by Ella Berman
Disneyland is also the only place I can get away with wearing pajamas and a pair of Converse at eleven a.m. on a Thursday, and, after being seated at a small table near the kitchen of the Storytellers Café, I join the line for the buffet. I fill my plate with the usual: three Mickey Mouse waffles, two pieces of green melon and a cup of black coffee that I already know will taste so ashy I’ll actually look for a cigarette butt floating in it. I sit back down at the polished table and watch the kids tripping on maple syrup around me. They’re standing on chairs and howling or they’re barreling through the gaps between the tables, knocking glasses and milk jugs as they weave, physically vibrating with adrenaline. When I watch them I can almost remember what it was like to know I was happy at the exact moment I felt it, as opposed to only after the moment has passed.
I’ve eaten two of my waffles when Sleeping Beauty walks into the restaurant and, after pausing at the entrance to scan the room, sits down in the chair opposite me. I’m surprised because I have been coming here for a year, always wearing my sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled over my bleached hair, and, until today, nobody has either recognized or wanted to talk to me.
“Are you okay, honey?” Sleeping Beauty asks in a high voice. She has a hint of a southern accent, and I try not to stare at the cakey foundation caught in the corners of her mouth.
“I’m fine, thank you.” I smile at her politely and then turn back to my waffles, hoping she’ll move on to another table. There is a prepubescent boy at the table next to us gazing intently at her.
“Wow, I didn’t realize you were British,” she says, blinking heavily under the weight of her false eyelashes. “I’ve seen you in here before. I like your movies.”
“Oh. Thanks. I like your . . . movie too,” I say, unsure of what the Disneyland rules are for adults, whether I might offend her if I don’t play along.
“Oh, you’re sweet for lying,” she says, and I wonder if that’s something you start to care about when you do her job. My last movie was a biopic about a sex worker who murdered seven of her former clients, and I think I would still experience a visceral reaction if someone criticized her right now. It always surprises me how willing we are to forgive someone once we think we understand them.
“If my only friends were a bunch of vermin and three senile bitches, then I’d kill the person who bothered to wake me up,” Sleeping Beauty says as she adjusts her wig slightly. Her hair is dark underneath the synthetic spun gold.
“It’s itchy,” she tells me. “So do you want a photo?”
“I don’t have a camera.”
“You have a phone though. Everyone has a phone,” Sleeping Beauty says, narrowing her eyes.
“I actually don’t have a phone,” I say, patting my pockets. I nod at the boy at the table next to us who is now staring at us with unconcealed interest, his Mickey Mouse–shaped PB&J sandwich hovering in the air. “Maybe that kid will want one.”
“I doubt it, they want to meet Anna and Elsa now. I’m left with the creepy dads.”
“Sorry to hear that.” I push my sunglasses up on my nose. Sleeping Beauty plays with the packets of sugar, shuffling them in the pot so that the Sweet’N Low is mixed in with the brown sugar and the stevia, but she doesn’t show any signs of leaving.
“Look, I don’t want to be rude, but I really just came here for the waffles,” I say, pointing to my plate.
“Well, there’s no need to be a bitch about it.” Her voice is lower now, grittier, as she pushes her chair back and stands up.
“You know the hotel manager asked me to talk to you because you always look so sad that you’re, like, freaking out the other customers. They’ve had meetings about how to handle you.”
She waits for me to say something, and when I don’t, she sticks her middle finger up at me before walking away. The kid at the next table stares after her, his jaw slack and his eyes wide.
* * *
• • •
I return to the house dragging a seven-foot Christmas tree behind me, even though it’s too early in November to have bought one. The encounter with Sleeping Beauty has cheered me up, and it might even be something my mom would find funny if I can tell it right. I’m feeling something close to exhilaration after our fight, as if it could have finally cleared the heavy air that’s been hanging between us since I came back to Anaheim. Perhaps I can even show her a tiny bit more of myself, loosen my grip slightly. At the very least, this is familiar territory for us. We’ve both always been on our best behavior after our very worst, and I figure that if everything plays out like it used to, there will be no need for apologies and, in fact, no need to mention this ever again.
When I was sixteen, during one of our worst fights, my mom told me she’d been pregnant with twins but that I had killed my twin in the womb before we were born. I asked my on-set tutor about it, and it turns out that the other fetus would have died early from natural causes, and that I may have absorbed her fetal tissue due to the fact that we were sharing a womb with limited space and disposal options. The phenomenon has a name, vanishing twin syndrome, but to hear my mom tell it, I took up too much space before I was even born. I’ve never told anyone else the story, and not because I was traumatized by it or anything, but because I know exactly how it sounds. It wouldn’t be fair to define anyone by such an appalling moment, let alone your own mother.
I nod at my parents’ other neighbor, Donna, who is leaving her house dressed head to toe in velour, and I drag the tree up the porch, dropping pine needles as I heave it into the hallway. My dad stands just outside the kitchen with his hands in the pockets of his corduroys. I lean the tree against the wall, and he just stares at me for a moment, looking uncomfortable. My mother comes into view, and I can see that she’s been crying. I take a deep breath and try to stem the resentment already building in my chest.
“I meant to ask you, did you see that Donna got a new dog?” I say, making my face as open as possible to show I’ve forgiven her. “I think it’s a rescue, or maybe she was saying she rescued it from her daughter. The one with the OxyContin problem. Also, is it just me or has she had something done to her lips?”
* * *
• • •
My parents lock themselves in the kitchen as Esme and I dress the Christmas tree, filling each branch with garish, flashing baubles, each more hideous than the one before it. My dad found a crate of decorations in the attic, and when he brought them down, I had to try very hard not to think about the first Christmas I didn’t come back, or any of the ones after that. I would like to say that I’ve thought about it before, but I would probably be lying.
As we work, I hum Christmas songs to drown out the sound of my parents arguing, even though Esme is still refusing to talk to me. It’s a throwback to when we were younger, back when our parents’ arguments used to be loud and fiery instead of ice cold, always when they thought we were sleeping. Esme would wake up and climb onto the foot of my bed, turning to face the wall so that her forehead was pressed against it. While our parents fought over my mother spending twelve pounds on a moisturizer, or going out dancing with her friends when the water bill still hadn’t been paid, I would make up stories or songs about a pirate-fighting mermaid called Patrice to distract her. Esme was young then, only eight when I left, and I think I thought of her as mine for a while.
I steal glances at her while we decorate, and it strikes me as so strange that I don’t know this serious, dark-haired teenager any more than I know my parents’ next-door neighbor. She has rings of violet underneath her eyes and a small gap between her front teeth that she must either love or despise.
As a result of what has been happening in the kitchen, dinner consists of defrosted hash browns and boiled hot dogs, with a watery pile of spinach in the middle. Esme takes one look at her plate and announces that she needs to lie down in her room. She’s usually the definition of polite, so this is entirely unpreceden
ted. There is this moment where my dad stares helplessly at my mom but they let her get away with it, and I can see how it starts, how someone can slip through your fingers even when you care so much it hurts.
I settle down next to my mom on the sofa for an episode of Real Housewives. My dad hands me the tray with the poppies on it by mistake, and my mom and I wordlessly swap before we start to eat. I open with the spinach and work my way to the hot dogs, leaving the hash browns until last because they’re the best part. I really like hash browns. How can my mom say that I’m not happy?
“Grace . . .” My dad cuts across the show at a pivotal moment and I frown at him slightly. My mom mutes the TV.
“I know your mother tried to talk to you earlier, and I wanted to say that I support her 110 percent. Whatever she said, I agree.” He seems like he’s in physical pain with the effort of having to involve himself in this, but it’s still not enough for my mom, who makes a small sound.
“Great, me too. We are all on exactly the same page then,” I say brightly. My mom keeps her eyes fixed expectantly on my dad. I frown at the TV but they don’t turn the sound back on even though the show has restarted. We stay frozen like this in a silent showdown for a couple more minutes. I could do this forever, but I also kind of want to know how the episode ends.
“What was the scale?” I ask eventually. My dad just looks at me, confused, but my mom shakes her head because she knows what’s coming.
“You said 110 percent but I have no idea what the scale was. It devalues the whole system. What about 500 percent? You could even support her a million percent if you tried really hard.” I think I can hear Esme snort from her bedroom down the hall, but maybe I’m imagining it.
“Grace,” my mom snaps, and I sink back into the sofa.
“I don’t want to have to remind you that I bought you this house. So this is actually my home,” I say, hating myself more with every word that comes out of my mouth.
“You guys can obviously stay as long as you want,” I add graciously.
“Grace, please,” my dad says, and I feel horrible because I think he’s going to cry. Sometimes I wish he could just figure out how to repress his emotions like the rest of us.
“This is ridiculous,” my mom says, throwing her hands in the air. “You can’t pretend that your life there never existed. That it doesn’t still exist—”
“Mom,” I interrupt, and then I count to five in my head. “Can we talk about something else?”
I walk over to the TV and turn the sound on manually. One of the Real Housewives is upset that her friend said she had an alcohol problem. I let her voice wash over me as my heart rate returns to something close to normal. It never occurred to me before, but maybe this is what people outside of LA and New York do to meditate.
“You know, I heard something today about the Independent Film Awards,” my mom says after a moment. I keep my eyes trained on the TV, even as my heart rate picks up.
“Where did you hear about that in Anaheim?”
“It’s a figure of speech, Grace. I saw it on Facebook. Anyway, Able Yorke is being honored. They’re giving him a lifetime achievement award for his commitment to the industry. I thought you’d want to know.”
I swallow hard but I don’t lift my eyes from the TV.
“Not really,” I say, then I collect her plate on top of mine and put them both in the kitchen sink.
I watch the rest of the episode with my parents before excusing myself, but I know my mom will think she has won anyway. Because surely that’s what she was doing—appealing to my engorged celebrity ego, thinking that I would never be able to resist the slithering pull of awards season. Surely I would never miss seeing Able win for his body of work that couldn’t have existed without me. That this entire time I’ve been pretending to rebuild Grace Hyde, we all knew my alter ego was always going to win in the end.
I try not to think about his papery skin, the copper smell on his hands, but the memories slide and distort behind my closed eyes until they fuse together like a time-lapse film. I open the secret drawer of my old jewelry box and pull out the orange tube of pills I haven’t touched since I left Los Angeles, running my thumb across the smooth label. Percocet: a prescription for yet another version of myself, the one you may find in a heap on the bathroom floor. I quietly pour two pills out onto my sweaty palm and swallow them dry. After a moment I swallow one more because they haven’t kicked in quickly enough to stop the shame clawing at my insides, and I don’t think I can risk what comes next: the involuntary mental checklist of all the ways I’ve ever failed anyone.
I sit against my bedroom door and wait for the numbness to melt over me, for the present to replace the past, to be aware only of the blessedly tangible: the texture of the carpet beneath my fingertips, the hum of the dishwasher in the kitchen, the canned laughter from the TV down the hall. Just as my muscles start to melt, my heart rate slowing down to normal, I hear my sister’s voice, calling out for my mom from her bedroom. I slip into the bathroom next to my room, and I stick the plastic end of my toothbrush down my throat, vomiting messily into the stained porcelain basin as hot tears streak down my face. Afterward, I curl up on the bath mat and rest my cheek against the cool linoleum floor. Maybe my mom was right about me when she said I wasn’t happy, but what she doesn’t understand is that since the age of fifteen, I’ve never even dared to want to be happy. I’m just trying to stay alive.
CHAPTER SEVEN
For the first time in months, sleep eludes me entirely. It becomes something slippery, just out of reach, and I know that it has started all over again. Able has crept into this house and I will start to see his face reflected next to mine in the bathroom mirror, the outline of his profile in a slice of burned toast. My mom may have been the one who said his name, but I’m always the one who leaves the door open for him. He was never supposed to exist here, but now that he’s here, he comes after me like a flood.
I already know what happens next if I stay, because it’s the only part that ever comes easily to me. Worse than the numbness, worse than the bending and yielding to fit myself into a place I no longer belong, I will become resentful, bitter, and it won’t be long before I’m drinking again, mixing vodka with my pills and blacking out in an effort to forget my own name for just a minute. My parents will no longer be able to ignore what I’ve become, and neither will my sister. I understand that they have all just been tolerating my presence since I got back, waiting for me to get sick of them and leave again. I don’t think I can even blame them for it, as much as I want to.
As the sky begins to lighten outside, I pack up my things, dropping the clothes and books from my drawers into my small suitcase without looking at them. I arrived at my parents’ house with little, and I’ll return to LA with even less.
I peek into my parents’ bedroom on my way out. They seem older when they’re asleep, on their backs with their mouths tugging down at the corners. I feel a shift somewhere deep in my chest, so I close the door gently behind me and creep toward the front door.
“You weren’t going to say good-bye?”
My mom appears in the hall behind me, one hand gripping the wall. She’s like me, a useless automaton version of herself until she’s had a cup of coffee.
I shrug, the key she gave me hovering next to the lock. “I’ll visit soon.”
“You’ll miss Thanksgiving,” she says matter-of-factly.
“We barely celebrate Thanksgiving,” I say, smiling slightly.
“Will you be back for Christmas at least?”
“I don’t know,” I reply.
My mom runs a hand through her fine hair, and I wonder for the first time if this is hard for her too. I remember how much I used to worship her before we moved here, and I know that I would take it all back if I could, and if I could just figure out how to tell her that, it might be the most honest thing I’ve ever said.
; “I just wanted to be normal for a while,” I say quietly.
A flicker of a smile.
“You could never be normal, Grace, you just don’t know it yet.”
I don’t say anything as I turn back to the door.
“You don’t want to say good-bye to Esme?”
An image of Esme as a young child appears in my mind, but I shake my head. I’ve always been good at leaving; it seems strange for her to have forgotten already.
“Grace?” my mom says when I’m halfway down the front porch steps, but her next words get lost in the sound of a lone car speeding past us.
“What did you say?” I ask, and suddenly something is pressing on my chest, making it hard for me to breathe.
“I said, watch the traffic around the 710,” she says, louder this time.
I nod wordlessly as she closes the front door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
After my audition, arrangements were made for me to screen-test in LA over the summer break. My parents left Esme with a friend, and we boarded a flight without her for the first time since she was born. I held my mom’s hand during takeoff, and even though I could see how clunky a metaphor the ascent into the clouds was for how I was feeling (even my insipid English teacher would have circled that one in red), it did nothing to stem the growing feeling I had that all the other passengers on the plane were just along for the ride. While my parents slept for most of the flight, I watched a garbage movie about vampires that I had never been allowed to watch at home, and I wondered if I’d ever feel grounded enough to sleep again.
