Marla does all the decorating—after one half-hearted attempt at stringing a birthday banner across the doorway, Tilly disappears into the woods. She doesn’t return until after the first of the guests have arrived, her white tights spattered up the calves with mud.
* * *
At the birthday girl’s insistence, they open presents first. Tilly sits cross-legged on the couch and plows robotically through the stack of gifts, ripping the sparkly paper off in fistfuls and dumping each toy into a pile at her feet. Marla reminds her, “Say thank you, Tilly,” and Tilly echoes, “Thank you, Tilly,” in a grating monotone.
Next up is cake and ice cream. The night before, eager to retreat into her improvised shelter of wine and Netflix, Marla hadn’t waited long enough for the cake to cool. As a result, the canned frosting she smeared over the Duncan Hines pudding cake has gone melty, turning the blue piped lettering of happy bday tilly into an illegible smudge. An attempt to use the flat edge of a knife to turn the words into an arty marbled swirl only makes everything worse.
Marla is in the kitchen, staring down at the mess she has created, when someone comes up behind her and a pair of short-nailed hands curl around her waist. “Hey, love,” Carol says. “The natives are getting restless. How you holding up?”
“Look at this!” Marla cries, nearly stabbing Carol in the eye with the frosting-encrusted butter knife. “It’s a disaster!”
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” says Carol. She pauses. “Admittedly, it’s not that great. But Tilly can suck it up. And look, I stopped for groceries on the way over here,” Carol says. “I just had a sense.” She opens an oversized Whole Foods canvas tote bag and places a can of dark chocolate frosting on the kitchen counter.
Marla, contemplating it, sinks deeper into despair. What in the everloving fuck?
“Here,” Carol says, gently taking the knife from Marla and opening the can. “We can just . . . right?”
Marla nods. From the other room comes the sound of Tilly screeching: Stop touching that! It’s mine! but she can’t bring herself to deal with it. Not yet.
“I got this,” she says, grabbing the knife back from Carol. “Can you go see what they’re spazzing out about in there?”
* * *
After slapping on the extra layer of frosting, Marla pokes eleven regular birthday candles around the periphery of the cake. In the center, for good luck, she inserts a final candle—a novelty toy she found in the bargain bin at the grocery store. The candle is shaped like a fat, yellow-petaled flower bud, and when Marla touches the flame of her lighter to the wick, it unfolds jerkily and starts to spin.
“Okay!” she calls out. “Cake time!”
She hefts the cake platter in both hands and backs out the kitchen door.
* * *
The guests have assembled around the dining room table, all crowned with pointy birthday hats except for Tilly, who wears a silver polka-dotted bow stuck in the middle of her head. When Marla enters with the cake, the novelty candle hissing and sparking like a tiny firework, an astounded Tilly claps her hands to her face. “It’s beautiful!” she cries. The guests launch into the opening lines of “Happy Birthday” at the moment that the novelty candle begins chirping out the notes of an unfamiliar tune. Everyone stops, confused, as the candle toodles on—deedledeedledeedledah—until finally Kezia bellows: “Happy Birthday to YOU!” and they all shout down the candle and march through the birthday song.
When they’ve finished, Tilly blows out the regular candles with one explosive, only slightly spitty ssssssshhhhhh, but no matter how much she blows on it, the novelty candle will not go out, nor will it stop playing its infuriating song, so eventually, in order to prevent the cake from being entirely drenched in Tilly’s spit, Marla takes the candle back into the kitchen and runs it under the sink, which extinguishes the flame but doesn’t shut it up. She throws it on the floor and stomps on it but it keeps fucking playing and even after she shoves it deep into the garbage, she can still hear it tinkling faintly, stubbornly—deedledeedledeedleDAH!
* * *
“Mama,” Tilly asks when Marla returns to the dining room. “Even though I didn’t blow out the good-luck candle, did I still get my birthday wish?”
“I think so,” Marla says. “That thing was a piece of junk.”
“Good,” says Tilly. She mushes her ice cream into her cake with her fork and takes a giant bite. “Wanna know something?”
“Of course, sweetheart,” says Marla absently. Steve is cooing at The Girlfriend, bouncing her on his knee and petting her curly hair. If the two of them start making out, Marla swears to God, she will shove the cake knife straight through The Girlfriend’s throat.
“I think you’ll like what I wished for, Mama.” Tilly sucks the frosting off her fingers, wriggles happily, and adds, “I wished for something mean.”
* * *
Here are the rules of Sardines, which can be found in any book of children’s games: Everyone closes their eyes, except for one person, who is the Hider. While everyone else counts down from one hundred, the Hider goes and hides. After they’ve finished counting, the first person to find the Hider hides with them. The next person to find the Hider hides alongside the other two. And so on and so on until everyone except for one person is crammed into the same hiding place, squished as tightly together as a pack of sardines.
Here are Tilly’s special birthday rules:
Tilly gets to pick the Hider.
You can’t hide in the house.
Everybody has to play.
* * *
Tilly leads the guests outside, climbs up on a lawn chair, and looks down at them. Marla thinks she’s acting with the benevolent condescension of a queen. “Now I’m going to pick the Hider,” she says. She lifts her finger and lets it drift, a daydreamy expression on her face. Her finger bobs briefly over Kezia, Carol, and Steve. Then it jerks and dips.
“You,” she declares, pointing at The Girlfriend. “You’re the Hider. That means you have to go and hide.”
Everybody bows their heads as Tilly counts backward from one hundred. From beneath half-lowered lids, Marla watches as The Girlfriend stands frozen, looking panicked, until the countdown reaches eighty, at which point she sprints off down the hill.
“3-2-1 WE’RE COMING!” Tilly screams, and everybody scatters.
Marla creeps around the porch. Once she is sure that no one’s watching, she ducks through the back door into the house. Sorry, Till-Bill, but no way in hell is she going to run the risk of finding The Girlfriend and having to curl up next to her in some grimy hole in the woods. (She also takes the opportunity to do some sneaking. Some seeking. And some swapping. Hey, it’s just a prank. A harmless joke. Just a small taste of sticky-sweet revenge.)
Steve isn’t a big wine drinker, but The Girlfriend must be, because during her expedition, Marla discovers a cabinet full of Two-Buck Chuck. She grabs a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, considers hunting for ice cubes, and decides she’s lazy enough to drink it warm. Once she’s finished exploring, she kicks off her shoes, puts up her feet, and settles down on the couch with the remains of the cake.
Marla is halfway through the wine when she looks up and sees her daughter in the doorway. Tilly’s arms hang heavily by her sides, and the afternoon sun is reflecting off her glasses, rendering them eerily opaque.
“Jesus, Till, you scared me!” Marla cries. “How long have you been standing there?”
“What are you doing in here, Mama?” Tilly asks. “Didn’t you hear me when I said everybody had to play?”
“I did. I’m sorry. I’ll come join in a second. I just . . . needed a little bit of a break.”
Tilly shuffles farther into the room, a dazed expression on her face. She entwines her hand in Marla’s and presses her damp forehead against Marla’s neck. “Mama,” she says. “I was wondering. Do you like Layla and Mitzi and Francine?”
Hypnotized by the sensation of Tilly’s cold fingers drawing circles on her palm, Marla almost blurts out,
Who are they? before coming back to Earth. “Actually, Till, not really. I know they’re your friends, but I think they’re kind of cliquish.”
“What’s cliquish?”
“The way they always stick together. I think it’s kind of mean.”
“What about their mamas? Do you like them?”
Marla sighs and frees her hand, then licks her thumb to rub a flake of chocolate frosting off of Tilly’s chin. “I don’t know. They’re fine. There’s nothing wrong with them. But if I had to choose, right now, I guess I’d say no I don’t.”
“And what about Dad and—”
Before Marla can say anything, Tilly answers for her. “I know. You hate them, right?”
Tilly’s adult nose—Steve’s nose—arrived on her face a few months ago, knocking all her other features out of whack. She’s got a greasy sprinkle of new acne sprouting along her half-plucked hairline, and a puffy brown mole has popped up on the side of her neck. She sweats through her deodorant by midafternoon, even the Men’s Sports Prescription Strength Marla left last week, without comment, on her bed. At random times of day, her breath turns dank and meaty, and Marla finds herself opening the car window, without comment. Her breasts appear to be growing at two slightly different rates, so none of the training bras Marla buys her ever fit. The further Tilly lurches into gruesome adolescence, the more she insists on acting like a baby, trying to recapture a cuteness she never possessed. Maddening, tic-ridden, love-hungry Tilly; beloved Tilly, who, despite Marla’s best efforts to protect her, at times seems not only destined but determined to be chewed up by the world’s sharp teeth.
Marla knows the kind of thing she’s supposed to say—Of course not, baby or Hate is not the nicest word or I will always love your dad because he gave me you, but all the necessary platitudes shrivel on her tongue. So instead, she says nothing, and Tilly nods. “You make a lot of mistakes, but you’re still a good mama,” she says. She hugs Marla fiercely, plants a sloppy kiss right in her ear, and scoops up a handful of cake.
“Tilly?” Marla calls out as her daughter leaves the room.
“Yeah?”
“What did you wish for, earlier?”
Tilly’s cake-ringed grin is glisteningly lovely. “Oh, Mama. Pretty soon you’ll see.”
* * *
Leave Tilly to her plotting. Leave Marla to her wine. Imagine yourself, instead, as The Girlfriend. Here at your boyfriend’s daughter’s birthday party. Hosted by your boyfriend’s daughter’s mother. Attended by your boyfriend’s daughter’s mother’s friends. Who have all come parading into your home, hell-bent on proving how much they dislike you. And it is your home! It’s not like you’re some party crasher. You live here! The mother, refusing to say your name or look straight at you. Your boyfriend, embarrassed, squirming out from underneath your touch. And the daughter, jabbing her pointy finger in your face. You. You’re the Hider. How can those words not ring in your ears like an accusation? How can you help but feel, as you flee down the hill in your clunky espadrilles, at least a little bit like—prey?
To hide too well is to extend your misery. Only when the game is over can the party end. But to hide too poorly—to duck under the picnic table, to crouch behind the first big tree that you see—is to fail at your assigned role. You’re the Hider. That means you have to go and hide. To be found too soon is to annoy Tilly, to let down Steve, to give the mothers one more excuse to judge. And that is why you leave the sunlit lawn and enter the dark forest, the low brush scratching at your ankles, the bare thorns catching at your skirt.
Over a hill and down again, across a small dried riverbed, through an opening in the trees. You find a ring of stumps high enough to shield you, as long as you curl up and pull your knees against your chest. Quiet. Birdsong. Scent of crushed pine needles and rotting leaves.
It’s peaceful here, you tell yourself. Listening to the sound of your ragged breath slowly softening, becoming even. Daydreaming about what you’ll do when the party’s over.
Waiting to be found.
* * *
Marla closes her eyes and opens them again, and when she does, she wakes into her dream. The dream in which everyone has disappeared except for Tilly. How much time has passed? An hour, a day, an epoch? Impossible to say. It’s early evening, she knows that much. The sun has burst into red flame on the far side of the forest, and all the shadows are running wild. Tangled, deepest black. Stretching every which way.
The light-struck windows of the house have gone as blank as Tilly’s glasses. The birthday banner dangles from the door, an unfurling tongue. Marla ventures outside, where the birthday girl, crowned by a silver ribbon, is standing—waiting?—floating?—down where the lawn meets the woods.
* * *
Sardines is a game of overlapping bodies. Arms wedged up against hip bones, butts plopping into laps. One person’s hair sticks between your teeth; another person’s finger jams into your ear. Whose leg is whose? Whose fart was that? Who’s moving? Who’s talking? Stop squirming! Get your foot out of my crotch! Get your nose out of my armpit! Stop elbowing me in the boob, Francine! My elbow’s nowhere near your stupid boob, you jerk, that’s Layla’s kneecap. No, it’s not! Shut up! Shhhhh, girls, Tilly’s coming! Oh no, my hand is sticking out. We can’t fit! It’s way too cramped! No, we can do it. Get closer. Get closer. Get closer until every single piece of you is touching a part of someone else. Push and squish and smoosh and squash and squeeze.
* * *
Tilly drifts in among the trees and Marla follows her, her footsteps muffled by a bed of pine needles, the soft mulch of arboreal decay. The vaginal lips of a pink lady’s slipper peep out from behind some bushes; a rubber shred of burst balloon, studded by a plump red navel knot, dangles from a tree branch, and the corpse of a crushed mushroom gleams sad and cold and pale.
* * *
Wait.
Before the finding starts.
There’s one last thing you need to know.
Tilly’s good-luck candle grants wishes.
It grants wishes to the lonely. The awkward. The insulted. The smelly. To the angry, the tortured, the hate-filled, the powerless. To daughters and mothers. To mothers and daughters. To Marlas and Tillies. To Tillies and Marlas. To Tarlas and Millies, to tothers and marlies. To maughters and dothers. To Marlyandarlaandollyandlaughterandlillyandothers.
In the woods, by the pit, in the darkness, together, mother and daughter, Tilly and Marla, hear no noise but the wind in the leaves, heartbeats and breath.
Shhhh!
Listen.
These are the sounds of wishes being granted—
(Mean wishes. Bad ones.)
Screaming. Lots and lots of screaming—
But muffled. Like someone is screaming into a pillow.
Or maybe into something a little more elastic.
Like a rubber balloon.
Like bubble gum.
Like skin.
* * *
Surprise! It turns out that with the help of just a little birthday magic, hatred can be captured like a ray of sunlight. Hatred can be magnified, refracted, aimed. And a group of party guests who are clustered together like ants on a sidewalk (like sardines in a can) find themselves bathed in the rays of a mysterious force, one that is no less powerful for the fact that it’s unseen.
The guests’ smooth collective skin grows warm, then hot, then hotter.
Their bright hair begins to smolder. And then to smoke, and char.
Their trembling, pulsing, pumping, wheezing bodies begin to sweat. Then scorch. Then singe. Then cook. Then burst. Then melt. And then to fuse.
Their overlapping bodies become one body. Their many brains become one confused and panicked brain. Instead of many separate people they become one seething mass, a terrified and maddened organism, a puddle of sentient, erupting flesh, a dozen-eyed and many-limbed thing.
* * *
At the top of a hill, under garish moonlight, Marla and Tilly hold each other tightly, as, beneath them, Tilly’s b
irthday monster jerks and shakes and gnashes its teeth; howls, and tries to tear itself apart, and screams.
I’m scared I don’t know what’s happening I want my mommy my baby who are you what are you doing in my head in my body I’m not you’re in mine are you no is my mommy no I’m Francine no I’m Carol no Kezia baby it’s Mommy how can this please make it stop no I’m Steve I am Stacey I’m Mitzi I’m Layla I don’t understand I’m so scared I don’t like this please somebody help me I can’t move I can’t stop moving oh God it’s where did that come from why can’t I see I can see everything what are these noises who is this what is this what am I who did this it hurts please make it stop it hurts me oh baby I’m sorry who is this what are you are me . . .
Dumbstruck, Tilly stares at the monster. Her eyes are glowing as though her skull is crammed full of a thousand birthday candles, and a trickle of drool is running down her chin.
Amidst the writhing limbs and shrieking heads, The Girlfriend’s face briefly distinguishes itself from the others. She is wild-eyed and mud-streaked, her pert nose is crushed and bloody, and there’s a jagged gap where half of her front tooth used to be.
Tilly’s birthday party has become her birthday present—a monster that twitches and throbs and gurgles instead of making fun of people. A monster that drools and spasms and suffers and does not tease. A monster that wails and gibbers instead of cheating and divorcing; that writhes and shrieks and flails in agony instead of leaving the people it’s supposed to love and care for all alone.
“Mama?” Tilly whispers, astounded, to her mother. “Do you think birthday wishes can ever be unwished? Like maybe next year on my birthday? Or maybe even now?”
You Know You Want This Page 4