Then Everything Happens at Once, page 3
“Wow,” I say.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I guess I’m really selling this version of myself I’m projecting.
We reach the stop sign and loop left, taking my street.
“So, what are you going to do about Trey?”
“I need to turn my focus to something that isn’t him,” she says. “So that’s going to be . . . you! You’re going to be my substitute boyfriend.”
“Interesting,” I say. “You are so not the kind of girl I’d date.”
“That’s slightly insulting,” she says. “Are you trying to make me cry?”
“I’m just saying, you’re not my type.” I shrug. “Way too girly. Plus kind of clingy.”
“Come on! You’ll love the cling. It’ll be the opposite of the ditching—think about it.” She wags her eyebrows to entice me.
My mind flashes to all our makeover nights, Bookworm outings, movie dates, Music Discovery Events—which is something I invented where we each present five new songs to the other, lying down on Lara’s bedroom floor with our eyes closed, patchouli incense burning, so we can fully absorb the lyrics and melodies. It would be nice to go back to hanging out all the time, the way we used to.
“We could have a Five-Minute-Crafts Sunday,” she says.
“Ooh!” The excitement pulls my face in all directions, I’m sure. “Yes! I saw this one craft with cement and twine—it was such a mess, and it was so ugly!”
“I bet we can get Rianne to put it on TikTok,” Lara says.
“Okay, I accept! I’ll be your boyfriend,” I say.
She smiles and sighs with what I assume is relief that all is forgiven, and we can start over.
My house comes into view. “Do you want to come over? I know we’re already walking to my house, but do you want to come in to try and salvage our plans?”
“They’re already salvaged,” Lara says. “I texted your mom.”
“You texted my mom? When?”
“Like, five minutes ago.”
“What did she say?”
“She says she’s pleased to know Movie Date is back on, and she’s putting Bagel Bites in the oven as we speak.”
“That’s a little bold, inviting yourself over behind my back like that,” I say.
“I know. So clingy.”
As Lara and I continue down my street, I pull up a photo of the Alex Bookworm guy so she can see. “What do you think of him? Is it just me or is he, like, oozing with hotness?”
She brings my phone closer to her face. “You’re basing this on what? He’s all blurry. Is his face in any of these?”
“His right upper limb is very sexy.”
Lara laughs and I loop my arm through hers.
“Who is he?” Lara says.
“Just someone who works at Bookworm,” I say.
“Why are you stalking Bookworm employees?”
“I was bored because you ditched me, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
We make our way up my driveway, and I unlock the front door. Lara goes in ahead of me, and I’m about to swipe my IG app closed, but in the spirit of being primed and ready for life, I send the Alex Bookworm guy another DM. Just in case.
Three
The next morning, I stretch out on the couch, my mascara-gooped eyes prying themselves open long enough to catch a glimpse of Lara passed out on her sleeping bag, one leg up on the couch. This happens a lot at Movie Date nights, being too tired to make it up to my bedroom, so we crash in the living room. I take off my hoop earrings and massage my battered earlobes before mashing the side of my face against a throw pillow—which is precisely the moment my sister, Rebecca, decides to wake up and start having a tantrum. She’s about ten feet away from the couch, in the space that would normally be a dining room. Her bed is modified for accessibility, so it looks kind of like a crib, but higher off the ground and with shorter rails. I pull myself up, leaning over the back of the couch to see what’s up. From here, someone might assume my sister is two years old, because she’s so small, but she’s actually twelve. She holds her breath and waves her arms around in anger-infused panic. Mom is bent over the crib rail, pulling back the covers and giving my sister room to have her fit.
Most nights of the week, there is a nurse here to look after my sister, but not on Fridays, which is the reason for Mom’s makeshift bed on the floor next to Rebecca’s crib and also why Movie Dates are on Fridays. We make a thing of it.
Lara rolls over but keeps sleeping.
“Want me to get Tylenol?” I ask my mother.
“That might be a good idea,” she says.
We don’t always know why Rebecca gets upset, since she’s nonverbal and has some pretty severe cognitive impairments, so Mom likes to cover her bases in case something hurts. Rebecca has cerebral palsy, among other conditions, and over time, her muscles have gotten short and stiff in places, which means when she’s been lying in the same position awhile, like when she sleeps, she can wake up sore and next-level grumpy.
I roll off the couch and slip by my mother as she now rocks Rebecca. Mom’s in the black silk robe I gave her for Christmas last year. She is the only person I know who I could technically swap clothes with, but this would never happen. My mother is a fat lady who thinks there is nothing wrong with this mandatory tuckage of shirts into pants at work—enough said.
In the kitchen, I pick up one of the clean plastic syringes propped up to dry on the rack. I measure exactly five milliliters of the thick pink Tylenol liquid. I fill another syringe with five milliliters of water from the bottle that’s replaced daily with fresh boiled water. I can’t really look after Rebecca on my own because there are a lot of complicated things to worry about, but I can help out in little ways like this.
My house is sort of like the kind of house I picture some recluse of a poet would live in, a drunk one with an aversion to sunlight. The furniture is old, dark wood or velour, lumpy and comfortable. The walls are warm autumn colors, with heavy drapes blocking the sun from coming in, but the lamps throw just the right amount of yellow light to create the best shadows. The decor is courtesy of my grandpa, who died when I was really little. Mom moved us into his house and left almost everything as is. Later, she realized the darkness helped with my sister’s sleep, which is a constant battle with her, so everything just stayed the same.
The dining room is my sister’s room because it’s important to have everything accessible and close to the exit, should there ever be an emergency.
Mom continues cradling Rebecca, pulling my sister’s shirt up to reveal the feeding tube that sticks out of her belly. I connect the syringe of medicine to the tube and push the liquid through, followed by the syringe of water. My mom taught me how to do this a few years ago—only under her supervision, though.
“I can hold her,” Lara says, padding over from the living room.
“Good morning, Lara,” Mom says as Lara takes a seat in the rocking chair by the window. Mom checks her watch. “Baylee, we better get a move on.”
“What are you guys doing today?” Lara asks.
“We don’t have a clue yet,” Mom says. “Might have to just see where the day takes us. You want to come?”
One Saturday a month, we have an outing for Rebecca. Sometimes it’s Bookworm, or the museum downtown, or the grocery store, or the lake in the summer. I could be sleeping in or hanging out with my own friends, but the outings are nonnegotiable. My mom’s rules must be followed.
“I can’t. My parents want me home for the afternoon. My uncle is coming from Toronto,” Lara says, rolling her eyes to convey her excitement about the whole thing. Mom places Rebecca on Lara’s lap. Lara holds her around the waist the way I taught her and bounces my sister on her lap a bit. Rebecca hangs forward, her head kind of lolling to the side, and soon, the first smile breaks through. “I can hang out with her while you guys go up to get ready, though.”
“That’s nice of you. You’re doing a great job. Beck looks comfortable. I’ll have the baby monitor on, so holler if you need anything,” Mom says.
I reach for my phone just as it buzzes with a text.
[Freddie] Hey. You should come over later.
[Baylee] It’s Beck Field Trip Day. Maybe after dinner?
[Freddie] OK. Well, text me when you’re back.
“Mom,” I say, “can we go to the mall?”
“Sure.”
“Will we be back by five?”
“Of course we’ll be back by five,” Mom says. “We’ll be back by four, max.”
“You can come sleep over tonight, if you want,” Lara says.
“Okay! I might swing by Freddie’s later, though.”
“Maybe I could come?”
“Oh. Okay,” I say, my back to her. “I’ll text you when we’re back.”
“I told you you’d love the cling!” Lara says as I head up the stairs to my room.
It’s the only part of the house that doesn’t have the same old-grandfather decor, because I painted it myself. Purple walls with big butterflies outlined in black. Lara and I did it all in one weekend.
“What’s this cling thing about, Boss?” Mom asks, having followed me up the stairs.
Boss is my mother’s nickname for me. Apparently, even when I was a baby, I was stubborn and would only ever do what I wanted, when I wanted, so she started calling me Boss. My sister is the exact same way. There are times she won’t even wake up when Mom and the nurse are getting her dressed for school and settled in her wheelchair—she’ll just keep on sleeping and let out these whines of annoyance when they bother her, trying to braid her hair. She’ll sleep all through school, then she’ll stay up all night, giggling and doing what she wants. Mom likes to blame this trait on our sperm donor, and she says that pigheadedness should’ve been listed in his donor profile. Better than being a pushover, I guess.
“She’s breaking up with Trey,” I say, stepping into my walk-in closet to flip through outfits. “For real this time. And I’m the thing she’s going to focus on to keep from going back. She’s going to pretend I’m her boyfriend and cling to me.”
“Oh,” Mom says, taking a seat on my bed. “Well, that sounds interesting. Except you don’t seem to want her to come with you to Freddie’s later.”
“It’s not that,” I say.
“Oh, okay. I must be wrong, then.”
Mom gets up, looking ready to bolt from my room. She’s always got something to do, somewhere to go.
“Well, it’s just . . . ,” I say, coming out of my closet. “If Trey ends up at Freddie’s tonight, too, it’ll cause drama. And if it’s just Freddie, well, he and Lara don’t really like each other, so it’ll be awkward. Either way, the fun gets sucked out of it.”
Mom sits back down. “What about Rianne? Why doesn’t she come, too?”
“It’s Saturday, Mom. I told you she always closes at the ice cream shop on Saturdays.”
“Well.” Mom takes a breath, looking like she’s giving some serious thought to my problem. “How about you spend the night at Lara’s and you go see Freddie tomorrow? She needs her boyfriend, right?”
I shrug, laying a couple of outfit choices on my bed.
“So, what’s our plan for the mall? Laser tag and food court?”
“I was kind of hoping to get a new shirt or something. There’s a clearance sale.”
“How about we do the laser tag place first, then we’ll wander the mall for a bit?”
“Deal.”
Mom nods as she gets up from my bed, glancing at the baby monitor to make sure all is well.
[Baylee] I’ll come around 5.
[Freddie] 👍
Four
A little while later, my mother drops Lara off at home on our way to the mall. Rebecca giggles with glee from her car seat at the back of our mom’s minivan, and I turn up the volume of this irritating folk music my sister can’t get enough of.
“My ears are bleeding!” I yell.
“Mine, too,” Mom says, and we laugh.
At the mall, Mom and I unload Rebecca’s custom wheelchair from the back. Mom scoops Rebecca up and straps her in, then zips the fleece liner that covers Rebecca’s whole body so that only her head sticks out. This way we don’t have to dress her in winter clothes, and it’s easy to take off when we’re inside so she doesn’t overheat. It can still be a whole production, which might draw some stares, but getting stared at is nothing we’re not all very used to in this family.
The laser tag place is attached to the mall, so we go in through the mall entrance. The guy at the counter recognizes my mother and waves us in. It’s like Rebecca can already tell what’s about to happen, because her arms start going, swatting at the air. We get ushered through an employee door off to the side, and suddenly everything is dark around us.
“They’re a little rambunctious today, so I’ll put the walls up,” the guy says to my mother.
The arena appears before us, and even though I wouldn’t be caught dead running around, chasing and getting chased for fun, my eyes just love the experience of being in here. It’s pitch-dark, but there are lights everywhere that make it look like some kind of futuristic spot in space. Rebecca loves neon colors and lights—this is next-level magical for her, I’m sure. Years ago, my mother worked out this deal with the owner of the place that she gives him and his husband free coffee whenever they come by the store, and he lets us in to watch. Kids are chasing each other in the dark, yelling and laughing as they fake-shoot each other, which is another thing my sister loves—I mean the noise, not the shooting.
Mom parks the wheelchair against the wall, and the guy wheels over a couple of panels to put at our sides, just enough to keep anyone from slamming into us. We lay a vest across my sister’s lap, the strips of pink lights across it glowing and flashing, and for the next thirty minutes, she is mesmerized. I put my phone brightness to the lowest setting, and I pass the time texting Rianne and Lara in our group chat, while Mom responds to work emails.
[Lara] Text me when you’re done. Are you still going to Freddie’s?
[Baylee] I’m not sure.
[Lara] Okay, well, if you need a ride to my house, my dad said we could come get you.
[Baylee] Ok. Thank you.
It’s so nice of her father to offer that, but all I can think of is Freddie. My whole entire day will be about him now, even though I know I shouldn’t let myself get swept up like this. What I should be doing is spending the night with Lara. This is literally day one of the substitute boyfriend plan—I can’t already be feeling like I need my own space.
Once we’re done with Rebecca’s thing, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will do both things: see Freddie alone first, then head to Lara’s a little later than usual. Pretty much having my cake and eating it, too. Or more like eating two pieces of cake in the same night as opposed to saving one for the next day. Everything all at once—that’s totally me.
I power through the mall as fast as my heeled winter boots will allow, because I’m on a mission to find something cute to wear for tonight. Soon, we arrive at the one and only store in this town that carries stylish clothes in my size.
Mom pushes Rebecca along, several feet behind me. The fingers of my left hand are crossed with the hope that the decent stuff isn’t already picked through. The reality is, the only way I’m able to shop here is if there’s a killer sale going, or if I have cash coupons. I used to think that it only made sense for bigger clothes to cost more money, because there’s a ton more fabric involved. But then I saw this TikTok by a seamster who basically was like, if that was the logic, then shirts that are XXS would cost way less than size large, but they don’t. It’s only fat people who pay more for clothes. Another rule that doesn’t make sense, but you just live with it.
“Are we looking for anything in particular?” Mom asks, parking Rebecca in front of a couple of mannequins wearing neon-colored items, which grabs my sister’s attention instantly.
“I’m basically open to anything that fits and, um, doesn’t look like it’s made for an old lady,” I say. “No offense.”
“I’m not old! Forty-five isn’t old.”
“Okay, well, that isn’t made for a mom, then.”
I flick through the racks fast, grabbing different sizes of the same tops because it’s anyone’s guess how any particular item will fit. I sometimes get lost in a 2XL, and other times my body might barely squeeze into a 4XL. I add a tunic top in the prettiest shade of cherry red I’ve ever seen to my modest pile of choices.
“Ooh, very nice,” Mom says. “Show Beck.”
I hold it in front of my sister, who immediately tries to swat at it. It totally clashes with the purple unicorn shirt she’s got on.
The few minutes that I firmly believe each item in my hands will look amazing on me fill me with confidence and glee. In reality, I already know I won’t get the red top because it’s not black, and the eighties graphic tee is cute, but it’s too short to cover my whole belly, and the silky-gold tank is made of a spandex-type fabric that is too thin, which means it’ll snake over each curve and fat roll like a layer of plastic wrap.
There’s a code I live by when it comes to the way I look, the way I present myself to the world. You just do not knowingly accessorize with something that’ll accentuate your fat. Sure, a flowing black top will still allow outlines of fat to show through—I know I’m not fooling anyone—but that’s not the same as knowingly contouring the fat with bright colors and clingy fabric. It’s not the same as tucking your shirt into your pants.
“I have my own personal standards, Mother.”
“Your standards are a little rigid, Boss.”
It’s worth noting that my standards and rules are only my own. Do I think it’s the worst thing in the world when another fat girl tucks her shirt into her pants? No. Do I sometimes even think it looks cute? Yes. Will I do it? Never. It wasn’t a decision I made to come up with these rules. They must’ve appeared at some point, but to me, it’s like they’ve always been there.
