This Will Be Funny Someday

by Katie Henry

  When I pictured this moment in my head, I thought it would feel . . . bigger. More momentous. The top of the mountain, the end of the finish line, the stirring swell of music at the end of a movie. But it’s just a little conference room, with three men in chairs, and me. When I woke up this morning, I was so sure this would be the most important thing to happen to me today. I couldn’t have pictured myself in the cafeteria, telling Jack he was the king of a sandbox. I couldn’t have imagined myself ordering Alex out of my home.

  Shakespeare said that life was a tangled yarn, both good and bad together. And I think it’s true. But I also think life is moments. Big moments and little moments, and sometimes, they’re not the ones you thought they would be.

  All these thoughts should be distracting me. This should be making me stutter or drop a line. And if the judges are laughing, I can’t hear it over the sound of my own voice. But I can hear myself, my own words, and I can tell that this is working, this is good. Sometimes, getting onstage feels like drowning on dry land. And sometimes, it feels like the universe is perfectly aligned.

  I want to grab on to this little moment with both hands and hold tight. This perfect set, in this tiny room, with this small, quiet audience. But—no. This moment is meant to just be a moment. It’s meant to change, because everything is. Even the words I’m saying right now will change, too, sentence by sentence and bit by bit. They’re familiar, and comfortable, but that doesn’t mean they’re set in stone. Every stage, every show, every set, is a chance for them to change. For me to change.

  And I am changed.

  Chapter 23

  I WAIT IN the hallway as Mo, Will, and Jonah each take their turn. We’d planned to go out afterward, but Mo says she feels like a walking germ factory, Jonah has a stats test tomorrow, and after everything’s that happened today, I just want to put on sweatpants and fall asleep watching something mindless.

  But the second I walk in the door, I know something’s wrong. For one thing, all the lights are on, so somebody must be home. As I pass through the kitchen into the living room, I see both of my parents’ coats thrown across the couch, which only makes me feel more uneasy—they weren’t supposed to be home this early, and if they are, why is it so quiet? The only noise other than my shoes on the floor is what sounds like a TV. And it’s coming from Mom’s office.

  That’s where they are, both of them. Mom in her chair, Dad half crouched beside her, their eyes glued to whatever’s on her computer.

  “Hi,” I say from the doorway, and they spin around to me so fast, so furiously, I drop my bag.

  “Where have you been?” Mom demands.

  “Um—”

  “I called you”—she grabs her own phone to check—“eight times.”

  Oh, shit. I switched it to Do Not Disturb before going into the audition, and I must have forgotten to switch it back. “It was off. I’m—”

  “Come in here,” she says. “Now.”

  I edge into the room, to my usual spot on top of the cabinet. But when I see what’s on the computer screen, I nearly fall off, because it almost looks like—

  It almost looks like me.

  I point at the screen. “What is that?”

  Dad sighs. “What does it look like?”

  It looks like a video. It looks like a grainy home video of a girl wearing a gray dress with a mic in her hands, and she almost looks like me. But she isn’t me, she can’t be me, because that would mean my parents know everything and I should offer final words before my untimely death.

  It can’t be me.

  It is.

  “When did you—”

  “Today,” Mom says.

  I hold up both hands. “Wait, before you watch it—”

  “We already watched it,” Mom snaps.

  “Twice,” Dad adds.

  I’m dead.

  “I know, okay?” I say, words spilling out before I can choose them as carefully as I should. “I know it looks like I’m in a bar, and that’s because I am in a bar—was in a bar—but not to drink, I was there to do stand-up—I mean, obviously you know about the stand-up. You already watched it. And I know I didn’t tell you about it, exactly. Or at all. Semantics.” I pause. “That’s a joke. Not a good joke. Mine are usually better.”

  If it’s possible, they only look angrier now.

  “Mom, Dad, come on, it’s not like you found all the corpses in my closet.” They stare at me wordlessly. “That’s also a joke! And that’s all they are, okay? Whatever you saw, they’re all just jokes.”

  “Just jokes?” Mom says, dangerously quiet. “These are jokes to you?”

  She’s a tougher critic than Cargo Shorts Braden. “Yes?”

  “You know, Isabel, it’s funny,” she says. Having carefully analyzed what makes things funny, I disagree with this, but choose not to say so. “I can’t tell if you don’t remember trying to tank my career, or if you just don’t care you did.”

  I recoil. “What are you talking about?”

  Mom and Dad look at each other.

  “Isabel.” Dad shakes his head. “Do you know what’s in this video?”

  Of course I do. I’m on a stage and they’re furious, so it has to be my set. Right? I step a little closer. The stage is the Forest, that’s for sure. I try to remember the last time I wore that gray dress. Not for a while. I had to hand-wash it after I spilled soda on it at Mo’s dorm when I helped her study, right after—

  Oh my God.

  My terrible set.

  About my mom.

  With a mixture of horror and dread, I step over to the computer, lean across them, and press play. When the sound comes on, it’s not nearly as loud as my heartbeat.

  “The really messed-up part is,” the girl on-screen says, “she cares about him more than she cares about me. That fucking guy, who bankrupted a dozen people and just will not give up on his bad comb-over, that’s her priority.”

  I’m dead and buried and the graveyard’s on fire.

  “I didn’t know,” I say, more to myself than them. “I didn’t know anyone was filming.”

  “That’s all you have to say for yourself?” Mom snaps back, turning the video off. “Not ‘I’m sorry’?”

  “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

  “Clearly.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say to her. “I didn’t think—I’d just had a really bad day and—”

  “Decided to ruin my case?”

  “Your case?”

  “Yes, Isabel. My case, with Greg Shea, the man I love more than you apparently!”

  “Mom, I don’t—” I rub at my eyes. “I didn’t say his full name. Or your name. I didn’t even say my name!” I protest. “Not one time. I never—”

  “I heard. Izzy V.” When Mom smiles, it looks closer to a grimace. “Not much of a stretch.”

  “I could be anybody!”

  “But you aren’t. You’re Isabel Vance, and you’re my daughter.”

  “Who even gave you this?”

  “A bartender,” she says. “He said he films most of the open mics there.”

  Oh my God. Sean. The bartender at the Forest with the video camera. What a dick.

  “But why would he—”

  “I guess he thought I’d want to know my daughter was talking about my high-profile criminal cases on a public stage.”

  “He knew I was talking about Greg Shea?”

  “Apparently.”

  “What is he, a cop?”

  “Crime buff,” Dad says.

  “Complete and total nut job,” Mom says at the same time.

  I bury my head in my hands. I would, of course. I would have a meltdown in front of the only person outside Illinois federal court who knew what I was rambling about.

  “It seems like the detail about the clown figurines tipped him off,” Mom says.

  “Lucky us,” Dad mutters.

  “But how did he know who you were?” I ask Mom. Her client, I get. He’s rich and famous and a criminal. That’s newsw
orthy. But my mom is just my mom.

  “I’m the lead counsel on this case,” she says, and it’s amazing how I can still hear the pride in her words, even as she’s furious about this and furious at me. And that makes me feel even worse. “I give statements. To the press. I’m not hard to find, if someone’s looking.”

  I didn’t know that. I didn’t know my mom talked to reporters, I didn’t know Sean held on to people’s recordings if they didn’t want to buy them, I didn’t even know he was filming that night. I’m beginning to suspect I don’t know anything at all.

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “Why would he give it to you? Just to get me in trouble?”

  “Frankly, you were not the focus of this.”

  “It’s a video of me!”

  “It’s a video of what you said,” she corrects me. “About me. About my client.”

  “So he wanted you to get in trouble?”

  “He wanted something better than that.” When I just stare at her, she sighs. “I’ll give you a hint, Isabel. It’s green and rectangular and you clearly don’t appreciate its value.”

  My heart drops into my stomach. “He asked you for money.”

  “He did.”

  “But that’s blackmail!”

  “It’s extortion,” Dad says.

  “Jesus Christ, it’s neither,” Mom says to both of us, “because he didn’t demand money for his silence. He sold us a product.”

  “A product?”

  “The video of you. We could buy the footage . . . or someone else could.”

  “For how much?”

  Mom and Dad glance at each other. “Does it matter?” she asks.

  She wouldn’t say that if it was twenty bucks. “And you paid him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  I try for a smile. “Not at the moment.”

  “This isn’t funny,” she snaps, and I shrink back. “This isn’t a joke. Do you understand what would happen if that video made it onto YouTube?”

  It would get a depressingly low number of views, that’s what. “Mom, no one would watch it.”

  “They could. The point is, they could. If it got even a single view, you would have tanked my entire case.”

  “I don’t—how—?”

  “I shared the facts of the case with you,” she says. “Well, with Dad, but with you there.”

  “Are you not allowed to do that?”

  “No. Absolutely everyone does, but no.” She huffs. “And you heard me say it. That I thought he was guilty.”

  “But you are allowed to think someone is guilty and still represent them. Aren’t you?”

  “I’m a trial attorney,” she says. “It’s the jury that matters, not me. If they think I think he’s guilty—”

  “But none of them are ever going to watch this—”

  “It could poison the jury!” she shouts at me, and the force of it knocks me back. “It could jeopardize a case I’ve been working on for a year. It could ruin the relationship I have with my client; it could severely impact the way I’m seen at work. I would be a joke, Isabel. You could have made me a joke.”

  I feel guilty, and terrible, and they’re looking at me like I don’t feel guilty and terrible enough for their liking, and I don’t know what else they want. This is my fault, but it’s not all my fault; they’re looking at me like they haven’t done anything wrong and they have.

  “You know what’s a joke?” I say to them. “You thinking you can tell me shit, at this point.”

  They share a glance, then focus back on me.

  “We’re your parents,” Mom says. As if I don’t know. As if that isn’t the whole problem. “That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

  “Yeah, that is what you’re supposed to do, Mom,” I snap back at her. “That’s why it’s so weird you haven’t done it for years.”

  “That’s totally uncalled for,” Dad says.

  “Oh, please. You haven’t had a real conversation with me since I got my period,” I tell him.

  Mom screws her eyes shut. “Isabel.”

  Dad just looks lost. “I—come on, you know I don’t know about girl things.”

  “Dan, oh my God, do not engage with that—” Mom says.

  “No, seriously, as soon as I hit puberty, you started acting like I was some kind of alien creature,” I say to Dad. “What do you think I’m going to do, maul you with a hidden set of teeth?”

  Dad turns to Mom. “Teeth? What is she talking about, teeth?”

  “Stop it,” Mom orders me. “This is not about your dad.”

  “You’re right,” I reply. “It isn’t just Dad that doesn’t give a shit about me; it’s you, too.”

  Emotional neglect is a gender-nonspecific opportunity. Like intramural soccer.

  “How can you say that?” Mom gasps.

  “How can I say it?” I balk. “You said it! You’re not even mad I lied; you’re mad it affected your real life.”

  “What do you mean, my real life?”

  “Your job, Mom,” I say, furious I have to spell it out for her. Like she doesn’t know. “That’s your real life. Not me.”

  Mom’s eyes flash for a moment. Then they sink into something sadder. “I don’t understand. I just don’t understand why you’re trying to hurt us like this.”

  “The twins are gone and you guys are done. Well, fine.” I blink back tears that would indicate it is not fine. “But that means I get to be done, too.”

  “With what?” Mom throws up her hands. “Telling the truth?”

  “You gave up on parenting me,” I say. “Fine. I gave up on being parented.”

  “We didn’t give up!” Dad protests.

  “That’s not fair,” Mom says.

  “It’s not fair,” I agree. “It’s not fair for you to leave me at home all day and most nights, most weekends; it’s not fair for you to treat me like an adult when it makes your lives easier and then treat me like a kid the one time I make your life harder.”

  Dad buries his head in his hands. “Oh my God.”

  “I’m sorry someone filmed me without my permission. I’m sorry you had to buy the tape.”

  “But not sorry you said it?” Mom asks.

  And then, silence. She wants me to tell the truth, she says. But she doesn’t want to hear the truthful answer.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, quieter, more evenly, “that for once I caused a problem you had to deal with. I’m sorry for once, just once, I didn’t do my job.”

  “We never asked you for that!”

  “You never had to ask!” I shout. “I knew what you wanted. ‘Oh, Isabel is our easy kid. She’s so good, we never have to worry. We just water her and turn her toward the sun!’”

  “That is extremely dramatic,” Dad says.

  “No, don’t forget, Dan,” Mom says, “we’re not even her real family. We’re dogs and she’s a cat.”

  “A miniature pig!” I yell. “It’s like you didn’t even pay attention to the set!”

  “I guess I was more focused on you singlehandedly destroying my career!” Mom yells back.

  “Yeah, well—” I try to shout louder than her, but my voice cracks. “What else is new?”

  Mom’s eyebrows scrunch together. “What?”

  “That’s all I’ve ever done, isn’t it? That’s how you feel, right?” I fold my arms across my chest and look down at my shoes. “I destroyed your career the moment you peed on a stick and found out I even existed.”

  Silence.

  “I think Mom found out from a blood test,” Dad says to me. He turns to Mom. “Wasn’t it a blood test, with Isabel?”

  “Dan,” Mom says very quietly. “Stop.”

  Dad stops. Then Mom, who hasn’t taken her eyes off me, leans forward. “What,” she says, even more quietly, “are you talking about?”

  My eyes sting. “Charlotte told me.”

  “What did Charlotte tell you?”

  “That you d
idn’t mean to have me. You only meant to have them. The twins.”

  Dad sighs. “Isabel, older siblings are basically sociopaths to their little sisters until adulthood.”

  Mom closes her eyes. “Dan.”

  “I’m the oldest in my family,” he continues. “So I know.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Mom says to me, shaking her head. “Charlotte told you? Charlotte also told you there was a monster in your closet. Do you still believe that, too?”

  “But I heard you!” I say. “I heard you myself.”

  “When?” she asks. “When could I possibly have—”

  “You guys were having a dinner party, and all the boys were with Peter and all the girls were in Charlotte’s room but she locked me out. So I started to go into the living room, but then I heard you talking about me. And how your maternity leave with me completely ruined your career and put you on the ‘mommy path.’”

  “The mommy track,” she says, barely above a whisper.

  “Yeah.” I swipe at my eye. “And I knew it was true, what Charlotte always said, that I wasn’t supposed to happen, I just did. I know you never wanted a third kid at all, and I get why. And then Ms. Gibson said to you—”

  “Claire Gibson?” Mom looks to Dad. “She hasn’t come to the apartment in years.” She turns back to me. “When was this?”

  I have to think about it for a moment. “Sixth grade.”

  “Sixth . . .” Her mouth drops. “You’ve felt this way for five years? You’ve thought we didn’t want you for five years?”

  I nod. But then I feel like I need to clarify. “I know you love me, I know you wanted me, but . . . you wanted other things, too, and having me meant you didn’t get them.”

  “Isabel—” she starts to say, but I’m not through.

  “I’m sorry I said all the stuff about your client, because it wasn’t funny and all I did was mess things up more. But the lying, or whatever, the not telling you about things, acting like everything was normal, I did all of it for you, okay?” Mom just stares. “I made myself the way I was for you.”

  A tight knot of anger is planted directly on my chest, dense and heavy and so hard to breathe through.

  “You needed me to be fine,” I choke out. “You always counted on me being fine. How could I ever tell you I wasn’t?”