Something Real (8 page)

SEASON 17, EPISODE 5

(The One with Uno)

I drive until the constant buzz of incoming texts gets to be too much.

“Okay!” I yell at my phone.

I swerve into the next strip mall and park in the middle of the half-full lot. I don’t know if MetaReel has bugged my car or not, so I get out and cast a furtive glance over my shoulder, as if the police are hot on my trail for playing hooky. I glance at my phone: ten texts.

“Damn.”

I run across the lot and into Cleo’s, a little café with dessert and coffee that I’ve been to a few times with Tess and Mer. It’s perfect, full of dark corners meant for lovers. I know I’ll be able to hide out here for a couple hours. A college kid gives me a bored hello, and I say hello back, wondering if it’s obvious I’m supposed to be in school right now. I try to look nonchalant as my eyes sweep over the menu behind the counter, but my mind keeps playing my psychoness in Schwartz’s class on a loop. I can’t believe I said
shit
in class. And then ran out.
God.

I order an oversized peanut butter cookie and a mocha. I only picked at my lunch, and I’m sort of looking forward to drowning my sorrows in sugar and caffeine. I check my texts while the barista makes my drink. Tess and Mer sent simultaneous WTF texts followed by worried texts followed by
seriously, call me right now
texts. They must have gotten hold of Benny because he sends me one, too. Unlike them, though, he gets why I’m being a weirdo. All he says is:

Will meet you after school. Where you at?

I text him back and, when my mocha’s ready, I head over to a huge velvet chair, where I spend the next two hours alternating between trying to read
1984
and staring off into space. I think about how maybe it’s time to go back to homeschooling because I’m not sure I’ll be able to show my face at Taft again. Like,
ever
.

At three ten, Benny walks through the door. He’s my lighthouse. Always has been. No matter how lost I feel, he’s there to guide me back to myself.

“Lay it on me, sister.”

I tell him everything, and the tears come only when I can see the sadness around his eyes and the way he tries to hide his worry by fidgeting with the stuff in his pockets.

“It won’t happen again,” I tell him, my voice colder than I intended. “
God
.” I look out the window, but instead of the parking lot I’m seeing orange plastic bottles lined up in my parents’ cabinet.

Season thirteen sits between us, lonely as a buoy in the middle of the sea. Benny swallows. Stares at the palms of his hands.

Disappointment crashes through me. “It’s just … I got the yearbook picture taken, you know? I thought—”

“I know,” he says. Gentle.

I fold and refold my napkin. “It’s like normal’s never gonna happen.”

“True story.” He stands up and grabs my backpack, then holds out a hand to help me up. “Let’s go home.”

Home.

I’m not really sure where that is anymore.

*   *   *

“Bonnie™, I need you to help your brother with babysitting tonight,” Mom says.

She’d called me into her bathroom while she was getting ready, which is
Baker’s Dozen
code for
I don’t want the cameras to hear this
. It’s the reality TV equivalent of spy movie tactics, except we don’t need to turn on the shower or play really loud music to hide our voices.

“What about Lexie™?” I ask.

“She has a date—and didn’t get drunk last night.”

I open my mouth to protest, but she shakes her head. “I could smell it on your breath. Do it again, and you’ll be babysitting until the triplets graduate from college.”

I sink onto the toilet seat and wish, not for the first time, that I’d been one of those kids people abandon on church steps.

“You’re just gonna leave us here with MetaReel all night?”

Mom pulls at her wrinkles, frowning at her reflection. “No. The cameras will be gone in half an hour. We’re just getting some dinner with Chuck. Should be back by ten or so. Jasmine™ has a cough, so don’t let her run around too much, and Deston™ needs to do his homework. Make sure Farrow™ doesn’t spend too much time online and…”

There’s no way I’ll remember her specific instructions for each of the ten kids. My definition of a successful night of babysitting is that no one died and the house didn’t burn down.

“… and don’t forget about the laundry. It’s in the dryer, but it needs to be folded.”

I stand up. “Okay. You’ll be home by ten, right?”

There’s a scream downstairs. “MOM!”

“Oh, God. Now what?” She pushes past me on her way out the door, then turns around and squeezes my shoulder. “Thanks, Bons.”

“Uh-huh.”

She hovers in the doorway, looking uncertain. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she says.

I don’t say anything, just stare at the chipped polish on my toenails.

“I know it’s a major adjustment, sweetie. But it’s for the best. I promise.”

From downstairs again: “MOM! Tristan™ took my doll, and he won’t give it back!”

She sighs. “Okay, then. We’ll talk later.”

We won’t. We never do.

“MOM!”

As she leaves the room, I think about how Mer and her mom have a standing lunch date every Friday. I’ve always been jealous of that—other than little snatches of time like this, I haven’t been alone with my mother since I was in the womb. I’m about to run after her, tell her I’m sorry for being angsty, when I remember that she just wrote a memoir she didn’t bother to tell any of us about.

My phone starts vibrating—Tessa.

I close the door behind me and sit back down on the toilet seat. I hit the green button on my phone before I can change my mind. “Hey.”

“Chloe! Are you okay? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for, like, ten hours.”

I sigh. “Yeah. I just … it’s a really long story.” Like seventeen years long. “Is Schwartz super pissed?”

“No. I think he was worried, more than anything. He asked me after class if there was something going on.” She pauses, and when I don’t say anything, goes, “Chlo, you’re freaking me out.”

I should tell her. That would be the smart thing to do. But I can’t. A crazy part of me is hoping this will all go away. The other part just wants to hold on to Chloe for a little while longer before Bonnie™ takes over.

“I know. I’ll try to keep the psychotic episodes to a minimum, okay?”

She ignores my joking tone. “
Chloe
. Spill.”

I clutch my cell phone and rest my forehead against the cool bathroom wall. “It’s stuff at home,” I say. “And I can’t talk about it. Not right now. But I promise I will when … when I’m ready.”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the line. I can hear the growling, guttural voice of Amanda Palmer playing in the background and the sound of Tessa tapping her pen against her desk.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?”

I’m not Catholic, but I can sort of see why people go to confession. It must feel so amazing to be able to tell someone who you really are.

“Yeah,” I whisper.

Someone pounds on the bathroom door. “Bonnie™! Mom says you have to come down now!”

Violet™—one of the triplets.

“Who’s Bonnie™?” Tess says.

“Oh. Um. My sister’s going through an invisible friend phase. Hey, so I gotta go babysit. Sorry for the freak-out.”

“See you tomorrow for Hand Me Downs?”

I’d forgotten. “Sure. Sounds good.”

I hang up, open the door, and plaster a smile onto my face. Violet™’s dressed in a pink tutu and a mini football jersey, and there’s a camera behind her—Old Guys Rule T-shirt dude.

“You silly girl,” I say, pulling on one of her pigtails. The camera loves this shit. I hate how trying to please it is so ingrained in me.

I am puppet, watch me dance.

“Look what I can do!”

Her version of a cartwheel involves her knees being parallel to the ground, but I applaud and then we go downstairs to where a mob of children are scarfing down half of the local KFC.

The cameras are weaving in and out, zooming in on little arguments, pulling away to get the full effect of our chaos. One of the cameramen smells like sweat and French fries, and my stomach turns. Benny mimes shooting himself in the head; I pretend to hang myself. When the cameras finally leave and Mom and Kirk follow them out, it’s as if the house suddenly gets bigger, brighter. My face hurts from trying to make it look normal, and my limbs feel heavy from my lack of sleep and the endlessness of this day.

Lex comes down the stairs wearing a skintight black dress and red hooker high heels.

“Working tonight?” Benny asks her.

“Very funny,” she says.

There’s something resigned in her expression, as if she’s playing a part MetaReel cast her in long ago. It occurs to me that Lex might feel just as abandoned by our mom and dad as I do. Maybe what I always thought of as willful sluttiness has actually been an attempt to fill the gnawing parent-shaped hole we all share. Too many times, I’ve seen her creep in well past midnight, lipstick smeared, her underwear peeking out of her purse. She never looks happy. Just tired and ready for one of her cucumber masks.

“Lex,” I say, putting a hand on her arm.

She startles at my touch—that’s not something we do. Touching, I mean.

“What?” She narrows her eyes, the blue lakes of them reduced to two thin streams.

“If you get back early, maybe the three of us can … watch a movie or something?”

She looks at Benny, and he shrugs. He’s got two boy monkeys hanging on him and one of the triplets trying to apply lipstick to his cheek.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Lex says. “I’d say the time for sibling bonding is pretty much over, wouldn’t you?”

She pushes past me and throws open the door just as a red sports car pulls up with Jay-Z blaring out the windows.

“Don’t wait up,” Lex says over her shoulder. She slams the door behind her.

“What was that about?” Benny says. I know he’s talking about my impromptu invitation—Lex’s bitchiness has been the new normal since season thirteen.

“I don’t know. I was feeling charitable. Stupid me.” I rub my hands over my face and shuffle into the living room. “Who wants to play Uno?” I ask.

*   *   *

It’s close to midnight, and Mom, Chuck, and Kirk still haven’t come home. By now, all the kids are asleep, and Benny and I are sprawled on the living room couch, watching an old episode of
Sex and the City
. The past twenty-four hours have left me numb. If called upon, I’m not even sure I’d be capable of doing basic math. Uno with the kids had been fun, though. I knew it would be one of the last times I’d get to hang out with my siblings without a camera capturing every moment, so I’d tried not to get annoyed or bored, even when my brothers decided it would be really fun to play Fart on Bonnie™.

“I wish Stuart wasn’t so gay with a capital
G
,” Benny gripes, as one of the show’s characters sashays across the screen.

I sock his arm. “Don’t discriminate against your own people.”

“But look at him. I mean,
plaid
? Ugh.” His cell phone goes off, and he jumps up. “It’s Matt.”

“Matt wears plaid,” I say.

“Shut up.”

I give him a little wave as he heads toward the stairs and up to his room. When I hear the garage door open a minute later, I change the channel to PBS so Mom doesn’t know what we were watching, then turn off the TV. The living room is now completely dark. I stand up and am trying to pick my way through the maze of toys and games on the floor when the door opens and I hear my name. I freeze, listening.

“—going to be hard for Bonnie™. That’s what I’m most worried about.”

Mom.

“Kids?” she calls.

I crouch down and crawl into a corner as I hear Mom’s heels on the wood floor. I feel like an idiot, but I can’t waste an opportunity to find out what new hell Chuck is planning for us. I’m tired of being caught off guard all the time.

I see Mom’s reflection in the living room window as she steps into the hallway. A forty-year-old version of Lex. If Lex had red hair. She rests her hand on the banister and looks up the stairs.

“All quiet on the western front,” she says, then returns to the kitchen. “Guess they’re up in their rooms.”

“I’m gonna turn in, honey,” Kirk says. “Gotta be up early tomorrow for that Redding job. For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right decision.”

Right decision—about what?