Family and Other Catastrophes

by Alexandra Borowitz

  “Hurts. What the fuck is your shirt?”

  Jason looked down. “Funny, huh?”

  “Did you buy it in the fifties?”

  “That’s a lot for a T-shirt. It was just twenty-five bucks, actually.”

  David was too tired to say anything else. For a moment, he felt fleeting respect for Lauren. How did she maintain the energy to call Jason out when he did something offensive every five seconds?

  Jason opened the fridge and surveyed its contents. “Huh. I thought there was some shrimp scampi in here.”

  “Maybe Matt ate it.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  “The fit. Getting fit.” The Vicodin had kicked in and was making him foggy.

  “Huh?”

  “Fitting.” David burped.

  “You mean the dress fitting? Avec les bridesmaids?” He mixed up French and Italian stereotypes and began wiggling his hands around with his fingers pinched together like Tony Soprano.

  “I think.”

  “Then I’ll be on my way.” He closed the fridge, grabbed his car keys, and was out the door. David retrieved the Pop-Tarts from the toaster and started lustily eating one. His phone buzzed again. He took it out and squinted at the screen. It wasn’t Emily calling—it was Zach.

  “Hey, Zach, what’s up?” David held the phone with his greasy Pop-Tart fingers.

  “Thank fucking goodness I was able to get ahold of you. This is nuts.”

  “What happened?”

  Zach sighed. “Well, for one, we both officially don’t have jobs anymore.”

  David felt his legs go weak. He dropped to the floor and sat in front of the fridge, his brain still not entirely sure how to make sense of what he just heard. “What? How is that possible with the funding from BluCapital?”

  This was a joke. Robert must be hiding behind Zach’s desk as Zach muffled the receiver so they could giggle together. For sure, that was what was happening.

  “It’s worse,” Zach said.

  “Worse than Zoogli going under? How is that possible?” His hands had started trembling involuntarily and his stomach felt like it was about to expel all the contents of his binge onto the floor.

  “Robert took off with the BluCapital money. Deposited it to his personal account in the Cayman Islands, and he’s left the country. The SEC is investigating.”

  His mind immediately went to Robert, surfing in an ocean of money. “What the hell am I going to do now?”

  “I don’t know, man, I’m worried about myself too! I may have to move back in with my parents.”

  David took a small moment to revel in the fact that “rock star” Zach, at twenty-nine, might have to move back home. At least Emily’s job at ClearDrop could buy them a few months while David looked for another position.

  Then his vision went slightly blurry as it dawned on him that all the glory and comfort he had imagined he and Emily would soon step into was gone. There would be no house, no new car, no retiring young. They might need to move out of their already-overpriced one bedroom and start subletting a spare bedroom in the Tenderloin. Maybe they’d even have to move to Idaho or something, and all of his old friends from high school would laugh about how he effectively flunked out of San Francisco. And Zach was no longer his competition. They were just two sad men on the phone with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

  “Are you still there, man?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got to go. Thanks for telling me, Zach. Good luck.”

  He hung up and reached for another Pop-Tart. Fuck it.

  Kevin

  Kevin had texted with Jennifer all night, finally jerking off to one of her bikini photos she tweeted from 2012. He wasn’t as interested in porn as some other men were. He vastly preferred women he knew wanted to sleep with him. He woke up the next morning fully recharged and went to the hotel gym for a quick cardio session. On his way from the gym back to his room, he heard a man arguing with the woman at the front desk. It took Kevin a moment to recognize him. It was Emily’s dad.

  “All I’m saying,” Steven said, “is that just because I touch one of the bottles in the minibar doesn’t mean I should be charged for it. I had a change of heart and I didn’t drink anything, so why am I being charged thirty dollars?” This was the loudest Kevin had ever seen him talk. Normally, he was so quiet it was hard to hear him at all.

  The young woman behind the front desk tried to keep her composure. She spoke calmly and politely. “The sensors charge you every time you touch a bottle, which means you shouldn’t pick up anything you don’t plan to drink. Our records show that you touched bottles of Bombay Sapphire, Jack Daniel’s and Grey Goose.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t drink them. This is Kafkaesque!”

  “This is just our hotel policy. Can I ask why you picked up all of those bottles and drank none of them?”

  “Why does it matter why I picked them up? This isn’t psychoanalysis.” Steven turned away from the front desk in a huff and found himself face-to-face with Kevin.

  “Dr. Glass?”

  “Yes?” It was clear from Steven’s blank expression that he didn’t recognize him.

  “Kevin. David’s best man.”

  “Oh! Yes, of course.”

  “So, um, you’re staying here?”

  “Ah. Yes. Well, you know, with the full house and everything, it seemed like a good idea.”

  “Okay. Well, see you at the rehearsal dinner?”

  “Yes.”

  Once Steven was out of sight, Kevin took his phone out and texted Jennifer: Guess who I just saw at the Ritz? You can’t tell anyone.

  Emily

  “It’s not that I think Joyce’s daughter is stupid,” Marla said. “She just isn’t as smart as my kids, and if they didn’t get into Yale, I don’t think she has a chance in hell.”

  Emily and Lauren arrived at the fitting to find Marla deep in conversation with Diana, the sixtyish owner of the wedding dress boutique. Gabrielle, Jennifer and Maddyson were waiting on the blush velvet love seats, staring at their phones.

  “Hello, Emily!” Diana said, turning around. “And... Lauren? It’s been forever!”

  “Yes, it has,” Marla said. “I’m just going to get this out of the way to avoid any awkwardness because I know you’re too polite to say anything—I apologize ahead of time for—”

  “Mom, it’s fine,” Emily said. “Diana isn’t offended.” Perhaps she should have let her finish. There was a hell of a lot for which Marla needed to apologize.

  “I’m not offended by what?” Diana asked.

  Marla struggled to get all the words out. “I just think it’s a bit...millennial...for Emily to have bought a dress from some megastore in San Francisco instead of your boutique. But I suppose I can’t blame her for that.”

  “Millennials actually avoid brand names and big chains,” Maddyson said. “That’s a Gen X thing.”

  “Why would I mind that?” Diana said. “Emily lives in San Francisco. Of course she would prefer to buy a dress from someplace close to her. If she bought a dress from my shop, she’d be flying back and forth across the country just for dress fittings! Either that, or FedExing a two-thousand-dollar dress across the country!”

  Diana said these things as if they were clearly ridiculous options, unaware that Marla had once suggested both of them to Emily in earnest. Diana turned to Emily. “I hope you don’t mind me embarrassing you for a moment, but you have really turned into a beautiful woman. I can’t wait to see this dress on you.”

  Although a small part of Emily worried that this was a subtle reference to her looking old—nobody called anyone a woman anymore, you were a girl until you were fifty—she was mostly thrilled that anyone could find her beautiful that morning. She hadn’t slept well, and her eyes looked sunken and purple.

  She had seen Diana a few times during her childhood when
she went with Marla to her shop. Diana would tailor Marla’s dresses at a discount, in exchange for Marla listening to the depressing details of Diana’s marriage. “You’re not really her friend,” a nine-year-old Emily had said to Marla on one drive home. “You just use her to get discounts.” Marla had responded, “All friendships require give-and-take, Emily. Besides, she’s basically getting free therapy, and trust me, if there were more people doing what I do with Diana, the world would be a mentally healthier place.”

  “By the way, Emily,” Marla said, procuring a tissue from her bag and blowing her nose. “I want you to know that I am missing Aunt Ellen’s funeral. I knew you needed me here, so, once again, I put your needs above my own.” She sighed dramatically.

  “I thought you said it was just a shindig at cousin Hannah’s house,” Emily said. She then wondered why that was the detail about which she chose to argue.

  Marla crumpled up the tissue and tossed it into a fancy garbage can in the corner that looked like a hatbox. “Funeral, celebration of life, whatever you want to call it. The point is, I’m missing it because of you. I just want you to think about that for a second. I’m not saying I need you to apologize, just think about it.”

  “The alternative would be missing my wedding, or at least missing the rehearsal dinner, to attend the funeral of a woman who you purposely didn’t invite to the wedding.” Emily considered that Marla was actually only staying because of her argument with Steven, but she didn’t say anything about that.

  Marla sighed. “Well, Emily, that’s an entirely different topic. I wanted to invite Aunt Ellen, but if I invited her, I’d be very concerned about her taking advantage of the open bar, plus, suddenly Hannah would start to wonder why she wasn’t invited and I refuse to have Hannah anywhere near children. She has some very problematic issues around her sexuality. Way too obsessed with horses as a girl. It was creepy.”

  “Okay, Mom.” Her mind went to her art show, her senior year of high school. Marla had every intention of coming, but routinely threatened that she might “have to miss it” because her friend Karen’s fifty-fourth birthday party was that night. Apparently Karen’s husband recently left her for the family veterinarian, and it meant a lot to her that all her friends be there for her first birthday as a divorcee. When Emily insisted that her art show should come first, Marla cocked her head and said, “You’re a profoundly gifted artist, I’m sure you’ll have more opportunities to show your work. But Karen will only turn fifty-four once, and to be honest, the poor woman looks about sixty-eight. Is your high school show really worth more than the complete dissolution of my best friend’s life?” Emily was too young to realize that Marla was merely testing her, or that Marla actually hated Karen, for that matter. She had cried to her father, who explained to her that he would still be at the show, and many kids at the art show weren’t going to have either parent there, and many people’s parents are dead anyway, so what was the big deal? Picasso’s parents never showed up to cheer him on, and he did just fine. Sure enough, once Emily had accepted that her mother wasn’t coming, Marla graciously announced the night before the show, that after a great deal of reflection, she was putting Emily’s needs before Karen’s and would be attending the art show, because if she didn’t, God knows what kind of resentment Emily might hold for years to come. Emily was embarrassed that it took her ten years to discover that this was her mother’s go-to move to get attention when someone else was in the spotlight.

  Diana called Maddyson to try on her bridesmaid dress, and Emily sat next to Lauren on one of the love seats, laying her dress over the arm and smoothing it out. She whispered to Lauren, “Have you heard from Dad?”

  “He accidentally dropped a location pin at the Ritz Carlton. I was going to tell him, but then I thought, fuck Dad.”

  “Fuck Dad? Mom cheated on him.” She hated that she had to say these words. Cheating didn’t even seem like it did the affair justice. Cheating was a one-night stand, something people did in college. This was something else, and it had presumably gone on for years.

  “That’s not necessarily true. We still have no idea what she was referring to. They’re friends, anything else is speculation. For all we know, Dr. Leibowitz might not be attracted to Mom. He might not be straight. He may not even identify as male.”

  “I think the beard kind of gives the ‘male’ part away.”

  “Still, society is way too harsh on adulterous women. I’m not saying it’s okay for her to cheat on Dad, but there are two sides to every story. Maybe Mom fell in love with someone else because Dad was a shitty husband. Maybe Dad is just possessive and jealous, and Mom didn’t even cheat. You know, so many men just want to control ‘their women’ because they fear that if they allowed them to do what they wanted, they’d finally realize their true power.”

  “Okay, well, I don’t think Mom screwing our old shrink is particularly empowering of her, but agree to disagree.” She barely wanted to look at her mother, and now that extended to Lauren. How could anyone be so cavalier?

  Diana was pinching loose fabric around Maddyson’s bust and chatting with Marla. “I told Jerry, yes, I’m happy he’s made a friend, but it really is inconsiderate of him to rush off with Michael to East Hampton every other weekend while I’m stuck taking the dog to the vet and dealing with the plumbers. Trust me, I like my alone time too, but it seems like he’s just trying to get out of—”

  “Having sex with you?”

  “What? No, he’s just trying to run away from adult responsibilities. Guess who had to get the dog’s anal glands expressed and weed the garden all by herself? Meanwhile he’s at some tiki bar with Michael sharing a scorpion bowl.”

  The door swung open and Jason appeared, wide smile on his face. “Ladies...”

  Marla frowned. “What are you doing here?”

  “Wanted to show my support.”

  Diana smiled at Jason. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “This is Jason,” Emily said. “He’s my brother.”

  “Ah! Little brother?”

  “Actually, he’s seven years older.”

  “I’m terrible at guessing ages. Okay, we’re ready to take a look at your dress.”

  Alone in the fitting room, Emily took off her shorts and tank top, kicked off her shoes, and looked at herself in the three mirrors. Under the harsh lights, she could see herself from the front and both sides. She didn’t look as bad as she had expected. She had a dimple here, a lump there, and two heaving boobs that made her feel like a cow, but she looked nice. She had to think about the attributes of her body that had nothing to do with attracting men. At the very least, she had successfully conceived a child. That had to count for something. Unfortunately, having children was something a lot of people could do, including idiots and assholes, so her sense of pride in having gotten knocked up quickly dissipated.

  “Emily, hurry up in there!” she heard Marla shout. “Are you staring at your nose in the mirror again? I’ve told you a million times, big noses add character.”

  “Stop it, Mom. I’m just getting my dress on.”

  She pulled the dress off the hanger and stepped into it, careful not to rip the delicate white silk. She tried to zip up the back, but the zipper wouldn’t budge.

  “Um... Diana?” she called out. “Can you help zip me up?”

  Diana parted the curtains and tugged at Emily’s zipper. The dress stopped zipping right at her bust. “Ah, did you gain a little weight?” Diana asked.

  “Maybe... Is there anything we can do?”

  “I can take it out in the bust a little. A lot of women would dream of gaining weight in the bust. Your hips seem to fit fine!”

  Emily gulped. The last thing she needed was to draw attention to her growing boobs. After all those years of wanting them to get attention, now she dreaded it. If Marla found out she was pregnant before David did, it would be a guaranteed shit storm.

>   “Voilà!” Diana said, opening the curtains. Emily faced the others in her dress for the first time. Gabrielle began to tear up, raising her hands to her mouth.

  “You...look...stunning! Doesn’t she, Jennifer?”

  “She looks amazing,” said Jennifer, eyes on her phone. She looked up. “Oh yeah,” she added. “You really do. Sorry, I’m texting Kevin.”

  “Mom?” Emily asked, turning to Marla. All she wanted was a sign of approval. Even a nod would do.

  “Well,” said Marla. “You look a bit like you came out of a porno, but otherwise, fine.”

  “Mom, no porno features a woman in a floor-length wedding dress.”

  “The boobs,” Marla said. “They’re just too much. You looked so much classier in the pictures you sent me from San Francisco. Why is it so tight all of a sudden?”

  “It looks like she gained some weight,” Diana said. “Nothing to worry about, I can take out the bust a little.”

  “I’m not paying for that,” Marla said frostily. “Emily chose to gain weight.”

  “Mom, you said you weren’t paying for alterations if I lost weight.”

  “Implicit in that statement was that I would not pay for alterations resulting from a weight change in either direction.”

  Gabrielle stood up. “I’ll pay. Emily, consider it part of my wedding gift to you.”

  “Thanks, Gabrielle.”

  “Let’s not paper over this,” Marla said. “I think there’s a bit of an elephant in the room.”

  “And which elephant would that be, Mom?” Emily said.

  “I think everyone here is very worried about your unhealthy relationship with food.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t mean to speak for your friends, but I think it’s clear to all of us that you have an eating disorder.”

  Gabrielle opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it.

  “Mom, you haven’t eaten anything other than yogurt in twenty years,” Emily said.