Reception

by Kenzie Jennings

  Delia shook her head at the server, beaming up at her, a ray of grace and light as ever. It did the job, putting the server at ease. “It’s fine, really, dear. I’d rather not take it back to the hotel. But you tell your masterful chef that I loved what I tasted, really, every bite of it,” said Delia to the server. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m usually famished around this time of day. I think it’s the awful heat of the summertime here. So oppressive. Saps me of what little energy I have left at my age, and it does nothing worthwhile for the appetite.”

  The server nodded, understanding, and she gave Delia a friendly tap on the shoulder, a little squeeze, and I swear, I think Delia flinched at being touched. It was so subtle; there was a tiny wince, and her grip went even tighter around her purse handles. Since I was sitting beside her, and our knees were practically knocking together. One leg was bouncing so subtly, I didn’t realize she’d been shaky like that until I placed a cautious hand on top of her own. My attempt to relax her down to earth caused her legs to freeze, her whole body to halt in its tension. I met her gaze, trying to smile in support. Delia stared me down with her diamond-cut eyes, and I went cold and numb all over. My mouth was sandpaper dry, and I felt something sour and foul rising up inside of me.

  If I listened closely enough, I could almost imagine I didn’t hear everyone buzzing around me, like a noisy hive. If I listened closely, I could hear the song in Delia’s gaze.

  SEVEN

  “Is there a decent ladies’ room around here?” I mumbled to the server. I shoved myself up out of my chair and then bent to snatch up my bag.

  She pointed me in the direction of the rear of the café. “It’s clean, and we like to keep it that way.”

  As much as I was attempting to squeeze some actual manners for the day, since it was Shay’s and all, I didn’t have time to offer an apology for suddenly having to bolt to the restroom. No stalls, and, thankfully, no waiting. I locked the door behind me, knelt in front of the toilet, and gagged right into it. Something wanted to come up. It was whatever I’d felt deep down when Delia stared at me. Not only that, while I was used to my heart rate escalating during random intervals throughout the day, that time, it was different. My heart was pounding hard at the gates, but it kept skipping a beat every so often, which forced me to calm down and take deep, steady breaths. I wasn’t planning on having heart failure this weekend. Nevertheless, my endocrine system was having none of it, and I threw up everything I’d just eaten. I vomited just enough times to make my head throb and stab me again and again from behind my eyes.

  I won’t chalk it up to food poisoning. That one’s far too easy a scapegoat, and food poisoning effects don’t often show up right away like that. I suppose I can readily claim the sudden need to purge on the usual benzo withdrawal suspect, but looking back on it now, right now, sometimes there are things one cannot easily explain away.

  Like the very idea, the very thought, that Delia and her eyes, Delia in my head, had somehow, quite literally, made me sick.

  I rinsed away the sour taste at the sink and then wiped my mouth with a few paper towels. The place had the soft two-ply stuff that is often set out orderly and straight in a neat container in the middle of the two sinks. They were even absorbent enough to clean up all the water I’d splashed around in the sink when I was gargling and spitting.

  There was a light tapping of a knock on the ladies’ room door, and I heard Shay’s muffled voice say, “Hey, you doing okay in there? We’re fixing to leave.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” I said to the door. “Food here is crazy rich and heavy. Sticking to my guts right now.”

  “Don’t be too long or we’ll leave you stranded here with nothing to eat but crazy rich food, yo.”

  “Wait. ‘Yo’? Um, 1991’s calling and wants Vanilla Ice back.”

  “I meant it, turd-ette. We gotta go. We’re on at seven, and we’re losing the rest of the afternoon here with all the German-ese descendants sitting around, eating their schinkennudeln.”

  “Hey now, I think that may have been offensive, Shay, but I’m not entirely sure. I don’t think ‘German-ese’ is a real word, and ‘schinkennudeln’ just sounds like something that would make Mom batshit if she heard anybody say it,” I said as I gaped at myself in the mirror over the sink. My hairstyle—in its chestnut-colored, perfectly pinned, wide curls—didn’t match the ashy complexion it was attempting to frame.

  “It’s just ham and cheesy noodles. You know, the kind of food we were never allowed to eat because of Mom’s ridiculous aversion to melted cheese. We so missed out when we were growing up.”

  “Yeah, I get that, Shay. Listen, would you tell everyone I’ll be right out when I’m done here?”

  “Sure, let’s see if Mom decides to pay attention to me.”

  There was a dark purple-blue tinge around both of my eyes, signaling to me that my concealer obviously hadn’t done its job well. I just didn’t want to turn to pancake makeup as it clogged my pores something awful. Even still though, Shay would demand I cover up the entirety of my face in a mask of Max Factor Pan Stik. A blood vessel had bloomed in one eye, staining part of the sclera in a tiny blotch of red.

  It was if I hadn’t slept in quite a long time. Truthfully, I hadn’t, so I often had stray circles around my eyes with some saggy baggage tossed in along the way. But I looked beyond exhausted there, and I could feel it all over my body, sluggishly rolling through my bones. It was the type of exhaustion where my soul had been stripped from me, leaving me feeling as if everything else was speeding by and whipping around me, and I was the only one there stuck in a puddle of treacle, unable to move without it gripping my feet, my arms, my head, my torso, everything about me. All of that aside though, my heart was still thundering wildly in my chest, and as it was, it seemed the only thing I had in me that could possibly move somehow. I had to tell myself that vomiting normally does that to a person, rending her wobbly and weak.

  As for my lovely death mask, I wasn’t planning on putting on any decent makeup until closer to the time of the wedding, and luckily enough, no one, except Mom perhaps, would even pay much attention to me. Still, I didn’t want to go back out there looking as if I’d actually puked up what had been going acidic in my gut, so I took out my little highlighter stick I always kept with me (heck, it had even promised to “wake up” my face on the packaging it had come in) and swiped it high on my cheekbones, down the line of my nose, and under the brow bone. Then I patted in the stuff as best as I could. At least I’d look tired and shiny then. There wasn’t anything I could immediately do with the area around my eyes. It would just have to do.

  And I’d have to get used to the idea that there was something, quite frankly, vampiric about my sister’s to-be mother-in-law. Then again, isn’t that the joke about mothers-in-law, that they were (kind of sort of) monsters?

  One big, hilarious joke.

  #

  Can I ask you something?

  {…} You can ask me anything you want. As long as it doesn’t have to do with me having to call 911, looking like I’ve been complicit in whatever it is you planned. Comprende?

  LOL. I don’t need a partner in my evildoings. I’m an independent kinda girl, quick to handle herself in sticky situations.

  You def. are, little sister. So what is it you wanna ask?

  Don’t laugh. It’s going to sound nuts, & I don’t want to come off crazier than I actually am. Is it normal to feel like you’re outside of yourself, looking in at what’s going on, and you know something’s going to happen, like something’s coming, something bad, & you don’t know how you’re going to handle it because you’re not actually there?

  {…}

  Leon, please. I’m serious. I feel all jumpy and paranoid, & I don’t know why. I don’t know what it is, & I’m scared I’ll lose control.

  Derealization and paranoia are among the symptoms of withdrawal. Did you consider that?

  Yeah, I did, but I wasn’t entirely sure.


  You also have to consider the fact that you’re in a strange place surrounded by strangers (except for your family). It would make anybody anxious. Here’s what I think you should do: Try talking to one of your family members about this. It might help alleviate some of your concerns. You could even have an honor system where your family member could keep an eye on you, checking up on you every hour to see how you’re doing. Your mom or sister would be great at it.

  That will make me even more paranoid, L.

  Not if you settle down by deep breathing and tell yourself she’s looking AFTER you rather than looking AT you.

  The only fam. member I think will go all in on that is Shay, but she’s kinda busy getting married and all. Too much on her plate.

  Now you’re giving me the “but,” and you know damn well I don’t do the “but,” girl.

  LMAO! “I don’t do the but”! Did you really just text that??

  Wasn’t meant to be funny but I guess some levity will cool you some. Laughter = best medicine.

  Yeah, I needed that. I don’t think I’ll ever NOT find that funny.

  If that solution doesn’t suit you, try a little visualization like we practiced. Remember the beach bar with the palm trees and hammocks whenever things grew too stressful during your time here? Use that.

  There’s a nice courtyard here. I could always duck away and hang out there. It’s being strung with lights for the wedding, but I don’t think I’ll interrupt anything.

  There you go. Sometimes it’s good to have a wedding at a resort.

  If you want to call this place a “resort,” yeah. $220 a night for darkness, outdated furnishings, scratchy linens, loose wiring, no signal in the rooms and outlets that don’t work isn’t exactly resort-like. Have to text you from the only space where there’s a weak signal now, & that’s in the lobby. People see me as they’re going in and out of the bathroom, & it’s just weird.

  Call it a resort or whatever else you want, but keep that courtyard place in mind for when things go sour and the walls start closing in.

  Thanks, L. I will.

  And remember if things get too hot over there, I can be on the road in no time at all.

  I know & appreciate that. Here’s hoping you won’t have to waste any money on gas though.

  Not a waste if things get out of control, little sister. You stay frosty. One more thing: Don’t panic. Sometimes what you think is happening is much bigger in your head.

  Yeah yeah & drink plenty of water, right?

  Absofrigginlutely.

  EIGHT

  I’ve never been the type of woman who wears dresses, and it often shows, especially when the dress is designed specifically to keep some things tucked in and make other things stick proudly out. It’s a common plight of a woman readying herself for the onslaught of middle age. Certain parts are inevitably destined to encounter gravity. Other bits just suddenly appear out of nowhere, all white and wiry or creased and crinkled. I’d only just made the discovery of a skin tag right on an armpit, and we ladies in the center of things were all going sleeveless. I’d begged Shay to let me have a shawl at least for the portion of the reception when dancing was on the agenda (God, I fucking hate dancing), but Shay was having none of it.

  As she flitted about from one end of the suite to the other, checking up on this and that, Shay was practically being chased by the woman Delia had hired to do her makeup, one of the resort employees who just happened to appear on the very day of the wedding. I kept my lips zipped, suppressing the natural inclination I had—that everyone in the wedding should have had—to ask where they’d all been hiding. The place had been void of almost anyone in an employee uniform last night. Suddenly, the place was alive with uniforms buzzing about. It made me wonder if they only appeared whenever some big, fancy event was about to happen, and then they vanished when things went back to a quieter state. It didn’t make much sense to me, and I wasn’t the only one who’d thought it was uncomfortably off. Had my sister not been so blinded by wedding festivity planning (ugh) and the idea of marrying (double ugh) Nathan, maybe she would’ve been a little more savvy and had seen the many negative reviews about the place on Yelp, all of which held the same concern I had, besides the obvious room issues—that there had been no employees around at night, and nighttime was quite often when patrons discovered what was working about their room and what wasn’t.

  If only I had checked Yelp much earlier, if anything for my sister’s sanity, and had I known then what I definitely know now, well…

  “I don’t see anything, Ans. Just slather on some of that airbrush gunk Emma brought. She said it was made to cover anything, and it won’t stain your dress,” said Shay as I held up my arm for her to examine the hideous growth on my armpit.

  I pointed it out to her, wincing as she gripped my arm back, using as leverage. “It’s right there,” I said. “I don’t usually wear sleeveless, so it’s not like I would’ve noticed beforehand. I think it just popped up over the past few days.”

  “You didn’t see it when you shaved? I always catch them when I shave there, among other places I won’t get into,” said Emma from her cozy spot on the chaise. She was half-keeping an eye on Bryceson, who was adorably suited up and quiet for once as he filled in superheroes in a coloring book, and half-paying attention to whatever Shay was up in arms with in the moment. Emma looked a little too comfortable there for a maid of honor. She wore her blissful state well, too well. Weren’t maids of honor usually supposed to be just as stressed out as the bride?

  I suspected a benzo was the culprit. Xanax was often the go-to for those suffering event panic. My mother used to keep them in Grandma’s old credenza, along with the usual hangover “cures” conveniently placed behind the liquor bottles. It was her version of what a bar should contain. The last time I was over there, all of the medicine, all of those “cures,” had been hidden away from their usual homes, along with the liquor. Yet Dad had managed to uncover a bottle of single-malt scotch from somewhere in the house, probably his newly established man cave that had once been Shay’s room. I know it had been for my own sake, my own “benefit,” something my dad had never failed to remind me (as if preventing anyone from easily accessing a bottle of booze in our house would seriously help me in my own recovery). To which I often responded with the same thing over and over again, that I wasn’t a goddamned addict.

  “Does anyone have a bandage?” I asked. “Anything that will blend in with my pit…?”

  Just then, Mom and Delia—all dolled up and ready in rich, dark colors—came sweeping in through the French doors to the courtyard, in mid-chatter about something guest-or-family related, both of them seeming agitated by it. Shay gathered up her train and stormed over to them, her cheeks flushed and eyes shooting blades directly at the two of them.

  “Where have you been? We’re due in twenty minutes, and Ansley’s having a ridiculous crisis that I just cannot deal with right now,” she snapped.

  “How is it ridiculous when you expect us to look like we give a fuck, Shay,” I muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.

  And, apparently, loud enough for Bryceson to catch on and cling to it. “Like we give a fuck. Like we give a fuuuuuuuck,” he sang as he concentrated on coloring in a cape. I was starting to like that kid.

  Instead of chastising the little guy, Emma merely chuckled and brushed back his hair from his eyes. Definitely Xanax.

  “Ansley Mary Boone,” Mom hissed. “There is no need for that language, especially in front of children.”

  “Bryceson doesn’t care. That kid is a forty year-old man in a five year-old’s body,” I said as I examined my armpit’s deformity in the mirror.

  Emma let out an airy chortle. “It’s true. I mean, have you heard middle-aged men lately?”

  Bryceson whipped around, gaping at his mother. “If I’m forty years old, I can pay bills, and then I can say all the bad words I want.”

  I grinned at him in the mirror. “A lot of the forty year-old men I know
would concur, my man. You’ll have to pay your taxes too, don’t forget.”

  “I will. I’ll pay taxes even though Daddy doesn’t like paying taxes. He says that all-the-time!”

  Shay and I issued Emma a curious glance at that little revelation, and I only just caught the look on Shay’s face as well. For a best friend, apparently Emma hadn’t revealed much to Shay about her ex having come back into Bryceson’s life, never mind her own.

  Emma shrugged at Shay, waving off the thought of it. “He’s finally up-to-date on his child support, and he wanted to see Bryceson. I figured, whatever. Couldn’t hurt. As long as I didn’t have to deal with him outside of that.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve helped,” said Shay as Delia and the resort makeup artist, or whatever she was, finally got Shay to sit down at the vanity that had been set up specifically for such occasions.

  “What could you possibly have done, girl? This isn’t about anything other than Bry-bear getting to know his Disneyland daddy with his fancy new condo and blonde lay on the side.”

  “Blonde lay on the side,” echoed Bryceson as he scribbled like mad.

  Mom sucked in her breath, probably at Emma’s candor in front of a kid. I felt like telling her it was the benzo doing the talking for Emma, pointing out the obvious that was right there for all to witness, but I got the feeling she would’ve have cared little about such matters when a wedding was happening. Mom came over to examine what I was picking at in disgust. Like Shay, she gripped my arm up over my head and squinted at what I knew perfectly well was there.

  “What is it? I don’t see what you’re upset about, Ansley.”

  “Mom, it’s right there. It’s a skin tag, and if I have to wear something sleeveless, I’m gonna have to cover that up somehow.”