Wallflower In Bloom (30 page)

“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.”

“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.

And then my cell phone rang.

At the end of the day, love is all that’s real, and all that matters is that you really loved
.

M
y cell was on the kitchen counter, so Tag was closer.

He reached for it.

“I got it,” I said. I took the three steps to my phone in one long leap.

Tag was faster. He scooped it up and flipped it over so he could see the display screen.

“Don’t you dare,” I said.

Tag grinned. I thought he might hesitate for a second just to tease me. I mean, old habits die hard and all that. But then he’d toss it to me, maybe a little bit higher than necessary so I’d have to dive for it, but at least he’d give it to me.

“Hello,” he said.

I opened my mouth and drew in a sharp breath. The sound it made was like a gust of wind.

“Deirdre Griffin’s Hollywood residence,” Tag said in Madonna’s fake British accent.

“Give it to me,” I yelled as I tried to grab the phone out of his hand.

Tag put his hand on my head and straightened out his arm so I couldn’t reach it.

I circled my arms like a windmill, but I couldn’t get any closer. Tag had perfected this hold during our childhood. It was no less humiliating now.

“Give it to me right now,” I screamed.

Tag took my phone away from his ear. “Well, what do you know?” he said. “It’s our old pal, Steve Moretti.”

I lost it. I totally lost it. If his golf cart had been around I would have run him over, then put it into reverse and done it again. And again. And again. And again.

But the only weapon I had was my knee.

So I used it. And for once in my life, my aim was dead on.

I kneed my brother as hard as I could, right in the family jewels.

Tag let out a moan like a wild animal, like the howl of a coyote crossed with the
moo
of a cow. He shoved me with one hand at the same time I twisted away from him and tried to lunge for my phone.

He threw it with his other hand, then doubled over with pain.

I jumped for the phone. My heel hit the dining room chair.

I heard a splash as the cell phone landed in the fishbowl.

The chair tipped over and I landed on the cheap little dining room table.

The table went over and I went with it.

My T-shirt absorbed the fishbowl’s water like a wick, and as soon as I felt the dampness I knew.

I rolled over and pushed myself to an upright position as fast as I could.

The fishbowl had turned completely over. My phone was still inside it, but Fred and Ginger had been thrown free and were flopping around in a puddle on the floor.

I screamed. I grabbed the fishbowl and ran to the sink. I turned on the water full blast. I reached my hand into the bowl as it was filling and pulled out my phone.

I grabbed a soupspoon from a kitchen drawer and ran back to Fred
and Ginger. Water sloshed over the lip of the fishbowl and drenched my yoga pants.

Ginger looked worse so I scooped her up first. I slid the spoon under her gently like a stretcher, then nudged her all the way on with my finger. I lowered her into the bowl as quickly as I could, then I went for Fred.

Neither one of them was moving much, but they weren’t floating on the surface either. The water probably wasn’t the right temperature, but at least it was wet. Their little gills were working hard as if they were gasping for air. My hands shook as I poured in a capful of Nutrafin Goldfish Bowl Conditioner.

I hugged the fishbowl to my chest and prayed.

Tag pushed himself slowly to his feet. “What the fu—”

I hugged the fishbowl tighter. “Get out,” I whispered. “Now. And if you killed my fish, I’ll never speak to you again for the rest of my life.”

I carried Ginger and Fred into my bedroom and shut the door.

I slid down to the floor with my back resting against the bed. I held Fred and Ginger in my lap.

“You’re going to be fine,” I whispered. “I’m right here. Just try to relax and swim through it.”

Surprisingly, I heard Tag leave.

Ginger was barely moving. Fred was still swimming, but he was on his side and only seemed to be able to circle in one direction.

Tears streamed down my face. “Don’t leave me,” I whispered. “Please don’t leave me.”

Easy for Tag to say that I should have been more available, more open. Huge risks or tiny ones, boyfriends or goldfish, this is what open got you: pain and suffering and a chance to get your heart ripped right out of your chest.

I started to sing. The first song that popped into my head was “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” so I went with it. I sang it over and over
and over again. After a while I almost convinced myself that as long as I kept singing, I could keep them alive.

My voice started to go, so I reached for the water bottle on my tiny bedside table and took a quick sip. I lit the little candle and placed it on the floor in front of us. I said another prayer.

Then I went back to singing. This time I sang “Smooth” over and over again. I didn’t even think about the dance steps, but whenever I got to the line about being just like the ocean under the moon I pictured Fred and Ginger back to normal and swimming away happily in their miniature sea, waiting to see me again.

If anybody ever tells you fish don’t have feelings, don’t believe them for a second. Ginger wiggled back and forth slowly as one eye held mine. Fred circled as close to Ginger as he could on every pass. At one point, their fins brushed and they stayed almost touching for a while, their gills opening and closing in time to each other.