Flat-Out Love

by Jessica Park

  “Hm,” Dr. Cooley murmured.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “You said you were going home today. To see your mother.”

  “Right. So?”

  “What about your father? Will you see him, too?”

  “You’re implying I have father issues?” Julie scoffed. “I don’t have father issues.”

  Dr. Cooley sat silently.

  “This is not about me.” Julie shook her head. “This is about a super quirky kid who needs me.”

  “But why is it your job to help her? Why are you the fixer? Why are you the one who wants to put this family back together?”

  “Because Celeste responds to me. I don’t know why, but she does. I can do this.”

  Dr. Cooley took his glasses off and gently set them down on the table. “Who are you trying to heal?”

  “Celeste.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Of course,” Julie said, slightly irritated. “This is not about me.”

  “No,” he agreed. “Not entirely.”

  Julie glanced at the clock on the desk. “I’m really sorry to cut you off, but I should leave now if I’m going to make my flight.”

  “Of course.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for talking to me,” she said sincerely. “I really appreciate it.”

  “It’s a fascinating hypothetical family that you’ve told me about.” He winked. “Remember, Julie. Tread lightly.”

  Chapter 14

  Julie’s stomach churned while she watched her cousin Damian shovel marshmallow-topped yams into his mouth. She wanted to kill whomever had come up with the sickening idea of combining marshmallows with a perfectly likeable vegetable. As gross as that was, it didn’t compare to her aunt’s “salad”: Red Hot candies suspended in a green Jell-O mold, with carrot bits and canned mandarin orange slices. At least her mother’s turkey was devoid of anything offensive. That was something to be thankful for.

  “Julie, why aren’t you wearing your pilgrim hat? You love the pilgrim hat!” Julie’s uncle Pete raised his voice to be heard over the table noise and pointed to his own. “It doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving if you don’t wear the hat.”

  Julie scanned the fourteen family members who sat at the table in her mother’s house in Ohio. Everyone there wore either a pilgrim hat or an Indian hat that had been purchased years ago at the costume shop on Delacorte Avenue. In other years, Julie had found this tradition amusing, but today the absurdity and idiocy had become undeniable. It was undignified. Not to mention the cultural offensiveness factor.

  “Consider me the rebellious relative who refuses to conform. I can’t say I’m a fan of supporting stereotypes.” Julie jabbed her fork into the heaping mound of green bean casserole. God, the canned fried onion smell alone was enough to give her indigestion for days.

  “Pete, she doesn’t have to wear the hat if she doesn’t want to,” her mother said. Kate stood up and reached into the middle of the table for the cranberry sauce. The hideous white dish was painted with country houses. “My daughter is making a statement, I believe.” As she moved to sit back down, she tipped the paper turkey centerpiece to the side and into the candle flame, immediately turning the gaudy decoration into a fiery display. “Oh, hell!” Kate shrieked.

  Everyone simultaneously backed their chairs up about three feet and—amid hollers to call 911 and prayers to higher powers—Uncle Pete upended his water glass on the flames. “No harm, no foul,” he chortled. “Get it? Fowl? Turkey joke.”

  Julie patted her napkin on the table with one hand and fanned the smoke away with the other. She sighed and sat back down, pinning herself once again between her cousin Damian and her mother’s sister, Erika.

  “So, Julie,” Erika started, “how is school going? Do you love Boston?”

  “I do love Boston. It snowed for the first time a few weeks ago and the city looks even more beautiful at night.”

  “Eh, Boston,” Uncle Pete growled. “I went there once. Dirty city with a bunch of bums hanging all around the Common. It’s not that hard not to be homeless.”

  Julie gripped her fork and considered the pros and cons of stabbing her uncle’s hand. Had he always been such a dumb jerk? “I’m sure my Economics of Poverty professor would disagree with you.”

  “Economics of Poverty? What the hell is that? What’s to teach? If you don’t have any money, there’s no economics to talk about.” Her uncle dropped his fork and looked at Julie’s mother. “Are you actually paying money for your daughter to take a class on being poor?”

  Her mother squirmed uncomfortably. “I doubt the class is just about—”

  “The class is about exploring and analyzing poverty and understanding the effects of poverty and discrimination on different populations,” Julie explained through clenched teeth. “Currently we’re looking critically at different public policies that attempt to combat the cycle of poverty.”

  “You want to end poverty? Get a job like the rest of us. There. Class dismissed.”

  “What about the working poor? It’s a little more complicated than that,” Julie practically snorted.

  “No, missy, it’s not. Now, we’re not rich or anything, but we work hard and pay our bills. You don’t need some college class to know that poor people bring it on themselves.” Pete’s face had started to turn red with anger. “And these government handouts you’re talking about? Another excuse for these lazy people to sit on their asses and collect cash.”

  “So when you lost your job two years ago and tracked down my father for fifteen hundred dollars, he should have told you to suck it up and get a job, the wretched economy be damned?” Julie shook her head and stood up. “Have you even paid him back now that you’re employed again?”

  “Julie, sit down!” Kate ordered.

  Pete’s face was now scarlet, and the vein next to his eye throbbed disgustingly. “Your father doesn’t give a rat’s ass about that money, and you know it! He also doesn’t give a rat’s ass about—”

  “Shut your mouth!” Julie hissed. “Don’t you dare.” She stepped away from the table. “While you’re busy ignoring the systemic, social, cultural, educational, and political contributions to poverty, I have a paper on ignorant, bigoted creeps to finish writing.” Julie walked angrily out of the room, up the stairs, and into her old bedroom.

  She shut the door and blocked out most of the dinner-table chaos. She didn’t care in the least that the cousins and uncles and aunts were probably tearing her apart right now. They revolted her even more than the slew of tacky Thanksgiving decorations that her mother had strewn throughout the house.

  She sat at her old desk and logged on to the article database that Erin had given her access to. Julie was about to write the best damn term paper on “the collapse of the housing market as it related to an increase in suburban poverty.”

  So there.

  Chapter 15

  Matthew Watkins At the first Thanksgiving, one of the bloodiest battles ensued when it was discovered that the deliveryman forgot to bring extra duck sauce.

  Finn is God is, on this enchanted evening, in love with a wonderful guy.

  Julie Seagle Going to write a book called, “Binge, Screw, Loathe.” It will be about a hateful woman who travels across the U.S. visiting all-you-can-eat brothels.

  Julie giggled at Finn’s reference to the musical South Pacific. She knew where he was now.

  It was the Friday night of Thanksgiving break, and Julie was itching to get back to Boston and end the torture that this trip had become. She hadn’t bothered to return any of her friends’ phone calls and even had her mom tell callers that she hadn’t come home for the break. Since the scene on Thursday, she’d pretty much been holed up in her bedroom working, and except for one snarly conversation about her lousy attitude, her mother had left her alone. She had nearly finished her paper on poverty and took a break from spell-checking to go online.

  Her email held twenty-some messages from friends in Ohio
wondering why she wasn’t home; there was nothing worse than missing the most badass party at Jacob O’Malley’s tonight! Whatever. Nothing from Seth, but his parents had decided that the holiday weekend in Vermont was going to be technology-free.

  She and Celeste had taken to studying at the coffeehouse after school once a week, and Seth had proved to be completely unfazed by Flat Finn’s presence. He was an all-around good guy: smart, funny, a hard worker, sweet to Julie, and patient. Between classes, homework, Seth’s job, and Julie’s long days with Celeste, it’d been hard to get together alone more than once a week, if that. So their relationship was on a slower track than normal. While most of Julie’s friends from school spent nearly every night with their boyfriends in the dorms, Julie and Seth were taking it slow. Being responsible. Smart. Methodical.

  But Julie thought that was a good thing. They held hands and messed around a little in his car, and Julie wasn’t rushing into anything else. So far Seth had understood. Not that he wasn’t a good kisser, because he was. And not that Julie didn’t have raging hormones, because she did. She just wasn’t in a huge rush.

  A lot of Julie’s time was eaten up by the exorbitant amount of schoolwork that she had. She was killing herself to keep up, and it was paying off with excellent grades. Even her calculus class was going better than she’d hoped, and Matt had helped her out more than a few times whenever she’d needed it. For someone so intellectually smug, he was a surprisingly good teacher, and they often studied together at night. So far she hadn’t found any opportunity to help him out with anything, of course, but one could hold out hope that there might be an occasion where Matt got stumped.

  Julie wasn’t holding her breath on that one.

  She stretched her arms above her head and yawned. It was only ten o’clock, but she was worn out. This trip home had hardly been energizing. She deleted a few more messages and then saw that there was one from Finn. Julie and Finn had been in touch regularly over the past few months. In fact, she checked her email more often than she liked to admit. He liked receiving her updates on Celeste, and she liked all the cool pictures from his travels.

  She read his email because she was fairly confident that Finn was not going to invite her to an annoying party, make her wear a holiday outfit, or proselytize about why those in poverty deserve what they got.

  Julie-

  Hope your trip home is going well? I’m in the Cook Islands. Fan-freakin’-tastic here!

  Wanted to give you a heads up: I heard that Flat Finn sustained an injury the other day. Nothing major, though. Something to do with Matt, a steaming iron, and maniacal shouts of, “There are no wrinkles allowed in this house! You may be flat, but you’re not smooth enough yet for this family!” From all reports, Matt Dearest had an alarming, fortunately temporary, reaction to the traditional Thanksgiving moo shu pork. Celeste bonked him over the head with an LL Bean umbrella, and he returned to his normal state. I think she should’ve hit him again, but that’s just my opinion.

  -Finn

  Clearly the Watkins household was falling apart in her absence.

  Finn-

  Ohio is… not that great actually. Family members are driving me crazy. Thanksgiving was a nightmare. I spent twenty minutes listening to my oldest cousin reenact some stand-up comedian’s routine from Comedy Central (not funny and poor delivery), tried to get my aunt interested in what I was reading in my Eng. Class (failure level=high), observed a paper turkey go up in flames (an appropriate holiday sign regarding good taste), and verbally abused my offensive uncle (well-deserved) in an explosive scene that will live on in memory for years to come.

  Can’t wait to get back to Boston for a million reasons. Need to return to normal. Will assess damage to Flat Finn and berate Matt for his outburst.

  How are the Cook Islands? The South Pacific must be amazing. Any chance you’re awake now? I need someone normal to chat with. I don’t know what time it is there…

  -Julie

  Two minutes later, she heard back.

  Julie-

  I’m up. I’m five hours earlier than you are. Turn on FB chat!

  -Finn

  Oh. By chat she hadn’t actually meant chat, as in instant message chat. She hadn’t felt like IMing with anyone in ages. Not only did she now feel so far removed from her old life, but also she loathed all the IM and texting abbreviations and acronyms. She was a snob like that and knew she fell into the minority of people her age. How was she supposed to know that DQMOT meant Don’t quote me on this? And that crap like CUL8ER? Blech. It was all so cutesy and corny. B4N? Seriously, just say goodbye like a normal person. OK, true she used the occasional LOL and WTF, but trying to translate an entire sentence that had been abbreviated into a few letters was more than she wanted to deal with. Julie suspected that billions of brain cells were being killed each hour as people shortened language into indecipherable code. As much as she loved technology, this sort of lingo was one of her top pet peeves. And now she was about to do it again with Finn. She’d probably have to pull up some online dictionary to translate this conversation, but she went on to Facebook’s chat anyway.

  Julie Seagle

  Hey!

  Finn is God

  Hey, back!

  And then she panicked. Well, this had been a dumb idea. Why had she said chat? What was she supposed to say now? It’s not like she actually knew Finn, and here she’d gone ahead without thinking and agreed to this. And she couldn’t very well back out now.

  Finn is God

  I am concerned about that last email. You’re quantifying me as “normal”?

  Julie Seagle

  Only in comparison to my relatives.

  Finn is God

  Huge relief. Less pressure to behave now.

  Julie Seagle

  Go nuts. You can’t possibly be that bad.

  Finn is God

  Just wait…!

  Julie Seagle

  Very funny.

  Julie tapped her foot during the seemingly endless four-minute pause. Topics, topics… What could they talk about? Ugh, this was a colossal mistake. He’d probably dozed off because she was so excruciatingly boring. Then finally Finn piped up.

  Finn is God

  What are you wearing?

  Oh. My. God. This had now gone beyond colossal mistake to violently alarming. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

  Finn is God

  Julie? Relax. I’m kidding.

  Julie laughed. Not only was he funny, but he wrote using actual whole words!

  Julie Seagle

  [Delete] [Delete] [Delete] Was just about to give you a full description of enticing bedroom attire.

  Finn is God

  Oh. NOT KIDDING! NOT KIDDING!

  Finn is God

  Fine. Kidding. Tell me more about Thanksgiving there. First time home should have been fun.

  Julie Seagle

  You would think. Big fight at the table. Didn’t help that I wouldn’t wear the pilgrim hat. More settled in Boston than I thought, and this whole trip just feels… disruptive.

  Finn is God

  More disruptive than living in my house? You’re clearly unbalanced.

  Julie Seagle

  Hey! I like your house. Your parents are great, Celeste is my buddy, and Matt has been really nice.

  Julie Seagle

  Even Flat Finn seems to have accepted me.

  Finn is God

  *sob* Fear real family has been abducted and replaced with well-behaved clones. Tragedy. Enjoy new clone mommy!

  Julie Seagle

  So sorry for your loss, but the difference between our moms? Your so-called clone mom hooked me up w/awesome Harvard intel, and my mom doubled the hay pile display out front.

  Finn is God

  Lucky girl. I’d take the hay and run.

  Julie Seagle

  Ha ha! Don’t be mean.

  Finn is God

  I’ll put it this way: Erin is not as perfect as you may think.

  Julie Se
agle

  Does she make you wear holiday hats, too?

  Finn is God

  She takes a different strategy to torture us.

  Julie Seagle

  Really? I have more in common with her than my own mother.

  Finn is God

  That’s a horrible thing to say about yourself. Appearances are not everything. Case in point: One summer when I was at day camp, I made her an art project. She spent weeks saying how weird it was that I’d made her a woodcarving that said, “WOW.”

  Julie Seagle

  ???

  Julie Seagle

  Oh, wait a minute…!

  Finn is God

  Yeah. She had it upside down. It was supposed to read, “MOM.”