Family and Other Catastrophes

by Alexandra Borowitz

  “One day you’ll be happy to get carded,” Emily said.

  “I get carded all the time,” Jennifer said. “It’s so embarrassing.”

  Emily looked at her. “Why is that embarrassing?”

  “It’s just... I’m a doctor, I don’t want everyone thinking I’m eighteen.”

  Maddyson turned to her. “Don’t worry. I’m eighteen, and you definitely don’t look like anyone my age.”

  Jennifer smiled weakly. “Good to know.”

  They were in front of a Lower East Side bar called Establishment, its name engraved on a black sign above the front door, adorned with white engravings of a goat’s head and a hammer. The women walked inside. It was dark, narrow and cramped, despite the absence of many customers. The wallpaper had been intentionally printed to create the appearance of moldy, chipped paint. There was a small loft above the bar with an old-fashioned wooden railing. Behind the railing was a random collection of antique spinning wheels.

  “This place is weird,” Jennifer said.

  “A jar of mayo exploded in here,” Lauren said.

  “Ew, where?” Jennifer said.

  “I mean all the white people. Fucking white people.”

  “Look at all the drinks!” Gabrielle pointed to the blackboard behind the bar. The names and ingredients of the drinks had been written in what looked like Victorian cursive.

  Maddyson walked up to the bar. “I’ll have a Rutherford Wisp.”

  “That’ll be eighteen dollars,” the bartender said. He was a husky man in his early thirties, wearing a gray tweed newsboy cap. He had a brown handlebar mustache and a saggy hole in his left ear where an earring used to be.

  “Eighteen dollars? Is that a joke?”

  “Our drinks are artisanal, miss,” he said flatly. “If you want a Bud, you can go to O’Flannigan’s.”

  “What’s in a Rutherford Wisp anyway?” she asked, pulling cash from her cross-body bag.

  “Chartreuse, lemon rind, bay leaf, lavender honey, grapefruit bitters, gin, elderberry liqueur, vermouth and egg white froth,” he said, filling a shaker with ice.

  Maddyson watched him make the drink. “Uh, can you add extra alcohol?”

  “I can’t alter the recipe. It’s one of our rules.” He pointed to a brass sign behind the bar that read No Drinks Will Be Altered, next to a little engraving of a top hat.

  Gabrielle joined Maddyson at the bar. “I’ll just have a glass of water.”

  “That’ll be seven dollars, ma’am.”

  “For water?”

  “Our water is pumped from an artesian well, then home infused. We steep it in lavender and cucumber peel before cooling it.”

  “You don’t have just...regular tap water?”

  “No.” The bartender was starting to look irritated.

  “I see a sink right behind you.”

  “That’s not for drinking.”

  The other women sat down at the bar. Jennifer ordered a Foxtrot Julep, a greenish-white drink with a mandarin orange rind floating on the surface, and Lauren ordered Priestly Savage, the home-brewed beer.

  “I made that beer,” the bartender said. “Let me know what you think.”

  “It’s delicious. Is this your place?”

  “Hah. That’s funny. If I had a bar, it would never be like this place. It’s way too commercial. Not curated enough. I’m actually trying to start my own food truck, but with all craft beers, no food. What’s your name?”

  “Lauren.”

  “Will. You from around here?”

  “I live in Greenpoint.”

  “Cool. I buy my spurs there. Hey, while you’re finishing that up, I’ll make you a Wilford-Humphrey on the house. How could I resist a woman who looks like Bettie Page meets awesome meets wow?” Lauren blushed.

  “What world do we live in,” Jennifer whispered to Emily, while staring at Lauren, “where we go to a bar and Lauren is the one getting hit on?”

  “He’s a hipster,” she whispered back. “I can’t explain hipsters. Maybe he’s hitting on her ironically?”

  Jennifer leaned over the bar and put her arms close to her breasts to push them together. “That drink sounds literally amazing,” she said. “Perfect for the bachelorette party.” While Jennifer complained to no end about “not being taken seriously” in her line of work, she was more than happy to use her sexuality to get anything, even just attention.

  “This is a bachelorette party? Who’s the bride?” The bartender turned to Lauren. “Not you, I hope.”

  “My sister,” she said, indicating Emily.

  “Forget this,” Jennifer said, returning her breasts to their normal position. “Let’s dance.” She pulled Emily off her chair and brought her to the middle of the floor. Jennifer started rocking her hips back and forth to a Kanye West song. Emily was surprised that the bar even played rap, let alone mainstream rap. Was Kanye already ironic? She had expected 1920s music to start playing and for some man in a bowler hat and monocle to emerge from the janitorial closet and instruct everyone to do the Charleston.

  Lauren

  Will handed Lauren her drink. “The Wilford-Humphrey. Mint, seltzer, gin, crushed rosemary ice, lemon bitters and maple syrup with a dollop of extra virgin olive oil.”

  She took a sip. “This is amazing.”

  “So what’s your story?”

  “I’m a blogger for Cunt.”

  “I think my sister reads that,” he said, totally unfazed. “It’s a feminist magazine, right?”

  “I’m one of their head bloggers. Ask her if she’s heard of Lauren Glass.”

  “Are you married?”

  “Oh, no.” Technically it was true.

  “Didn’t think so. Personally, I don’t even believe in marriage.” He stared directly into her eyes. Eye contact was so terrifying and arousing at the same time, when it lasted more than a second.

  “Why not? I mean, neither do I, but I’m curious.” She took another swig of beer.

  “I don’t think a person’s body can belong to another person.”

  “I agree,” she said, sipping her drink. “I mean, my vagina is my vagina and I can put it on whatever penis, vagina or ambiguous genitalia I want.”

  “So well said,” he said, nodding. “I can see why you became a writer.”

  Emily

  Emily looked at her phone. It was past midnight and still no response from David. Maybe he had seen her text but didn’t think it warranted a response. She was starting to worry that something had happened to him. Surely the other men in the group would have told her, but what if something happened to all of them? What if they got into the middle of some Sharks vs. Jets–style dance war?

  “I need to text David something better,” she told Jennifer.

  “Do not tell him about the stripper. I guarantee you he’s doing something worse. He’s probably getting a lap dance right now. Men are pigs sometimes. Ugh, I hope Kevin isn’t getting one. Would he get one?”

  “I don’t know. I barely know him and neither do you. Hey, can you help me out?”

  “With what?”

  “I need to send David a sexy picture. Come to the bathroom with me and take it so the angle looks good? Every time I try to take a sexy one of myself, it’s either in the mirror so it’s all fuzzy, or it’s at a weird angle and it makes me look lopsided.”

  “You are crazy.”

  “I know, I know. But if he’s at a strip club I need him to be thinking of me, not those girls with the fake boobs. I hear they’re all prostitutes too.”

  “Ugh, now you’re making me worry about Kevin.”

  “Come on.”

  Emily took her into the bathroom and locked the door.

  “I’m just going to take off the top part of my dress,” she said. “Can you snap a good picture of my boobs? Don’t include m
y face, just in case he gets hacked.”

  Jennifer laughed. Emily rolled down the top of her dress and unsnapped her bra, letting her bloated pregnancy boobs tumble out.

  “Your boobs are huge,” Jennifer marveled. “I am so jealous.”

  Emily knew this was the point where she was supposed to compliment Jennifer on something, or tell her that her boobs were just as nice, but she didn’t have the energy for that. “What? They’re the same as they’ve always been.”

  “I’m still jealous. I have no boobs, but I have this giant Nicki Minaj booty I’m trying to get rid of.” She pointed to her butt, which was as small as a runway model’s. Emily wasn’t sure if that was a humblebrag or a “Please tell me I have a small butt” plea, since she wasn’t sure if Jennifer was aware that big butts were now the societal ideal, so she didn’t say anything.

  Jennifer snapped a photo of Emily. Jennifer inspected it and started swiping.

  “What are you doing?” Emily asked.

  “Adding filters. Don’t you want to look tanner?”

  “Give me that. Thanks.” Emily took the phone and texted the photo to David before deleting it. She didn’t want drunk Jennifer accidentally texting it to a coworker.

  They heard a noise coming from the other side of the wall. It sounded mechanical at first, but it was followed by a rhythmic pushing sound, grunts at two-second intervals and then moaning, screaming. Emily hadn’t heard anyone having sex since college. She turned to Jennifer and put her hand over her mouth in a schoolgirl giggle.

  “Someone is literally having sex in a bar,” Jennifer said.

  “Weirdos,” Emily said, laughing and putting her phone away.

  They left the bathroom, past a line of irritated women waiting to use it. “Oh my gosh,” Jennifer said. She pointed to the men’s bathroom, where Will, the bartender, was staggering out. His denim vest was draped over his hairy forearm and his newsboy cap was askew. Behind him, her mascara melting and her lipstick smeared, was Lauren.

  “Lauren?” Emily shouted her name, hoping on some level that it wasn’t Lauren after all, just some woman who looked exactly like her.

  Lauren looked mortified. She stumbled forward, wrapping her arms around Emily’s neck.

  “I did a horrible thing,” she moaned into Emily’s hair.

  DAY 6

  Emily

  THE NEXT MORNING, Emily stripped in front of her bathroom mirror to see if she was showing. Her boobs were ridiculous, that was for sure, but she couldn’t tell if her stomach was big because of the baby or because she hadn’t been able to take a dump since she arrived at her parents’ house. She had gotten into quite a routine for this: 10:00 a.m. like clockwork in her office bathroom after eating a banana and drinking a cup of hot black tea. It was so predictable, she was fairly certain even Linda knew about it. Outside of those precise conditions, there was no way she’d be able to go. She couldn’t shit on weekends unless she made herself a particular smoothie of pineapple, mint and parsley. David thought this was for her skin, and she didn’t correct him.

  She turned around to check out her stomach from the other side, and she heard a splash. Her elbow had tipped her makeup bag off the sink and into the toilet. She screamed as she saw her precious Tom Ford lipstick sinking to the bottom of the toilet bowl.

  “What the hell?” Lauren was outside the bathroom door. “Emily, are you okay?”

  “All my makeup is ruined!”

  Lauren opened the door. She saw the makeup in the toilet and shrugged. “Just rinse it off.”

  “Rinse it off? Are you kidding me? First of all, eyeshadow can’t be ‘rinsed off’ because it’s a powder and the whole point is not to get it wet. Second, it’s all contaminated now!”

  “Contaminated? Come on. You, David, Matt and I are the only ones who have been using that toilet.”

  “It’s still contaminated. Just because I have sex with David doesn’t mean I want to coat my eyelashes in his poop germs.”

  “A cell phone has more germs on it than a toilet seat.”

  “There’s no fucking way that’s true. You’re just like those people who say a dog’s asshole is cleaner than a human’s mouth because it sounds too crazy to be true, so it must be true.”

  “I’m serious! And it’s not a dog’s asshole being cleaner than a human’s mouth, it’s a dog’s mouth being cleaner than a human’s mouth. And it is true.”

  “Dogs lick their own assholes, so that’s definitely not true.”

  “Okay, fine, Emily. Do you want to borrow my makeup for the rehearsal dinner?”

  Emily sighed. “No. You only wear bright and dark colors, and I like the neutral look, plus...please don’t get offended by this, but it’s unsanitary to share makeup.”

  “With your own sister?”

  “What does that have to do with anything? Just because you’re my sister, you couldn’t ever possibly have a skin infection or be a carrier of MRSA?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Fine. I’ll drive you to Sephora. You seriously need to learn how to drive, by the way. This is fucking dysfunctional.”

  * * *

  They had been driving for a few minutes before Lauren spoke up. “Well, I feel like I have to bring up the gorilla.”

  “What gorilla?”

  “Oh, right. The ‘eight hundred pound’ gorilla. I try not to involve weight in the idiom because it’s yet another microaggression against people of size.”

  “Okay.”

  “Obviously I don’t want you telling Matt about the bartender.”

  “I wasn’t going to. Are you going to?”

  “Sure. Because he’s my keeper and he needs to hear every detail of what I do sexually.”

  “Well, yeah, kind of. You cheated on him.”

  “You really shouldn’t judge. What’s worse—me having consensual sex, which will never affect Matt if he doesn’t find out, or you keeping a pregnancy a secret from David?”

  “Those things are not at all comparable. It’s not like I spermjacked him.”

  “What the hell is spermjacking?” Lauren was so annoyed she almost ran over a squirrel. She swerved at the last second to avoid it, causing Emily to feel the need to throw up again.

  “Jason told me about it. It’s basically when a woman wants to score a ‘high-value male,’ as he puts it, so she pokes a hole in the condom or tells him she’s on birth control when she isn’t.”

  “What a crock of shit. Pickup artists think women are so diabolical because they’re sociopaths themselves.”

  “Yeah. They probably do heinous things like cheat on their partners without remorse.”

  “You know what? That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m doing you a fucking favor and all you’re doing is being a misogynistic hypocrite.” Spit shot out of her mouth and sprayed across the windshield.

  “Misogynistic? You really think I would have a different opinion about this if you were a man?”

  “It’s not about your reaction to it. It’s about the policing of women’s bodies. There is no historical precedent for policing men’s bodies, so when you criticize a male cheater, you aren’t reinforcing centuries of oppression.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “I don’t care what you think is insane.”

  “Then why the hell did you bring this up in the first place?”

  Lauren sighed. “Maybe because I was hoping to start a dialogue on exactly these issues. I wanted you to understand all the political and social factors that went into what I did with Will.”

  Emily closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Let’s just buy some makeup.”

  When they got to Sephora, two sales associates greeted them: a pretty woman in her early thirties with dark brown skin, vibrant red lipstick and black hair in a sleek ponytail; and a short South Asian man with spiked hair wearing blue eyeliner.


  “Welcome to Sephora!” the man said. “How can we help you? We have a plethora of age-fighting foundation in our Clinique section.” He directed this pitch to Emily.

  “I need new makeup for my rehearsal dinner. I dropped all my makeup in the toilet by accident.”

  “Well,” he said. “If you’re just looking to replace your basics, I am happy to direct you to some of our highest-rated brands.”

  “We’re on a budget,” she said.

  “Now we’re on a budget?” Lauren said. “After the cost of your dress?”

  “The dress is important to me. Please, just quit it. You keep nagging me about the dress.”

  “Well, I’ll stop when you stop judging me for every damn thing I do.”

  “I get it,” the man said. “Weddings are stressful for everyone!”

  “Especially us,” Lauren said.

  His face softened and he smiled. “Wow. You guys are adorable. You make the cutest couple.”

  “We’re sisters,” Emily said. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Why are you so offended by the suggestion?” Lauren asked. “You think there’s something embarrassing about being a lesbian?” Emily recognized the look on her face. She would have to be careful not to accidentally dangle any more argument bait in front of her for the rest of the day.

  “Of course not! I’m just...not.” She was particularly afraid of being homophobic in front of the presumably gay male Sephora sales associate, but she knew Lauren would be quick to remind her that “tons” of straight men wore eyeliner and worked at Sephora. It would be a repeat of the “tons of straight men wear thongs” disaster of 2010.

  “Sorry about that,” said the female sales associate. “Don’t listen to Eddie. He has no filter. Let us know if you need anything while you shop.”

  They ventured farther into the store. Women huddled around the tiny mirrors, applying goopy, used-up samples of sparkling lip gloss to their chapped lips. Emily never understood the people who used the samples on anything other than their wrists. Either they were all trying to inoculate themselves against the flu, or their understanding of germs was that of Medieval peasants.

  “The smell in here is sickening,” Lauren said. “I’d be careful if I were you. Perfume can be toxic, and you’re breathing for two now.”