correctly, by the book. You dot every i, cross every t, never speed, never swear, never drink. Glen was the one serious boyfriend you’ve had in your whole life. You probably gave him your V-card, too, I bet.”

  I glared at her. “Are you trying to upset me? Because it’s working.”

  From the back of the nearby desk chair, she grabbed a chunky, cable-knit saffron cardigan with giant wooden buttons and slipped it on. “No, Char. I envy your ability to do things that way. But I just can’t. I’m not built to be that kind of person, and I often wish I was.” She grabbed my hand and the suitcase handle. Paused—glanced around and snatched a small hard-sided black ukulele case hand-painted with daisies and dragonflies and thorn bushes and poetry lyrics. “What I’m saying is, you deserve to take this time, this road trip with your irresponsible wild child of a sister and get a little crazy. Cut loose. Break a few rules. Be a rebel. Do dumb things. Then, when we get to Ketchikan with Mommy and Cass, you figure out the next phase of your life as an upstanding, morally aligned, socially responsible adult with an Ivy League degree and an impeccable resumé.” She winked at me. “And fantastic tits.”

  I rolled my eyes at her, but my heart was a little warmed. “You’re not an irresponsible wild child, Lexie.”

  “Ohhh yes I am. Just wait till I tell you my fucked-up train wre
ck of a story, girlfriend. You’re gonna wanna slap me silly.” She headed for the door, pulling me with her.

  I tugged her to a stop. “Um, Lex?”

  She glanced at me over her shoulder. “Um, Charlie?”

  “Purse? Phone? Toiletries? Charger? Laptop? Makeup? A jacket?”

  Lexie bit her lower lip and made a “derp” face. “Oh. Right. Those minor details.”

  I cackled. “You’re such a space cadet, Alexandra.”

  “I am not,” she said, archly. “I just get caught up in things and overlook details.”

  “Yeah, well, you know what Dad used to say—the devil is in the details.”

  She turned into a human hurricane, dumping all the aforementioned items and a host of other random items into a big duffel bag, shoved her phone and charger into her purse—a huge, battered, scratched, worn, leather sack-type purse she’d had since high school. All this done, she smiled at me eagerly. “Well? Is that everything?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, Lex, is it?”

  She cackled and headed for the door. “Hell if I know. I was about to leave without a purse.”

  “Do you want to do a quick checklist?” I asked, hiding a smirk.

  She stuck her finger into her mouth and faked a gag. “I’d rather have a vodka enema.”

  I blinked at her as I exited her dorm room. “That’s vile.”

  “Exactly. So no, Charlotte, I do not want to do a quick checklist. If I’ve forgotten it, it’s not that important. But, just to make you happy: I have several changes of clothes, I have my purse, my wallet, I have a cell phone in case I have to call the police, I have my favorite Berks, I’m wearing my ass-kicker boots, I have my favorite cardigan…and I have makeup in case I feel like seducing someone hoity-toity.” A mischievous grin. “And I have a family pack of assorted size condoms, because I plan on being a very, very bad girl.”

  I just sighed. “You do not.”

  She arched an eyebrow at me, opened her purse, dug around in it, and came up with a fifty-pack box of assorted size, style, and flavor condoms. “Do too.”

  “And do you have your birth control as well?”

  Her breezy, humorous composure wilted for a moment. “Yeah, I do. I’ve got an IUD.”

  I eyed her. “Lex?”

  “In the car. Later. Okay?”

  I nodded. “Okay, whatever you want.”

  “What I want is for you to have a bottle of hooch stashed somewhere.”

  I snorted. “Hooch? Lex, come on. No one outside of Kentucky says hooch.”

  “I say hooch. I also say cooch. And lady bits. And I have been known to call a man’s dick his wiener. Frequently. Because it’s funny. And if I’m around someone who takes issue with me swearing, I say things like gosh-darn. Any other questions?”

  I followed her out of the building. “Wiener?”

  She laughed. “Yep. Pro-tip: Guys don’t appreciate their sacred penis being referred to as a wiener. Which is why I do it.”

  “You are absolutely ridiculous.”

  She nodded primly. “Yes, yes I am. Thank you. Ridiculousness is my second major.”

  “What’s your first major?” I asked.

  “Well, it was women’s history with a focus on sexuality.”

  I hesitated. “Was?”

  She spied my car—a black Mercedes-Benz C-Class. “Let me guess, that’s yours?”

  “You sound awful judgy, there, Lex.”

  She just shrugged. “You’re twenty-four. How do you have a freaking Benz?”

  “Because I drove Mom’s hand-me-down ’96 Corolla all the way through high school and college and when I started at Denoyer and Whitcomb. I sold it and took the bus or the train or walked everywhere, and I saved every penny I could. I bought my Mercedes used, and I own it outright. It’s my baby, and I love it, and I will not apologize for it. I worked my ass off to own a Mercedes by the time I was twenty-four.”

  She nodded. “Fair enough.”

  I popped the trunk, helped her shove her bags in next to mine, and then we were settling into the seats. Moments later, we were cruising away from Sarah Lawrence College and heading for I-87.

  Silence, for about fifteen minutes—Lexie was staring out the window. Despite her outward calm and usual humor, it was obvious, at least in this quiet moment, that she was far from okay.

  “Lex…”

  She rested her head against the window. Her shoulders lifted as she heaved in a deep breath, let it out. “I’ve been awake for forty-three hours, Charlie. Can you just drive for a while? Please? I swear I’ll tell you everything. I just need to rest.”

  I patted her thigh. “Sure thing, honey. Whatever you need.” I paused. “How about this—I won’t ask again. You tell me what you want, when you want. For now, I’ll drive and you sleep. Later, if you’re up for it, I’ll even let you drive Miss Ginsburg.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me. “Miss Ginsburg? Your car is named Miss Ginsburg?”

  I nodded. “I thought you would appreciate the fact that I named my car after the one and only Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

  She huffed, a quiet laugh. “Yeah, that’s pretty B-A.”

  “B-A?”

  “Badass, Charlotte. It means badass. RBG is the OG B-A.” A pause. “O-G is gang slang, means original gangsta.”

  “I know that one.”

  Her eyes were closing, and her words were slower in coming. “Sure you did.”

  “You didn’t even eat your donuts, Lexie.”

  She didn’t answer for a long time. When she did, it was muzzy, drowsy. “Ass is fat enough as it is. Later, maybe.”

  And then she was snoring.

  Good grief. What did she get herself into? She was obviously working overtime to pretend she was fine. But the moment she slowed down, it all just seemed to hit her, weighing on her.

  I wanted to fix it, to be the big sis and make it all better. But I knew Lexie well enough to know she’d dole out the story in little pieces. Bit by bit. I’d find it all out, and she wouldn’t let me do anything to help. She just wanted me there. Just be her sister. Her friend.

  Which meant…

  I was officially joining the two-person no-bra man-hating day-drinkers road trip club.

  I was going to indulge my sister, and do things I’d regret. I could see it coming.

  But the hell of it was…she was right, too. I’d done everything by the book my whole life. I was out of a job. No apartment. No plan. No man. Not even a checklist for getting back on track. I’d just been wallowing in self-pity for the last several weeks. It was time to do exactly what Lexie said I should do: Cut loose. Have fun. Be dumb. Maybe even a little irresponsible.

  And as these thoughts tracked through my brain, I eyed my sleeping sister, wondering what on earth had she done.

  Crow

  I stood just offstage, watching Myles shred through the guitar solo in “Pillow Talk,” and waiting for the cue to bring his next guitar out to him. I’d tuned it, and had stuck an extra pick in the strings, because he tended to drop his picks during guitar changes. His fingers flew down the fretboard, making the notes squeal higher and higher, until he got to the final shrieking moment, which he drew out, hitting it with the whammy bar. Then, with a dramatic slug of the strings on an open chord, the lights cut to black and I rushed on stage, keeping my eyes on him and the glowing X taped on the floor where he stood. I handed him the guitar and took the old one.

  “Dropped my pick,” Myles muttered.

  “No shit. You always do. There’s an extra pick in the strings.”

  “You’re the best, Crow.”

  “No shit.” I kicked at his foot. “You fucked up that last note.”

  “Shut up. It was fine.” He plugged the cord into the new guitar. “You only get to critique if you get your ass on stage with me.”

  “Nope.”

  “Then shut the fuck up and get off stage, asshat.”

  Jupiter, the drummer, was thumping the kick drum in a slow throbbing beat remin
iscent of a heartbeat—thud-THUD…thud-THUD…thud-THUD.

  Nothing but that beat for a good thirty seconds.

  Then, still bathed in darkness, Myles bellied up to the microphone as I watched him offstage.

  “Here in the dark, sweetheart, it’s where we got our start, you and me, baby, just makin’ sweat, makin’ love, we got it down to an art…” he drawled the words in a low growl which he somehow managed to make sound predatory and seductive and syrupy all at the same time.

  Ladies and gentlemen, the annoyingly talented, stupidly good-looking, disgustingly charming, the one and only Myles North. My best friend, currently my employer, and world-famous, globe-trotting, chart-topping, record-smashing bro-country superstar. Luke who? Jason who? Sam who? Nah, son. Myles North, that’s who. Triple platinum debut album. Third person ever to get the Big Four at the Grammies, and for that same debut album—album, record, song of the year, and best new recording artist. And now, another album of the year for his four-times platinum sophomore album.

  Yeah, he’s fuckin’ annoying like that.

  Especially because he’s also the nicest, most genuinely kind person I’ve ever met, down-to-earth despite his bonkers amount of talent and charisma. I want to hate him for being so goddamn annoyingly perfect, but I can’t because I just love the idiot boy so damn much.

  Don’t tell him I said that, though. I got a reputation as a hard-ass to maintain.

  I tuned the Gibson for the next time he needed it, which was in four songs. He had the red Fender next and after that was Betty-Lou, his favorite and a family heirloom, an antique Martin classical acoustic signed by Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Merle Haggard. Vocals only after that, and then the Gibson.

  I checked the tuning on the Fender for the third time, because that song, “Whiskey and Lace,” is his biggest hit, and the crowd always goes nuts for his big solo in that one, so the tuning has to be keyed in right. Betty-Lou I didn’t touch—no one but Myles himself was allowed to so much as breathe on Betty-Lou.

  It was sacred, and rightly so: Myles’s grandfather had been a small-time country singer; mostly dive bars and honky-tonks in the area of Texas where we’d grown up. But over the years he’d shared a dive bar stage with Willie, drank beers with Johnny, and smoked pot with Merle, and gotten his beloved guitar signed by each of ‘em. And then, years later, Myles’s dad, also a local dive-bar circuit singer, had lent it to Waylon Jennings for a whole set at a show, once. So that guitar had serious country music mojo attached to it by the time Myles inherited it, and since then, Myles has shared the stage with that guitar with quite an impressive roster of big names, and while he’d not added any signatures to the holy three already on there, he, being superstitious as hell, figured just having it on stage added to the mojo in the thing.