Big Fat Disaster (2 page)

Rachel wasn’t kidding. Every one of the postcards is identical. I swallow hard and dump the remaining postcards onto the floor, then spread them out with my toe. I plop back into Dad’s chair and nearly fall backward. I throw myself forward; my stomach clenches, and I remember Dad’s snack stash in his lower left desk drawer.

Seconds later, I’m ripping the foil off one Ding Dong after another. I
think
I’ll only eat one more; I don’t even taste the chocolate-covered cupcakes as they go down. I plunge my hand to the bottom of the wastebasket and bury the wrappers beneath the trash. I’m kind of surprised when the box is empty; I stomp it flat with my foot and shove it to the bottom of the trash, too…Maybe Dad’ll think he already ate them all.

I can’t leave the evidence here. Dad eats too much, too, but he has no problem with lecturing me about the importance of appearance to voters. “It’s not just
me
who’s running for Senate, Colby. It’s
all
of us. If you were a boy, people would assume you play football, like I did. What do you think they assume when they see
you
?”

If Mom finds out about the cupcake raid, she’ll give me her disappointed look and say, “What you eat in private, you wear in public.”

As soon as I feel less queasy, I’ll take the bag to the dumpster. Seeing what I’ve done makes me feel even fatter. I just won’t eat anything else today. It won’t be that hard.

I sigh heavily at the coffee-saturated calendar. The month of July is ruined; at least it’s almost over. I tear off the page and see Dad’s handwriting on the first Saturday in August:
Move Rachel to school
. The page is too wet to add
Praise Jesus!
under his words. I lift the pages one by one to see how far into autumn the coffee soaked. By Election Day in November, the pages are perfect again. I lift the desk pad and flutter the calendar pages to make them dry faster, and I notice initials and codes, like LW 400.5. Strange. There are names of banks and long numbers, too.

I toss the calendar atop the postcards and my eye catches on the damaged picture frame on the floor. I gingerly lift the frame and slide the broken glass into the wastebasket, then sit back in Dad’s chair and carefully remove the spring break hiking trip pic that we took just before Dad broke his collarbone and we had to cut short our vacation. When I see another photo beneath it, taped to the frame’s cardboard backing, it’s as if all the blood rushes from my body and pools in my feet.

It’s a picture of my dad.

And he’s kissing a lady. I mean, he’s
really
kissing her, and it looks like he was holding the camera to take the picture.

But it’s not my mom. This lady has brown hair, and, anyway, I’ve never seen him kiss Mom that way. It’s as if the photo burns my fingers; I throw it down and stumble back, knocking over my dad’s chair. My heart’s pounding in my ears and it feels like my chest is going to explode. I realize I’m holding my breath and I let it go, but it comes out really loud like a sob and I clap my hand over my mouth, then run to the doorway and look down the hall to make sure no one is there. I tiptoe back to the desk, retrieve the photo, and stare at it. Do I know her? Dad’s wearing the sling from when he broke his collarbone. So…this was taken a few months ago.

I hear voices in the hallway. A door opens…footsteps…my dad’s campaign manager, Patrick, is calling the staff together. I look around for somewhere to put the photo. I peel it off the cardboard backing and slide it down the front of my dress, into my bra.

I’m frozen, and the bookcases that line the office are closing in. I feel like a stranger looking for the first time at the framed photos lining Dad’s office in chronological order. My parents’ wedding photo…the two of them with Rachel…and me…then Drew came along. Every election season, we’ve had a family photo taken: a visual representation of Dad’s “family values” platform.

I’ve been standing on stages and waving at crowds ever since I can remember, starting with Dad’s campaign for the local school board. Then came the race for city councilman, and a year after that, state representative. My father has been trying to get everybody to love him ever since he was in middle school: A framed photo of him as eighth grade student council president hangs on the wall in his study, just above his Eagle Scout badge.

I go to the door, close and lock it, then pull the photo from my bra. Who
is
this woman? I plop into the desk chair, carefully lift the coffee-drenched calendar onto my lap, and go through the pages one by one, looking for the woman’s name, but except for Rachel’s on moving day, there’s just the mysterious initials, names of banks, and numbers.

I turn on Dad’s computer, but it’s password protected. I frantically go through his desk drawers, study the books on his shelf, and even look behind the paintings and framed photos on the wall. I don’t know why her name would be behind Dad’s framed photo of him and George W. Bush when they met at a hardware store in Dallas, but I’m not exactly in my right mind.

I hear people cheering outside. Dad’s campaign theme song—it’s called “I Can’t Hold Back,” by this ’80s band called Survivor—is blasting, so the rally must be wrapping up. I slide the photo back into my bra, then run my hands around the rim of my mouth just in case there’s any crumbs there. My tongue is greasy, my teeth taste terrible, and I wish I had some gum.

I place the broken picture frame in the center of the calendar, awkwardly bend and fold it over as if I’m wrapping a gift, crease it, and shove it on top of the trash.

I scoop the postcards back into their box and straighten Dad’s desk so that it looks normal. He’ll notice if the spring break photo is out of the frame, so I pull the snack stash drawer all the way out, place the pic under the metal sliding mechanism, and close the drawer.

Then I upright Dad’s chair, move to the doorway, and try to see his office as anyone else would: anyone who hadn’t, of course, just seen my father—“the family man”—with his tongue down some stranger’s throat.

I tie off the trash bag and head to the dumpster with it. I keep my head down and hope that no one recognizes me—but without a big white address label over my face, what are the odds?

I sneak away from the dumpster like a rat, tiptoe in through the back door of the building, and move to a window near the stage outside. I part the blinds ever-so-slightly to spy on my parents. My father stands at the top of the platform steps, shaking hands with people and smiling. Mom’s at his side, just like always.

“I Can’t Hold Back” starts up again. Dad grabs Mom by the wrist, pulls her into an embrace, then whirls her away. It’s supposed to look spontaneous, but they do this to end every rally. Dad says it’s a positive picture for voters to leave with, and, besides, it’s an easy “out” from having to keep talking to people. They end the dance with a kiss, then he and Mom wave at the crowd and descend the steps. Just like always.

Rachel and her two best friends from The Young Conservatives catch me being a peeping Tom. I jump when she speaks. “The coast is clear, Colby. I told Mrs. Hamlet that you have a raging case of mono, and
that’s
why you didn’t show up to sing.”

I noisily release the blinds and spin back to her, my mouth gaping open. “You did
what
?”

She strikes a thoughtful pose: eyes to the ceiling and an index finger to her chin. “Wait a minute; no, I didn’t say that, after all. See, mononucleosis is the
kissing
disease, so no one would ever believe that
you
could catch it.” Her friends laugh, and they high-five each other.

I roll my eyes. “For your information, that is a myth.
Anyone
can catch mono.”

She mocks, “
Anyone can catch mono
,” then strides to the desk my mom always uses when she’s in the office. “Where’s Mom’s purse?… Oh, never mind. I found it.” She pulls the Coach handbag out of a drawer, dumps the contents on the desk, and pulls some cash from Mom’s billfold.

I fold my arms over my chest. The photo’s sticky against my skin; I’m sweating so much that I wonder if the image will stay on later, like a rub-on tattoo. I’m tempted to lift it off my skin so that it won’t, but I’m afraid Rachel will notice. “Does Mom know you’re going through her stuff?”

Rachel glances at the other girls, and they smirk in unison. “Just tell her I needed twenty bucks. Chris has his mom’s Suburban. We’re going to a late lunch and a movie. I’ll be home by ten.”

“I want to go, too.” I stand. Maybe I can get Rachel alone and show her the picture. Maybe she’ll explain it away and tell me how stupid I am to ever think that Dad would cheat on Mom. I sure hope so.

“
I want to go, too
,” Rachel mocks. She gives me the
You’re an embarrassment to all of us
look. I get it. I know I don’t fit; she doesn’t have to remind me all the time. “No freshmen.”

“But school’s about to start. I’m a sophomore now—”

“It’s only for graduates. It’s our last Young Conservatives outing before we all leave for college.” She shoves the billfold back in Mom’s purse, gives me a withering glance, and gestures to her friends. “Let’s go this way.” She leads them to the side exit.

The building’s empty except for Dad, Mom, and Patrick. My little sister, Drew, and Mrs. Pendergrass’s grandson, Bobby, are on the plywood stage outside, putting on an imaginary concert for the volunteers who are folding up the chairs in the parking lot.

The sugar and fat I consumed in record time have me woozy enough, but stir in the discovery that Dad’s cheating on Mom, and I’m positive I’m going to puke. I grab my iPod and stretch out on the sofa in the media center (it’s just the room with a sofa and TV). Maybe if I lie really still, I won’t throw up.

I’m between songs when I hear what sounds like arguing; I press Off and tiptoe just inside the doorway to try to hear what’s going on. I lean forward and when I do, the photo of Dad and that lady pokes out the top of my bra. I push it back into place and peek around the corner into Patrick’s office. Mom’s nodding and smiling—but it’s the smile of hers that looks like a dog baring its teeth.

Mom does that: She nods and smiles even when she thinks the person speaking is full of shit, and I can tell by the way she’s arching her eyebrows that Patrick falls into that category.