Authors: Heather Demetrios
“Sandra!”
She grins and throws her arms around me. “You’re quite a young woman now, aren’t you?” she says. She smooths back my hair and straightens my shirt—old habits die hard.
“It’s so good to see you,” I say.
And I really mean it. When the show was canceled and the crew went home, it was like we’d lost half our family. These people I’d spent my entire childhood with just disappeared one day. Like they’d punched out at the end of a long shift at work and couldn’t wait to get home. I have a hard time imagining that we were just a job for Sandra, that the show’s cancellation was like getting transferred to another branch of the same company. But maybe that’s what it was. How else do I explain why I haven’t seen her in all this time?
“And it’s
great
to see you.” She kisses the top of my head and then hands me a bag of clothing. “We need you to change, hon.”
How many times have I heard those words?
We need you to change.
Be thinner, be prettier, smile more, why can’t you be like Lex, you’re too emotional.…
“I like my clothes,” I say. I hold the bag away from me, like it’s poison.
“No corporate logos—you know that,” she says, pointing to my hoodie. There’s a tiny Adidas symbol on it. I’d changed into it while we were waiting for Lex, no longer able to handle the sweater-shirt from woolen hell.
“Also,” she adds, “we’d like to keep you in dark tones. You know, the camera adds—”
“Ten pounds,” I mutter. Here comes the no butter, no sugar, no deliciousness diet I remember from my youth.
“More of you to love,” she says, giving my arm a friendly squeeze. Someone calls her from another room, and she throws her hands up in the air, already frazzled. “We’ll catch up later, sweetie.”
I trudge back into the bathroom. The clothes are a perfect fit but not my style at all. I like clothes you can paint a house in, and these threads scream teen pop star. In the left corner of the off-the-shoulder blouse, I see a silver embroidered
B
. My hands shake as I peel the shirt off and look at the inside label: BONNIE™ LASS DESIGNS. I throw the shirt onto the floor and shove my hoodie back on. I refuse to go back to being trademarked, to only being known by a name that is a brand. I stuff the clothing back into the bag and throw it into the little trash can next to the toilet.
When I go into the living room, Chuck is rubbing his hands together, looking every bit like the ringleader of our circus. My siblings stand around in a big circle—the bookworms, the triplets with their pigtails, and my five other brothers who alternate between being disgusting and adorable. Then, of course, there’s Benny and Lex and me. A baker’s dozen.
Sandra catches my eye and mouths,
Too big?
as she takes in my hoodie. I make a face and shake my head. She whips out her phone and starts typing on it. I may have won the battle on this one, but not the war.
“Okay, everyone, let’s get started,” Chuck says. “Now that we’re all here, I’d just like to say that MetaReel is delighted to be invited back into the home of this wonderful family—with a great new addition, of course,” he says, nodding to Kirk. Kirk smiles and gives a little wave at the scattered applause from the crew.
I know Dad was a cheating bastard, but I feel strangely offended. It feels wrong that Kirk’s here, slipping into Dad’s shoes like this. I keep thinking I’m in an episode of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and I’m going to find out this is all the result of an unfortunate voodoo curse.
“And I just want you all to know that Kirk and I hope you make yourselves at home,” Mom says to the horseshoe of strangers around us. “The kids and I always felt like the crew was our extended family, and we hope that can continue.”
We?
No, I most certainly
do not
hope that can continue. But I see Sandra over in the corner, and I think about the old days and how the crew once baked me a homemade birthday cake and helped me play practical jokes on my siblings. For just a moment, I let myself sift through those memories. I’ve locked them away for so long; Hal dressing in drag for an impromptu fashion show, Dan teaching me how to waltz. Liz making finger puppets with me on a rainy day and Len telling us the same groaner jokes, over and over. I can’t imagine it ever being like that with the people in our living room. I know it’s illogical to assume the old crew could just leave their lives and come film my family, but I can’t help but feel hurt that it was so easy for them to pack up and never look back. Not once.
“Thank you, Beth, we’re delighted to be here,” Chuck says. He turns to my siblings and grins, clapping his hands like a carny touting his ride. “Now, kiddos, it’s time for our first interview of the season!”
The little ones don’t know what this means, so they start jumping around. Those of us who’ve reached puberty look at one another and shrug. Interview segments blow. They always ask inane questions or want you to just riff off of whatever when all you want to do is relax in your own home.
“Chuck, some of us have homework. Can this wait?” Benny asks.
Kirk steps up to Benny and gives him a little clap on the shoulder. “It’ll just be an hour or two. Besides,” he adds, with a hard look, “seems like it might be tough to concentrate on homework after your antics this afternoon.” Busted. Benny’s eyes slide over to mine, and I give him a sympathetic frown.
Kirk points to the stairs that lead to the basement. “Down you go,” he says.
Benny shrugs a
whatever
, but we’re standing so close that I feel his whole body tense up.
“Matt’s gonna freak,” he says to me in an undertone. “He’s starting tomorrow night, and he is so not gonna understand why I’m not at the bonfire. I’m supposed to be there in half an hour. I knew it was a mistake to date a jock.”
Poor Matt. It makes me sad to picture him at the bonfire rally thing that the football team has the night before big games, scanning the crowd for Benny, pretending it’s no big deal because everyone at school just thinks they’re best friends. They’re both in the closet, but for different reasons. Matt’s family is super religious and would probably think they could de-gay him. Our family knows (
has
known for years and years) and doesn’t care, but Benny has no desire to be the next poster boy for gay rights. The media would just eat that up, analyzing old episodes to see what they’d missed all those years.
“I’d cover for you, but there is no way I’m letting you drive,” I whisper back.
Benny sighs and starts rapid-fire texting Matt.
“Are you gonna tell him?” I ask.
“Not this way,” he says, meaning text. “I told him I got stuck with babysitting, but now he wants to know why you won’t do it.”
“Tell him I have a date.” My stomach flutters as Patrick Sheldon’s face comes to mind. Unrequited love sucks.
“Bonnie™, think of a realistic excuse,” Lex says.
“Why do you have to be such a bitch all the time?” I snap. Of course, this is the moment the camera decides to be focused on me.
“Do you mind?” I ask the dude behind it.
I don’t care if he’s just doing his job—his “job” is to ruin my life, and I’m not going to pretend I like it. His face is expressionless, and he keeps the camera trained on me because, I don’t know, maybe Bonnie™ will lose her shit. Again.
Mom moves in front of the camera and flashes a strained smile at all of us. “Okay, kiddos, let’s get downstairs.”
Tristan™, the family jock, vaults down the stairs like it’s an Olympic event. Maybe his birth parents were Russian gymnasts. The seven-year-old triplets—Daisy™, Violet™, and Jasmine™—form a little train and hold on to one another’s waists as they make their way toward the basement. The rest of the younger boys—Lark™, Deston™, and DeShaun™—horse around behind them. MetaReel deemed them “the wild things” back in season eleven, and I’ve never been able to decide whether it was a self-fulfilling prophecy or a keen observation. Magazines and TV show hosts used to say they were ADHD or whatever, but here’s the thing: that’s just a label MetaReel got people to use so no one would say,
Hmmm, maybe they can’t concentrate for shit because there are cameras on them 24/7.
But what do I know?
“Woo woo, chuga chuga chuga,” shrieks Daisy™.
“Get this, get this.” Chuck nudges a cameraman with a mop of sandy red hair and Pumas. Puma Guy gives Chuck a silent thumbs-up and slowly follows my siblings. A sound guy is behind him, trailed by Lacey Production Assistant, who’s gripping her clipboard like it’s the last life preserver on the
Titanic
.
Much as I hate to admit it, it’s a good TV moment. I look at the kaleidoscope of kids all heading down the stairs, making a big, beautiful multicultural caboose. Mom and Kirk look on, their arms around each other, and I get this sudden flashback of how it used to be, with us kids running around and Mom and Dad chasing after us, laughing. A lump forms in my throat, and I think of Dad watching the show from wherever he is, not a part of it anymore. Even though it’s totally his fault everything’s so screwed up (mostly, anyway), I wish he were here.
The younger teens—Farrow™, Riley™, and Gavin™ (resident musical genius)—stumble down the stairs, trying to be cool but really just as excited as all the others. Then there are the bios (Benny, Lex, and me—the biological children of my mom and dad): we sort of shuffle along behind the rest with varying degrees of awkwardness, and it takes about ten hours for us all to get into the basement. Other than the bios, the rest of the kids come from all over the world or foster homes in the U.S. We’re like the poster children for alternative families. And broken homes.
I can tell from the shouts downstairs that more surprises await us. I want to be rebellious and brave and refuse to listen to the Man as played by MetaReel, but I’m exhausted, and I can tell from the defeated slump in Benny’s shoulders that he is, too. The adrenaline rush of the past few hours is over, and I can already see that I’ve lost.
The basement has been transformed into a lounge filled with beanbag chairs and hammocks that hang from hooks in the ceiling. Posters cover the walls, and a new foosball table sits in the corner next to an enormous TV. There’s even a fancy keyboard for Gavin™. He bolts to it and starts filling the room with the hopping trill of a ragtime he learned earlier this week. If he doesn’t become a screwed-up child star with a drug habit by the time he’s twenty, the kid might play at Carnegie Hall.
Four stationary cameras are set up so that the whole room can be televised 24/7 on MetaReel.com. Benny and I lean against a wall, watching as the kids check everything out while Lex flits around, playing Perfect Sister. The new lighting shines on her wavy blond hair like a halo, and when she smiles, you can almost forget she’s heinous. Almost.
Benny cracks his knuckles one by one. “I need a cigarette.”
“I need…” Something. But I don’t know what. “I need to not be here,” I say. That much is clear.
“Bonnie™? Benton™? Can you guys come up for a minute?”
Kirk is at the top of the stairs, motioning for us to follow him.
“Yep. I was wondering when this moment was going to arrive,” Benny says. He’s got the look of a man who knows the jury’s gonna say “guilty.”
“Coming,” I call up. I turn to Benny. “Sucks.”
“Oh, yeah.”
When we get upstairs, Kirk and Mom are sitting on the new couch in the living room, where the lights are now turned down low. A few candles are lit, and their flames create little shadows all around the room.
“Mom…”
There’s a plea in my voice. It says,
Can we please have this conversation in private? Can we not do this right now?
Mom looks down at her hands and starts pushing against her cuticles with her fingernails. I can tell Kirk’s not used to being on camera like the rest of us because as he gestures to the longer part of the new L-shaped sofa, he makes the rookie mistake of compulsively looking at the nearest camera out of the corner of his eye.
“Let’s get it over with,” Benny says with a sigh.
I plop down as far away from the parentals as possible. At this point, I’m not sure what makes me more wary—the argument we’re about to have or the presence of the cameras. There are three set up at various angles. I see we have Puma Guy, Old Guys Rule T-shirt guy, and one of the dudes from the kitchen.
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you earlier,” Mom says.
She clasps and unclasps her hands, and I wonder what this must be like, to have to parent people on TV who are practically adults themselves. I almost feel sorry for her, but then her recent book cover flashes to mind. I raise my chin and decide that silence is the best policy. She deserves to sweat a little.
Kirk puts a hand on her knee. “Beth, let me handle this.” He turns to us, his steely eyes never leaving ours. “Before we discuss anything else, I think Benton™ has something he needs to explain.” He holds up the Maker’s Mark like he brought it for show-and-tell. Damn. He must have searched Lex’s car.
Benny sighs and shakes his head. “It’s true. My name’s Benton™, and I’m an alcoholic.”