the same tenacity with which I grasped a candlestick and hurled it at the wall, and when I walked through the door once more, it was with a slam that shook the stars.
3
Bawdy by Nature
KASH
The shower cut off with a squeak. Steam had gathered in tufts and whorls at the ceiling, diffusing the light and fogging the mirror as the dirt from the day, muddying the banks of streaming water, slipped toward the drain in cloudy eddies.
My mother would insist that her filthy Bennet boys were the reason she required a maid service three times a week, but we all knew a cover-up when we saw one. Truth was, Mrs. Bennet was a terrible housekeeper, as evidenced by the piles of orphaned things lining the walls as I exited the bathroom in a towel, propelled by a pulse of steam. Piles of books leaned into each other between the occasional cardboard box filled with more things with no home. Glancing into one might reveal a whisk, several lost socks, a stapler, loose photographs, a pair of shears, floral wire, fabric scraps. Mom needed places to stow things like a magpie, lost things, extra things. Things without status but not unimportant enough to throw away. She always held hope she’d find that extra sock or that she’d remember to return the whisk to the kitchen, not knowing why she’d brought it up two flights of stairs in the first place.
The Bennet home—a five-thousand-square-foot Victorian brownstone—had been in our family for a hundred and eighty years, passed down through generations of women. It occupied the space next to and above the flower shop, purchased along with four properties on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, behind which my predecessors had built our greenhouse.
We were a novelty in the Village, the only greenhouse of its kind and size in Manhattan. It had once brought us fame and fortune. My grandmother had sold the properties adjacent to ours in the seventies, which had previously been rented out to fund the expansion of Longbourne to include a handful of shops throughout the city. But under Mom’s rule came the internet boom, the introduction of 1-800-ROSES4U, and the rise of Bower Bouquets, our rival flower shop. The Bowers bought into the internet bouquet business, and as they flourished, we withered, retreating slowly until only our flagship remained.
We only stayed afloat because Longbourne was a staple in our community, supplementing our income selling wholesale flowers to local shops. None of my siblings knew how bad it was, only me. I was here in the trenches—literally—and knew. Or suspected at least. It coincided with the progression of Mom’s rheumatoid arthritis and the gradual loss of her hands, her duties sliding on a slow scale into Tess’s lap. It was easy to ignore, as I spent my days in the greenhouse with Dad, avoiding the shop. But my brother Marcus figured it out when the deposits into our trusts dwindled. And when he really looked, he found the shop was in ruin.
So everyone came home to help save Longbourne, and at the lead was my little brother, Luke. He and Tess had given the shop the makeover to end all makeovers, and just like that, we were back on the map. Of course, that was just one step toward recovery—Marcus, the moneyman, assured us we’d be in debt for half a decade. But it was a start.
Luke had seen to that. We were twins of the Irish variety—though we looked it too, harboring the trademark Bennet blue eyes and black hair—born in the same calendar year and in the same class in school. Our old room was a time capsule of our boyhood, complete with bunk beds and baseball posters. The desks were still topped with relics, like Luke’s Batman paperweight and a row of classic Hot Wheels I’d lined up next to my lamp. When Luke came home, we shared this room again—I’d moved into our sister Laney’s room when she left, and she reclaimed it on her return. But Luke had moved in with Tess, leaving me alone again.
Of course, solitude never bothered me like it did Luke. He couldn’t stand to be alone. I could just as easily not see another human for a week as I could share bunk beds with Luke without committing homicide.
I was pulling on my shirt when I heard the thunder of feet on the staircase and the word, “Dinner!” from Laney’s mouth, two syllables stretched infinitely as her voice faded away