by Tara Sivec
“The only thing Eastery about this mess are the thousands of plastic Easter eggs hung from every tree and bush. I don’t even know what those are,” Noel winces, pointing to the thing tied to a wooden stake a few feet away from us.
“It’s about damn time you two got here. I need some help putting a few more bunnies up,” Reggie, Noel’s father, states as he walks out of the garage with two pastel blow-up rabbits under his arms.
“Bunnies? Those things are supposed to be bunnies?” Noel asks, still staring in confusion at the yard display.
“Of course they’re bunnies. It’s Easter. What the hell else would they be?” Reggie declares, shoving the two blow-up rabbits into my arms.
“Um, I don’t know, dad, considering they’re all wearing dresses, wigs, false eyelashes and…” Noel pauses, walking closer to the bunny right in front of us, swiping a finger over its mouth. “Lipstick? You put lipstick on the blow-up Easter bunnies?”
The bunnies, all different colors of pastel, from pink, purple, teal, and yellow, stand in the yard, strapped to wooden stakes so they won’t blow away, each one looking more horrifying than the next. The one right in front of us that Noel just swiped lipstick off of is wearing a long blonde wig, its huge bunny ears sticking straight up through the hair.
Reggie sighs, crossing his arms in front of him.
“Your mother has been complaining lately that I’m not sensitive enough about Aunt Bobbie, whatever the hell that means. I may not understand why a grown man would want to dress up like a woman, but I’m sensitive, dammit. Do you have any idea how hard it is to glue those fake eyelash things on bunnies?” he asks.
“There’s got to be at least a hundred bunnies in this yard,” I muse.
“A hundred and twenty-seven, thank you very much. And where were you when I was blowing all of them up? Nowhere to be seen, that’s where. You marry my daughter and then think you’re too good to blow things,” Reggie accuses.
Noel giggles, and I shoot her an annoyed look.
“Don’t even think about making a joke.”
Reggie moves over to the bunny next to her, pulling a tube of lipstick out of his pocket as he squats down and fixes the smear around its little bunny mouth, going way outside of the lines, making it look like an evil bunny that will murder us all in our sleep.
“Where did you even get so many tiny ball gowns?” Noel asks him.
“Your mother has a friend at church whose granddaughter is in those weird, toddler beauty pageants where they dress little girls up to look like grown women. She made me go to one of them and they were having a big sale on the dresses in the hotel lobby. I got an entire rack for a steal, and now my Easter decorations are perfect.”
Reggie stands back up, recapping the lipstick and shoving it back in his pocket to admire his work.
“This is weird,” Noel whispers, shaking her head.
“There is nothing weird about bunnies in drag, Noel! Show some sensitivity,” Reggie scolds.
The sound of a dog barking makes all of us turn around to find a woman standing on the sidewalk, struggling to hold onto the leash attached to her dog as it barks and lunges at one of the bunnies.
“Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it, Mrs. Gold?” Reggie shouts, lifting his hand to give her a wave.
The woman gives him an awkward wave back, her eyes never leaving the bunny display as she finally manages to control her dog and quickly walk away.
“She’s judging my drag bunnies,” Reggie grumbles as he watches Mrs. Gold hightail it down the sidewalk as fast as she can.
“Well, on that note, I think I should probably head inside and help mom fill the Easter eggs,” Noel states, giving her dad a kiss on the cheek before heading towards the front porch.
“I’ll come with you. I’m sure you ladies could use an extra hand filling all those eggs with candy for the church Easter egg hunt, right?” I ask, starting to follow after her.
Reggie grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop.
“Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere. You didn’t blow anything, but you’re damn well going to put yourself to good use. I have a few more wigs I need to brush out before they go on the bunnies. There’s a box in the garage. Go get it and put the red one on first,” Reggie tells me, grabbing the blow-up bunnies from my arms and moving over to the middle of the yard to attach them to the awaiting stakes.
I always tell myself that things couldn’t get any worse with Noel’s family, then I find myself sitting in the front yard wearing a wig while my father-in-law brushes my hair.
“Mom, we need to talk,” I hear Noel shout when I get inside the house after quickly sneaking away from Reggie before he put another wig on me.
I make my way down the hall to find Noel standing in the doorway of the kitchen, both of us staring at her mother who is currently lying on her stomach, halfway under the kitchen table.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“I have no idea. Mom was up in the attic for the last twenty minutes getting the totes of plastic eggs down and she just came racing past me, yelling something about bacon.
“Yes, we need to talk about bacon!” Bev shouts from under the table.
“Um, okay, but first, we need to talk about Aunt Bobbie. I don’t think we can keep her until after Easter like I promised. Sam and I have been under a lot of stress lately with—”.
“Why is bacon so difficult!” Bev interrupts with a shout as the lower half of her body squirms around on the kitchen floor and one of her shoes falls off.
I don’t even want to know why my mother-in-law is under the kitchen table looking for bacon. Sadly, this isn’t the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in this house.
Moving closer to Noel, I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her closer to my side, giving a squeeze of encouragement to tell her mom that we can’t have Aunt Bobbie living in our house anymore. I really don’t want to go to prison for killing the woman.
“Anyway, as I was saying, Sam and I need some alone time and Aunt Bobbie—”
“GOT HIM!” Bev shouts, interrupting Noel again as she slides out from under the table, stands up and turns to face us.
“Mom, why do you have a pig in your arms?” Noel asks, pulling out of my arms to step further into the room as Bev struggles to hold onto the tiny little piglet currently squirming in her arms.
The front door slams closed and a few seconds later, Reggie walks into the kitchen and stands next to me.
“Mark down at the VFW told me about this farm that sells pigs for you to butcher yourself for Easter. I got a great deal on it,” Reggie states.
“What? You’re going to kill that thing and eat it for Easter?” Noel asks in revulsion, staring at the little pig who has suddenly started to squeal at the top of his lungs.
Bev quickly sets him down on one of the chairs at the kitchen table and covers his little pig ears.
“Reggie, I told you to stop saying things like that in front of him! He’s very delicate right now. And we’re not having him for Easter dinner. I already named him, didn’t I, my little shmoopy-woopy?” Bev says, leaning down to coo and fuss over the pig.
“Mmmmm, bacon,” Reggie muses with a smile, licking his lips as he stares at the still-squealing animal in the chair.
“Dad, you can’t have a pig for a pet and then eat it,” Noel tells her dad, walking over to stand next to Bev and squatting down in front of the chair to give the thing a reassuring pat on the head.
“Did you not hear me say the word bacon?” he asks in annoyance.
Rolling my eyes at him, I look back down at the adorable little thing as he snorts and sniffs Noel’s hand. Bacon is delicious, but there is no way in hell I’m eating any kind of pork product in this house after seeing it alive, squealing, and staring at me with his beady little eyes.
“Mom already named him; therefor he’s a pet now. We are NOT eating him for Easter.”
“Yes, and she named him Bacon. We’re preparing him for a life of deliciousness,” R
eggie replies.
“That’s disgusting,” Noel replies, quickly standing up and placing one hand over her mouth and pressing the other against her stomach.
She’s starting to look a little pale, like she might throw up any minute. Noel hasn’t been feeling well the last few weeks, and clearly all this talk about butchering the family pet has made things worse.
“Bacon is never disgusting. I’m starting to wonder if you were switched at birth,” Reggie mumbles, shaking his head at her as Bev goes to the fridge, grabs a Tupperware container and removes the lid as she walks back over to Bacon.
We all watch silently as she starts pulling little pieces of something out of the container, feeding it to the pig.
“Yummy, yummy, in your tummy!” Bev praises the pig as he gobbles up every piece she hands him.
“Um, Bev. Are you feeding Bacon leftover pork chops?” I ask tentatively, my eyes flying to Noel’s face, watching it turn an alarming shade of green as she stares at what her mother is doing.
“Look at his little piggy tail wagging! He loves pork chops, don’t you, my little honey bunch?” Bev asks, giving the pig a kiss on top of its head when he inhales the last piece.
He puts his two front feet on the table, pushing himself up with his little snout sniffing and searching for more when she sets the empty container down on the table in front of him.
“This is so wrong on so many levels,” I mumble, quickly moving to Noel’s side and pulling her away from the cannibal pig before she pukes on its head.
“Bev, I never thought I’d say this, but get the damn Bacon off the table. Bacon is never allowed at the table, ever again,” Reggie informs her. “But good call on the pork chops. That is going to be one tasty Bacon on Sunday.”
With a groan, Noel takes off like a shot out of the room, racing down the hall until I hear the guest bathroom door slam shut, followed by very loud heaving and retching.
3
Plastic Wrap in Your Anus
Noel
“You’re bulimic, aren’t you? It’s okay, you can tell me. I won’t judge you.”
I come to an abrupt stop walking out of Scheva and Alex’s bathroom to find her leaning against the wall in the hallway.
“I’m not bulimic,” I reassure her, breathing through my nose to try and stop the nausea from taking over again.
After the chaos at my parent’s house the other night, we never got around to stuffing all of the Easter eggs for the church egg hunt this weekend. Mostly because my dad kept chasing Bacon around the house with a knife and my mom spent the evening chasing him with a wooden spoon. Since my mom is completely insane around the holidays, and is up to her armpits in melted, pastel-colored chocolate, Scheva, Aunt Bobbie and I decided to take the egg stuffing off her hands so she could continue making hundreds of chocolate Easter bunnies, chocolate eggs, and my favorite—Easter Nests. Little piles of white chocolate-covered Rice Krispies, dyed pastel green, left to dry in clusters with three jelly beans in the center to look like eggs.
“Oh, thank God. Because I totally would have judged you. Puking is disgusting. All that bile and half-chewed food coming back up your throat and flying past your lips…”
Scheva trails off with a full-body shiver, and I clamp my hand over my mouth and attempt to swallow down exactly what she just described.
I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. As soon as the three of us sat down in the middle of the living room floor surrounded by thousands of plastic eggs and piles of bagged candy, I dry-heaved when I opened the first bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs. The most amazing piece of candy deliciousness there is, and one of my favorite parts of the holiday season, now destroyed. Just thinking about those things right now makes my stomach churn.
“You’re probably pregnant!” Aunt Bobbie announces, coming around the corner, vodka sloshing out of her martini glass and all over her hand.
She licks the spilled booze off of her hand as the three of us laugh hysterically at her announcement.
Then, I start doing something I hate with the fire of a thousand suns—math.
Two plus two is four, carry the seven, multiply by the square root of JESUS MOTHER FUCKING FUCKS!
“Could you imagine Noel and Sam being parents? Holy shit that was hilarious, Bobbie!” Scheva continues to laugh while my mouth drops open and I stare at the wall across from me, still trying to do math in my head and coming up with nothing but FUCK THIS SHIT.
“Remember when they babysat Holly right before last Christmas and burned the house down?” Aunt Bobbie laughs, the loud slurp she takes of her drink shaking me out of my stupor.
“We did not burn the house down! There was a small electrical fire when Sam decided Nicholas and Casey didn’t have enough lights on their tree and added a few more strands,” I explain.
My brother and his wife got all bent out of shape when they left us alone with my niece, Holly, and they haven’t let us babysit or be in a room alone with her since then. Jesus. You start one small fire and everyone thinks you’re a monster. I blame my father for that disaster. His insanity about holiday decorations rubbed off on my husband. Sam took one look at Nicholas and Casey’s tree and declared it unfit for Christmas. It’s not our fault they have shitty electrical wiring in their house. The good news is, I got Holly out of the house and avoided smoke inhalation, while Sam put out the fire with an extinguisher.
And really, everyone knows nieces and nephews are practice kids you can mess up all you want in preparation for having your own children. You’re supposed to feed them high fructose corn syrup, teach them how to swear, allow them to watch scary movies right before bed, and on rare occasions, let them witness their house almost burning to the ground.
“Fine, Holly is still alive and well, but let’s not forget about Gunther,” Scheva adds.
“Rest in peace, Gunther, you were a fine, fine goldfish for the thirteen hours you managed to survive in Sam and Noel’s care,” Aunt Bobbie states, holding her glass up to the heavens in a silent toast.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Sam and I had been talking about getting a pet, and for Valentine’s Day this year he surprised me by installing a beautiful ten-gallon fish tank in the living room. He put Gunther, swimming in his bag of water, inside a big, heart-shaped box. He wrote the cutest little note inside of a card that said I swam into his heart, just like Gunther will. It was so sweet that obviously I couldn’t keep my hands off of him. It turns out, leaving a goldfish in an airtight bag overnight while you’re busy screwing your husband isn’t really good for their health.
“I think I’m pregnant,” I blurt out, before I lose my nerve and these two idiots continue coming up with even more bullshit about how Sam and I would suck as parents.
Aunt Bobbie starts choking on her martini, and Scheva starts laughing even harder. I quickly move over to Aunt Bobbie, smacking her on the back as I watch Scheva continue to laugh, until she realizes I’m not laughing with her and my face clearly says “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”.
Her laughter dies in her throat, and the smile falls from her face.
“Wait, you’re not kidding?”
I shake my head, moving away from Aunt Bobbie and crossing my arms in front of me when she finally gets her choking under control.
“She has to be kidding. They’ve only had sex once in seventeen days,” Aunt Bobbie states.
I glare at her and she shrugs.
“You guys are really loud! What do you expect me to do, just not listen? It’s like porn, without a picture. I can just close my eyes and imagine my own scenario. Very exhilarating,” she says with a nod.
“How in the hell did this happen?” Scheva asks, throwing her hands up in the air.
“Well, when a man and a woman love each other—”
“Shut the hell up, I know how it happens,” she shrieks. “What I mean is, how in the hell did it happen to YOU? Aren’t you the woman who made a guy wear two condoms at once?”
I scoff, rolling my eyes at her.
&nb
sp; “That was one time, and it was when I lost my virginity in high school and I was nervous about getting pregnant. Is nothing sacred with you?” I complain.
“I once had a guy wrap his dick in plastic wrap because I was out of condoms,” Aunt Bobbie muses. “Word of advice—never, ever get plastic wrap stuck in your anus. It is NOT a walk in the park getting that stuff back out, let me tell you.”
I open my mouth to quickly get back to the subject at hand, because I am not touching that story with a ten-foot pole, but Scheva quickly clamps her hand over my mouth and looks at Aunt Bobbie.
“I’m gonna need you to elaborate on that story,” Scheva tells her, pressing her hand harder to my face when I frantically shake it back and forth.
It’s like she wants me to throw up again.
“Oh, you know how it is,” Aunt Bobbie sighs. “You’re getting all hot and heavy with a guy you met on Tinder, you realize you’re out of condoms and you make do with what you have. And when you use vegetable oil as lube along with the plastic wrap? Forget about it. That shit turned into this gelatinous goo, the likes of which I’ve never seen come out of my ass, or anyone’s ass for that matter, and I’ve watched A LOT of weird porn on Tumblr.”
Scheva immediately drops her hand from my mouth when I gag. It takes me a few minutes of breathing through my nose before I can get that image out of my brain and speak without vomit pooling in my mouth.
“Anyway, back to Scheva’s original question, I don’t know how the hell it happened. I’m on birth control, and I take those things religiously,” I inform Scheva.
“Actually, you don’t. You have fifteen pills left for this month and you should only have fourteen, so you missed one somewhere,” Aunt Bobbie says, taking a sip of her drink.
When Scheva and I stare at her without speaking, she sighs.
“It’s like you two have never met me. Stop looking at me with those judgy eyes. I was looking through Sam and Noel’s medicine cabinet in the bathroom, and I thought she was hiding some Xanax from me until I realized what they were. You’re lucky I didn’t accidentally take one of those things. Do you have any idea what a birth control pill would do to me?” she questions. “Actually, now that I think about it, since you don’t need them anymore, can I have them? I could always use an estrogen boost.”
