Something Real (5 page)

“Whoa.” Benny stares with equal surprise at the lack of wall.

I hear a duet of giggling behind me. Farrow™ (fifteen, from Ethiopia) and Riley™ (fourteen, from Cambodia) grin at our shock. Back when the show was filming, the two of them were labeled the “bookworms.” Quiet and withdrawn, they’ve been able to weather the storms by escaping into other worlds. Sometimes at night I still hear them whispering in their bedroom, reading aloud to each other.

“You should see your face right now, Bon,” Farrow™ says. Her eyes are sparkling, and I’m pretty sure she’s wearing makeup, which bothers me for some reason.

Riley™ socks Benny on the arm. “Crazy, huh?”

Benny just nods, still shell-shocked. A pointed look from me, and they scamper off toward the dining room, books in hand. There’s a window seat in there where I know they’ll hide out for most of the night.

My eyes sweep over the newness. There’s not a bit of dust or tools or anything. It smells like paint—enough to get my head throbbing a bit—but when I touch my pinkie to the wall, it’s already dry.

“This is just creepy,” I mutter. Benny grunts his assent.

I peek into the kitchen, which is suddenly super shiny, with new appliances and bowls overflowing with fruit. There are even happyhappy photos of all of us on the fridge. I wonder if it’s like this in the rest of the house. My bones turn to liquid when I think about the diaries hidden throughout my bedroom.

We keep walking, and when we reach the living room, I stop, dumbfounded. I can see my reflection in the bay window overlooking the backyard, and there’re about twenty kinds of shock on my face.

“What?”
This is all I can say.

Because I don’t even recognize it. I mean, I literally could be in someone else’s house. In the few hours since I left for school this morning, they’ve totally redecorated. It looks like someone robbed a Pottery Barn, then stole a bunch of paint from Home Depot. Mom brushes past us and corners Kirk, handyman slash stepfather extraordinaire. He’s putting the final touches on a new entertainment center, doing something with power cords. Kids are running in and out of the room—someone must have given them soda or something because they’re at a ten on the hyper scale—so Mom doesn’t notice that I’m eavesdropping while pretending to check out the new photos on the mantel. Thirteen frames all lined up, holding those fancy portraits we recently got.

“Benton™ smells like a liquor cabinet,” Mom whispers. “Can you get him somewhere private and sober him up? This is
not
how I want to start the show. We can’t have—”

Mom shuts up as a burly guy sticks his camera into the archway that leads into the living room. His scuffed leather boots leave tracks on the cream rug, and he’s wearing one of those OLD GUYS RULE T-shirts. He gives me a curt nod as he focuses on Mom and Kirk, but is otherwise silent.

“I’ll handle it,” Kirk says to Mom. His eyes drift over to the kitchen doorway at the other end of the living room, and I can tell he’s looking at the cabinet above the sink where all the booze is. He purses his lips and looks in our direction.

I give him a wan smile and pull Benny back down the hall, toward our bedrooms upstairs.

“Oops,” Benny whispers in my ear.

I hit his arm, and he stifles a giggle. My brother is a terrible drunk, but he’s just as goofy when he’s sober. Really, you can’t take the kid anywhere. We go up three steps before we hear a “Wait!”

I turn around and—
wonderful
—it’s Lacey Production Assistant. “Hey!” she says. She’s like the Hollywood version of those girls who are always trying to get people to sign up for school clubs. Her toothy smile and eyes say,
C’mon! It’ll be so much fun!
She was probably born with a clipboard clutched in her arms.

She gestures with a walkie-talkie toward what used to be a wall. “Chuck really wants to keep you all downstairs right now. So, if you wouldn’t mind going into the kitchen—”

“Actually, I
would
mind—” I start, but Benny’s already pushing me away from the stairs.

“Dude, I need some water,” he says. “And I’m not going in there without you.”

Chuck grins as we come into the warm light, his hands spread out with benevolent Jesus-like welcome. I guess this is how it’s going to be, the head producer of MetaReel hanging around my house, acting like
I’m
the guest.

He’s surrounded by a mass of kids who are positively glowing from the excitement of having the cameras in the house again. Boxes of pizza cover the table—most of them empty—and I see some bags from the mall piled in a corner. As usual, Chuck’s playing Santa Claus.
He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake.…

“Hello, hello. We saved a pie for you,” Chuck says. “Hungry?”

Benny and I shake our heads. I feel like I’ll never be hungry again. Lex maneuvers her willowy frame so the cameras will catch her every perfect angle.

“I already had a salad, but thanks, Chuck,” Lex purrs.

A couple of sound crew guys are leaning against the new granite counter, and they stare at her ass appreciatively. Lex gives them a little wink that makes me want to wring her neck. One of the guys grins, and his sound boom inches closer.

“Observe the phallic symbol as it stalks the rare sex kitten,” whispers Benny in his spot-on Australian accent.

I snort/laugh louder than I would have if I hadn’t been sipping on bourbon, and Lexie™ turns a snow queen glare on me. I smile like,
Who, me?

My phone vibrates, and I pull it out. My mouth makes an O, and I show Benny the screen.

WTF Chlo? I’ve called you fifty times. I’m coming over.

“Oh, hell no,” Benny mutters.

“Be right back,” I say, racing past the cameras. I don’t see the thick black cord running along the floor between the kitchen and hallway, and I trip over it, my knee coming down painfully on the carpet.

“Whoa! You okay there?” asks a sound boom guy.

Face flaming, I mumble a “yeah” and then limp to the downstairs bathroom. It’s bad enough falling like a three-year-old in front of strangers, but that awfulness multiplies by about a billion when you know it just might make national headlines.

I breathe a huge sigh of relief when I finally close the bathroom door behind me. This is the safe zone—no cameras were ever inside unless Mom told them to film us doing makeovers or something horrible like that. I’m assuming the rule still stands. I rub my throbbing knee, then put down the toilet seat and call my best friend.

Tessa’s never seen my whole family together. Even though Kirk is a new addition to the
Baker’s Dozen
clan, we’re immediately recognizable en masse. My teachers and friends have never met my mom—they would absolutely know her from the cover of her bestseller
There Are Never Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen: How Being Mom to a Baker’s Dozen Changed My Life.
It’s crazy, but no one has figured out who we are. Change a few names, keep a low profile, homeschool everyone until junior year—we’ve kind of created our very own witness protection program.

I don’t have a good excuse for not coming over, but I tell Tessa there’s drama at home, and I’m sorry I didn’t call, and no, she really shouldn’t come by tonight. She’s never been inside my house, but she knows where I live from the occasional ride home. Tessa’s not a gullible person, but she’s always bought my excuses: my parents are really strict, they’re not home much and I can’t have guests if they’re not around, I have to babysit. I’m used to bending and stretching the truth until it morphs into something socially acceptable.

“But you’re still coming with us to the Tower District on Saturday, right? Before Mer’s party?”

Meredith is the third in our trio, a vivacious drama girl whose theatrical antics somehow balance out Tessa’s no-nonsense academia and my wallflower status. We have plans to go to Hand Me Downs, our favorite vintage shop in the arty area of downtown, before Mer’s birthday extravaganza. It seems like forever ago that we’d had that conversation, but it was only yesterday.

“Yeah.” I hope I’m not making promises I can’t keep. Now that Chuck’s in charge, I’ll practically need a MetaReel release form to hang out with my friends.

Someone knocks on the door.

“Just a minute!” I yell. “I gotta go,” I say to Tess. “I’ll meet you guys there at one?”

“Okay … well, text me or something if you’re bored.”

“For sure.”

I splash some cold water on my face because I’m definitely feeling like I had a bit too much to drink in the orchard, and I need to be sharp tonight so I don’t humiliate myself any more than I already have. I groan into the towel as I dry my face off, then open the door. When I get out of the bathroom, Chuck is micromanaging everyone. He glances at the cell in my hand.

“Tomorrow we’re issuing you new phones.”

Translation: no more private calls.

My heart deflates until it’s like one of those flat, useless helium balloons that gradually sags until you have to pop it to put it out of its misery.

Chuck starts to walk away, but I step in front of him. “You’re not gonna bring cameras to my school, right?”

He leans back, just a little. His eyes narrow, reptilian, like he’s not used to being challenged. But all my desperation warrants is his little shrug. “You know how it is, Bonnie™. I never know what’s going to happen until it does.”

“Well, I just … can we not do that? Because it’s hard enough—”

“I promise I’ll give you a heads-up. Could be fun, you know.” His eyes hatch plots, but his smile is easy and reassuring. Well, it’s intended to be reassuring.

“But—”

He’s already walking away.

“Chloe.”

Kirk, the stepfather I now equate with villains from Marvel comics, is standing near our bookshelf, which is bursting with the self-help books he loves to quote. He’s into motivational stuff with words like
power
,
future
, and
success
in the titles.

I raise my eyebrows. “I thought I was
Bonnie™
now.” And it isn’t until I hear the hurt in my voice that I realize how betrayed I feel about the whole name thing.

A pained look crosses Kirk’s face. “I’m sorry about that, hon. Chuck insisted we call you Bonnie™. I need to choose my battles with him so I can protect you kids and your mom.”

I fold my arms across my chest. It’s so clichéd, right? But it feels safer somehow. “Kirk, the best way to protect us is to keep the cameras out of here.”

It’s hard to explain to people who didn’t grow up with them. Even Mom doesn’t understand how being in front of a camera all the time twists and warps you. How one second it makes you feel unbelievably alive and the next publicly strips you down until all that’s left is one big question mark.

Kirk leans against the bookshelf. “Trust me, sweetie, I realize that. I do! But your mom and I can barely keep a roof over our heads. There are fifteen mouths to feed, three of you going off to college next year.… The grocery bill alone is taking up most of my paycheck.”

This gives me pause. I hadn’t really thought about the financial logistics of the deranged venture that is my family. I mean, maybe on the periphery of my consciousness I’ve been aware that our family is big and has a lot of expenses. But being a TV family, money is something we always just seem to have. Money and lots of random swag. So where did it all go?

“What about my dad?”

Kirk snorts. In his world, Dad is up there with corrupt CEOs and people who kick dogs.

“I’m not letting Andrew take care of my family. He made his choice.”

I instinctively flinch at the use of the possessive pronoun.
My
. I like (liked?) Kirk, but I’m not his daughter. Not for the first time, I wonder what guy in his right mind would sign up for this gig.
Thirteen
stepchildren and one crazy-ass wife.

Kirk puts a large hand on my shoulder. “No matter what happens, Chloe, your mother and I love you very much. Remember, only
you
have the power to control your response to challenges.”

I barely resist the urge to roll my eyes.

“Bonnie™?” calls a woman with a sleek black pixie cut.

“Yeah?” I shade my eyes to see past the glaring white light that’s set up on a tripod next to me.

It’s Sandra, another producer from back in the day. She practically lived with us during the show, running around with curling irons and clothes from sponsors, getting us all spiffed up for special episodes and appearances. She’s the one who designed all the clothing lines with our trademarked names and helped Mom develop her RealMom™ brand of household crap that sold at Target during our show years. To me, Sandra was never crew; she was like a big sister, favorite aunt, and girlfriend all rolled into one.

And this is the first time I’ve seen her since our last day of filming.