Beautiful (15 page)

And there is Uncle Charlie's shiny black BMW parked in the driveway like everybody knew to save that spot for him.

All of a sudden, the chemical balance shifts and I start feeling anxious again. I have not thought about Uncle Charlie. When I think about this family, I think about the assortment of El Caminos and other dumpy, dented American-made cars. I think about their fashion that is always a couple years behind. I don't think about him or his black BMW, his fancy suit, his cologne that smells like money. I don't think about how everyone tries so hard to pretend his presence is the most natural thing in the world, how the conversation always comes back to someone bragging about something, hoping Charlie's listening, hoping he's impressed. I never think about Charlie and the way he doesn't talk much.
I don't think about how he just sits there watching and grinning, silently judging us all.

We are getting out of the car and I can already smell his cologne. I am dizzy. The smell is clogging up my lungs. The black-green of the shadowed lawn is swirling around with Santa; fibrous dark plants and glowing red plastic are dancing, mixing, becoming something unnatural and sinister. Fanged Santa. Santa with bulging red eyes. Santa covered in black-green fur.

“Close the door and come on,” someone says from somewhere behind me, and I do. I walk toward the light and leave the tornado behind me. It is now time to act normal.

The light sobers me up. Everyone is in focus. The aunts all bounce out of their seats and hug us because that's what they always do, smelling like a million cosmetics and hair sprays and baby powders. The uncles get up slowly to shake my dad's hand, their big bellies straining against this year's new Christmas sweaters. They say things to me and I say things back. I do not look them in the eye. I do not show them the giant black disks of my pupils. Uncle Charlie stays seated. I can see his hand holding a beer, his legs, his expensive shoes, but I do not look directly at him. I can feel his eyes burning into me. I can feel the grin on his face, the one that says,
You people are pathetic.

“Charlie,” my dad says.

“Bill,” Charlie says. The sound of his deep voice makes me shiver, like it's an eruption inside my ribs, an explosion of cold air, spreading and freezing everything in its path.

“The kids are in Tracy's bedroom,” someone says. “Drinks are in the laundry room,” someone says. I make my exit without waiting for everyone's “How's school?” and “You look so grown up now” and “You must have to fight the boys off with a stick.” I get out as fast as I can.

The laundry room is set up like a bar, a red tablecloth covering the washer and dryer. It feels safe in here, cool, quiet. I would stay in here all night with the lights off if I could, but I know people would keep coming in and out, opening the door and letting the light in, filling up the space with their fat, white bodies and stealing the air.

I fill a plastic cup with ice and rum and a little Coke. I take a sip and it is the best thing I have ever tasted. Warmth spreads through my entire body and all of a sudden I don't feel so much like hiding. All of a sudden, I feel like everything's going to be okay and it makes me laugh a little. I am laughing to myself in a giant closet because it's Christmas Eve and I'm on acid and speed and no one has any idea. I am laughing because I feel great even though two seconds ago I wanted to disappear. It's crazy how feelings can switch that
fast, how something as stupid as the taste of something can change everything.

The adults are sitting in a circle in the living room like they do every year. Folding chairs fill up the spaces between the couch and love seat and armchair. TV trays hold bowls of nuts and candy. Mom heads toward me on her way to the bar and I slip into the bedroom before she has a chance to say anything.

I have three girl cousins, all born within three months of each other, all three years older than me, all living in the three neighboring towns of Burien, SeaTac, and Seahurst. They share the same friends. They go to one another's birthday parties. Here they are, sitting on the bed in the room with framed cat posters. They are sitting on the pastel, floral print comforter, surrounded by a hundred lace or satin or needlepoint pillows, surrounded by framed posters of cats with balls of yarn, cats sleeping, cats dressed up like sailors, cats in giant beer mugs. They are slightly different variations of the same person, with the same pale, greasy skin; the same mousy brown hair; the same plump, pear-shaped bodies.

“Oh my God,” says Tracy, the leader only because she's the least homely. “Cassie?”

“Oh my God,” says Kelly, the short one.

“Oh my God,” says Becky, the zitty one.

“Hi,” I say. I am number four, the alien.

“You look sooooo different,” says Tracy.

“Yeah,” says Kelly. “Like, way older. And, like, not ugly.”

“When was the last time we saw you?” asks Becky.

“Easter,” I say.

“Oh my God,” says Becky. “You have changed sooooo much since then.”

“Yeah,” I say.
You haven't
, I want to say. “What are you guys doing?”

“Just talking,” says Tracy, then she looks at the others like they're in on a secret and they all giggle. They look at me. They are waiting for me to ask what they're talking about. I won't do it. I take a big gulp of rum and feel warm and invincible. I sit down on the wicker chair facing the bed, like I am on trial and they are a panel of jurors.

“Want some rum?” I say, thrusting my plastic cup at them.

“Oh my God,” says Kelly. “You drink?”

“Yeah, don't you?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” says Tracy. “But, like, we're high schoolers.”

“That's nice,” I say. There is silence for a while as they stare at me. Then they turn back toward one another and just like that, I don't exist. I'm in another world on my wicker chair,
an island, and their bed is some kind of country that hates foreigners.

“So what are you going to do?” Becky asks Tracy.

“I don't know,” Tracy says.

“Do you love him?” asks Kelly.

“Of course I do,” she says. “I just don't know if I'm ready.”

I have walked in on an after-school special. The cats on the wall sigh with me. One of them rolls his eyes. The crystal unicorn on the bedside table is pointing his horn at them, threatening to use it. My cousins talk and talk in their hushed, important voices, and I am satisfied on my island of wicker with a view of all the cutesy crap piled throughout the room. I hear nothing they say. I am in a bubble of sound. I hear ocean, the inside of seashells, white noise.

“Cassie,” someone says, piercing my bubble. I look up and everyone's standing. The door is open and they're all looking at me like I'm crazy. “Didn't you hear Aunt Lily?” says Kelly.

“What?”

“It's time for dinner,” says Tracy. She rolls her eyes, they all start walking and I follow their chubby procession into the living room.

I take my place in the back of the line and watch everybody pile food onto their paper plates. I wonder what rich
people eat at Christmas because it sure isn't mashed potatoes from a box or a giant slab of ham that has been pressed into an unnaturally round shape and covered with canned pineapple. I wonder what Charlie thinks about all this, if he's totally disgusted and lost his appetite, if he's forgotten the time before he was rich, when food like this was normal.

The only things I put on my plate are marshmallow salad and a dozen shiny, black, rolling olives. I sit on a folding chair and look at the pile of peach-colored goo, the chunks of canned mandarin oranges unrecognizable in their coating of marshmallow slime and shaved coconut. I take a bite and I am amazed at how good it tastes, how misleading the appearance is, how it looks like crap but tastes like heaven.

After all these years of holiday get-togethers, Mom still hasn't figured out that this family doesn't talk while they're eating. Everyone's supposed to sit and chew and listen to each other slurp, but Mom always babbles about something even though no one else says anything.

“Bill's going to get a promotion soon,” she says. “Right, honey?” Dad doesn't acknowledge that he heard her.

Charlie kind of looks at her out of the corner of his eye.

“You're a stockbroker,” she says, neither a question nor a statement. Charlie half nods as he butters his roll.

“Maybe you two should talk. I mean, Bill sells computers and you need them, right?”

“I think my company is doing all right with their computers,” Uncle Charlie finally says. Everyone keeps their eyes on their plates, but I swear they are smirking.

There is silence for a while and Mom can't stand it. “That's a real nice car you have, Charlie,” she says.

Charlie nods and the only sound is the scraping of plastic forks on cardboard and the ice of Mom's drink thudding dully against the side of her cup. It is a different sound than the clinking of her glasses at home. It is different, but it sounds just as sad.

I stick the olives on the tips of my fingers and eat them off one by one.

Everybody keeps eating and not talking and I am out of rum. I have eaten as much as I can, three spoonfuls of marshmallow salad and five olives. It is time to move, to get out of this room. I will get more rum. I will go for a walk. I will smoke a cigarette.

I put my plate in the garbage and take my cup to the laundry room. I re-create my drink from before. I take a sip and feel better. All I need to do is go back into the cat room and get my purse. Then I need to walk out the door. Then I am free. I can do this. This is easy.

But there is someone coming. I hear the padding of feet on carpet. I hear the laundry room door open. I hear it close. I smell the cologne that smells like money. I hear his voice behind me. “Cassie.”

“What?” I say. I don't move.

“Why don't you turn around and say hi to me?”

I do what he says. I turn around and feel the walls close in. He is smiling. The door is closed and this room is too small.

“It was getting weird in there, huh?” he says.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I wanted to say hi to you properly, but I feel like you can't have a real conversation when they're all around.” The smell of his cologne is filling up the room. I will suffocate if I don't get out soon. I start moving toward the door, but he is in my way and he is not moving.

“How have you been?” he says.

“Fine,” I say. I can feel my lungs closing up.

“You look really great,” he says. “You're a beautiful girl, Cassie. Do you know that?”

I don't say anything. I feel dizzy. My skin starts to itch.

“Because you should know how beautiful you are. A girl should always know how beautiful she is.”

I can feel him looking at me even though I am looking at the floor. I am trying to focus on a space the size of a penny.
I am trying to keep it still while the rest of the floor swirls around it. If I can only keep that one space still, I will be okay.

“Can I have a hug?” Charlie says. I keep looking at the piece of floor. It is the only thing that is mine.

I feel his arms around me, my face pressed against his chest, his legs against my legs. He puts his hands on my back and pulls me against him.

“We should go skiing sometime,” he says. “I could take you. Have you ever been skiing?” He is kissing the top of my head and rubbing my back and my eyes are open and all I can see is snow.

I need to move and I am moving and I am pushing him out of my way. My eyes are open, but all I can see is white. I feel my body squeeze between his soft body and the hard wall. I feel the doorknob and I feel my hand turning and pulling and I feel open space. There is white and there is more white. I feel the walls on both sides and the carpet under my feet and another door and another doorknob. I feel the button and I hear it lock. I feel the sink and counter and a drop off. Air. Smooth, cold porcelain and the poison coming out. My eyes watering and the poison coming out. My nose burning, my knees drilling into the linoleum, my hands on cool porcelain. The door locked and everything cool and everything okay. Everything out of me and I am empty. Safe.

Someone knocking. If I am quiet, no one will know I'm here.

“Cassie.”

It is my mom's voice, dull and metallic like the inside of a tin can.

“Cassie, are you sick?”

My mom will not hurt me.

“Uncle Charlie said you're sick.”

No one will hurt me if they think it's the flu, if it's something I ate. No one will hurt me if I did nothing wrong.

“Honey, let me in.”

I open my eyes. There is white porcelain and brown slimy water and chunks of black. Everything cold and clear and in focus. I flush the toilet. I stand up and wash my mouth out with water. I rub some toothpaste on my teeth. “Cassie?” my mom says again, and I open the door.

“Oh, honey, you don't look too good.”

“I think I have the flu,” I say, trying not to speak in the direction of her nose.

“It's the season for that, for sure,” one of my aunts says, and I look up and all the aunts and cousins are standing around the bathroom door, looking at me. Charlie's in the back with the palest face I've ever seen, his eyes wide, terrified. The cousins are huddled in a little pod, glaring.

“I'll get some water,” another aunt says.

“Why don't you lie down in Tracy's room, hon,” the other aunt says.

“Okay,” I say, and my mom holds my arm as we walk out the door, all the women clucking like chickens behind us. I lie down and put my head on one of the hundred pillows.

“Not that one,” Tracy yelps, and pulls it out from under my head. “Here,” she says, and throws me the seat cushion from the wicker chair. I feel my body sink into the bed like I'm metal and it's pudding. I feel it swirling around me, a slow churn.