Twisted Family Values

by V. C. Chickering

  Charlie raged, “Are you fucking kidding me?!” He loomed large in her face.

  “Charlie,” Piper said, but he cut her off with a punctuated shove. “No!” He said it with such force no one dared interject. “No fucking way!” he shouted, and this time gripped her shoulders tightly. Biz calmly said, “Charlie, don’t. Take a step back.” Piper wheeled her arms around, sending his hands flying off her and hissed, “Don’t you fucking dare.” Then to Biz she said, “Maybe you should step the fuck back.”

  Biz recoiled. “I didn’t—”

  Piper went after Biz, leaning close to her face and poking her chest as she spoke, her own rage teetering on the edge. “You damn well did and you know it, you drunken whore.”

  Ned intervened, placing his open hand gently but firmly at the center of Piper’s chest and moving her backward out of Biz’s personal space. “Piper, enough. I think maybe we should all head home and reconvene—”

  “Don’t you dare,” Charlie erupted at Piper. “You have no right. You disgust me.”

  “Well, that makes two of us, then. Mutual disgust,” said Piper. There was ire in her eyes, not seen before by her in-laws. Even Biz had never witnessed that kind of anger emanate from Piper in all the years she’d known her. It was as if a pent-up wellspring were finally being released—a tide of years-old vengeful acrimony.

  Claire said, “We are not going to do this now on a public street like hoodlums.”

  Foster said, under his breath, “It’s New York City, Claire, I hardly think it matters—”

  Claire said, “Shut up, Foster.”

  Georgia smirked at Foster and said, “Ooooo.” Rah grabbed Charlie at the elbow without looking at him and said, “Let’s go.” She was small but scrappy and tried to get him moving in the right direction, which was out of this shit storm and back to New Jersey. Charlie whipped his arm out of her hand and said, “Leave me the fuck alone.” His elbow caught Ned square in the face, which started a chain of events that no Larkspur family would be likely to admit to.

  Cat snapped, “Calm down,” at Charlie, who lurched toward the club door to rip E.J. from the stage. Rah and Susan went to block him, but the bouncer got roped in when Charlie tried to shove his way past him, which was not feasible due to the simple physics involving the bouncer’s height and weight and the dimensions of the doorframe. Foster explained the scene to the bouncer, who listened patiently with Charlie in his grip like a marionette. Ned’s nose was bleeding profusely, so Georgia gave him her pink pashmina, which he used to soak up the blood. Charlie called Piper a low-rent whore, which got her swinging at him, thus once again involving the bouncer, who was using his clipboard as a shield as if he were a paid performer at a regional stage combat demonstration. All this was underscored by Claire, who was screaming manically about civility like someone whose purse had been stolen in 1979. Add to that the Technicolor flair of Cat holding up an increasingly crimson pashmina to Ned’s swollen, leaking nose.

  During the mayhem, Georgia and Foster caught each other’s eye and shared surreptitious delight with Nana Miggs. Then as an aside to her during the dramatic bottoming out of her progeny, Foster said, “Doing our Thornden least.” It was a tour de force of public déclassé behavior—Charlie Chaplin meets Jerry Springer. All that was missing was a wheelbarrow of whipped-cream pies. Even the junkies and homeless were chuckling.

  It was at this moment that E.J. came outside to have a victory smoke after his triumphant set and chat with scouts. Shocked at the sight of bedraggled members of his family, standing before him in various states of civil disobedience and duress, he froze, his forefinger on the matchbook’s strike path, his cigarette wavering at his lips. “What the hell are you all doing here?” E.J. said with an air of disgust. He was annoyed to see them, his usual default to being in their company. But then it dawned on him with a cartoon flick to the brain that they must have been there for him. He was momentarily overcome that all these idiots had made the pain-in-the-ass trip in, which meant he had more paying customers than he thought filling seats. A tiny voice in his head wanted to say, “Really?! For me?! Gee, thanks!” but that would have been too much gratitude, incongruous with his normal “asshole” schtick. Instead, he said, softening, “I mean, what the fuck? You came?” They looked at E.J. with the wrath of a family publicly undone by one of their own—heartbroken, upended, and betrayed. A group, collectively, in a very bad mood. Then the third wave of realization finally hit E.J.—they had heard his set. Oh, shit. This is not good.

  “Fuck you” came back at him in crisp layers from familiar voices; even his Aunt Claire chose to join in. So many fuck-yous, he felt, more than there were people on the sidewalk. Did some say it twice? Had the bouncer joined in the chorus? It was a rough-hewn combination of exhausted and stunned fuck-yous, but no less heartfelt by all in attendance. Nana Miggs saw E.J. gear up to refute.

  “Now hush up, all of you, and listen to me!” Nana Miggs commanded as if stepping on a soapbox. She looked at E.J. “Especially you. You cretins think you invented everything—sex, infidelity, screwing around with your cousins—but I have news for you, you didn’t. It’s all as old as the hills. The only thing new is your generation, who are too repressed to let people do what they’re going to do anyway and not worry about it. If you didn’t draw so many damn lines in the sand and take everything so personally, you all wouldn’t be so miserable. Stop behaving like little children who didn’t get everything you wanted. You’re all a bunch of damn toddlers with small minds to match. Wake up! The world is not black and white. That’s a child’s perspective, and it’s caused you nothing but grief. I urge you to embrace the gray. It’s a helluva lot more interesting than the standards you all hold yourselves to. What on earth are you trying to prove, anyway? You think you’re going to get a little trophy when you get to heaven, do you? Why don’t you idiots try talking to each other and asking for what you want? What a bunch of puritans you all are. I’m bored to tears with your silly judgments. Although, I must say, this evening’s been highly entertaining.”

  Nana Miggs’s eyes twinkled as the blast of a fire engine’s siren punctuated her dramatic conclusion. Charlie caught the bouncer saying, “Your grandma’s fierce.”

  Nana Miggs piped up, “That’s right, young man, I am fierce.”

  Foster added, “Huzzah,” and got another sharp elbow from Georgia. He knocked into Biz, who winced in pain. Charlie went to her, asking, “Are you okay?” Piper said to Charlie, “Why am I not surprised. Why should anyone be surprised? You will never love anyone more than you love her. Not your kids, not your—”

  Biz did everything in her power not to cry, but warm tears welled in her eyes, and sliced her cheeks as she gritted through the residual pain of her throbbing healing ribs.

  Rah commanded, “Shut up, Piper. Talk to the motherfuckin’ hand.”

  Cat said, “I need to get Ned home.” Foster added, “His nose bleedeth over.” Charlie offered, “Ned, let me give you a ride.” It was a caring voice, full of kindness and love. It was the voice Charlie’s family was used to hearing—the voice of a bighearted man. Charlie turned and said to Biz, “Get in. Ride with us.” Then he placed his hand on the small of her back. “I’ll get you there safely.” She nodded and climbed in because she knew in her heart he would.

  2014

  Claire’s worn, out-of-date, sparse kitchen, Larkspur, New Jersey

  The sun cast slivers of morning light through Claire’s kitchen blinds and lit her short white hair from behind like a broken halo. Stacks of bubble wrap and yellowing copies of the New York Times littered the counters; cardboard boxes stood in for chairs. Claire was adamant she wouldn’t be entrusting “those rough-and-tumble punks” from moving companies to wrap her stuff, so Biz offered to help her mother finally move out.

  Now that she was past seventy, Claire’s ego had finally succumbed and she let the grays consume her gorgeous coiffure. Passersby were bewitched by the striking juxtaposition of her cobalt blue eyes with dark eyeb
rows and silver hair. Biz was nearing fifty and sober for many years now. She’d finally healed from the accident and embraced being single. Those who knew her remarked how beautiful she’d become with middle age. Charlie still found her absolutely stunning.

  Wrapping a melon baller in newspaper, Biz asked, “Did you ever in your life use one of these? Be honest.” Then she realized it didn’t need to be wrapped and chucked it in a box.

  “There were dishes in the sixties that called for it.”

  “I bet. Hey, Mom, why did you always tell me everything would work out?”

  “Because that’s what my mother always told me.” Claire still wore cranberry lipstick in the never-ending attempt to hold on to her quietly ebbing beauty. Though she was slightly kinder now since she’d been forced to let go of the control she thought she had for so many years. “In fact, your Nana Miggs told me everything would work out just the other day.”

  Biz thought about the visual comedy inherent in a ninety-some-odd-year-old telling a seventy-something-year-old that everything’s still going to work out. Biz asked, “So now, with heaps of perspective, do you think it’s useful or harmful in the long run? Does that mind-set encourage a sort of blithe optimism or set the bar for disappointment?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious. I was thinking the other night that everything hasn’t worked out. Not in the conventional sense. I’m forty-eight and single—”

  “That’s a blessing. Men are overrated.”

  “Mom. Please. I’m living in the same town I grew up in—”

  “Nothing wrong with Larkspur,” said the lifelong resident with pride.

  “True,” Biz nodded in agreement. She’d loosened her grip on the dream of moving west once Ruby graduated, instead choosing to remain close by in case she was needed. “I’m an alcoholic—”

  “Recovering,” Claire said, also with pride.

  Biz kneaded the pain in her upper arm, which occasionally seized as if in an unrelenting vise. “I have frozen shoulder syndrome.”

  “Oh, I’ve had that. Mind over matter.”

  “Did a male doctor tell you that, Mom? It’s not hysteria. It’s a real thing.”

  Claire ignored her. “What else have you got on that gripe list of yours?”

  “I never became what I always dreamed of. Etsy didn’t exist before I gave up—”

  “But you design those beautiful cakes that bring joy to so many.”

  “Thank you, Mom. Please stop interrupting. And I live alone.”

  “You can always move in with me, Cat, and Ned. We could use a fourth musketeer.”

  Biz rolled her eyes at the thought. “Mom, I appreciate the offer, but I can’t play Little Edie to your Big Edie, I just can’t do it.” She was hoping it wouldn’t come to that but knew it wasn’t out of the range of possibility—little else had gone the way she planned. “Why did you marry Dad? He’s gay, you know.”

  Claire thought about this briefly. “Probably.”

  “No, Mom, he is, and everyone knows it. That wasn’t an isolated event. Gerard is his boyfriend, not his business partner or his roommate.” Twelve years earlier, a few months after E.J.’s public family bloodletting, Les had been caught canoodling with a local’s husband. He was summarily drop-kicked out of the closet and officially booted from the Thornden family, to his immediate and gratifying relief. Most were empathetic enough at the time to realize how much turmoil he must have been in and how he must have suffered for so long; Claire was not one of them. She blamed him for the family’s further social decline—though the rest of them had long stopped caring—and conveniently remained in denial until this day. Biz felt a huge wave of relief knowing she wasn’t to blame for his unhappiness and supported him fully as he emerged from chronic depression.

  Claire didn’t look surprised. “I know, I know, okay, he’s gay. Don’t rub it in.”

  “Don’t take it personally,” Biz said, “He’s not gay at you. So why did you marry him? No wonder the poor guy was miserable. He felt emotionally, physically, and socially trapped and he was an alcoholic and chemically depressed.”

  “Everyone’s a little depressed.”

  “Mom. Dad was clinically depressed and should have received proper help.”

  Biz waited for her mother’s reply. Claire took her time responding, mulling over how much truth to dispense and then decided on all of it. “Your Aunt Cat was the pretty one and got married first, and I thought I should be married, too, since I was older. I felt entitled to marriage, which as it turns out isn’t an entitlement. It’s meant to be earned. And not everyone is capable. I do feel poorly in hindsight, and I should probably be nicer to him.”

  “You definitely should. But I thought you were the pretty one.”

  “I had the looks, but Cat had the spark. It was the wrong reason to marry Les, and it would be the wrong reason for you to marry Hugh.”

  “Mom, I’m not going to—”

  “I see you sizing him up as you get older, making trade-offs in your head. But you shouldn’t settle. You should wait until you find someone who ‘gets you.’ Nana Miggs is right about that. Surround yourself with people who light up when you walk in the room. I didn’t wait, and I should have—marriage is not a contest. Though I’m thankful I have you and E.J.”

  “The bane of your existence.”

  “You are not the bane of my existence-”

  “No, I meant E.J.”

  “You are both the light of my life. I was just never very adept at showing it.”

  “At all,” said Biz with an impish grin. She paused in the middle of wrapping a stack of Archie-comics juice glasses and four egg cups. Biz wanted what she said next to sink in, so she spoke slowly, with grace and assurance. “Mom, I don’t think there’s anyone out there for me. I don’t think I’m one of the lucky ones, and I’ve made peace with that, and I hope you can, too.”

  “What happened to that Irishman from the bakery who was arrested?”

  “He wasn’t arrested. And we dated when he came back from Ireland, remember? It didn’t work out. Now he’s with Muriel, and they’re a better fit for each other.” Biz and Finn had been on a few dates after he returned from Ireland and she was recovered from the accident and going to meetings. But it only took two dinners and a movie for her to admit she didn’t love him enough to jump into his three-ring circus. He was fun and without a doubt funny, but there were too many places where they didn’t connect. So she slept with him casually on and off for a few months, knowing it wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. Then Muriel’s marriage unraveled. Finn asked Biz if he could ask her out. Biz gave them both her blessing, and they all remained friends.

  “I thought Muriel was married.”

  “She was and now she’s not. People trade partners, Mother. It happens all the time. Life’s a big square dance and we’re all allemande-lefting each other every few years, trying to find the best fit. Some are happy to stay with the one who brung ’em, but many switcheroo. Sometimes more than once.”

  “It’s ‘brought,’ and it sounds exhausting.”

  “I know, Mom, and it is. Square dancing is exhausting.” Biz labeled the box she’d taped shut KITCHEN CRAP MOM DOESN’T NEED with a black Sharpie. “My mission is to keep in mind that I have a handful of close friends, a thriving business, and a terrific kid, wherever she is. Prague, I think, this week. She emails me where they’re sending her, but I get her clients confused. All I’m saying is, I feel very lucky. I have a lot going for me.”

  “Well, you certainly have an excellent attitude.”

  Biz said, “Ha! You bought that load of crap? I’m faking it, but good to know it works.” Claire smiled, glad her daughter still had her sense of humor, though to her it had always been a mystery where it came from.

  Biz continued to work during Claire’s smoking break, emptying the entire contents of one drawer into a box. Grapefruit spoons and corn-cob holders, a pizza cutter and egg poacher, she wondered where this trove of obsolesce
nce would ever end up.

  “Mom, what the hell is that brick on the counter covered in tin foil? Are you seriously moving it over to Aunt Cat’s?”

  “Yes, and don’t ask unless you’re willing to hear the entire tutorial.”

  “Fine. I’ll take a pass.”

  Smoker’s lines crisscrossed Claire’s face like roads on a folding map. And though it made her lips appear permanently pursed she refused to give up her beloved cigarettes. Her Liz Taylor–esque beauty had taken a backseat to a life spent finding fault with others, yet her eyes were still as piercing and she continued to speak with the air of a queen. Claire looked directly at Biz for a moment, exhaled, but said nothing.

  “What?” said Biz.

  “You’re a wonderful mother.”

  Biz was shocked. “I am?”

  “Why do you look so taken aback?”

  “Because you’ve never told me that.”

  “That’s because I’m a terrible mother,” Claire said matter-of-factly, then went back to nesting Pyrex mixing bowls into a larger box. Their moment of intimacy was over; Biz didn’t move. She allowed for a long, momentous pause to savor her mother’s comment. She wanted the statement to ring out in the air, unchallenged by even her own breath for as long as possible.

  Finally, Biz said softly, “You can be,” and Claire said, shockingly and unexpectedly, nothing.

  * * *

  It had taken many years for wounds to heal and E.J. to be forgiven. The Thornden dynasty had inelegantly imploded after that fateful night in New York. It was a rare treat now when they were all together, and this Easter would be one of those times. An early dinner seemed to be best for everyone’s schedules, and it would be held at Nana Miggs’s old house, as per her wishes. It hadn’t felt like Nana Miggs’s home for years, now. Georgia and Foster had remodeled the kitchen, blowing out walls and updating all the major appliances. The cozy kitchen nook was gone, replaced by an island so big that if a tangerine came to a rolling stop in the middle, one would have to climb on all fours up on the table to retrieve it. Not exactly intimate, but it still felt appropriate for Easter dinner—especially since Claire was in the midst of moving in with Cat next door and getting her house ready to put on the market. The long table was gone, and there weren’t enough stools at the island to accommodate everyone. Some stood or leaned, and some piled cookbooks on chairs to be level with the crowd. The single bulb had been replaced by high-watt pendant lamps that were attractive but not on a dimmer, so the overhead lights glared, instructing as opposed to coaxing them to relax.