Wallflower In Bloom

by Claire Cook

  “And you keep your mouth closed for the other,” her professional dancer said.

  This got an even bigger laugh.

  I swiveled my head and smiled at the celebrity dancers on either side of me. We were holding our own, and for the first time I felt like I was a part of the group. I mean, how cool to be sitting up here with people who’d actually been famous, or at least sort of famous. How brave we were to take on this challenge. What an incredible shared experience. And how amazing it would be to have earned the right to tell the story for the rest of our lives.

  Maybe we’d be so good the producers would call us all back to do a reunion show in ten years, maybe even five if our season turned out to be truly spectacular. I’d be older, of course, but better. I’d be in killer shape and I’d have a glow that went beyond my spray tan. I’d have kept up with my dancing and maybe I’d even be competing across the country in semiprofessional dance competitions, or at least amateur ones. Steve would have agreed to take some lessons because I gave him a gift certificate for our anniversary. After the first lesson he’d have been hooked, and now we spent almost as much time dancing as my parents did bowling.

  Ilya squeezed my shoulders. Hard. I tuned back in just in time to realize that a reporter was asking me a question.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “but can you repeat that?”

  A skinny blond reporter spoke slowly, as if perhaps English was a second language for me. “How. Grateful. Are you. To your brother. Tag. For this experience?”

  “Pretty grateful,” I said.

  In front of me, about a zillion hands shot up. One of the hosts called on another reporter.

  “Will Tag be in the audience?”

  “So I hear,” I said.

  “At every show? Or just for the premiere?”

  “Um, I think you’d have to ask Tag that.”

  “Is there any truth to the rumor that Tag will be dancing in one of the numbers?”

  “Only if Ilya wants to dance with him,” slipped out of my mouth. As soon as I said it, I realized it was the kind of thing you say to your brother, not about him in front of a roomful of reporters.

  I was right. Silence filled the room. It was dark and heavy, like sludge.

  It didn’t seem fair. I mean, the wrestler’s comment wasn’t that funny and the reporters laughed for him.

  “Are you saying that after all Tag has done for you, you’re refusing to dance with him?” a reporter shouted out.

  I looked at the two DWTS hosts, hoping one of them would help me out, or at least tell the reporter to wait until he was called on. Neither of them said anything.

  My first impulse was to say, Have you ever seen my brother dance? But given the way my first joke attempt had gone over, I ruled that one out. Then I thought about pleading the fifth, but somehow I didn’t think that would fly either.

  I took in the blur of faces in front of me. If they were lions, I’d be dinner.

  I lowered my head and looked up humbly. “I am forever grateful to my amazing brother. I was just worried about infringing on his important work. But I’d do anything for him, of course. And if Tag wants to dance, I’d be delighted to.”

  “I’d dance with him,” Ashleyjanedobbs said.

  Somehow even this got a big laugh.

  Another reporter’s voice cut through the crowd. “What’s the biggest piece of advice your brother gave you for being on Dancing With the Stars?”

  Everybody stopped yelling. It was so quiet you could hear a dance shoe drop.

  Ilya squeezed my shoulders again.

  “To dance is to live,” I said, “if you live through the dance.”

  The entire room erupted in laughter. Not just the reporters, but the hosts, too, as well as the dancers around me and their partners behind us.

  I sat up straighter and smiled. I was so proud of myself for hanging in there and winning the room over.

  “Is your brother always that funny?” a reporter yelled. “I mean, does he just wake up in the morning and start spouting out killer lines like that?”

  “But . . .” I said. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t even getting credit for my own chiasmus.

  “Did he give you any more gems like that for us?” a reporter yelled.

  “What dance will you and Tag be doing?” another reporter shouted.

  “Is it true they chose Tag first, but he gave his slot to you?”

  I just sat there like a lump, mostly because I didn’t have the energy to pick up my jaw from the floor. Vaguely I heard one of the hosts jump in and say something about having to save some surprises, and then the other host said to tune in to find out what they’d be. And then it was over.

  “That went well,” I said to Ilya as he held me up while I slipped off my silver high heels. Holding back my tears was even more challenging than walking in those stupid skyscraper shoes had been.

  “You did fine,” he said. “It’ll get easier.”

  “Ha. I’m not falling for that one again. That’s exactly what you said about the dancing.”

  I was so demoralized I could have eaten the contents of an entire McDonald’s. Not just two tons of french fries and a towering mountain of Big Macs, but an orchard’s worth of fried apple pie sticks and a cow’s worth of chocolate milk shakes. Maybe even the golden arches outside, too.

  I tried to swallow my anger instead, but it caught in my throat like a kernel of popcorn without any butter. I was jealous. Or envious. I always got the two mixed up. One of them meant you wanted what the other person had, and the other meant you wanted to take it away from the person. I wanted both. I wanted to be Tag, and I didn’t want him to get to be Tag anymore. I wanted him to have to be me. I wanted him to know how awful it felt to be his sister.

  I hated my brother. I hated those stupid reporters. But I wasn’t going to let them make me eat a box of chocolates.

  I didn’t have the energy to hit Whole Foods on the way home, so I swung by craft services after I returned my shoes and accessories to wardrobe. Ilya waited for me while I put a hummus and tabbouleh roll-up in the center of a paper plate and surrounded it with salad greens and slices of roasted veggies.

  “Thank you for being my bodyguard,” I said as we walked out to the parking lot together. “I don’t think I could handle being ambushed by another reporter right now.”

  “You got it,” Ilya said. “Whatever you need, just say the word.”

  “Thanks. You, too. See you tomorrow. I think.”

  He leaned over and kissed me on my forehead. “Get some sleep.”

  I knew the way back to my temporary apartment so well now that I was tempted to try another route just so I’d have something to distract me. Maybe I’d even get lost. By the time I found my way home, another hour or so would have gone by and it would be late enough to go to bed and get that sleep Ilya had prescribed.

  Then I could finally stop thinking about the fact that wherever I went and whatever I did for the rest of my life, people would only want to know about the It Guy, my stupid guru brother, Tag.

  Don’t sweat the petty things, and don’t pet the sweaty things.

  When I opened the door to my apartment, there was a man on my couch.

  As soon as I opened my mouth to scream I realized it was Tag, but part of the scream slipped out anyway. And my heart was already beating like crazy.

  “Calm down, why don’t you,” Tag said. His bare feet were hanging off one arm of the couch, and he was eating what was left of my barbeque chicken sandwich.

  “Help yourself, why don’t you,” I said.

  He took another bite.

  I shoved his feet off the couch as I walked by him. “What were you, born in a barn?”

  “You’re the one who lives in a sheep shed,” my brother said through a mouthful of my sandwich.

  “Who put me there? And don’t you dare get any of that on my couch.”

  Tag held out his hand like he was going to wipe it on the dingy upholstery. “Don’t sweat the petty thing
s,” he said.

  “And don’t pet the sweaty things.” I shivered. “You’re a mess. Didn’t your little gymnast let you take a shower?”

  He really was a mess. His hair was sticking up all over the place, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a week. If he thought I was going to wash that stupid white tunic of his with my laundry, he had another think coming.

  Tag’s cell rang. He reached for it on the coffee table.

  “Calm down,” he said as he picked up the call. “She’s right here.”

  He tossed the phone to me.

  “What?” I said into the receiver.

  “I can’t believe you lied to me,” Joanie Baloney said. “You did too know where Tag was.”

  “Not now,” I said. I threw the phone back to Tag. Or maybe at him.

  I put my dinner on the kitchen counter and headed for my bedroom to feed Ginger and Fred.

  “I know,” I whispered as I sprinkled their food flakes. “I hate them, too.”

  I changed out of my casual funeral outfit and back into my yoga pants and T-shirt. I took another look at the fishbowl. I’d thought the water was starting to look a little bit cloudy this morning, but now there was no doubt about it—it definitely needed changing. I reviewed the instructions from the guy at the pet store. Every three to five days bring a bowl of tap water to room temperature and add a capful of Nutrafin Goldfish Bowl Conditioner, then pour out half the old water from the bowl and add the new water.

  When I came out again, my guru brother was off the phone and had arisen from the couch. He was standing at the kitchen counter eating half of my hummus and tabbouleh roll-up.

  I put the fishbowl down on the little dining table. “Get your filthy mitts off my roll-up.”

  My brother popped the rest of it into his mouth, chewed, then opened his mouth so I could see.

  “Gross,” I said. “Grow up.”

  “You grow up,” he mumbled.

  “I can’t believe you just ate that,” I said. “That was supposed to be my dinner.”

  “Finders keepers.” He turned on my faucet and stuck his head under it for a drink.

  “Drop dead,” I said. It was like my entire childhood vocabulary was coming back to me.

  “What, and look like you?” Tag said.

  “Drop dead twice,” I said.

  Tag turned off the faucet and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ooh, the old D.D.T. You’re really scarin’ me now.”

  I searched my memory banks for something worse.

  “Get bent,” I said. I still wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but I knew it was bad.

  “You’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’,” he said. “Take a chill pill.”

  I glared at him as hard as I could. If I’d thought I could take him, I would have asked if he wanted a knuckle sandwich.

  “Don’t you dare give me the hairy eyeball,” he said. “I bought that sandwich.”

  “Get over yourself,” I said. “You did not.”

  “Did too,” he said.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “In point of fact, I bought you everything you have.”

  In every relationship there are lines you just don’t cross.

  Even with families.

  Even with brothers who think they’re God’s gift to the world.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Get the hell out of my life. Now. Permanently. I mean it.”

  Tag narrowed his eyes. “Who’s gonna make me?”

  “I’m not kidding. You’ve ruined my entire life from the second I was born.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You ungrateful little piece of shit.”

  “Ooh,” I said. “Nice guru talk. Whatever happened to being the change you want to see in the world?”

  “That wasn’t me, that was Gandhi.”

  “Whatever.”

  Tag leaned back against the kitchen counter and shook his head. “I can’t believe you said that to me. After everything I’ve done for you.”

  I leaned over one of the dinette chairs like it was a walker. “Yeah, right. Everything you’ve done for me. Treating me like your personal slave. Making me feel like shit. Keeping me from ever having my own life.”

  My brother’s blue eyes glittered like ice. “I give you your life. And you feed off me like the rest of the leeches in this family.”

  I heard a little gasp and realized it was coming from me. “What did you say?”

  Tag glared at me with full force.

  “You heard me,” he said. “Poor little you. You’ve got it so bad. All you’re after is sympathy. Well, you can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis, and it’ll do you about as much good.”

  “Eww,” I said. “Don’t you dare ask me to write that down.”

  “Try being me. Try having to support everybody you’ve ever met. Try waking up every day and feeling like all you want to do is just pack it in and hit the road. Do something new. Anything. But you can’t because you’ve got to feed the whole world. You’re the official fuckin’ family meal ticket, and if you bail, the whole house of cards collapses.”

  I shook my head. “Oh, puh-lease, who created it? Who always had to be the family star? Who made sure everything was always about you? It’s like you think you’re freakin’ Tinker Bell and the whole world is just waiting to clap.”

  Tag turned his palms to the heavens. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “Who is so freakin’ controlling that you won’t let any of us have our own lives? Who won’t let me buy my own sheep shed?” I choked back a sob. “Who called me fat in front of his friends?”

  Tag shook his head as if he had water in his ears. “What the hell are you talking about? When did I call you fat?”

  “Remember when all four of us used to walk downtown to spend our allowance on Saturdays? That time you told all those boys you were going to put fatso on a diet?”

  Tag looked at me blankly.

  “I never walked downtown with you and Colleen and Joanie after that,” I said. “I was devastated. You scarred me for life.”

  Tag was still looking at me blankly.

  I shook my head. “Great, you ruined my life and you don’t even remember it.”

  “That’s just how brothers talk,” Tag said. “How about that time when you and your friends all pulled nylon stockings over your heads to make fun of me?”

  I’d completely forgotten about that one. “That was different.”

  Tag smoothed his hair with both hands. The parts that were sticking out bounced back up again. “How was that different? I was really sensitive about my hair. The way I straightened it was a family matter.”

  “You take over everything, Tag. You’re taking over Dancing With the Stars. You even took over Mitchell. I think he only stayed around so he could hang out with you.”

  “Mitchell is an asshole. I only hung out with him to be nice. Because of you.”

  We looked at each other.

  “Are you going to marry him?” I said.

  “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  I shrugged. “His girlfriend lost the baby.”

  Tag shook his head. “Then my guess is no one will have to marry him.”

  “I know. I just wanted to see if you would have. I hit him with your golf cart. Right before I left.”

  “That better be a joke,” Tag said. “You know the golf cart’s off-limits.”

  “See what I mean. You’re a total control freak.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  He turned and opened my refrigerator and pulled out a beer and a box of Devil Dogs. Apparently my brother did know how to shop after all.

  He held the beer out in my direction. I shook my head.

  He opened it and threw the bottle cap up in the air. It landed right in the wastebasket. Of course it did.

  “You’re better off without Mitchell,” he said.

  “I know that,” I said. “But he was a lot of years of my life.”<
br />
  “He wasn’t good enough for you. You should have dumped him a long time ago.”

  I reached for Tag’s beer and took a small sip. “Well, it’s not like there was a long line of suitors following me around or anything.”

  Tag took his beer back. “That was your choice.”

  “How was that my choice? I mean, easy for you to say, girls have been throwing themselves at you since you were in preschool.”

  Tag grinned. “Actually, it started before that.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Tag guzzled some beer. “Remember when Colleen got asked to her prom by like ten different guys?”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” I said. “I think that was the same year I got wallflower tattooed on my butt.”

  “You know why they all asked her, right?”

  “Because she was pretty and popular and I wasn’t?”

  Tag let out a distinctly non-guru-like burp. “Coll was always the first one to introduce herself, or say hello, and she was nice to everyone—the art geeks, the band geeks, the geek geeks, the cool dudes like me.”

  I rolled my eyes again.

  “It wasn’t that you weren’t pretty, Dee. You were just so closed off you weren’t available. You weren’t open.”

  I let that sink in. “So, what’s the scoop with Ashleyjanedobbs? Is she going to be my next sister-in-law?”

  “Do not. I repeat, do not, let me go there.” Tag took a long swallow of beer.

  “There’s probably room for one more house on the property,” I said.

  “Don’t even joke about it. Do you have any idea what those living arrangements are like for me? My ex-wives enjoy each other’s company far more than either of them ever enjoyed mine. The kids are great and I love them all, but sometimes it feels like they’re one big happy family and I’m not even in it. I just show up once in a while and everybody humors me, and then when I leave their real life begins again.”

  I looked at my brother, really looked at him, for the first time in a long time. Maybe ever. It was simply amazing that two people could live in each other’s back pockets their whole lives and have completely different perspectives on their shared experiences.

  For a minute I was starting to feel what could only be described as empathy.