Read Online The Theory of Opposites by Allison Winn Scotch - Free Book Online Page A

slackening in my face.
    “Jesus, Dad!” Raina folds her hands over her face and drops her head. “Honestly! Just…Jesus Christ.”
    “I’m glad I didn’t order the sea bass,” I say.
    “Well girls, let’s be fair about this,” my mom suggests, like she needs to defend him, like her staying with him for four decades hasn’t been the greatest gift she could give him. “Your dad and I have been married for a very long time, and it’s normal to consider other options. And well, he came to me and presented this in a reasonable way, and now I’m thinking that I might just go get a lover too!”
    The waiter has arrived to take our order, but stops short and then turns quickly to a neighboring table.
    “Mom!” Raina snaps. “Oh my God!”
    “Honey, you’re almost forty. I should be able to tell you the truth.”
    Raina fishes in her purse for her phone.
    “I should check on the kids. Excuse me. And I’m not even close to forty.”
    She stands abruptly, and we all fall silent watching her flee.
    “She always was a rule follower, Willa. Not like you,” my dad says, his eyes still on her until she disappears out the lobby. What he means is: she never quite came around to my way of thinking, which also means: she never loved me as much as you did.
    “Oh please. Shut up.” I can’t even bear it.
    My father’s chin remains stoic but I can see his pulse throb in his neck.
    “Willa.” My mom moves her hand over mine.
    “Mom,” I say, my eyes suddenly full.
    She leans in close enough that I can smell her Chanel perfume, a memory of my childhood, of complicated nostalgia, and then she says: “Don’t be sad. If anything, after forty years, it’s a bit of a relief.”

    7
    Shawn makes eggs for breakfast. It’s one of our things. A thing that Raina would add to the list of “Shilla things,” like our joint manicures, if she were to make such a list. (Which she might.)
    The smell of the grease doesn’t wake me, but the doorbell does. The Xanax rendered my sleep a blackout, dreamless, and I wake disoriented, my lids crusty, my mouth tacky as if I’d eaten glue.
    There’s a knock on the bedroom door, and then Vanessa pokes her head in.
    “Nice,” she says, like I should’ve known she was coming over, and I should’ve been better prepared, should’ve been gussied up.
    “What are you doing here? It’s…like, 8 a.m., and I’m unemployed. So…go away. I want to sleep.”
    “It’s Sunday, so unemployment has no bearing. And you said you’d come to the free fall with me. The warm-up for the Dare You! book.”
    I’d forgotten. In order to boost tourism in the city, the mayor’s office had implemented a simulated free fall off the Brooklyn Bridge. It was basically an over-hyped bungee jump, and if the mayor ever bothered to go to 42nd Street, he’d see that we should actually be attempting a mass exodus of tourists, not inviting more in. But still. The Dare You! producers set it up to announce the book deal: blasting out a press release to the trades wasn’t exactly their speed. Throwing their writer off a bridge was. Vanessa had asked me to tag along because she grew paralyzed when transported to any level above five floors, though her paralysis wasn’t enough to scare her off the job or off anything really. It never would be.
    I probably put the free fall in the Together To-Do! app, but I hadn’t checked since spiraling down my Xanax haze. I reach for my phone on the nightstand.
    Together To-Do! has one notification:
    Bungee with Vanessa: book deal announcement!!!!
    “Ugh,” I croak. “Okay. Hang on. Give me ten minutes.”
    She slides the door closed, and I stretch up, my back cracking, my mind gray. I sit on the precipice of the mattress until I can physically will myself to the bathroom, brushing my teeth, splashing water on my cheeks, grabbing sweatpants and a tank that were abandoned on the floor at some point earlier in the week. I gaze in the mirror — I am wrinkled and pale and