Christmas Cliché

by Tara Sivec

  With a sympathetic pat on the arm, he walks over to the couch to chat with the twins, and my mother sighs loudly behind me.

  “I thought you were making sure the girls don’t look like fools this season, Allie,” Mom states.

  She doesn’t say it in a mean way, just matter-of-factly. My mom is never mean. My mom is never really much of anything. She works twenty-four seven, and when she isn’t at work, she’s either talking on the phone with someone about work or thinking about work. The fact that she even remembered to come home for lunch to be here when we finish planning our family’s annual Christmas Eve party is shocking. And of course she chose that moment to walk in the door. Not when I started having a coughing fit off camera when Tori almost announced the name of the married celebrity she stupidly slept with last weekend or when I “accidentally” stuck my arm in the shot and screamed at the top of my lungs, pretending to see a spider, when Zoey did say his damn name thirty seconds later. Luckily, my scream made his name unintelligible and production won’t be able to use that footage.

  “It’s not the first time Zoey has said something stupid on camera,” I remind her. “And it’s definitely not the worst thing she could have said.”

  You know, like the name of the guy Tori boned last weekend whose wife was just nominated for a Grammy.

  “You promised you’d keep a good eye on them, Allie,” my mom reminds me. “You know how they are.”

  Spoiled, bitchy, oblivious, demanding, pretentious, and selfish. Am I forgetting anything?

  My mom starts to walk away, probably to go back to work, and I quickly reach out and grab her arm to stop her.

  “Aren’t you going to stay and finish planning the Christmas Eve party?”

  Just like when Zoey made the stupid water comment, I know what my mom’s going to say before she even opens her mouth.

  “You know I have work to do. And really, it’s just a formality to film this episode anyway. The construction crew is already almost finished building the white castle for the acrobats in the side gardens, and the white marble floor over the pool for the sushi station will be finished tomorrow. Everything has been planned and set in stone for months,” she says distractedly as her phone rings, and she takes a few steps away to answer the call.

  She’s right. It’s only seven days until Christmas. My family’s home has been under construction for this ridiculous party for the last two months. My sisters started planning it in June with two of Hollywood’s best celebrity party planners, just like every year. And just like every year, it gets more and more over-the-top. This year’s theme is white. Everything is white, from the hundreds of seven-foot-tall, white Egyptian marble triangles the twins claim are Christmas trees they had specially crafted, which line the walkways, to having someone come in and turn every single manicured shrub, tree, blade of grass, and flower on the grounds white with some special, organic, non-toxic plant paint—who knew that was even a thing?—to the thousands and thousands of white flower arrangements that litter every available surface.

  There isn’t one Santa in a red suit, one colorful ornament, or one strand of multicolored twinkle lights. When you walk through the first floor of the 10,000 square foot home my dad had built when I was three, it’s like you’re on a Hollywood movie set decorated like what the director thinks heaven should look like. They even made the staff start wearing nothing but white a week ago to “get them in the spirit.” The spirit of dying and going toward the white light, maybe. Not that I give two shits about Christmas or celebrating it, but if you’re going to have a Christmas Eve party, shouldn’t there be something Christmassy about it?

  “Allie, you still need to pick your Christmas wish for the party,” Tori reminds me, walking over to me with her head down, tapping away on her phone.

  The email I’ve been distracted by all morning pops back into my head.

  I know you’re going to come up with some excuse for why you can’t visit again this year, just like always, but I’m still sending you my yearly email. And I’m sending it over the summer, so you have plenty of time to get your shit sorted and get your ass to West Virginia for Christmas! It’s been too long since we made our Christmas wishes in the same room!

  Love,

  your favorite cousin, Jamie.

  That email has been sitting unanswered in my inbox since the Fourth of July when Jamie sent it, the little shit. It makes me smile, but it also makes me a little sad. Jamie and I catch up every few months via text or Facebook messenger, but she never fails to send me a formal email invitation every year to spend Christmas with her and her family. Since she sent it so early this year, I made a note in my calendar to reply back to her this week with my formal excuse about why I can’t visit. But my replies to her every year aren’t excuses. They’re fires. Great big raging infernos I have to try to put out called Tori and Zoey, before they leave a path of death and destruction in their wake. I feel like the worst person in the world that Jamie has kept her promise all these years and I haven’t kept mine.

  “Hello, earth to Allie!” Tori says, pulling me out of my thoughts and waving one perfectly manicured hand in front of my face. “What is up with you today? You’re not paying attention to anything. Come on, pick your Christmas wish. I have a hot stone massage in thirty.”

  I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life.

  “No, you have a meeting with the creative team for your perfume in thirty minutes. The hot stone massage isn’t until four,” I tell her, pulling my phone back out of my jeans and double-checking the twins’ calendar. “And you know I don’t want anything to do with the party planning. You have people for that. I am not those people.”

  When was the last time I had a hot stone massage? Have I ever had a hot stone massage? Fuck! I hate my life.

  “Oh my God, Allie, stop being difficult. Just pick your wish. And it has to go with our theme.”

  Years ago, when I used to try to voice my opinion about the Christmas Eve party and how it should be small and intimate with just family and our own family traditions, and not have several hundred people on the guest list—half of which we don’t even know but are invited, because they’re famous—my sisters decided to try and regurgitate an old tradition to appease me. A tradition they only knew about, because they spied on me and Jamie one year in Granny’s bathroom. They decided that for the Christmas Eve party, each of us three girls get to pick one Christmas wish for the party. And by “wish,” they mean something completely stupid and ridiculous that doesn’t belong at a Christmas party and costs a shit-ton of money. And I might have appreciated the gesture back then, if they hadn’t done it just for the first season of the reality show as something “cute and sisterly the viewers will love.”

  “Zoey already chose a swan pool. You might have to pick the swans up from the airport on Christmas Eve. I think they’re being shipped in from somewhere; I don’t know,” she says distractedly, yelling over her shoulder for Zoey. “Zo! Get over here and do an IG story with me! This lighting is perf!”

  She holds the phone up in front of her, making a pouty face and turning her head from side-to-side as Zoey comes up behind her, resting her hands on Tori’s shoulders and mimicking her stupid pouty face.

  “I’m going to have Marc Jacobs design white bags for everyone, so you’ll need to make sure that shipment gets here in time,” Tori tells me right before she smiles brightly and starts talking to her phone. “Heeeeey, Parker Peeps! We’re coming to you live from…”

  I quickly duck down as Tori continues talking on the video, and the twins turn together as one so her camera can pan the room. I pop right back up when they continue turning until they’re facing me again, waving to their audience and blowing kisses, going on and on about how it’s Christmas wish day.

  As I listen to them and try not to roll my eyes so hard I get a migraine, I click back over to Jamie’s email.

  Get your shit sorted and get your ass to West Virginia for Christmas!

  I read Jamie’s words
two more times and then sigh, quickly deleting the email before shoving it back into my jeans as Zoey and Tori end the video and post it to Instagram. My shit will never be sorted, because “my shit” is my twenty-four-year-old, no concept about the real world, sisters. After our dad died, my mom’s sole focus became making sure the real estate company he built from the ground up didn’t die along with him. Since I was eighteen and had already graduated high school, the twins became my responsibility. Make sure they didn’t blow their inheritance, make sure they didn’t associate with the wrong crowd during their formative years, make sure no one took advantage of them, and make sure they made smart choices with their careers. I eat, sleep, and breathe the Parker Sisters and the empire they’ve built for themselves. It’s fine that whenever anyone hears Parker Sisters, they think there are only two. That’s how I like it. Everything I do is behind the scenes. I’m rarely on camera for their reality show or any of their social media, and according to the tabloids, no one wants to see the “bitchy, fashion-challenged Parker sister” anyway.

  Someday, I’ll have my shit sorted, but today is not that day.

  I. Hate. My. Life.

  “Christmas wish, Allie,” Tori distractedly reminds me again, head down, tapping away at her phone.

  “She still hasn’t picked her wish?” Zoey complains, holding her phone up in front of her and taking a selfie.

  “Fine.” I sigh in annoyance. “How about a roasted chestnuts cart?” I ask, just to get this over with.

  I have to raise my voice, since the workers traipsing in and out of the house have started back up with their construction now that show filming is paused for lunch. I don’t even know why they’re making such a big deal about me picking a damn wish. It’s the same thing every year. I suggest something off camera, the twins shoot it down, come up with their own idea for what my wish should be, and then announce it on their show and talk about how it’s such a great thing we still have this sweet tradition.

  Barf.

  “A what?” Tori shouts back.

  “You know, roasted chestnuts in a brown paper bag.” I sigh again, knowing this is pointless and there are so many other things I could be wasting my breath on.

  Like several drink orders at a bar.

  “So, just a bag filled with… warm peanuts? That doesn’t fit our theme at all,” Zoey complains.

  “Not warm peanuts,” I mutter, counting to ten in my head before I scream. “Roasted chestnuts. Like the song. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Jack Frost—”

  “Wait, you said cart. Now it’s an open fire? That sounds like a fire hazard. Mom!” Tori shouts to our mom, who is pacing back and forth out in the entryway by the front door with her phone up to her ear. “Is it a fire hazard to burn peanuts in L.A.?”

  “We aren’t burning—”

  “Gwyneth Paltrow just had a cotton candy machine at her birthday party,” Zoey interrupts me. “It was so cool and retro. I think Allie’s wish should be a white cotton candy machine.”

  “Perfect. Love it. Done,” Tori states, her eyes never lifting from her phone. “I just sent an email to Reggie so he can book it. Viewers are just gonna die when we post pictures of us eating cotton candy! They’re totally going to think Allie’s Christmas wish is the best.”

  Can it be January now?

  With that, they both turn and start heading toward the front door, where the car service is outside waiting to take them to their office for the perfume meeting. I watch as my mom starts arguing with someone on the phone about closing costs then disappears into her office and shuts the door without a backward glance.

  “Don’t forget to pick up those dresses from the designer by two, and see if you can push back the interview with E! on Thursday by an hour so we can squeeze in that photoshoot with Cosmo,” Zoey rattles as I follow behind them, wondering why I don’t just walk right out that door, get in my car, and never come back.

  “You promised you’d keep a good eye on them, Allie,” my mom’s voice rings in my ears.

  Both of my sisters suddenly stop right by the front door and turn to look at me.

  “You aren’t taking notes on your phone. Why aren’t you taking notes?” Tori asks.

  “Because she’s brilliant and a goddess, and oh my God, what are you two wearing?”

  The front door opened quietly while Tori questioned me, and I smile for the first time in weeks when in walks the only person in Los Angeles who has kept me from hurtling myself off of the third floor balcony.

  “They’re… they’re Yeezy sweatsuits, Millie,” Tori answers my best friend in a nervous voice, looking down at her outfit and fidgeting with the hem of the hoodie.

  “Yeah.” She scoffs, a new Birkin bag hanging off of her bent elbow, forearm up, wrist cocked as she looks my sisters up and down. “Last season’s Yeezy. You look homeless.”

  The girls both gasp in horror, and I try to cover up a laugh with a cough.

  Millie Chamberlin is Hollywood royalty and a socialite who hasn’t worked a day in her life, nor will she ever have to. Her father has been Hollywood’s favorite leading man and number one box office sensation since before she was born, and her mother is one of the world’s highest paid supermodels. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, spends more money on clothing in a day than most people spend on buying an entire house, is always up for a party, regularly wakes up having no idea what country she’s in—let alone whose bed she’s sleeping in—and is completely oblivious to how people who aren’t rich live.

  We absolutely should not be friends on any planet or in any universe, and yet we are. My sister’s worship the ground she walks on, and when the three of them talk clothes, I feel like I’m in a foreign country and don’t speak the language. But nothing brings Millie greater joy than knocking the twins down a peg or two in my honor. She has a big heart underneath all that couture. She’s my ride-or-die. You know, as long as the riding and dying doesn’t interfere with her manicure.

  Millie’s Manolo Blahniks click-clack across the marble floor as she walks around my sisters and over to me, leaning forward to air kiss both of my cheeks.

  “Paris was a bore without you. Loving the tee, black jeans, and Converse look on you. Very old school. For fuck’s sake, are you two still standing there?” Millie sighs dramatically, pulling away from me to look at the twins in annoyance. “Scurry along now, children. The adults have things to discuss. And for the love of God, don’t wear those Gucci slides in public. Have some self-respect, ladies.”

  Zoey opens her mouth to most likely fire off a sarcastic remark and then quickly thinks better of it before grabbing Tori’s hand, dragging her behind her up the staircase and not out the front door.

  I should yell after them. They have a meeting they can’t be late for.

  Something smacks into my back and I stumble forward with a grunt of pain, looking behind me to see two workers carrying one of those stupid, ugly, marble triangles through the house. They pause to apologize, hefting the big, heavy thing up higher between them.

  “Where do you want this last Christmas tree?” one of the men asks me.

  “Allie! Call the office and tell them we’ll be at least an hour and a half late to the meeting!” Tori yells down to me from the upstairs balcony.

  I stare at the marble triangle in front of me and ignore my sister, when the words from Jamie’s email flash through my mind again.

  Get your shit sorted and get your ass to West Virginia for Christmas!

  “Allie! You absolutely cannot forget to pick up those dresses! We need them for the dinner party, and I can’t get my spray tan until I know what she did with the straps!” Zoey also yells down.

  “Ma’am, where do you want this Christmas tree?” the guy standing in front of me asks again, grunting in pain as he struggles with the weight of it.

  In a daze, I ignore the guy and walk around him, heading straight for the front door.

  “Allie, sweetie, what’s going on? What are you doing?” Millie asks,
gingerly prancing behind me on the toes of her heels.

  “I think I’m having a nervous breakdown,” I state matter-of-factly, flinging the front door open and smiling brightly at one of the caterers standing on the front porch. “Hi! Please ignore that ugly piece of shit marble triangle in the entryway. It’s not a fucking Christmas tree! Have a nice day!”

  The poor woman holding a tray of canapé samples for the dinner party just stands there staring at me with her mouth open.

  I walk around her and out onto the porch, going down the steps as I hear Millie’s shoes clacking on the concrete, following behind me a few seconds later.

  “That caviar is to die for!” she exclaims, licking her fingers as she hustles up next to me and we walk side by side over to the driveway.

  “Did you really just grab and eat one of the canapés when I’m having a breakdown?” I ask her incredulously, fishing my keys out of my pocket and pressing the fob to unlock the doors.

  “Relax. I’ve had seven breakdowns. With my last one, I went to Spago. Turned out I just needed carbs. Here, I grabbed one for you. It’s divine,” she says, shoving a tiny piece of toast with disgusting fish eggs on it toward my mouth.

  “I don’t need carbs; I need to get a fucking life,” I mutter, jerking my face away from her hand and walking to my driver side door.

  “Oh shit. It’s happening,” Millie mutters, coming over to stand outside the closed passenger door as I get inside the vehicle and put the keys in the ignition.

  She leans her head in the open window, staring at me with wide, shocked eyes. Millie has been telling me to get a life since the day she met me, coincidentally at a party my sisters threw just so they could meet her. Millie is the one who kicked my ass a few months ago and made me finally move out of the family estate. Sure, it’s in an apartment three minutes away, but it felt like a huge step at the time. When I think about all the phone calls and “emergencies” that have gotten me out of bed at all hours of the night and driving right back to this house, it feels like one giant step backward.

  “Are we talking ‘blowing an obscene amount of money on Rodeo Drive’ getting a life or ‘using the go-bags I packed in your trunk when you moved that you thought were ridiculous’ getting a life?” Millie asks.