[2013] Note to Self- Change the Locks

by Heather Balog

  “Thank you,” my mother replied and I heard her foot falls on the steps.

  I smiled sheepishly at Austin, plopped back on the pillow, and dramatically threw my arm over my face. “She has impeccable timing, doesn’t she?”

  Austin held out his hand and helped me sit up. “Must have been great as kid when you had guys in here.”

  I stood and zipped up my jeans. “I just told you, Austin, I didn’t have a lot of boyfriends.” And come to think of it, I don’t believe Simon and I ever had sex in here, either. Maybe we made out, but it always seemed like someone was on the other side of the door. We mostly had sex at his house before we got married and got our own place. I don’t think I would have dared with my Dad and my nosy brothers in the house.

  Austin patted me on the head. “It’s okay. It doesn’t change my opinion of you. We all did crazy, irresponsible things in high school.”

  I shrugged. Obviously, Austin wasn’t going to believe me for whatever reason. I grabbed his hand and led him back down the stairs. If he doesn’t believe when I’m telling the truth, lying might be that much easier.

  Ten

  After we came downstairs, Austin retreated to the living room and I retrieved the tablecloth that I had left draped over a chair. I threw it neatly over the table and started to smooth it out. The quiet was shattered by the front door swinging open and slamming against the wall. In ran three out of four of Vicky’s little bastards. The fourth was too young to run or he would have undoubtedly joined his brothers as they climbed directly onto the dining room table.

  With a look of horror, Mom craned her neck to see if the mother of this unruly bunch was following behind to reprimand them. Vicky was indeed coming through the door, smoking a cigarette and speaking boisterously on her cell phone. The fourth child was being transported on her hip, but she quickly dumped him on the floor and plopped onto the couch. My brother Pete rushed in behind her, diaper bag slung over his shoulder, and snatched two of the culprits off the table.

  The one he missed, six-year-old Mickey, jumped at my mother’s chandelier and promptly crashed to the floor bringing the tablecloth with him. He immediately began to wail and scream while clutching his knee in exaggerated pain.

  “I broke my leg, I broke my leg!” My brother, completely overwhelmed, dropped the first two brats and scooped the injured one off the floor.

  Meanwhile, Vicky never even flinched. Instead, she covered the mouthpiece of her cell phone and shouted, “Can you keep it down in there? I’m on a very important phone call with my parole officer!” Oh, did I mention that Vicky had been arrested a few years ago for running a meth lab out of her parents’ basement? Oh, yeah, she was a quality addition to our family.

  I glanced over at Austin who had quickly abandoned the couch when Vicky swooped in. He looked as if spiders were crawling on his face. Leaning closer to me, he asked, “Are those kids always like that?”

  “Those are kids? I thought they were midget prison escapees,” I joked.

  Austin had met most of my family at Christmas, but Vicky’s brats were either strung out on Ritalin or comatose at the time. They sat attached to their Game Boys and barely flinched the entire dinner. Apparently their Game Boys must be broken right now.

  The front door swung open once more and in waltzed Princess Michelle, waving her arms around and sputtering, “Oh my Gawd, what is that stench?” Her eyes shot daggers at Vicky and her burning cigarette. Vicky rolled her own eyes and flicked her ashes on the coffee table with a smirk, daring Michelle to comment. Sonny was right behind his wife and made a disgusted face as soon as he spied Baby Mama perched on the sofa.

  He grabbed his wife by the elbow, leading her toward the kitchen. “That does it,” he muttered as he stormed past me. Pushing the door between the dining room and kitchen, Sonny nearly hit our mother in the head as she brought out a bowl of salad.

  “Mom, that tramp of Pete’s is ruining your living room floor. She’s flicking her dirty ashes all over the place.” Sonny did not even attempt to be quiet or discrete.

  “Oh, Sonny, what do you want me to do about it? She does whatever she wants anyway.” My mother shrugged indifferently as she placed the salad bowl on the tablecloth I had just finished fixing.

  “It’s your house, Mom,” Sonny protested. “Tell her to take it outside. There’s no reason she needs to smoke in the house. Not only is it disgusting, it’s hazardous to my wife’s health.” He placed his hand over Michelle’s flat abdomen. “We didn’t want to say anything yet, but we’re having a baby!”

  My mother covered her mouth as she gasped and pulled Sonny in for a hug. “How wonderful!” She squeezed him tightly and kissed both of his cheeks. “I’m going to be a grandmother!” Then, with a thin lipped smile, she reached over and pecked Michelle’s cheek lightly.

  Oh good Lord, the Plastic Princess is pregnant? Did she know you get really fat when you’re pregnant?

  “Mom, you’re already a grandmother!” Pete called out as he held one of the hoodlums upside down. It was either Harry or Dennis. They were the two older ones, but since they were only ten months apart and looked so much alike, I could never get it straight. Not that I cared. They never even said two words to me, not even after I brought the little ungrateful brats Legos for Christmas. That stuff’s expensive! But did they appreciate it? No. They just stared at the box and asked Vicky how they plugged it in.

  “Oh, yes, of course, Pete!” My mother called back, chuckling nervously at the oversight. “I just meant a grandmother again!” I think if Vicky’s kids were even remotely gracious or caring, my mother would have no problem acknowledging them as her true grandchildren. She would probably overlook their Neanderthal behavior and love them like any other grandmother would. Oh, and if their mother wasn’t the biggest whore in the tri-state area. That would probably help, too.

  Anxious to change the subject, my mother joyfully clapped her hands together as we all pulled out the dining room chairs and gathered around the table. “Well this is such a great day! Elizabeth also has some news she’d like to share.”

  “Let me guess,” Sonny paused as he scratched his head for comic effect. “She finally decided to spring for the whole sex change operation?” Sonny laughed at his assumed wittiness.

  “Very funny.” I stuck my tongue out at my brother. We’ve been at each other’s throats since birth. But out of love. I think.

  “Wrong, Sonny! She got that surgery years ago? Don’t you remember Mom and Dad had her penis bronzed like our shoes?” Pete chimed in.

  “Okay, boys that is completely inappropriate with the children at the table,” Mom stressed, while turning bright red. She laughed nervously as she piled food on Austin’s plate. Mom never got used to my brothers’ crude humor.

  I, on the other hand, was usually unruffled by it their constant torment. However, I was a little embarrassed about being the subject of their ridicule in front of my fiancé.

  I quickly interrupted by sticking my hand out in the center of the table. “Austin and I are getting married!” I announced elatedly.

  Michelle’s jaw hung open in disbelief. She smacked my brother’s arm. “That’s way bigga than my ring.” She eyed Austin. “You loaded or somethin’?”

  Austin uneasily shifted his food around on his plate. “I just save my money. Invest and that sort of thing.”

  Michelle shoved Sonny again. “Why don’t you invest nothin’?”

  “We don’t have extra to invest, Michelle,” Sonny pointed out while tugging nervously at his collar.

  Yeah, because she spends every cent you have. And every cent you don’t have, too.

  “It wouldn’t hurt you to get a 509 K or whateva.” Michelle poked my brother with a fork as she spoke.

  While the two of them argued back and forth, Vicky grabbed at me with her smoke stained hands. “It’s a big rock. You could always hock it if it don’t work out,” she commented as she contorted my hand into various awkward positions in order to examine the ring.
r />   Austin draped his arm around me and pulled me closer. “It’s going to work out. Elizabeth and I are soul mates.”

  Pete snorted and soda came shooting out of his nose. “Ha! Can you honestly say that with Elizabeth’s track record?”

  Lucky Pete was sitting directly across from me and I was able to kick him hard in the shins without straining. Hard enough to make him leap from his seat and topple the chair over.

  “God damn it, Elizabeth! What the fuck?” Pete hopped around the dining room clutching his leg.

  Michelle ceased arguing with Sonny and gasped. “There are children here!”

  Vicky waved her hand in the air as she glanced over at her brood at the end of the table, folding whole pancakes into their mouths. They were sitting next to Austin, who was inching closer and closer toward me.

  “Nothing they haven’t heard before,” Vicky remarked with indifference.

  “I’m not talking about your kids. I’m talking about my unborn child.” Michelle scoffed as she laid her hand across her stomach, which was flatter than mine after a stomach virus. “The baby has ears already and she can hear you. It’s not good for them to hear negative words when they are in your stomach.” She lowered her voice as she pressed her fingers to her lips.

  I opened my mouth to explain that the baby was not in her stomach, it was in her uterus, but Vicky spoke first.

  “What a load of horseshit that it. Why, I cursed like a sailor when I was pregnant with all of mine. And look, they all turned out fine.” She pointed her fork in the direction of her boys. Mickey was covering the baby with syrup while Harry or Dennis was trying to fit five meatballs in his mouth at once. Yup, they were regular old Einsteins.

  “Oh yeah, they’re fine all right. Did you drop them on their heads all at once, or just one at a time?” Michelle sneered with smug superiority as she folded her arms across her surgically enhanced chest. Leaping out of her chair and nearly knocking it over, Vicky screamed, “What, you want to fight me, you snotty bitch?” She smacked her chest. “Come here, bitch. Come get a piece of me! At least mine are real!”

  Michelle pushed back her chair and stood up, while Sonny and Pete attempted to contain their women. And Austin, well, he just looked petrified.

  Well at least this will distract him from what Pete just said. I needed to have a little conversation with my brothers about exactly what we could and couldn’t talk about in front of Austin. Just until I told him about Simon, of course. And I would tell him. Soon.

  Austin nervously glanced at his phone as Vicky and Michelle screamed back and forth at each other, desperately attempting to claw at the other’s face. Pete and Sonny continued to hold them back. The boys were sticking pancakes to their knees and sliding across the floor while this went on. My mother was cutting up her food and sipping her mimosa like there was absolutely nothing going on around her.

  “I really have to get going,” Austin whispered to me.

  I nodded. “Give me a second, I’ll go grab my purse.” I stood up, my half empty plate in hand.

  Austin put his hand on my arm, pulling me back down into my chair. “No, it’s okay. I told the taxi to come back at noon. No need for you to rush home on my account.” He stood up and pushed his chair back.

  “Austin, I want to go with you. Just let me get my purse.” I started to stand up again, but this time Austin pushed my shoulder back down.

  “Seriously. Stay. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek and then timidly nodded at my mother. “Thanks for, um, brunch. I got to catch the twelve twenty train.”

  “Hey, man, I can give you a ride to the train station if you want,” Sonny volunteered, still restraining Michelle.

  Over my dead body! A ten minute car ride with Sonny and Austin would not only know about Simon, but every other embarrassing thing that ever happened to me. And…especially, Simon!

  “It’s fine,” Austin and I answered in unison. He waved toward the entire table and then walked out the door without another word.

  Fantastic. My family has completely turned him off. Now I don’t need to worry about him finding out about Simon. He’s probably going to break up with me and ask for the ring back.

  As soon as I heard the door slam, I turned to my family and simply said, “You all suck.”

  Pete threw up his hands in the air, releasing Vicky. She had obviously grown bored of trying to fight Michelle because she lit another cigarette right at the kitchen table. Michelle made a face and stormed off to the bathroom. “What did we do?” Pete asked.

  Sonny piped in. “Yeah, what the hell?”

  Pushing my plate away, I stood up and stormed out the French doors off the dining room. I slammed them shut as loudly as I could and threw myself on the creaky porch swing that was in dire need of sanding and staining.

  My parents loved that swing. They used to rock in it together on warm summer nights. They would cuddle together and look at the stars, and my dad would sing to my mother in his very off-key voice. She would laugh and giggle, and then tell him he was magnificent anyway. A lone tear rolled down my cheek.

  I’m probably never going to have that. Austin won’t want to marry me after that scene. And he certainly won’t want to marry me after he finds out that I’ve been lying to him. I’m going to be alone forever.

  The door slammed—my head jerked up at the sound. Sonny was coming toward me with a jacket in his hand. Sitting down on the swing, he draped the jacket over my shoulders. “Thought you might be cold.”

  “I’m not,” I snapped, even though I did feel a little chilly when the breeze blew. It was about seventy degrees and humid, but the swing was under a large oak tree—it very shady. I stared at the pool cover, littered with leaves. My mother hadn’t raked the leaves last autumn and the piles were magnificent. I started to rock the swing with my foot. It screeched in protest. I’m sure my mother hadn’t oiled the springs like my father did every April.

  “Is everything okay with you and Austin?”

  Shrugging, I replied. “I don’t know. He left in a hurry. I guess you rejects scared the shit out of him.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not fair. He’s met us before. And we’re a totally normal family,” he deadpanned.

  “Really? You actually believe that?”

  Sonny broke out into a huge grin. “Not on your life.” I sighed and leaned back in the swing. Sonny put his arm around my shoulders. “But in all seriousness, we were just busting your chops. That’s what big brothers do.”

  “I’m almost twenty-eight years old, Sonny. When’s it going to stop?”

  “When you’re not my little sister anymore, I guess.”

  “Perfect.” I slumped forward, head in my hands.

  I shouldn’t take it out on my brothers. They were just acting like their normal asinine selves. Austin chose to leave without me, not because of my brothers. It was me he was avoiding. And when it boiled down to it, I was mad at myself for not getting up the courage to tell him about Simon, yet again. I could have told him on the train. I could have told him in my room. But I was scared shitless of his reaction. Every day that ticked by made it harder and harder to come clean.

  Without warning, I started to cry. No, scratch that, I started to sob.

  Sonny rubbed my back for a few minutes before he asked, “What’s wrong, Ellie? Why’d you kick Pete?”

  I glanced up at Sonny, my face a hot mess with mascara streaked down my cheeks. He hadn’t called me Ellie in years.

  When I was four and he was nearly six and went to school for the first time, he learned that kids had nicknames. He came home from school distraught because his little sister didn’t have a nickname. His name was Santino and everyone called him Sonny. Pete was really Peter. He insisted that I needed a nickname, and he firmly decided it was going to be “Ellie”, despite my mother explaining the nickname for Elizabeth was usually Beth or Liz. Sonny didn’t like those names. He called me Ellie until I was sixteen and threw a lamp at his head for co
ming into my room.

  “Austin doesn’t know about Simon. I was afraid Pete was going to tell him,” I finally explained.

  “You’re joking, right?” Sonny gawked at me as I shook my head miserably.

  “I wish I were,” I moaned unhappily.

  “Why wouldn’t you tell him you were married? That seems like something you would mention before you got engaged.”

  “Did you tell Michelle you weren’t in the Mafia?” I countered with a scowl.

  “I don’t know where she got the idea that I was,” Sonny pointed out, cheeks turning red. “And that’s not the same at all.”

  I shrugged. “In the beginning we decided not to talk about our exes and their little habits and stuff.”

  “Simon was hardly a little habit. You were married to him. For over two years. And you dated him awhile before that. He wasn’t some fling in Vegas. You keep those things on the DL.”

  I glanced at him, startled. His bachelor party had been in Vegas. He shrugged. “What? I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”

  “Vegas?” I tilted my head at him. Simon was at my brother’s bachelor party. If anything raunchy had gone down at the party, I was sure Simon would have shared it with me. We were not good at keeping secrets from each other. Well, that is, until the incident…

  Sonny held his hands up. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed. “But, this, little sister, did not happen in Vegas and you need to bring it up with Austin.”

  “Yeah, about ten months ago! Now it’s too late and we’re engaged and I’m so afraid if he finds out that Simon is living with me, he’ll leave me and I’ll lose him, and I just don’t want to go through the pain of losing someone again,” I rambled on in one long run-on-sentence.

  Sonny abruptly halted the swing with his feet. My body slid on the cushion and I nearly fell off, face first. “Whoa, back up. What did you say?”

  I winced as I repeated, “I’m afraid of losing someone again?”

  Sonny narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t play dumb.”