Bizzy and Choo’s wigs barely got a reaction as they squeezed themselves between the well-heeled bodies of their parents’ friends holding a small stack of cocktail napkins in their left hands, platters balanced on their right. Between gracious smiles, they conversed with each other over their shoulders.
Bizzy said, “Jeeze. Look at these kooks. I can’t wait until I’m a grown-up and get to throw parties and get wasted all the time.”
“Pretty sure there’s more to adulthood than that.” At least Choo hoped there was.
“Is there? You should tell them.”
Bizzy noticed one of the moms’ pregnant bellies being used to rest an ashtray and her bourbon, drained—drinking for two. “You know how I want to be a famous costume designer like Bob Mackie, right? And go on Johnny Carson and make millions?”
“And hang out with Cher. I remember.”
“I also want to be a mom. Look how much fun they’re having. After dinner they’ll move the coffee table again and dance like crazy. Everyone’s always laughing all the time.”
“Our moms aren’t,” said Choo.
“These moms are. And your mom’s fun. Aunt Cat can take a joke. Only mine can’t.”
“I guess. But I think my mom had more fun when she was drinking.”
As they wove their way through the house, there wasn’t a single woman looking at her wristwatch. None of them asked to borrow the phone to check on their kids. None were worried about getting home early to relieve the sitter. They threw their heads back to cackle when they weren’t leaning in to whisper—their tinkling 24k gold charm bracelets adding to the din. Long chain necklaces dangled fist-sized owl pendants against ribbed turtlenecks showcasing perky, braless chests. Many of them still wore sexy hoop earrings even into their late thirties. And some had mastered black liquid eyeliner like Audrey Hepburn or Aretha. Bizzy was enthralled. These moms had it good, and she would have it good, too. Much better than her mom—crabby Claire the Bear.
At one point Mrs. Burrbridge leaned in close to Choo’s face and waved a tiny red plastic sword, which held a gin martini olive. Bizzy swung by to see if Choo needed saving as he assisted Mrs. Burrbridge in her quest to choose the right deviled egg. Bizzy spoke to him in their secret language they’d made up when they were little, saying, “os knurd,” instead of “so drunk.” They’d named their language Terces, for “secret” spelled backward, and were so well versed by now that to the uninitiated they sounded like Swedish Chefs. Over time their fluency grew from halting words to entire sentences strung together like casual pearls. When questioned by strangers they politely explained their Klingon roots. Their family first found it adorable, but later complained it was rude.
Bizzy said, “Trilf,” to remind Choo Mrs. Burrbridge was only flirting. In the voice of Scooby-Doo, he answered, “Rikes.” “Aren’t you divine,” slurred Mrs. Burrbridge, tapping Choo’s broadened chest. “Je suis,” he joked, knowing she wouldn’t remember. He was used to being hit on by his parents’ drunken friends. Though his mom and dad’s divorce had been typically loud and messy, Choo emerged with the grounded confidence of a handsome, intelligent kid. He was tall now with a deep voice recently changed. Choo—née Charles, as his jackass father still insisted on calling him—was the Adonis of the cousins and Bizzy the obvious Venus. Her hair was long and raven-hued, her eyes piercing green like her mom’s. Choo’s were hazel with dark rims that appeared to warm when hit by the sun. His hair was lighter than the others’, dirty blond and shaggy. But they both had their grandfather’s height and Nana’s dimple.
Bizzy redirected Mrs. Burrbridge so that Choo could sneak away. Then they consolidated the remaining eggs for the basement feeding frenzy.
The rumpus room, as it was referred to, resembled an illegal betting-parlor scene from Bugsy Malone, the mob movie with an all-child cast. Ten- and eleven-year-olds shared cigarettes and twelve-year-olds sipped beer while older teens smoked joints and made out in the shadows behind the furnace. Thankfully, the debauchery had its codified limitations: the elementary school crowd was in the master bedroom asleep on the mink coat pile, and any child younger was home in bed with a sitter, as any reasonable parent would insist.
Nearly all the kids grabbed a deviled egg off the platter, even Piper, who claimed she hated food. Someone picked up the needle from the Eagles’ Greatest Hits album and started “Take It Easy” again from the beginning—no one minded because everyone knew the whole album by heart. The song’s strumming guitar open galvanized the crowd once again and they sang aloud in a chorus with gusto. “Well, I been runnin’ down the road tryin’ to loosen my load, I got seven women on my mind…,” they shouted and air-guitared. It had been the only record played on the stereo for months. Choo caught his little sister, Rah, inhaling a menthol cigarette while playing Atari Pong. “What the hell,” he lashed out, “you’re only ten!” The butt hung out of her mouth like a pro. Rah ignored him and played on—bee-boop, bee-boop. Controller in hand, staring at the screen, she said, “You told me you were ten when you tried your first cig, and I’m almost eleven.”
“Yeah, but I’m a boy,” said Choo, and blocked her view.
“So what! Move!” Rah shouted, and tried to sweep her big brother out of the way. He remained immoble. “Just because you’re a boy and I’m a girl—” Choo made a swipe for her cigarette, but Rah scrambled over the back of the nubby plaid couch and fled under the pool table, knocking over the Hot Wheels loop-de-loop track the younger kids had been building. Cries of “Hey, cut it out!” were roundly ignored except for Bizzy, who crouched down to help rejoin the lengths of bright orange plastic track where they’d been kicked apart. Choo’s older stepsister, Georgia, looked over from making out and said, “Calm down, you’re not in charge, Kristy McNichol.”
“I’m Jaclyn Smith, you twat,” said Choo in a huff.
“Nice mouth,” Georgia said, and went back to deep-tonguing a neighbor boy from down the street who was home on break from one of those boarding schools for rich kids who struggled in school. Georgia was thirteen and a half and only recently their big sister. Choo was initially Cat’s oldest child, soon followed by a little sister named Rah, short for Sarah. Then when Dick left and she married Ned, he brought his daughter, Georgia, to live with them. The move invited unwelcome comparisons to the Brady Bunch as she became Choo’s big sister overnight, and there was more drama behind closed doors than anticipated. But over time the children worked out their new adjusted birth order, and the first Thornden blended family was formed.
“Slut,” said Choo as a matter of course.
“Dickwad,” responded Georgia as familial greeting.
Bizzy’s older brother, E.J., yanked her Farrah wig off her head. “Cut it out, assjerk,” she said, too late to snatch it back. “It’ll look better on her,” said E.J., and tossed it to Piper, their neighbor from three houses down. There was no need for Piper to cover up her glorious shrimp-hued mane of curls, but E.J. needed a reason to talk to her. “Try it on,” he said. “No thanks,” she said on an exhale, then pushed it off her lap and onto the sticky wall-to-wall carpeting. Piper made smoking look the raddest of everyone. At thirteen, she was the closest thing Bizzy had to a girlfriend and the best at inhaling. She also had the biggest boobs—almost as big as Georgia’s—and a bossy nature that everyone endured. Piper was mean to Choo, too, but Bizzy thought she liked him because she always stuck her chest out as if it didn’t already have a neon blinking sign that read BIG BOOBS. E.J., on the other hand, annoyed Piper, and everyone knew it. But E.J. annoyed everyone. At fifteen he still grabbed stuff out of people’s hands.
Piper told everyone sitting around the coffee table it was time to start a new round of Spin the Bottle, so they did as they were told. She had Bizzy hold her cigarette while she grabbed the broken flashlight that had rolled under the couch. E.J. said he wasn’t playing; instead, he played Simon to show off his “genius memory skills” but, of course, wouldn’t move over to let people in. The rule was that if you spun and
the bottle landed on someone who’d just landed on you, you had to spend seven minutes in the furnace room, or “seven minutes in heaven.” Everyone else had to drink and keep playing while someone timed by counting “one one-thousand, two one-thousand.” The grandkids mostly played games like this with their friends in the summer, because Grandpa Dun and Nana Miggs only let them watch TV on Sunday mornings—cartoons on their 28-inch color set. “Use your nimble minds, children,” Grandpa Dun said on balmy days. “Go outside and make a fort.” Nana Miggs added, “You never know when you’re going to be taken prisoner of war and need to know how to pass the time.”
The kids had also made up sibling rules, because so many of the neighborhood kids were from big families. If you spun and got a sibling, you had to spin again and drink. If it landed on a cousin you kissed cheeks, even if you thought it was gross. If you refused to kiss someone you had to go directly to the furnace room as a punishment for missing the game, which is what happened when Bizzy landed on Choo after he’d landed on her. He’d gotten away with kissing Bizzy on the cheek for his first turn, but not this time. Davie and Robbie were pounding their knees, chanting, “French, French, French!” to which Bizzy rolled her eyes and said, “As if, you imbeciles, we’re cousins.” Piper said, “You know the rules, seven minutes in heaven.” So off they went, slightly buzzed on warm Rheingold.
“You’re not the boss of me,” Bizzy said to Piper, without looking directly at her.
“Yeah, she is,” said Choo with a chuckle, and stood. “Of all of us.”
“I think cousins should just spin again. Stupid rule,” she said to the crowd.
“You’re stupid” was the gist of the apathetic reply. It didn’t cross their minds they had made up the rules and so could change them at any time.
In the furnace room Bizzy and Choo leaned against the thin door made of scrap pieces of 1940s beadboard. Choo sipped the beer he’d stolen, wondering when he would feel drunk, and not having the wherewithal to realize he already was. God, beer tastes gross, he thought, then squinched his face. How do parents drink this shit?
“Why does beer have to taste so bogus?”
“This is so totally boring,” Bizzy said. “How long do we have to be here?”
“What do you think?”
“Oh, right. Duh.”
“Yeah, no duh,” said Choo, laughing. Bizzy cracked up at her own idiocy and took his cigarette. She dragged on it as if she’d been smoking for years when in fact she’d only just started on her birthday. Claire had said she could smoke as long as she waited until she was thirteen. She cheated and started a year early.
“Okay, let’s practice,” said Bizzy.
“Practice what?”
“Kissing. C’mon. You’re probably sucky at it, and I haven’t really had any practice yet, so we may as well.”
“We’re cousins!”
“No shit, Sherlock. That’s why it doesn’t count. Jeeze. C’mon. Show me your best try.”
“You’re a dipwad,” said Choo, but he straightened up and faced Bizzy, then took another long, warm sip. She was right that he was unsure of his abilities and could probably use the practice. He hadn’t kissed anyone outside of Spin the Bottle.
Bizzy said, “I know you are, but what am I. C’mon, kiss me and I’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong, and then we’ll switch. That way we’ll be wicked good for when we get real boyfriends and girlfriends.”
“Ha. Like that’s ever gonna happen,” said Choo.
“You’re like the hottest guy in seventh grade. Why don’t you ask someone out? Like Piper.”
“Echh, I’m not attracted to her. They’re all like annoying sisters, and I already have that.”
Bizzy laughed. “You’re a dork. Okay, let’s do this, but remember, we don’t count for each other.”
“A-doi,” Choo said but thought, You count for me. Bizzy was far and away the most fun person in his whole dumb life. Her smile always calmed him down when he felt himself winding tight. And even though he saw her every day he never tired of her belly laugh or sense of unpredictable adventure. Just because I like to be around her doesn’t mean I have a crush, Choo thought. But he felt the stir of tingles when she was close. For Bizzy, kissing in general was like an after-school sport—something she could practice and improve upon. It wasn’t personal; she just wanted to become really good at the thing she and her girlfriends talked and thought about ad nauseam. Like Choo, she also felt stuck with boring people she’d known since kindergarten—lame-os she had no interest in kissing. Choo was the only boy she wanted to hang out with. Why not practice on him? she thought. Plus he’s cute, but who cares? I mean, what’s the big deal?
“You start. This is so dumb,” Choo said, cupping the last inch of his warm beer.
“Don’t be a dweeb. Put down the beer.”
Bizzy leaned in to get close and brushed her recently developing breasts up against his chest by accident. She wasn’t entirely used to having them yet; she’d just had a growth spurt and before that had been flat as a board. She watched Choo watching her—her seafoam eyes wide open—then stopped and said, “I think we’re supposed to close our eyes.” Choo said, “Fine,” and shut his tight, but Bizzy kept hers open a little, wanting to make sure their mouths connected at the right spot. They were careful to keep their bodies from touching. She moved in slowly and placed her lips on his, then pulled back, remembering to lick them first. “Lick your lips, both of them,” she directed, and he did. The next time she let her lips sink into his, she reminded herself to pucker. Then she rested her hands on his shoulders and briefly wondered where his were.
At the brush of her lips, Charlie flinched slightly but remained, tilting his head so their noses wouldn’t bonk. He planted his lips squarely on hers and lingered—soft, wettish, warm, he thought—then returned her pucker two or three times and was quickly bored. He liked the way her mouth felt on his but was distracted because his pants felt full. He balled his hands into fists and put them safely in his pockets. Bizzy couldn’t think of anything wrong with his kiss, which led her to wonder if he’d had practice, outside of Spin the Bottle, Spin the Flashlight, or Spin the Flip-Flop or Shoe. Bizzy had only known the pressure of kissing in front of a circle of friends and relatives, sometimes under the duress of teasing and chanting. Kissing had been a spectator sport up until now, but here, alone and with Glenn Frey’s pleading lyrics to coerce her, Bizzy felt excited. Their privacy emboldened her. Bizzy parted her lips the width of a penny and let the tiniest flick of her tongue reach Choo’s mouth. He pulled back, annoyed. “What are you doing? We didn’t say tongues.”
“We didn’t say no tongues. Shh. Don’t have a cow. This is just Frenching. It’s no big deal, doesn’t even count as a base. Chill.” Choo felt more confused than annoyed. The pressure in his pants was becoming distracting and his head felt hot and tingly, but he stayed where he was, riveted to the cement floor. “Don’t tell me to chill. I hate that,” he said, “and no one can hear us, it’s like Ringling Brothers out there.” On the next try, Bizzy allowed her mouth to open the width of an almond. Though it felt slimy and weird to be touching tongues with her best friend, she persevered, her goal in sight. The inside of Choo’s mouth was warmer than the outside. And slimier. Eww, she wanted to say. This was something she’d have to get used to, so she tried not to think of the wriggling tadpoles she’d held in Miss Githens’s classroom.
Choo closed his eyes again and licked his tongue against Bizzy’s. It was an odd feeling but okay, he guessed. He remembered watching people kiss on Love Boat and how they broke it up into segments: lips touch, then tongue, then hands moving through the hair. He was definitely not putting his hands in Bizzy’s sweaty touch-football hair, but he was starting to get the hang of it. Bizzy was, too. Weak knees and warm thighs—this was starting to feel like an amusement park ride. And definite tingles they’d not felt previously, in unfamiliar places.
Bizzy pulled away to take a quick break. She decided she liked the way her h
ead felt light and her legs soft and buzzy. She felt relaxed and noodle-y. Choo did, too. Sort of. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his Brooks Brothers button-down and took another sip of backwash. He hoped she wouldn’t notice the prominent object pressing against his jeans and dangled the empty beer can in front of his fly. This hard-on felt bigger than any he’d had before. What the hell was he going to do to make it go away? He couldn’t even think straight. Bizzy noticed his fidgeting and looked down. She wondered if she was looking at a hard-on, though she couldn’t be certain. She’d heard an eighth-grade boy whisper to his friend about one in the lunch line, but she was afraid to ask Piper. It had been years since she’d seen her brother’s actual penis, or Choo’s when they were little. She’d begun speculating about what they looked like up close lately. People knew what boobs looked like—they were in movies all the time—but dicks were mysterious. Not that she ever planned to touch one—ew. But still, she didn’t think it was fair.
“Your pants look weird.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Choo, and tried to think about algebra.
“Hey, what does your dick look like?” Bizzy asked matter-of-factly. “Is it the same color skin as your regular skin or lighter or darker? Is it smooth like a hot dog or more like celery?”
“It’s blue and hairy like Cookie Monster,” Choo said straight-faced. “It shoots cookies when I pee.”
Twisted Family Values Page 2
