Twisted Family Values

by V. C. Chickering

  Biz said, “Not all of my family is my friend, currently.” She was bursting at the seams to tell Muriel but kept it inside for Charlie’s benefit. Why not tell the world what she knew about E.J. fucking Piper, and Charlie possibly being Ruby’s dad? She already felt relegated to the fringes of Charlie’s world; how much worse could it get? Fuck everyone. Her good friends would stay her friends. Besides, she only needed one. And Ruby could handle herself—she was tougher than all of them put together.

  “I’ve got to go,” Biz said, and took off her apron. She didn’t want to be having a full-blown breakdown when the others arrived.

  “Fine, but tell me something…,” said Muriel.

  “What?”

  “Is Charlie sleeping with Amanda Bendridge?”

  “What? No. Who’s she?”

  “Formerly Tindy Weldon. She went to camp with my sister forever. She grew up in—”

  “I know who she is.” Biz’s heart started to pound. “We went to college together. She was my roommate, for chrissakes. Does she live here? When the hell did she move here?”

  “She lives over in Shellbing. I’ve only heard it once or twice. Maybe I misheard it. People are idiots.”

  “Ha! You don’t have to tell me,” said Biz.

  “What about your brother?”

  “What about my brother?” said Biz. Her volume went up.

  “Apparently E.J. was at Dickbird’s, bragging about getting laid. Supposedly it’s someone in town.”

  Biz was so mad at her brother she wanted to spit—directly in his face. “By ‘no one’ do you mean, ‘everyone’?”

  “It’s not a big deal. Skip it,” said Muriel. “People love secrets. Most of them are nothing, and all of them are old news before you know it.”

  “Like Georgia’s jail time?”

  Muriel snapped her fingers, yes. Biz dropped her car keys and wobbled a bit picking them up.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fairly certain I’m so damaged I’m unlovable. But otherwise…”

  “Don’t let that stop you. Doesn’t stop anyone else.”

  “I have to take Ruby to her thing,” Biz said on her way out.

  Muriel called after her, “Hey, have you been drinking?”

  “No! A little. Bye!”

  “Sober up first!” Muriel shouted, but the advice fell flat.

  * * *

  Charlie was up with the late Indian summer autumn sun. He went over to his mom’s—this time to borrow a bag of charcoal from Ned. It still felt odd to see their old backyard so lackluster. The barbecue was rusted and tilted from a missing wheel, and the patio furniture looked grubby and worn. A mostly deflated soccer ball was wedged in where springs were missing on the trampoline, and the cobweb factor in the shed was off the charts. It still housed the Ping-Pong table, though. The right half sagged from a leak—bowing the composite wood beyond repair—but it was still playable.

  Charlie was heartened to find there were still three sandpaper paddles underneath—not enough for doubles, but at least two could muster a scrappy game. He’d spent so much of his youth here that he imbued the table with the respect one might give a grandfather clock or favorite reading chair. Ping-Pong was one of the few truly friendly games—equal parts conversation, goofballery, and sweat, he always said. He set the paddles on either side—one atop a dirty white ball—so the table would be welcoming for play. The noise from Charlie poking around drew Georgia toward the shed. She’d stopped by to borrow a bicycle pump for the kids. She appeared in the doorway in a tight striped sundress. Her ample curves still dipped and turned, giving off a confident sensuality most Larkspur women couldn’t pull off, and wouldn’t dare to try.

  “What’s going on?” said Georgia.

  “It’s me,” said Charlie, “pilfering Ned’s charcoal.”

  “I’m here for a bicycle pump.”

  “Hey, can I borrow Foster’s nine-iron next week?”

  “Help yourself. Wrap it around a tree if you like.”

  Charlie found the charcoal. “I guess that answers my ‘Is she still pissed at Foster?’ question.”

  “It does and I am.”

  “Let’s go. Twenty-one,” said Charlie. He picked up the chipped sandpaper paddle.

  Georgia wasn’t having any of it. “C’mon, Charlie, I’ve got shit to do.”

  “We’ve all got shit to do. Come on, it’s like you women are waging this lifelong contest to see who’s busier. I don’t care that you’re busy. Honestly, no one cares that you’re busy. Pick up your paddle. Twenty-one, let’s go.” Charlie served an easy lob, giving Georgia enough time to pick up the paddle and return the ball deftly over the sagging net.

  Charlie asked, “So why are you two still together?” He wanted to pick someone’s brain his age about marriage, and Georgia was the only one of his sibs or cousins who could relate. He knew hers wasn’t exactly a model union but suspected they still had their fun. His and Piper’s seemed to have dried up long ago.

  “The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Georgia said as she returned the ball.

  Charlie said, “Forget it. I’m sorry. It’s none of my—”

  “No, it’s fine. You’re family.”

  “Until I’m voted off the island.”

  “Huh?”

  “From Survivor,” said Charlie. “C’mon. You know the show with the supposedly real people on the island. Aren’t you watching it? Gigi’s obsessed. It’s a ‘reality television’ thing, though it seems incredibly fake to me. It’s too well lit.”

  “Oh, yeah. I read about it in on the internet.” Georgia got all her news and current affairs from a slew of pop-culture websites. Foster hadn’t seemed to mind she wasn’t nearly his intellectual equal until recently, when his third affair—with the head of the Contemporary American Literature Department at Princeton—was discovered and he was kicked out of the house. Again.

  Charlie said, “You know, you can just say ‘online’ now.”

  “I know. I keep forgetting. Everything gets renamed so fast.”

  “So what’s the plan with you and Foster? Poison him slowly in his sleep?”

  “Is that allowed?”

  “That reminds me, did Officer Jackass or whatever his name was, didn’t he go to high school with us? Didn’t he have a thing for you?”

  “Yup.”

  “So why didn’t you play that card the day you got arrested?”

  “I wanted to embarrass Foster. And, if I’m going to be honest, the family, too.”

  “Huh,” said Charlie. He was not expecting that answer; it got his full attention. “I get Foster, but why us?”

  “Because I think we’re all full of crap. Your serve.”

  She may have a point, he thought. They hit back and forth, keeping score in their heads. Finally Charlie said, “I think I understand.”

  Georgia said, “The way I see it is I’ve been as guilty as anyone of perpetuating the Thornden mystique, but I’m over it, as you can see by this sausage casing that used to be loose on me.” She gestured to her sundress. “I’m tired of dieting; I’m sick of Atkins. I’m over Aunt Claire’s perfection-obsession. We’re all basket cases on the inside, ready to implode, and I’m calling bullshit. Once the walls come crumbling down, hopefully we’ll all be able to relax for the last fifty years or whatever we’ve got left. You’ll thank me one day for paving the way.”

  “Will I?”

  “And Foster can go jump in a lake for all I care.”

  “But sometimes I still see you two giggling.”

  “Oh, we do. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t infuriate me.”

  “Huh,” said Charlie. “Fifteen all. Your serve.”

  Georgia said, “Look, Foster will grow up and out of this phase, eventually, and want to come back. And I’ll take him because he still puts up with me, and makes me laugh. Do you know why I agreed to marry him? Because he was smart, good at sex, and the only man I’d met who didn’t have an issue with cheese. Everyone else I’d dated w
as allergic, or a snob about it, or some bullshit called lactose intolerant, whatever that means. No one could just order a cheeseburger, for crying out loud, but Foster could. So I married him. I blame cheese.” Charlie let out a great guffaw. Georgia continued, “As I see it, I’m skipping our divorce and going straight to reconciliation. He’s great with the kids, and the sex still rocks, so who cares, really, as long as he doesn’t give me herpes. We’re doing what works for us; in the meantime I’m not taking it personally. I’ve got four kids to raise. Besides, I get to sleep around, too, if I want, just like you. I’m just too busy right now.”

  Charlie hesitated. What the holy hell is she talking about? He said, “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, come on. The whole town knows about you and Tindy. And if by some miracle it’s not happening, it may as well be, because everyone thinks it is.”

  Charlie held on to the ball; his face lost color. He looked as if he’d discovered a tiny baby bird under a high nest, dead on the ground. “I’m not sleeping with Tindy.”

  “But you are sleeping with Biz.”

  “I am not sleeping with Biz,” Charlie said quietly, shaking his head. Anger welled in his stomach and moved upward through his body. This time he knew to keep it in check. He breathed slowly, inhaling deeply the way Nana Miggs had taught him to do.

  “You’re not? Well, maybe we should sleep together finally.” Georgia laughed.

  “Georgie. It’s not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny. I’m serious. Piper’s got whatever she’s got going on with whatever arrangement you’ve made, and I’ve got nothing going on for the moment, and we’re not related, so I’m just suggesting that if you ever—” Georgia missed the ball. She followed it as it bounced and rolled behind a stack of overturned clay pots. “It’s convenient—”

  “I will never. Jesus, Georgia, stop!” Charlie rested his paddle on the table, aware of his staggering hypocrisy. Then he looked over his shoulder at the array of wooden racquets on rusty nails. Bjorn Borg, Arthur Ashe, they were all there, some still in their presses. He wished they could materialize and come to his defense. He watched Georgia look for the ball. She’d lost her spark so long ago he couldn’t place from where it had originally emitted. Her smile? Her eyes? He wanted to feel compassion, truly wanted her to find happiness. Charlie knew she’d had it rough and felt he probably should have been much kinder to Georgia, more empathetic when they were all young. But she came on so damn strong, he had to push her away. What happened to her? To all of us?

  Georgia returned to the table. “I know, I know. Sorry, I don’t know why I do it. I really need therapy. And I’m sorry for throwing myself at you for all those years. I was so convinced you and Biz … I think I was jealous, and wanted to be a part of this stupid family so badly. I think that’s what Foster and I had in common. Turns out it wasn’t enough to base a marriage on, because we stopped caring about you idiots and then we were stuck with each other. And ignore what I said about Piper just now.”

  Charlie thought, Wait, what did she say before? He said, “Piper and I don’t … what do you mean ‘arrangement’?” Charlie looked pained, confused.

  Georgia hadn’t meant to upset him—she’d always suspected he was more fragile than he appeared. “Nothing. I just had a feeling. I think once you marry someone who cheats, you think everyone cheats. It’s like having paranoia as a Spidey sense.”

  “Georgie, what the hell have you heard?” Charlie worked hard to manage his volume level, his rising rage. Deep breaths, dammit. His head swirled. Sometimes he got a feeling he couldn’t place when Piper came to bed at night distracted. But he’d always assumed she was just teeming with checklists, the administrative detritus that clogs the mind of a modern woman. Maybe he’d been right to be suspicious. Perhaps she wanted things he couldn’t give her. But doesn’t everyone want more? He couldn’t fault her for being like himself. He’d always assumed he’d been enough, was giving her enough. Was that the Thornden arrogance Georgia was talking about? But Piper would have come to me, demanded more, he thought. He couldn’t think about it now. He’d bury it, along with his longing for Biz. And what did Georgia mean by “going on at the moment”? Had Georgia cheated on Foster? Was that why she didn’t end the marriage?

  Georgia could see Charlie was struggling with the truth. She backtracked, “It’s just my imagination, I promise. Sorry. Forget it.” She was pretty sure Piper was fucking around. E.J. was one of her theories. Sometimes Piper ignored him a little too much when he was telling some crass story. If it was about women, she left and did the dishes. It wasn’t overt, and there was no tell in their body language, but Georgia picked up a vibe one day when they were all at the pool—it was about the way he watched her climb up the aluminum ladder in her wet bikini. She gave him an admonishing glance reserved for an intimate, not on the roster of looks one gives a cousin-in-law. It was followed by a quick survey to see who might have caught it.

  Georgia had.

  “Gotta go,” said Charlie.

  “But it’s game point,” Georgia said, forcing a smile that weakened at the corners.

  “You win,” said Charlie. He tried to smile but couldn’t think of anything to merit one, so he walked out of the shed, forgetting the bag of charcoal.

  * * *

  On her way home from the bakery, Biz felt menaced, her mind spiraling and infested. She was in a full swivet trying to deny Muriel’s recent revelations while trying to shake the lewd image of Piper and E.J. Gross! Biz knew she had to snap out of it in time for Ruby’s doctor’s appointment, so she had a tiny nip of vodka and cleaned the whole apartment. What could it hurt? Steady the nerves. Good way to project a relaxed mother: house straightened! Biz licked a gob of peanut butter off the end of a butter knife. She reaffirmed her mantra, I am doing my Thornden best. Her perceptive friend Rebekah would be impressed. A second voice in her head wisecracked that perhaps she wasn’t trying that hard—if we’re really going to be honest, you’re totally phoning it in. More like doing your Thornden half-assed.

  She woke Ruby with some toasted frozen waffles and grabbed a banana to eat in the car. A knock on the examining-room door took Biz’s attention from People’s Sexiest Man Alive, year 2000 edition. That Brad Pitt can do no wrong, she was thinking when Dr. Rebekah—formerly Becky—walked in.

  “How’s everyone today?” she chirped in her doctor-y voice.

  “Next question, please,” muttered Ruby from atop the examining table.

  Biz said, “You stole my material.”

  Rebekah addressed Ruby. “Your great-grandfather’s service was lovely.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “How did you two meet again?”

  Her mother and doctor said, “College,” in unison and shared a conspiratorial smile. Rebekah was still a short, compact woman with dark brown hair, but now curly streaks of gray wound through her tight spirals. She wore glasses in tiny black rectangular frames and a wedding ring lousy with diamonds. Smart and successful, Biz thought to herself, and probably married to a great guy who loves her sense of humor, chutzpah, and razor-sharp mind.

  “So, vaginal itching and burning?” said Rebekah.

  Ruby nodded.

  “And your chart tells me you’ve just started menstruating.”

  Ruby deadpanned, “The bastard child has become a bastard woman.” Ruby loved to introduce herself to grown-ups as such. She would extend a hand and lean in with a smile, declaring, “I’m the bastard child you’ve heard so much about.” It caught people off guard, much to Ruby’s delight. “Ignore her,” Biz would add with a grin. They made a good comedy duo.

  “Glad to see you’re enjoying womanhood,” said Rebekah.

  “Woop-dee-doo,” said Ruby.

  Biz said, “Okay, enough with the sarcasm. Hand me your Britney Spears article, please. Dr. Rebekah is a health care professional who will be an important figure in your life when you have questions about avoiding unwanted pregnancy.”

  “Where was she twelve years a
go?” Ruby quipped like a Borscht Belt comic.

  “You have never not been wanted, my precious pumpkin.”

  Rebekah refocused. “Let’s get started. Ruby, how often would you say you’re in a wet bathing suit?”

  “I live in one.”

  “Then it’s probably a yeast infection. Anyone can get one at any age. Make sure you change into dry clothes.”

  “Is that an STD?”

  “No, dear,” said Rebekah. Biz perked up.

  “What?” said Ruby defensively. “They’ve been talking about STDs in health class.”

  Rebekah said, “And what have you learned, young lady?”

  Biz kept her mouth shut tight as she listened to their STD chat. She hoped her daughter would be better informed on the subject than she’d been and wouldn’t take the unbelievably stupid and unnecessary risks she had.

  Rebekah said, “Ruby, I’m going to ask your mom to step out of the room.”

  “Go for it, but you don’t have to. I have no secrets.” She looked askance at her mom. “Yet.” Biz grinned and stayed put.

  Rebekah asked Ruby, “Are you sexually active?”

  “I am not. But everyone else in my family is. My mom is screwing some Irish dude she barely knows, Nana Miggs is screwing that old weird dude from the funeral reception, and Grand Cat supposedly once screwed my principal—”

  “Whoa. What?!” said Biz. “Honey, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “It gets better. Gigi thinks Uncle E.J. is screwing Aunt Piper, and Uncle Charlie is screwing some divorced lady. Oh, and Aunt Georgia and Uncle Foster are screwing other people but not each other and it’s gross and I hate it. Plus I hate everybody. But no, I’m not having sex.”

  Rebekah raised her eyebrows at Biz, who downshifted into her calm voice. “Ruby, dear heart, where did you hear all this?”

  Ruby said, “I hate when people ask that. Like it matters.”

  Rebekah cut in. “Okay, you two. Break it up. I am not Sally Jessy Raphael and this is not a talk show. I have patients waiting.”

  Biz said to Ruby, “We will discuss this later, missy.”