Loving the White Liar by Kate Stewart Page A

with him almost a year ago and I tell you every time we come to brunch.”
    “Good, I couldn’t stand him,” he said, shoveling a heaping amount of egg into his mouth.
    “Well, it’s a good thing I have Jayden now.”
    Every head at the table turned to me as my verbal diarrhea caught up with my brain.
    Why the hell did I say that?
    “Who is Jayden?” Sabrina asked as she moved her weave out of the way to take a bite of eggs. Yes, Sabrina had a weave. She also had thirty-two piercings, unlimited tattoos, and only dated men who used their last name as their first: e.g. Harrison, Ford, Turner, Carter. She was even more exhausting than me when it came to indecision. She had worked every job imaginable, as well as exercised her freedom in religion. She’d delved into Buddhism, Hinduism, the Wiccan practice, and actual witchcraft (which is different, just ask her) to everything else available. I looked at her with an honest answer.
    “Honestly, just a guy I had one date with, no big deal.” I sat completely stunned that I’d even spoken about Jayden, though he’d been heavy on my mind all morning.
    “Apparently he’s made an impression,” my mother chimed in.
    “Maybe, and we’re not discussing it,” I said.
    “You brought it up,” Bradley said, making me feel more uncomfortable. So I shot back, “Let’s talk about your girlfriend, Bradley.” Only my mother was allowed to call him Bradley. He narrowed his eyes. I still saw my baby brother as the awkward kid with the cute lisp who used to run around pulling pranks on the family. Namely duct taping the kitchen faucet so when we turned it one we were instantly soaked. I blamed shows like The Wild Boys and Jackass . They had been his greatest influences. It was a nightmare watching him reenact the stunts, including the time he slid down our huge staircase on a snowboard. He’d cracked his skull and needed sixty-two stitches. Nothing had ever been funnier to me than my foul mouth baby brother at nine years old cursing horribly on the doctor’s table to my mother’s horror like a grown man while getting his head stitched.
    “If thath murther furken snowboard hadn’t been so flurking sthlippery I wouldn’t halph busted my head on the sthupid sthairs.”
    From that day on I’d made it my sole responsibility to keep the boy safe from himself. I caught hell from him, but I couldn’t under any circumstances stop myself. He was my pride and joy and I couldn’t handle the thought of him getting hurt. I was sure one day he would thank me for keeping him from blowing his hand off with fireworks, or covering for him when he took the family car out at eleven-years-old for a joy ride. The child was a daredevil and I was the only one who knew his tells, or when shit was about to go down. He grew out of it a few years later when he discovered girls and that had been another nightmare altogether.
    “Yes, Bradley,” Alexis added, “please tell me you are wise to her motives.”
    “She’s not the one, okay. Lay off. I’m not an idiot and I’m not interested in getting married yet. I’m only twenty-two.” That was his explanation and he was sticking to it.
    “She’s disgusting,” Sabrina said as I turned to her, noticing her newest hair disaster was filled with eggs. I pushed my plate away, no longer interested in my food once I observed it in hers. Molly chuckled as she looked as Sabrina’s protein filled hair then turned to me with wide eyes. We shared a private eye roll and giggle before Alexis caught it and smiled.
    “Sabrina, you have eggs in your horse hair,” Alexis spouted as she nodded toward her drenched hair.
    “That’s disgusting,” Bradley said, wrinkling his nose.
    My mother seemed to be bothered by my sister’s new getup, commenting next, “Baby, you have beautiful hair. Why don’t you just let your natural hair through? What is the point of this wild Cleopatra thing you have going on?”
    “Or the people of Wal-Mart thing you have going