The Birthday Girl

by Melissa de la Cruz

  Vanities

  October 19

  The Present

  11:35 P.M.

  So the Vanity Fair photographer finally arrived when the party was almost winding down? It was practically midnight! They would be heading out to the first after-party soon—the drag queens and their raucous game of bingo. Ellie tamped down her irritation, as it would lead to frown lines and wrinkles in the subsequent photographs and there were some things even injectables couldn’t hide.

  “Hi, I’m Ellie Stinson,” she said, dropping the “de Florent” because Todd was standing right next to her. “Welcome to our home,” she said, the consummate hostess.

  “You’re the birthday girl?”

  “That’s me!”

  The photographer was a rumpled, distracted older gentleman in a safari vest. Ellie knew the type; she had worked with many a lensman during her short-lived modeling career. There was the lecher who’d gotten into the business to ogle pretty girls and ask them to take off their clothes (most of whom would later be fired during the industry’s MeToo movement); then there was the artist type who was annoyed he’d never made it in the galleries and was stuck shooting stupid bitches in clothes; and there was the celebrity stalker, who was in it for the proximity to boldfaced names (most of those started out as paparazzi); and the actual photojournalists, guys who had gone to war zones and shot famine and violence but had gotten too old, or were close to retirement, and so ended up doing party photographs for the newswires and the photo agencies and the occasional glossy magazine.

  This was one of them.

  “Can I just have a moment to touch up my makeup?” she asked. “Do you want to take a few shots of the atmosphere? And Madison here can get you a guest list if you want to shoot some people now.”

  The photographer—let’s call him Gary since Ellie couldn’t be bothered to find out his name—removed a crumpled piece of paper from his vest. “Um, I think this is for Vanities, so really I don’t need that many pictures.”

  “Vanities? I thought this was for a four-page profile. Madison!”

  “Yes?”

  “I thought this was a profile. Isn’t someone going to interview me later?”

  “Um, they haven’t decided yet.”

  “PARDON?” asked Ellie, who had learned to use that word only after hanging out with Blake, who visibly shuddered every time she asked, “What?”

  “They changed editors. They fired the one who ordered the profile, and the new editor doesn’t know what she wants to do yet,” Madison explained.

  Ellie seethed. All this expense and effort and all she would show for it was one dinky photo in the collage of photos in the middle of the magazine that no one looked at? If she was even that lucky! Okay, fine, but maybe there was still a chance she could get a profile? At the very least, she would settle for being the featured celebrity in My Stuff, which was at least a half page and she could plug her line, since Wild & West was certainly her stuff.

  “Shall we get a family shot?” asked Gary.

  “Yes, let’s,” Ellie agreed.

  The kids were wrangled, and Todd had managed to locate Samantha, who, curiously enough, was talking to the girl Todd had been speaking to earlier. Ellie fumed at the audacity of her husband—flaunting his little minx in front of the children! She made a face, and the camera flashed. She would look constipated in the shots, which wouldn’t end up in Vanity Fair at all but in some obscure bottom-feeding blog that no one had heard of and would turn out to be run by some twelve-year-old in Idaho.

  When the photo shoot was done, Ellie immediately turned to her husband. “You’re fucking her, aren’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “Her!” she whispered fiercely, gesturing to the hot young thing.

  “Her!” yelped Todd. “I thought you said you’d talked to Sam!”

  “I did! What does Sam have to do with it?” asked Ellie as Sam walked over, hand in hand with the buxom blonde. “Mom,” she said. “I want you to meet Sofia.”

  “Oh, hi,” said Ellie, trying not to sound too shrill.

  “Hi, Mrs. Stinson. Sam told me so much about you.”

  “I wish I could say the same.”

  Sam colored. “We’re dating.”

  “Oh!” Ellie said. So she had been right. Her little stepdaughter was a cute little butch lesbian. “Oh! Which means . . .”

  Todd glared at her.

  Ellie laughed, somewhat hysterically.

  “Sof, why don’t you go grab a drink. I need to talk to my mom and dad,” said Sam.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Truth

  October 19

  Twenty-Four Years Ago

  11:35 P.M.

  Leo thought Mish would be mad for sure. For a while she just stood there, watching her boyfriend and her best friend disentangle themselves from each other. But instead of getting mad, she walked up to them and said, “No fair; I can do that too.” Then she turned to Leo and kissed her on the lips.

  Leo was startled, but she opened her mouth, and they kissed, slowly and deeply.

  A few of the boys in the room began to clap.

  Brooks cleared his throat and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “All right, all right, you’ve made your point.”

  Mish grinned as she stepped away, and winked at Leo.

  Leo felt her knees wobble. It was surreal, to be kissing one and then the other. She couldn’t decide who was a better kisser. “Um, where’s another bathroom?” she asked Shona. She just needed to be alone right then.

  But both bathrooms in the guesthouse were taken, so Leo asked if she could go to the main house. Shona didn’t seem to hear her and Leo suddenly didn’t care if there was a no-kids-in-the-main-house rule. She just needed to get away from that room, which was claustrophobic all of a sudden.

  The game was effectively over, and now people were just making out in corners, not even caring who could see. Mish had pulled Brooks to one and was straddling his lap, grinding on him, while he had fisted his hands in her long hair. Leo wasn’t sure she wanted to be there to see what happened next.

  Leo made her way out and opened the sliding door to the main house. There were a few kids hanging out in the kitchen, but no one even looked up when she entered or seemed to care that she was there. She debated asking them where the bathroom was, but decided that would bring too much attention to her presence, and it probably wasn’t too hard to find one anyway; this place probably had like eight or ten bathrooms.

  She walked tentatively down the hallway, opening doors. She found the coat closet, a linen closet, a closet that seemed to hold only cleaning supplies, and a room where a lazy white cat hissed at her when she opened it.

  “Oh god, is everyone still here? Why are there people in the main house?” asked Stacey, who walked out of one of the back bedrooms, yawning.

  “Um, I think so,” said Leo. “Hi, Stacey.”

  Stacey crinkled her eyes at Leo, trying to place her. “You’re . . . Brooks’s friend, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cool.”

  “Thanks for having me,” said Leo, like her mom had taught her.

  Stacey waved dismissively, as if she didn’t care either way. Stacey didn’t seem bothered that she was there, and Leo felt more confident as she continued to navigate the hallways, supposedly looking for a bathroom when in reality she was now giving herself a tour. It was a lot bigger than Brooks’s house. Bigger bedrooms with wall-to-wall carpeting in each bedroom. There were four or five bedrooms; she lost count. Stacey’s older sisters were already in college or graduated. Like Stacey, they had been the legendary queens of their grade; everyone was obsessed with the Anders girls. Their rooms were shrines to their childhood, pristine and untouched. Stacey’s room was plush, all white and gold with splashes of pink and green; she had a four-poster princess bed, with a built-in desk and neat
shelves full of books and knickknacks. There was a poster board filled with pictures of Stacey with her friends, Stacey with her family, Stacey at camp, Stacey in Paris, Stacey at the winter formal, the junior prom, the senior fling, too many pictures to mention.

  Nothing terrible happens in a room like this, thought Leo. No one yells at you, no one surprises you in the middle of the night. No one creeps into your bedroom without warning. No one forces you to give them a blow job in the bathroom. Did that even happen? It was like a bad dream.

  She picked up one of the oversize teddy bears on Stacey’s bed, when the door opened. She jumped as if she’d been caught stealing. She placed the bear back on the cashmere throw.

  “There you are. What a place, right?” said Mish. Her hair was messy and her clothes were askew, as if she’d gotten dressed in a hurry. Leo wondered if they’d made use of one of the two lockable bedrooms in the guesthouse.

  “Yeah,” said Leo. She knew Mish was thinking the same thing she was, comparing their messy, squalid, sad little bedrooms to this serene abode.

  They looked at Stacey’s pictures for a while.

  Brooks found them a few minutes later. “Ready to go?” he asked, swinging his keys.

  * * *

  —

  The ride back was silent, and not a good silent, not the friendly silence that Leo and Mish had shared on the bus. Leo and Mish. Mish and Leo. They were one and the same, they were sisters from another mother. That’s what they always said. More than blood, more than family, they had each other. Whatever was happening between them now was stupid. It was a cliché. It wasn’t even about Brooks.

  Because as the minutes ticked by, it was clear that Mish was pissed. Leo knew she was mad because when Mish was mad, she got quiet.

  “Is this the right street?” asked Brooks, peering at the metal wire fence at the entrance to the neighborhood.

  “You can just let us off here,” said Mish, unfastening her seat belt.

  “No, I said I’d drive you guys.” Brooks was abashed; it was apparent he felt guilty about what had happened earlier and wanted to make it up to Mish.

  She sighed and gave him directions so that he drove up to the two little houses on the back lot, tiny little trailers on cinder blocks. Why did they call them trailers? They looked just like houses, like anyone’s house, with a door and windows. These were just smaller and dingier and crappier. None of the lights were on in either of their houses as none of their parents were ever home.

  “Well, this is us,” said Mish, sounding defensive.

  “Okay,” said Brooks. “It’s nice.”

  Mish rolled her eyes. “Of course it isn’t.”

  “Babe, you know I don’t care where you live.”

  “I care,” said Mish, an edge to her voice. “Well, now you know.”

  “It’s fine; I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”

  “Let’s not talk about it right now,” said Mish, eyeing Leo in the back seat.

  Leo tried to make herself smaller as she unlocked the car door. “Thanks for the ride,” she said. She didn’t wait to say any more goodbyes. She just wanted to be home, finally.

  THIRTY

  Truth?

  October 19

  The Present

  11:40 P.M.

  The first time she had met Samantha, the little girl hardly said a word. Ellie worried she was mute at first, but Todd hadn’t mentioned anything about that, so she was probably just shy. Ellie didn’t know a lot of kids, other than her own baby. She thought most of them were kind of annoying, actually. She’d hated babysitting when she was a teenager. She was tired, Giggy still wasn’t sleeping through the night, and now she had a new boyfriend, which meant between being up for her kid and being kept up all night by her new man, Ellie was exhausted. She didn’t have time to try and make friends with this skinny little kid who looked at her with her big brown eyes like Ellie was some kind of monster.

  Stepmonster.

  The kind that steals daddies away.

  The little girl probably hated her guts.

  Except it wasn’t like that. Turned out Sam was just shy. She was worried that Ellie wouldn’t want her, that Ellie would take her away from her dad, the only stable presence in her life, that Ellie’s presence meant Sam would have to live with her mom all the time. No one wanted that, least of all Montserrat, who had already dumped the real estate guy and moved on to a plastic surgeon for the discount.

  “Hey,” Ellie had said. “Are you Sam?”

  Sam nodded.

  “I’m Ellie. I’m your dad’s friend. I’m going to be your friend too, okay?”

  * * *

  —

  If Ellie had known then what she knew now, would she have fought so hard? Because once Montserrat dumped the doctor and decided that she wanted her hot young ex-husband back, only to discover Todd had moved on, she had unleashed the hounds, so to speak. She’d dragged them through seven circles of hell to keep them from her kid. In return, Todd and Ellie had fought as hard as they could. They used Ellie’s money like a cudgel, paid as many lawyers and private investigators and counselors as they needed to try and keep Montserrat away from Sam. It was the judgment of Solomon, except the only thing being torn apart were their bank accounts. Ellie lost a small fortune on this kid. A year’s profits from the fall collection. Sometimes, she told her girlfriends, she would never have married Todd if she knew he came with so much baggage. (Except she did know, didn’t she? She knew that she was wife number four, she knew he was a little out of his mind, the way he collected wives like Patek watches.)

  She liked to fantasize about an alternate past, one without Todd. She would have been fine, a single mom to Giggy, co-parenting with Archer across the pond. She would have continued dating people on television, or the boyfriend right before she went back to Archer, the nightclub guy. The short one with the Ferrari. That would have been a fine life, right? Quiet. Pleasant.

  Bullshit.

  She wouldn’t change a thing. (Okay, she would have figured out a way to get rid of Montserrat if she could.) But without the pain they’d gone through, she wouldn’t have this. This beautiful eighteen-year-old girl in front of her, who was trying to explain to her parents what exactly went wrong in college.

  Samantha squirmed in her seat. She fiddled with her cocktail straw. She shredded the wet napkin on her lap. “So the thing is, I was sleeping with this guy.”

  “What guy?” said Todd, already alarmed. “You had a boyfriend? A serious boyfriend? Why didn’t you tell us before?”

  “Relax, Dad,” said Samantha. “Stop the presses, I’m not a virgin.”

  Todd looked wounded. Ellie felt for him. No one wanted to think about their kids’ sex lives. Ew. Kids were like saints, sexless. That was the way it was supposed to be. To learn otherwise was anathema. Maybe it was easier for her since Sam was her stepdaughter; she wondered if she’d be as cool about it when Giggy or the twins were Sam’s age. Oh god, the twins. The hellions. She should get them vasectomies now.

  “There was a guy? What about your girlfriend?” asked Ellie.

  “I have a girlfriend now,” said Sam patiently. “Not then.”

  “Oh, so you’re bi?” Ellie perked up. Now they were getting somewhere; she could work with this.

  “Mom, we don’t have labels now. We just—like whom we like. Some people call it pansexual,” said Samantha.

  “Oh, okay,” Ellie said even though she didn’t quite understand and it felt a bit like, wow, if you liked whom you liked, then whom did you like? Did you like everybody? Was that how the game was played these days? Intriguing.

  “Anyway, so I was sleeping with Jordan, my lit professor.”

  “Wait, wait, wait—you were sleeping with your professor?” Todd asked angrily. “Who is this asshole?”

  “Dad, he’s like a proctor, like an associate professor.
He’s like twenty-five or something,” Sam said, as if that would mollify him.

  And it did. Todd relaxed a little.

  “Still, isn’t that against the rules? Having an affair with your students?” Ellie asked. She hadn’t gone to college, but she knew there were rules about this sort of thing.

  Sam shrugged. “Anyway, that’s not the point. I dumped him for Sofia. But he was obsessed with me, and accused me of plagiarism, which is against the honor code. We went up to the Honor Board, but he won, and the punishment is an automatic F in all my classes.”

  “Plagiarism?” Todd echoed.

  “He said Sofia wrote my term paper because she’d taken his class last year and he recognized certain thesis statements and stuff.”

  Todd leaned forward, hands on his knees. “And did she?”

  “No! Of course not! I would never!” Sam looked righteously indignant. Ellie almost believed it.

  “Sam,” she said sternly. “Did you cheat?”

  Sam twiddled her thumbs and bit her lip. “I mean, technically . . .”

  Todd slapped his forehead. “I don’t believe it!”

  “Dad! It was, like, nothing. You don’t know how stressful it is. And I was working on her laptop. I was using her paper as a guide, but I got confused which was hers and which was mine. I didn’t mean to.”

  Ellie crossed her arms and frowned. “I’m confused. If it was just one class, how did you end up with all Fs?”

  “That’s the policy; when you’re found guilty on Honor Board, all your grades are affected,” Sam said, pulling at a strand of her newly short hair.

  “Well, that’s not fair!” said Ellie.

  Todd shushed her. “Go on, Sam.”

  “That’s it.” Sam shrugged. “That’s the whole story.”

  “So your grades were fine?” asked Todd. “You actually weren’t flunking out?”

  “No, of course not! I was fine, until Jordan got involved. And he wouldn’t have cared except he wanted revenge.”