Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2) (3 page)

I rolled my eyes
and tried not to panic.

Liesel lifted me
up thirty feet in the air that night for the entire auditorium to see, and
nobody, including my own parents and sister, could believe his or her eyes. And
of course, as Liesel and I floated back down to the gym floor and proceeded to
charge out of the auditorium, half laughing, half scared out of our wits, it
didn’t occur to either of us that many in that audience had video cameras
equipped in their hands.

I guess I should be lucky that only three
videos of us flying were actually posted online, two of them shaky and grainy,
with only one really showing us pull a Superman and Lois Lane in decent light
and focus.
 

But it had been
a nightmare, first explaining to everyone that our realistic-looking floating
had been an illusion, brought to life by invisible wires. And then the Youtube
video went up three days later, going viral within forty-eight hours, showing
the world the bizarre graduation stunt performed at Krueger Stadium in Reno,
Nevada. All of the commenters believed the video to be a fake, thankfully, but
nearly seven months later, people all over were still intrigued by our
out-of-nowhere show spectacular. Liesel and I were asked to be on the local
news, as well as Inside Edition, but we turned down all interviews, much to the
dismay of my sister.

What was I supposed to say? “Yes, we were
actually floating. Because my girlfriend’s a witch. She can do that.”

“There has to be
a way to delete this stupid video, right?” I asked Kimber, who was more a
know-it-all when it came to current technology than I was.

“No can do. The
user who posted the video is the only one who can.”

I shook my head
and turned away from the computer. I had to forget about it. Nobody had come
for Liesel in all this time. And nobody was ever going to.
Nobody can know her powers
, I had told myself in those early days.
And I still had to make sure nobody ever would, or could. Even with this video
taking up all that web space.

I can’t lose Liesel. If I lose her, I’ll
have nothing.

As I made my way
toward the bedroom door, I turned around to see Kimber jump on her bed and
throw half of another Kit Kat bar in her mouth.

“Are you putting
a dress or something on?” I asked. “Everyone’s gonna be here in a few minutes.”

She sighed and
gave me the evil eye. “I can’t just wear this?” She pointed down at a sweater
and jeans.

“Put on a dress,
Kimber. It’s Christmas Eve.”

“Uhh, OK, thanks
Dad
.” She stood up from the bed and
headed over to her closet as I stepped out of the room. “Hey, you’re gonna put
my underwear back, right?” At least twenty pairs were scattered all over the
floor.

I shrugged. “You
told me not to touch them,” I said with a grin, shutting the door behind me.

“You ass!” she
shouted.

The doorbell
rang. I quickly sprinted into my bedroom to finish getting ready for the
night’s festivities… and the big announcement.

---

“Is
this
Cameron
?”

I had barely
made my way into the hallway when I heard the high-pitched squeal of what I
assumed to be a human being. I caught my dad’s parents to my right, when I saw
the arms flailing toward me from my left.

“
Cameron
? Is that really
you
?”

I had a plump
pair of lips plastered against my left cheek before I could tell for sure who
the culprit of this mega smooch was. I took a step back and immediately brought
my hands to my slicked back hair, which I had just sauced with a layer of gel.

“Aunt… Aunt Margaret.”
 

The woman before
me was related to my mother, but I didn’t see it; I never could. Gray-haired,
big boned, with a face only my mom’s dear-departed parents could love, she
threw her flabby arms out in the air and demanded more public affection. When
the doorbell rang behind me, I had never been so happy to hear the loud,
echoing chime in my life.

Liesel
…

I took five
steps backward, watching in horror as my mom’s (much) older sister continued to
stare at me like a hungry coyote, and I opened the front door. I happily sighed
as two arms wrapped around me, and I figured they were the comforting arms of
my beloved.

But they
weren’t.

“Is this
thee
Cameron?” The voice sounded similar
to Aunt Margaret’s, except even more excited. “Oh baby, baby, baby, come and
let me take a good look at
you
!”

I was spun
around, at this point feeling like an inanimate ragdoll, and came face to face
with a tall, manly African American woman who’d I’d never seen before, her lips
pressed against mine before I was able to stop her. And this wasn’t just a
smack. This was the kind of intimate smooch I normally reserved for Liesel, or
my dear old librarian Mrs. Gordon, when I was too drunk to know the difference.
Finally, the strong woman patted me down like I was at the airport, and smiled
at me with a giant pair of slightly yellow teeth.

“You’re as
handsome as I imagined. So happy to finally meet you, baby!”

She hugged me
again, and I still had no idea who this person was. For all I knew, she had the
wrong house, and I was spending this valuable time with a complete stranger.

“Uhh, thank you,
uhh, ma’am,” I said in a confused tone.

She shook her
head and took a few steps forward. “Where are my manners? You probably don’t
have a clue who I am, do you?”

I thought about
lying. “I have no clue,” ended up escaping my mouth.

I readied the
reveal for who this strange woman was. But she didn’t tell me through
words—she told me through her actions. I watched in amazement as she
rushed across the room, wrapped her arms around Aunt Margaret, and kissed her
so passionately on the lips I thought the two were going to start going at it
right there in front of me.

“Is that
Darlene?” my mom Shari asked from the hallway, sporting a glass of wine in one
hand and a spatula in the other. Finally taking in a moment without someone
badgering me, I was able to make out old-timey Christmas music blaring over the
speakers, and the smells of delicious treats cooking in the kitchen. “I’m so
excited you decided to join us!”

“I wouldn’t have
missed it for the world!”

The
African-American woman hugged my mom, and I noticed for the first time she had
a bag of presents in her right hand. My mom took it from her and handed the bag
to me. “Cam, can you take this to the living room and put the packers under the
tree?”

Packers? What is this, 1959?
“Uhh, sure. But can I ask what… umm…” I
still was naïve, not entirely sure what this Darlene woman was doing here.

Darlene laughed
and pulled my mom’s sister close to her enormous bosom. She kissed her on the
cheek and stared into her giant blue eyes. “Do you want me to tell him or
should I?”

Aunt Margaret
squeezed the woman tight. “Cameron, this is my new beautiful bride, Darlene
Waters.”

Even though for
years I had questioned why my mom’s fifty-five-year-old sister hadn’t married,
it never occurred to me that she was a lesbian. I only saw her once a year, if
that—she lives across the country near Hartford, Connecticut, where I was
supposed to attend Yale this fall—and didn’t often think about the
woman’s sexual preference. It took me a moment to warm up to the idea, but when
I did, I embraced it.

“That’s so cool.
It’s nice to meet you, Darlene.”

“It’s nice to
meet you, too, Cameron. Where’s your baby sister?”

“I think she’s
still getting ready.” I nodded and watched with amazement as the two started
kissing again, like they wanted to profess to the entire household their
undying love for each other.
I wonder
what my dad would think about this
, I thought to myself as I hauled the surprisingly
heavy bag of gifts downstairs into the living room, which housed the
six-foot-tall Christmas tree.

The tree stood
up straight in the back left of the room, next to our grand piano, which for at
least a decade had sat unused. I dumped nine presents from the bag all around
the tree, seven of which were for Margaret, none for me or Kimber, and took a
step back to admire the simple but elegant job my mom did in decorating the
tree. It seemed bigger every year. I felt so relieved that my mom still picked
out real Christmas trees, as opposed to the more convenient, not at all the
same, fake trees one could store year-round in the basement. This tree was
perfect
.

“What do you
think?” someone asked behind me, and I was happy to note it was the voice of a
male. “Your mom pulled all the stops this year.”

I turned around
to see my dad Stephen. Reno’s most successful plastic surgeon, he looked
especially happy and grateful tonight, like he was getting a chance to spend
this special holiday with somebody he never thought he’d get to spend it with
again.
And it’s definitely not Margaret
I’m thinking of.

“Hey dad. Yeah,
it’s really something.”

“I keep telling
her she can buy a fake one. It’d save her time every year, and definitely save
us some money. But she says it’s just not the same, and I guess I have to agree
with her.”

He put a hand on
my right shoulder and took a sip of egg nog.

“Yeah I know
what you mean,” I said.

“How are you
feeling?”

“Me? Fine.”

“No problems?”

“No. I’ve been
good.”

“You haven’t…
you know… been feeling like you might start aging a few decades again?”

I laughed. “No.
I
promise
.”

“
Good
.”

I heard a
sniffle coming from upstairs, and I turned around to see my mom snapping a few
photos of us with her digital camera. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “Just keep
doing what you’re doing.”

“Mom…”

She stepped into
the living room, trying to control her emotions. Aunt Margaret and her new wife
Darlene watched with big grins from the entrance hallway as my mom wrapped her
arms around me.

“I didn’t think
I’d ever get to spend Christmas with you again, Cameron. I feel so lucky right
now… so proud… so…”

“I know, Mom.” I
patted her on the back and smiled up at my dad, who I could tell was trying not
to cry. “Don’t worry you guys. I’m fine now. You have nothing to worry about.
I’m not going anywhere.”

Just when I
needed a break from the awkward introductions and emotional outbursts from my
parents, the doorbell rang again, on cue. This time, I knew, it was bound to be
someone
really
special.

I made my way up
the stairs, just in time to see my grandfather Bob walking across the entrance
hallway to answer the door. “I got this,” I said.

“Who is it,
Cam?” The voice caught me off guard. I turned to my right to see Kimber
standing on the staircase, looking glamorous in a skimpy pink dress that
appeared more suitable for the prom than for Christmas Eve dinner.

The prom… how could I forget?

“What? Are you
expecting a friend or something?”

“No… well…
maybe…”

The doorbell
rang again, and I heard my mom from the living room clearly shout, “Cameron!
Open the door!”

I did as she
screamed, and expected to see Liesel. Instead, I was met with a young man I’d
never laid eyes on before.

“May I help
you?”

“Uhh, yeah… hi…
sorry to bother you… but…”

“Not
interested,” I said and slammed the door.

I grabbed my
phone to start dialing Liesel when I felt a fist punch me in my lower back.

“
Ass
!” Kimber shouted. She pushed me
aside and pulled the door back open. “Hi Tommy. Sorry about that.”

“Hi Kimber,” the
boy said. He looked about Kimber’s age. “You look really pretty tonight.”

“Thanks. So do
you.” She coughed. “I mean, you don’t look pretty. You just… look nice. I mean,
handsome. Well… you know what I mean.”

I stood in awe
watching the two young lovebirds, partly due to the sweetness of the occasion,
but mostly due to the fact that my baby sister for the first time seemed to be
the object of a boy’s affection.

“I got you a
present,” the boy said. “I don’t know if you’ll like it, but—”

“I’ll love it,”
Kimber said. “And here, I got something for you, too.”

My attention
suddenly veered past the fourteen-year-old blond boy standing in the entryway,
to the driveway, where I could see a figure appearing out of the darkness. Her
long, flowing red hair, complete with a gorgeous green dress that matched her
mesmerizing eye color, promised me that the next arrival to our house was
definitely
meant for me.

“Leese?” I
shouted. “Is that you?”