Family and Other Catastrophes

by Alexandra Borowitz

  * * *

  Jason got dressed. He had already asked David if he wanted to go out that night, but he was going to dinner with his dad and stepmom. Emily had been sleeping ever since the afternoon. Lauren and Matt were spending the night in watching Netflix. The house was quiet with the kids asleep. He went on Facebook. He had friended all of the wedding party, even people he hadn’t met yet, and everyone had accepted his friend request, even Jennifer. He had flipped through her pictures a few times, evaluating just how much effort he would exert to sleep with her. He had gotten to the point where sex was less about his own pleasure, and more about how big a high-five he would receive from telling people. Jennifer was sexy, tall and svelte, but she was twenty-nine. She was probably full of baggage and desperation but still hot enough to bang. A man would have to be insane not to at least try.

  When Jason opened his chat window, he noticed Nathan was online. Nathan’s profile picture was a webcam selfie in which he gave an overly serious glare to the camera while tipping his hat. The collar of his leather trench coat was turned up, like a fat male version of Carmen Sandiego.

  He found Maddyson’s profile. Her profile pic was an iPhone selfie, the default for girls her age. She wore a black tattoo choker and made a face that looked artificially surprised. He saw the green dot next to her name on Messenger—she was online too.

  Hey, what are you up to? he typed. If she didn’t recognize him or thought he was being creepy, he could always claim he meant to message someone else.

  “Nothing. Hanging out at home.”

  “Same.”

  “Wanna come over?”

  This was a stunning development. Could it be that he had entered a new prime in his life? His early thirties hadn’t been the pussy festival of his early twenties, but maybe thirty-five was the beginning of a new era. If he was right, he was looking at a second Golden Age!

  Sounds good to me ;) he typed. I’ll bring the liquor.

  David

  “I think it’s time for a toast,” Nick said.

  “Dad, you made two toasts already.”

  “No, no, hear me out. To the next Steve Jobs!” David cringed as the couple at the next table turned and looked at them. He overheard the wife asking the husband if he recognized David and then saw the husband shake his head, perplexed.

  Susan giggled and raised her wineglass, and David slowly lifted his up to meet theirs.

  “I’m not done,” Nick said. “And may his compassion, intelligence and empathy serve him well. In business, in marriage and in life.”

  Susan got her phone from her sequined clutch purse. “I have an idea! Let me take a selfie of my two handsome men! Lean in together, you two.”

  David smiled weakly. “Susan, it’s not a selfie if you’re taking it of other people. A selfie is a picture you take of yourself.”

  Susan’s eyes widened. She turned to Nick. “Can you believe this? All up with the tech lingo! He’ll be running Silicon Valley in no time!”

  “Speaking of lingo, David,” Nick said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you—what’s twerk?”

  “What?”

  “Is it some sort of computer thing?”

  “No, it’s, um, it’s a dance.”

  Susan laughed. “I am so glad I have you kids! Without you, I’d never know any of the hip words!”

  David thought about correcting her use of the nearly obsolete word hip but decided against it. Susan took a photo of him and Nick. He felt his phone buzzing with a call. He checked it. It was Robert.

  “I have to get this. It’s my boss.”

  “Ooh, it’s Bill Gates at work!” Nick said. He took out his own phone and snapped a too-close candid of David with the flash on.

  “Hey, Robert, what’s up?” He heard Nick mutter “Ugh, it’s too blurry” as he looked at his phone.

  “How’s your wedding week going?” Robert said on the other end.

  “It’s good. I’m actually at dinner with my family right now.”

  “Oh, right, the time difference! I just came back from Pacific Beach. Man, the waves down there. Unbefuckinglievable.”

  “Cool, cool. So—what’s up?”

  “So I’m looking at your Twitter feed now and I’m not seeing any tweets about the BluCapital thing.”

  “Oh, no, I’m so sorry. I totally forgot. It’s been kind of crazy—”

  “I get it. You’re getting married. No problem, man! I’ll make sure Zach does it tonight.”

  “No, it’s okay, I’ll do it right now!”

  “Okay. Because Zach is more than willing to help out if you’re feeling slammed.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll do it. Thanks, Robert.”

  “Cool. Say hi to your family for me!”

  “I will, thanks.”

  He turned off his phone. He looked up and saw that Nick’s eyes were moist.

  “That was amazing,” his dad said.

  Jason

  “Good evening, gentle sir.”

  Jason had knocked on the front door of the Porters’ expecting Maddyson to answer it. Instead, there was Nathan, wearing his signature leather trench coat, his fedora tipped rakishly over one eye and no shoes. Maddyson stood behind him, twirling her pink strand of hair around her fingertips, flipping through her phone again. It was astonishing how terribly young women dressed, Jason thought. Jennifer might have been older than Maddyson, but she at least put some effort into doing her makeup properly, getting a decent manicure and wearing heels. Maddyson wore a large boxy sweatshirt that looked not only unflattering, but uncomfortable in the summer weather, along with a pair of high-waisted denim shorts that made whatever butt she had look long and deflated. As for makeup, she appeared to be wearing nothing except for dark purple metallic lipstick—something Jason assumed was a trend among girls her age. It didn’t look good, so he focused on her smooth, slender legs.

  “Hey, guys, I brought some vodka,” he said. “Nathan... I didn’t realize you’d be home.”

  “I heard that you would be joining my dear stepsister for a night of merriment. What kind of gentleman would I be if I left her unattended?”

  Jason shrugged. He should have seen this coming. “Well, I’m happy to see you, man. We haven’t gotten to spend much time together, and I think it’s time we got to know each other a little better.”

  “’Tis a pity indeed, good sir, that so many men become so embroiled with the pursuit of females that they forsake the intellectual pleasures to be found with other like-minded courtiers.”

  “Okay, I’m going to be straight up with you. I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Perhaps we can watch a film. Or otherwise, play Skyrim.”

  “Not again with the Skyrim,” Maddyson said, her head craning back.

  “Your parents still out with David?” Jason asked as he walked into the house and perused the family photos on the walls. He wanted to make sure it would be a while before Nick and Susan returned.

  “Yeah,” replied Maddyson. “It’s a little private congratulations thingy since he’s getting married and all.”

  “More like marching to the gallows,” Jason said. “I was married once. Never again.” Normally that line piqued women’s interest, or at least made them wonder what his story was. But Maddyson just scrolled through her phone as if she were listening to one of her dad’s friends talk about his 401k.

  “Why don’t we start drinking?” Jason asked. “Nathan, you can pick a movie.”

  “I know a great deal about cinema,” he said, speaking to him but looking at Maddyson. “But I fear my tastes could be a bit...refined compared to what you normally watch. Plebeian taste confounds me.”

  “How about a classic?” Jason said. “American Pie.”

  “We have the DVD,” Nathan said. “That was my brother’s favorite movie in high school. A bit blue to watch in fro
nt of the lady, though.”

  “Nathan, I’ve seen it before,” Maddyson said. “It’s just that old movie with the guy from Orange Is the New Black, right?”

  Nathan went over to the DVD player to put the movie on, groaning slightly when he bent over to insert the disk. He motioned to Maddyson to sit on the sofa. With an effeminate flourish of his hand, he took off his trench coat and laid it on the carpet in front of the couch, bowing and removing his hat to reveal his greasy scalp. Tonight he had gone without a ponytail and just let his oily hair hang free as if he were a villainous lord on Game of Thrones.

  “After you, milady,” he said, encouraging her to walk across his coat.

  “Dude,” Jason said, patting him on the shoulder. “This really only works if there’s a puddle or something. I’m sure she can walk on the floor herself.”

  “’Twas merely a joke!” Nathan said.

  “With you, it’s hard to tell.”

  Maddyson ignored the coat on the floor and walked to the other side of the sofa where she sat down with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Nathan took a seat several feet away from her.

  Jason went into the kitchen to make some drinks, looking over his shoulder as he left to make sure Nathan wasn’t making any new moves on Maddyson. Nathan appeared to be frozen, staring at his stepsister with his hat shading his face, but unable to say or do anything. He looked like a giant garden gnome.

  The Porters’ kitchen was decorated in a rustic style. There were a pine table and chairs and a glass vase with white daffodils as a centerpiece. The walls were covered in blue-and-white tiles with little roosters on them. There was a photo calendar on the fridge. The photograph representing June featured a slightly younger Nathan sitting on a patio chair at a cookout, clad in his trench coat and fedora, surrounded by happy and chatting middle-aged people in their bright summer clothes. He was glaring at the camera with one hand on his chin and the other tipping the brim of his hat. The picture was framed with cheerful little cartoon images of umbrellas and flip-flops.

  Jason quickly mixed some of his vodka with Susan’s no-pulp orange juice and carried all three glasses into the living room. American Pie had started. Nathan had edged slightly closer to Maddyson on the sofa, but he was still a good three feet away. Jason placed the glasses on the coffee table and sat down between them.

  “You’re really into your phone, huh?” he asked Maddyson.

  “I guess. Why do you care?” He peeked over to see her phone screen but couldn’t get a good look.

  “Well, you may or may not know this, but I’m the CEO of a revolutionary transportation-based start-up called WalkShare. And I’m soon to be the cofounder of Beardster.”

  “What?”

  “It’s kind of like, Tinder meets Uber, but...”

  “I’m on Tinder right now.” She finally revealed her phone screen, where she was flipping through different men, all between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three.

  “I can’t allow that,” he said. “You can’t use my competitor.” He smiled in a way he hoped was sexily arrogant, not just arrogant.

  “Is your app on the market yet?”

  “No, I mean, we still need to get an engineer to actually build it, but—”

  “Then Tinder isn’t your competitor.” She continued to scroll, swiping right at most of the men she saw.

  “I thought you would be pickier than this.”

  “Oh, I’m not using this to meet guys. It’s a social experiment where, once we connect, I ask them what they think of slut-shaming and see how they respond. Then I post it all to my Snapchat story. It’s for my final project.”

  “I don’t shame sluts. I love sluts. It helps that I am one.” He thought of winking, but that would be too much. Instead, he flicked her shoulder playfully. She turned to look at him like he was an irritating mosquito.

  “Slut is a word to shame women. Not men. So when you call yourself that, it’s different. Men created the word slut to keep girls like me down. Men like you are the ones enforcing dress codes, for example. Did you know that I led a protest at my high school over their ban on crop tops and booty shorts? That day, we all came to school in crop tops and booty shorts.”

  “So this is what’s going on in high school now. Nobody cared about dress codes when I was younger.” He wondered if maybe Lauren was the future of America—billions of Laurens walking around getting angry over booty shorts. It had infected the cute girls now.

  “I think it’s generational,” she said. “People in my generation care passionately. We want to change the world. Your generation...no offense... I mean, baby boomers are pretty much responsible for all the problems my generation faces.”

  “Baby boomers? I’m not sixty.”

  “Whatever. You know what I mean.”

  He paused, wondering how he would recover. He shouldn’t have drawn attention to their age difference since that was the one thing stopping him from gaming her. He changed the subject. “So when you said the word slut exists to shame women like you, do you mean that you’re promiscuous?”

  “I guess,” she said. “Depending on your definition.”

  “You two!” Nathan whispered from the edge of the sofa. “Keep it down, I am trying to watch the film.”

  “Yeah,” said Jason. “Nathan doesn’t want the subtleties of the tongue tornado scene ruined for him.”

  “I know this movie is subpar and classless,” he shot back. “I put it on for your enjoyment as I am a good host and a gentleman. If you want to simply talk throughout it, I would be happy to watch an atheism documentary instead.”

  “No need for that, buddy,” Jason said. “I don’t want to be a bad guest. I was just chatting with your sister. Surely that’s okay with you.”

  “Stepsister. So any sexual relations we might enjoy would be legal. But yes, by all means, talk with her.”

  “Ew, Nathan,” she said. “Why do you always go there?”

  “I am just speaking the truth. Now, if you both want to continue watching American Pie, I am happy to regale you with my thoughts on this film’s representation of decaying Western society—a society plagued by feminism, and superstition known as religion, where free thinking is no longer practiced, where women willingly give themselves away to the alpha males, where truly intelligent thinkers are not rewarded with sex but punished with virginity, where chivalry and decency are dead, where—”

  “Dude,” Jason said. “You’re bumming everyone out.”

  Nathan took a sip from his screwdriver and went back to the movie. Hopefully if he got drunk enough, he’d just fall asleep, Jason thought. He didn’t seem like a big drinker.

  “That reminds me,” Jason said, taking a sip from his own drink. “Maddyson?”

  “Oh, right.” She gulped down the lion’s share of her screwdriver without wincing the way other eighteen-year-old girls might. He remembered how girls drank when he was a Delt. They claimed to be drunker than they were, and they claimed to like whiskey and football just to impress him, when in reality they had mini-fridges stocked with Smirnoff Vanilla and cranberry juice and spent their weekends at outlet malls. They would pretend to be innocent or promiscuous, whatever they thought would impress him. He would tease them about their hair as an excuse to touch it, and he would show them his football trophies in his bedroom, where he kept cold tequila and limes in his own mini-fridge. He remembered very little of the actual sex. Usually by then he was blacked out.

  And there he was, on the sofa with Maddyson, plying her with a screwdriver while she ignored him for her Tinder social experiment. How had it come to this?

  “Actually, Jason,” she said. “While I’ve got you, could you answer a few questions for me?”

  “Sure.”

  She opened her laptop and began typing as she talked. “Back when you were young, was it normal for a woman to have multiple partners?”
<
br />   “Uh...well, I’m not that old now. What’s this for?”

  “We’ll get back to that question. Would you say that attitudes toward female promiscuity are more lax or less lax now than they were when you were young?”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  “Can you just answer the question?”

  “Wait, is this for some kind of college assignment?” He took another sip of his drink. He needed to drink more to get through this.

  “I won’t use your name, don’t worry. Okay, would you say that slut-shaming behavior between women was more or less common in the eighties than it is now?”

  “I wasn’t an adult in the eighties.”

  She closed her laptop. “This isn’t working. I’ll just ask my friend’s dad instead. See you guys. I’m going to go hang out at Chelsea’s house.”

  “No!” Nathan protested. “You are too inebriated to be behind the wheel of a vehicle!”

  “She lives down the street. I’m walking.”

  “Dressed in such a tempting manner at night, by yourself?”

  “Fuck off, Nathan.”

  Maddyson put on her Chuck Taylors and left. Jason turned to Nathan, who was slumped over on the sofa, sadly staring into his screwdriver.

  “Nathan, drink more.”

  “A gentleman never becomes three sheets to the wind.”

  “Yes, they do. I do, at least.”

  “Well, you, my good sir,” he said, taking another dainty sip, “are not a gentleman.”

  When the end credits of American Pie rolled, Nathan was still awake and alert, having had had only one drink. Jason was on his fifth.

  “You should be ashamed,” Nathan said.

  “Of what?” Jason knew he was slurring his words.

  “I know why you came here. You’re recently divorced, and after your heart was trampled upon by the fair Christina, you thought you were free to take my stepsister’s innocence right in my manor.”

  “Okay. First off, Maddyson isn’t a virgin. Second, this isn’t a manor and it’s not yours.”