Something Real (4 page)

“As the eldest in the family,” he says, “I can assure you I will take full responsibility for all illegal activities conducted on or off the set by our persons.”

The set. Our house is not a home anymore, it’s
the set
.

“Eldest,” I say, brushing the air with quotation marks.

“Two months, baby. While you weren’t even a twinkle in Mom’s eye, Lex and I were already rocking out in another woman’s womb.”

That would be the surrogate mom my parents lassoed to help them have Benny and Lexie™ before my mom was able to get pregnant with me. They’re twins, but Benny’s older by sixteen minutes and eight seconds. We’ll all be eighteen by the time we graduate in June, which, considering recent events, cannot come soon enough.

“Ho,” I say.

“Slut,” he counters.

I sock his arm, and he kicks my butt with the side of his foot, like he’s playing Hacky Sack, then he grabs the bottle out of my hand and gulps down a few shot glasses’ worth. He passes the bottle to me, and I take a tiny sip. We weren’t old enough to consider drinking last time around, but I did other things to dull the weirdness and pain. I run my hand over the bottle’s cream label, feeling kinda freaked out that I’m, what do you call it, self-medicating? I only know this phrase because it’s what the tabloids said about me four years ago. Benny seems to read my thoughts.

“This is just for today, ’kay?” he says.

My answer is another, larger, sip to drown the image that comes to mind of Tessa waiting for me at her house.

“Wasn’t that fun?” I ask.

“What?”

“Having friends.”

Benny twists the bracelet his boyfriend made for him last summer. “Yeah,” he says, so softly I barely catch it.

I can hear Dad just like it’s yesterday:
No more cameras. I promise, Bon-Bon. Just please don’t hurt yourself again. I’ll even come home, if that’s what it takes.

He didn’t, though. Come home. Instead, Mom got full custody, moved us to the other side of the country, and married the contractor working on our new house. Dysfunction meets function. Or something like that.

Benny kicks a clod of dirt, and it bursts against a tree trunk. I feel like that’s what just happened to my life in the past three hours.

“Dad’s gonna flip his shit when he finds out,” he says.

“Not like we would ever know,” I mutter. His condo in Florida might as well be on Mars.

Benny flicks the ash off his cigarette and takes a long drag. “Oh, I’m sure the media will tell us what he has to say about the whole thing.”

Yeah, that
would
be how we’d know his reaction. A celebrity gossip blog, a segment on
Entertainment Tonight
. Though I haven’t spoken a word to him in four years, it’s fairly easy to keep up with his B-list-celebrity self. Last I heard, he was doing some lame-ass charity golf thing in Hawaii.

I shiver and gaze at the tree branches overhead. I used to play this game where I’d look up at the sky and imagine that I was somewhere else in the world—Rome, maybe, or Thailand. And I would marvel at how the sky looks the same wherever you are on the planet, give or take some pollution. If I didn’t look down, I could be anywhere but here.

Benny shakes his head. “It’s gonna be so much worse than before.”

“That bitch,” I say, throwing a rotting apple down a path of trees. I rub my arm where Mom had grabbed me. “I can’t believe she’d do it without telling us first. Not after…” I trail off, not wanting to actually talk about
It
. “Why didn’t they tell us sooner?”

“Why did they make us be on this crazy fucking show in the first place?”

Suddenly, a lot of things start coming together: Mom’s insistence last month on my getting that expensive haircut and the hour-long consultation at the department store makeup counter. That recent family portrait that she’d had us all take and Kirk’s frequent business trips to Los Angeles. They’d been planning this for a while.

Benny takes another huge swig of bourbon. The bottle’s only half full now.

“Okay, Dionysus, lay off the booze.” I put the cap back on and start pulling him toward the car.

He stumbles over some roots in the path and nearly falls flat on his face, but he catches himself and looks up at me, his cigarette clamped between his two front teeth.

“Oh, my, what
would
the bloggers say if they saw me now?”

I give him my best look of disapproval. “You have to quit smoking, you do know that?”

“What, and take away an opportunity for Beth to show off her parenting skills?”

“But she’s just a regular mom,” I say, doing my best Beth Baker-Miller impersonation.

“Yes, and we can read all about it.” He holds up his phone. “Preorder for only $24.99.”

I look at the web page he’s pulled up. “No.” There’s my mom’s famous shaggy bob, her red hair vibrant against a plain white background. “
Recipe for a Happy, Healthy Family
.” I look up. “She wrote a cookbook?”

“
Au contraire
. This, my dear sister, is a tell-all. Convenient that it’s coming out just a few weeks before the show starts up again, isn’t it?”

He grabs his phone before it slips out of my hands.

*   *   *

Lexie™ picks us up, a ride I know comes with about five thousand strings attached.

“This is the last time I play chauffeur to your two drunk asses,” she says by way of hello.

Benny struggles into the backseat, singing through the Beach Boys’ greatest hits. “
I wish they all could be California girrrrrls
,” he croons.

Lexie™ rolls her eyes.

If my sister were a character in a Victorian drama, she would be the snobbish rich girl with a penchant for talking shit about everyone behind her fan. For the record, this is the
only
time she has ever picked up our, quote, two drunk asses. But who’s counting?

“You know, Bonnie™, you don’t want to come off as a total dropout,” Lex says. “What were you thinking, getting all up in the camera like that? Super psycho, if you ask me.”

She checks her side mirror as she pulls out, but it’s more because she misses her reflection than any attempt at driver safety.

“I didn’t ask you,” I say, changing the radio from pop to oldies. “But you’ve always been the expert on making love to the camera, so maybe I should have.”

“I was
twelve.
That’s a healthy age to explore your body,” Lex snaps. She puts the station back to Power 105.1—Today’s Hottest Music!

I arch one eyebrow, a skill I perfected during season ten. “Is that what we call masturbation these days?”

Benny howls with laughter. “Ohmygod, I totally forgot about that!” He adopts the tone of a voiceover actor:
“Will Lexie™ be able to resist humping the living room couch? Or will her raging hormones get the better of her? Find out next week on Baker’s—”

“Shut up, Benny. At least I wasn’t a nudist. Or did you forget that your boy parts had to be blurred out for all of season seven?”

“I heart my body,” he says, making a heart with his fingers à la Taylor Swift.

Lexie™ ignores him, slowing down as we near our house.

“Keep driving.” I put my hand on the wheel, but she pushes me off.

“Don’t do that again, Bonnie™.” There’s a threat hiding in the silky folds of her voice, and I wish she would just freaking get over season thirteen.

“You know, I thought you’d be a little nicer to me now that the show’s back on,” I say. “Isn’t this, like, the happiest day of your life?”

I hope I’m not a mean drunk. Am I? In so many ways I am my father’s daughter. I switch the station back to oldies, just because.

Lex’s eyes shift to me for a second and then she just shakes her head. “Forgive me if I’m not super quick getting over being on house arrest since we were thirteen. It’s not like I was famous before or anything. And, you know, I totally love lying to my friends every day. And forget having a serious relationship. But whatever. No problem.”

Instantly I’m furious, like I’m breaking out in a sweat, but instead of sweat, it’s just pure, unadulterated rage oozing through my pores because,
God
, can she push my buttons, and I just want to freaking punch her face.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lexie™,” I say, my voice sticky sweet. “I had no idea I was keeping you from having a serious boyfriend. You mean all this time you didn’t
want
to sleep with half the guys at your school?”

I know I’ve gone too far. Something like hurt flits across her face, but it’s gone before I can feel too bad. It’s not like she’s ever held back to spare
my
feelings.

“Well, one of us has to get laid,” she spits.

Maybe I deserve that for essentially calling my sister a whore, but it’s still a low blow.

“Can you bitches
please
shut up?” Benny groans from the backseat.

“Well, now that the show’s back on,” I say, ignoring Benny, “you can stop blaming me for every problem in your life.”

“Great. I’ll just pretend the past four years haven’t happened. Thanks, Bonnie™, I feel a lot better now.”

I hate her because she’s right. And because all of it’s my fault—and
none
of it is. It was never just about protecting me. It was about what Dad did and the media storm and what people were saying about all of us and a million things I really don’t want to, really
can’t,
think about right now.

“Mom and Dad were the ones who canceled the show—” I start, but Lex’s voice cuts through me.

“Because someone had to go all drama queen and eat half the medicine cabinet.”

Then, “
Lexie
™.” It’s just her name, but Benny’s stacked a serious threat behind it.

For a second, it’s just this heavy silence with the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” playing on the oldies station which, you have to admit, is pretty ironic.

When I can’t take it anymore, I adopt an I’m-going-to-be-the-bigger-person tone and say, “Lex, we can’t go back until we give Benny a chance to sober up. Maybe we can grab some food or, I don’t know, but I told you that on the phone—”

“My car. My rules. I didn’t agree to anything,” she says. “Besides, don’t you think filming will be that much better with a little booze in you?”

Benny throws up his hands and starts laughing maniacally. Maybe I’m overreacting, but I think it’s safe to say day one of filming is going to be a total disaster.

SEASON 17, EPISODE 3

(The One with the Retake)

As soon as Lex pulls up to the front door, it swings open, spilling a rectangle of light onto the driveway. My little brothers and sisters—all ten of them—press their faces against the front window and crowd in the doorway as Mom rushes down the stairs, arms outstretched. I guess I have to open my door now. The blood rushes to my head as I step out of the car—that extra swig of bourbon was probably a mistake.

“Bonnie™! Benton™! Are you guys okay? I’ve been worried sick.”

I take one look at her perfectly coiffed hair and fresh coat of lipstick and think,
Uh-huh.

“We’re fine.”

My tone is borderline don’t-screw-with-me, but all it gets from Mom is a twitch of her lips. The word
fine
covers up a multitude of sins, doesn’t it?

A cameraman steps through the doorway and swoops down on us. I avoid him like he’s a boy I seriously regret making out with. I keep my eyes down, hair pulled forward. Then I duck past Mom to dodge the smothering hug she really wants America to see. I’m sure the doting mother angle would be great for book sales, but I’m not interested in being part of her PR machine again.

“No, you’re not okay, Bon-Bon. It’s been a long day for all of us.” Lex bestows her sweet-as-sugar smile on me. “C’mon, sis. Let’s get you upstairs.”

She puts her hand up to block my face from the camera and wraps her other arm around my shoulder in the sort of protective embrace you see in tabloid pictures of stars walking out of courthouses or rehab.

I shrug her off. “Lexie™, what was that you were saying about not wanting to be my chauffeur?”

Cue evil glare from my oh-so-concerned sister.

Benny stumbles on the stairs, but he’s able to grasp the railing just in time. Mom flutters around him, making maternal-sounding clucks and coos.

“I’m al-all right. I just gotta … uh…’scuse me.” He pushes past the cameraman who’s suddenly in his face and grabs my hand, pulling me away from Lex and Mom.

As we make our way into the house, I stop in the hall, blinking. When I’d left this morning, there’d been a wall along the right side of the narrow hallway, sectioning off the kitchen. The wall is gone.