Something Real (15 page)

BETH:
[speaking into phone] No. No. I don’t know how many pills. The bottles were all over the floor. What? I can’t remember … I don’t know. My husband had surgery last year, he had a lot of painkillers.

[The sound of sirens grows louder. BETH drops the phone and runs to the front door. CUT to PARAMEDICS rushing into the house. CUT to ANDREW sobbing over BONNIE™.]

BETH:
In here!

PARAMEDICS put BONNIE™ onto a stretcher. CUT to BENTON™, standing in the doorway.]

BENTON
™
:
[screaming as PARAMEDICS rush past him with BONNIE™] Bonnie™! Don’t die, Bonnie™, please don’t die.

SEASON 17, EPISODE 10

(The One with the Scones)

I don’t go to Mer’s house. Instead, I text her after I get home, claiming my mother is pissed I’d gone on a date without her permission and now I’m grounded. She seems to buy it, but I know it’s only a matter of time before I’ll be forced to recount every last detail of the date. Just to torture myself, I check my e-mail to see if maybe Patrick sent me something. Even a
whaaaa?
kind of e-mail would have been preferable to the vast emptiness that is my in-box. It’s like the Siberia of in-boxes.

I decide to indulge my tragic inner nature by lying on my bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling. There’s just enough light from outside to see the vague outline of my ceiling fan, but the room is otherwise cloaked in heavy black swaths of night. It’s almost four in the morning, but I’m still wide awake, letting my anger build.

After my Sixty Minutes Hate, I hear a car pull up in the driveway. When I look out of my second-story window, I can see the back of Kirk’s SUV slip into the garage. The sky is already starting to stretch and yawn, and I sit there for a minute, watching the deep blues of early morning slowly lighten into the watercolor hues of dawn. Venus shimmers, and the moon sort of backs out of the sky, like it’s reluctant to leave but doesn’t want to overstay its welcome. I’m almost enjoying this rare glimpse of five A.M., but I don’t linger. When I hear the front door open, I leave my bedroom and pad downstairs.

“—have to get everything together before the crew comes. God, I’m exhausted.”

Mom’s voice. I stop on the stairs.

Kirk: “Maybe after this weekend, we can get you a massage or something.”

“Mmm, sounds nice.”

Gross over-forty-adult kissing noises ensue. I hover on the stairwell, uncertain. On the one hand, I really,
really
don’t want to do this without coffee. On the other, I
have
to talk to my mom.

“I’m gonna jump in the shower,” Kirk says.

I tiptoe down the stairs and into the living room, barely escaping a brush-in with this guy I used to think was okay even though he wasn’t my dad and who now I can’t trust at all. It has been surprisingly easy to turn against Kirk; calling us out for drinking on national TV was more than a rookie mistake. It was a violation of trust and respect that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. Sure, we shouldn’t have done it. But he enjoyed his little moment in the sun—I could tell.

I wait until I hear the door to the master bedroom close, then I step into the kitchen.

“Bonnie™! What’s got you up so early?”

Mom’s measuring coffee into this fancy new coffeepot, and even though it’s the butt crack of dawn, she’s got perfect hair and makeup. Just like the good old days.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I say. I lean against the counter opposite her. My stomach—traitor that it is—grumbles.

Mom reaches into a canvas tote on the table and takes out a plastic container of scones.

“I have more in the bag if you don’t want blueberry.” She crosses to the fridge. “OJ?”

“I’ll wait for the coffee.”

Mom gave up the coffee-stunts-your-growth fight long ago.

“So … how was LA?” I ask.

“Great!” Mom’s voice gets high and peppy, which means she’s hiding something. “Maybe we can all go down there together sometime. Get some sun.”

“Huh. So what were you up to?”

Mom starts opening the cabinets, pulling out all the fancy platters we use only for holidays. “Oh, you know … businessy stuff.”

The coffee gurgles, and I get up to pour myself a cup. I take my time choosing and decide on an old Valentine’s Day mug with hearts and cupids. It’s ugly as sin, but we keep it because guess how easy it is to get stuck with no cup at all in a house with fifteen people?

“So Benny and I were at the bookstore yesterday.”

I have rehearsed this a few times, and it comes out sounding less casual than I wanted it to.

“Uh-huh,” is all Mom says.

She’s not even listening.

I look over at her. “I said something?”

“Sorry, honey, I missed that. What about you and Benton™?”

I take a sip of coffee, then put the mug down because I don’t want to throw it.

“I
said
, Benny and I were at the bookstore yesterday.”

Now she hears. She looks at me for what feels like the first time since I entered the kitchen.

“You saw the book.”

I nod.

“You’re angry.”

I nod.

“Well, sweetie, I don’t know what to say.” She throws her hands up in the air and lets them fall against her thighs.
Smack
. “It’s important that I advocate for our family, and this was the best way to do it.”

Advocate
? What are we, a nonprofit?

I shake my head. “So talking about the pills was, what, an attempt to prove what a great family we are?”

Mom’s tone gets hard, defensive. “I am trying to
protect
you, Bonnie™. It’s important that we have the last word on the matter. I’m not stupid. The tabloids are going to dredge all this up again. The last thing people remember about the show is what you did to yourself—”

“What
I
did to myself?” I’m shouting already, but I can’t help it. This is just so Mom. You try to confront her about something, and it’s like you threw her a boomerang. It always
always
comes back to you. “Because living out my entire life on television didn’t contribute at all to my depression.”

Mom purses her lips. “I’m not going to let you use me as your punching bag anymore.” This, I think, sounds suspiciously like a Kirkism. “
You
made the choice to take those pills,” Mom continues. “
You
made the choice to blame me for it, and for a while, I was okay with that. I blamed myself. But I don’t anymore. Honey, I love you, but I refuse to carry around your guilt any longer.”

Now I’m shaking. Like somebody replaced my blood with carbonated AGHH!!!!!

“Mom. Have you ever asked yourself why your thirteen-year-old daughter wanted to swallow a bunch of pills? Maybe—just maybe—it was because I had a
psychotic
childhood—”

“Bonnie™. We have been over and over this. You put this family through hell, and now, just when things are starting to get back to normal—”

“This is normal? Strangers in our house, shoving cameras in our faces? I have to use a fake name at school and lie to everyone I know. What’s normal about that?”

“I’m sorry you’re upset,” she says. She pinches her nose between her thumb and forefinger and briefly closes her eyes. Like she can’t stand the sight of me. “I know your father and I said we wouldn’t do the show again. But circumstances change. This was the best decision I could make for our family, to provide for us. I know you don’t understand it—I don’t expect you to. I hope to God you never have the financial concerns we do. But I need you to respect my decisions, and someday, when you have kids, you might cut me a little slack.”

“You promised! And you didn’t even tell us. I got home from school, and they were just
here
.”

“What do you want from me, Bonnie™? Please, tell me. Because no matter what I do, it’s never enough for you!”

Now she’s shouting. Soon enough—yep, there’s the sound of doors opening. I hear one of the triplets say, “Mommy?”

My eyes are getting hot, and God, I don’t want to cry. “I want you to admit … I … Why are you doing this to me?”

My voice cracks on
me
, and I want to punch myself, I’m so freaking frustrated with my inability to keep cool.

Mom’s voice goes low. “Nobody is doing anything
to
you. There are fourteen other people in this family that I have to think about.
Fourteen
people I have to feed, and clothe, and buy toys and books and everything for. Do you know how much toilet paper we use in a month, how many bars of soap? Don’t even get me started on groceries! I’m sorry, Bonnie™, but the world doesn’t revolve around you. Writing the book, doing the show, running around the country for PR and having a million meetings—this is
my job
. I’m sorry I’m not a doctor or a lawyer, but this is what you’re stuck with.”

“Nobody asked you to have a million kids! It’s not our fault!”

Her eyes narrow, and I wonder if maybe I’ve gone a little too far.

“Which sibling of yours did you want me to give up for adoption?”

(Lexie™.)

“I’m not even going to answer that,” I say.
WTF?
“You can’t make me do the show. Whatever sick thing you and Chuck are planning for the first episode, I won’t do it. It’s, like, child abuse.”

Mom looks at me like I just sold American secrets to the Russians. “How can you say something like that? You have no idea how—”

“Lucky I am. I know, I know. You’ve already told me that a million times,” I say. “But what’s lucky about not having a real life? What am I supposed to do when all my friends find out I’ve been lying to them for the past year? How do you think it feels to know that everyone at my school can read all about the Pill Night?”

Mom’s face softens, for just a moment. “I know it must be hard to—”

“No. You don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like because you
want
this. I don’t want this. I want a life, I want … I…”
Want.
So much. No. So
little
.

I hear a shuffling noise behind me, and when I turn around, I see myself reflected in the glassy eye of a camera.

“What?” is all I can say. Confused, like a polar bear is sitting at the table drinking tea. I hear my mom sigh, and I whirl around, flinging my words at her. “Has this thing been here the whole time?”

“Bonnie™…”

Notice that she doesn’t deny it.

I stand there for a minute, dazed. I want to scream and shout at the camera, rip it out of this stranger’s hands and take a baseball bat to it. But I don’t. I can already feel the mask I’ve learned how to wear since I was finger-painting settle over my face. I become plastic, expressionless Bonnie™. Then I turn on my heel and brush past the camera.

*   *   *

“If we refuse to participate, Meta will go the whole troubled teen angle.”

I nod. I know Benny’s right, but the thought of going out there, getting back in front of those cameras after the fight I had with my mom this morning …
ugh
. I prefer to stay here, on my bed, with my bedroom door locked. Forever.

“What if we go live with Dad?” I ask. I’m not really sure how I want him to answer that.

“Okay … One: you haven’t spoken to him since the show ended. Can you imagine living alone with him in some douchey bachelor pad?” (I couldn’t.) “Two: That fucker ditched us for a nineteen-year-old receptionist. Three: I’m not leaving Matt, and you’re not leaving without me.”

“Benny, I can’t do this. I mean, I feel like I literally
can’t
. And after this fight with Mom, there’s just no way I can homeschool again. Which means I’d have to go to Taft. Which sucks great big fat balls.”

Benny laughs—one loud, sharp guffaw. “You did not just use the phrase
great big fat balls
.”

I put a pillow over my face. “I want to die.”

He grabs it and hugs it to his chest, his eyes darkening a bit. “No you don’t. You want to have sex with Patrick Sheldon.”

I smile to let him know I’m kidding around—it’s tricky using the D-word around my family. “Okay. And
then
I want to die.”

“If you do it in that order, you’d be the first human in the known universe to go to heaven
before
they die.” Benny licks his lips in the kind of lascivious way that is totally inappropriate around one’s sister.