Today the bets are off. I collapse in front of the TV and growl at anyone who tries to talk to me. The chocolate is half to be delicious and half to make my mom think I have PMS and that's the reason for my grumpiness, because hey, you can't get annoyed at someone for having PMS the way you could if you knew they were just being a baby about their polyamorous boyfriend being polyamorous.
It's so stupid. It's a college tour. It's not exactly a romantic getaway in Aspen or whatever. But in a way that sort of makes this suck more. They're not off together doing something romantic; they're off being a part of each other's casual lives. And sure, this time it's because they're both seniors, but what about prom and stuff like that? At my old school, at least, a junior could go to prom if a senior brought them. I don't know if that's the case here, but it seems like someone should have maybe mentioned it to me, but maybe they just assumed I would know I wasn't going. Because I'm still the one who came last.
Or maybe I'm just being overdramatic and awful because Theo put pictures on Facebook of them all crammed into a van, and he and Josey are sitting next to each other and she has her head on his shoulder and they don't look like they're having a horrible time, and apparently I want them to be miserable because I am basically the worst person to ever exist.
So I get off Facebook and eat more chocolate and take a bubble bath that doesn't help. I steer into skids until my whole body just hurts.
Alexis is pissed because she just found out that in this wedding she just walks holding a bouquet, and in her mother's wedding she got to throw flower petals. Which, I have to admit, sounds far superior. But I'm not going to argue with my mother about wedding details right now. It's six months away and everyone's starting to go a little crazy.
“I don't want to wear a stupid dress,” Alexis says. We're in the living room, and I'm trying to pull this white frilly thing over her uncooperative shoulders. I'm already in my lavender chiffon thing that I'm fine with because at least I won't be in satin in the Florida summer.
“What do you want to wear, your overalls?” I say.
“Yes.”
“Arms up, Lexie.”
She obeys, begrudgingly. I straighten the straps of the dress and try to smooth out the skirt as best I can. Mom's going to pin it for the hem when she gets home, but she was held up at the grocery store with some kind of honey baked ham shortage, so it's up to me to go through the very hectic process of getting Alexis into her dress and shoes by then, and, more challengingly, getting her to keep them on. I don't know if all little kids are constantly taking off anything that's not hot-glued to their skin or if that's just Alexis, but I've gotten very familiar with the challenge of convincing her to not be naked.
“Overalls wedding does sound nice,” I say.
“Do you have overalls?”
“Yeah, but they're too small. I'd have to buy new ones.”
“My dad has overalls.”
“He's good to go, then. My mom can have my too-small ones.”
“And we'll bring Bosco and he can wear overalls.” Bosco is her mother's cat, I've discovered since he we last talked about him, when he was implicated in the toothbrush disappearance.
“Everyone has to wear overalls,” I say. “Or else they can't come in.” This conversation is distracting her enough that I've managed to put on one of her Mary Janes completely without her noticing, just carefully picking up and settling each tiny toe where it belongs.
“Maybe your mom will forget overalls and then they can't get married and you'll have to go back to stupid Miami,” she says, and then she kicks off the shoe.
What a fun day.
But right when I'm taking her little shoes and putting them in the corner because I just do not care, my mother can deal with this, she says, “Sorry, Taylor.”
And I turn around and look at her, and maybe for the first time I see her as a person. Just a very small person. A person whose life has been really turned on its head lately, what with her mom getting married and a new stepfather and a stepbrother on that side, and right when she was getting used to that, here comes a new stepmom and stepsister. No wonder she wants us to go to stupid Miami. If I were her, I'd want us to go to the International Space Station.
“Come here,” I say.
She comes over to me, slowly, and I pick her up. She kicks at my chiffon ruffles a little and doesn't look at me.
“Do you want some ice cream?” I say.
“Yes.”
Then my mother comes home, and we get scolded for getting ice cream on our dresses, and Lexie hates me again.
Around and around it all goes.
That night, my mom knocks on the door of my room and comes and settles down next to me on the bed. I'm curled up under my covers watching Turner Classic Movies on my laptop and waiting for Humphrey Bogart to come sweep me away. She tugs my feet out from under my quilt and puts them on her lap.
“Holidays are hard, huh?” she says.
I nod, and them for some reason I'm crying. I
