Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [100]
Getting the most out of Princeton will require your total focus. Good or bad, irrational or irresistible, can I be anything more than a distraction? (This is a convenient excuse for my indecision, isn’t it? Because it’s not about me at all. I’ve made it all about you. How selfless…)
We both shifted gears. Him literally. Me figuratively. There were a few laminated pictures stuck inside the sun visor. I pointed to them and asked if he minded.
“Go ahead,” he said. “You’ll like them.”
We lurched forward a few feet in the bumper-to-bumper traffic.
The first photo was of a bald infant wearing one of those painful and ugly headbands. He glanced in my direction. “That’s Emily Rose,” he said. “My beautiful baby girl…”
“She is,” I replied, because there is no other acceptable response. I was not at all compelled to coo over her cuteness. I’m pretty sure that I was born without a biological clock, because babies just don’t make me tick. It was only after I realized that this was not just a picture of Hugo’s daughter but of your niece that I felt even the tiniest twinge of affection toward this creature. You have a niece, just like I have a niece. I considered the many hours I’ve spent with Marin ignoring The Fun Chart™, watching Grease 3, and I wondered what kind of relationship you would build with Emily Rose. You have built.
The second photo was taken at one of those mall “glamour” studios.
“That’s Charlotte,” Hugo said proudly though unnecessarily.
Her white-blond cumulonimbus perm was ornamented with a rhinestone comb. A red feather boa wrapped around her neck. Her round face had no discernible angles despite the best efforts of the cosmetics “artist” to create them through the liberal application of blush. Even in my in-expert estimation, her makeup job appeared to be flawed in every way. Rainbowed layers of eye shadow made her eyes appear crowded together, red liner and gloss only accentuated the very thinness of her lips. But thank God those lips were straining to smile, because if it hadn’t been for that tired, barely tolerant twist to her lips, I would have felt pity for Charlotte. However, her expression was an encouraging clue, one that hinted that she was well aware of how ridiculous she looked with these misguided approximations of glamour. Hugo confirmed these suspicions.
“Her boys bought her this photo shoot for her birthday a few years back,” he explained. “She hated every second of it.”
“That would explain her pained expression,” I said.
Hugo laughed. His laugh sounds a lot like yours, deep and low in the belly.
“I love that picture, even though it looks nothing like her,” he said. “I love that she got all dressed up like that just to please her boys. She’s much prettier without all that makeup. Forty-five now, but she looks thirty-five. Of course, she says it doesn’t matter how young she looks, because I’m twenty-five and look fifteen.”
It’s not true, of course. Your brother doesn’t look like a teenager at all. But I obliged with a chuckle.
I came to the third photo. It had suffered a bit of abuse before it was preserved by lamination. The color was bleached out, the corner was torn, but the image was clear.
“You and Marcus.”
“Yup,” he said.
Perhaps you know this photo. You’re about one, which would make Hugo three. It was taken by a cheap department-store photographer with a blue-sky backdrop. You’re wearing a pair of seersucker overalls. Your hair is half wet, half dry, as if your mom had tried to