Good at Being Alive

Chapter 1

Bex

I was breech. Bronwyn was not. My stepmother says this proves I began causing trouble in the womb, which would be funnier if she’d actually given birth to me, and funnier still if it wasn’t true.

But it is. And here I am, once again, proving her right.

I run through the airport, dragging my massive suitcase behind me. I’m sweating and disheveled by the time I reach the counter, my passport damp from my clammy palm as I hand it over.

“Your flight leaves in less than an hour,” says the airline attendant, without sympathy. “It’s too late to check a bag.”

“But—” I begin, and then my mouth closes.

This woman is stuck working five days before Christmas and does not care that I’m headed to London to appear on a TV show, that I have my big suitcase filled to the brim with all my favorite winter clothes and every ounce of makeup I own.

And maybe if the show was for some big channel, she’d at least be interested, but no one my age has even heard of GoldenNest TV.

I wouldn’t have heard of it either if my dad’s college roommate wasn’t a senior VP there.

“My boyfriend hid my passport,” I tell her.

My eyes fill, which is helpful and not entirely fake because I am worried, and it’s been a very stressful two hours since I woke up late and hungover and discovered that Brian—who isn’t actually my boyfriend and definitely never will be now—thought it would be really funny to hide my passport before he left.

“I’m supposed to be in New Jersey today so I can fly out of JFK with my family tomorrow and they’re going to be so pissed. ”

Her face softens. Maybe it’s the tears or maybe it’s that angering one’s parents is a universal fear, like death. “Let’s see what we can do.”

After a fair amount of searching, she says she can get me on the red-eye to JFK, landing in the morning with my luggage. Jessie, my stepmother, is still going to be very upset but perhaps this might not turn into the Year Bex Ruined the Show.

We already have the Year Bex Ruined the Beach Trip, the Year Bex Ruined Thanksgiving, the Year Bex Ruined the Family Photo…I’d rather not add to a fairly lengthy list.

Arriving tomorrow really isn’t a big deal, but Jessie’s going to be mad anyway, and if she knows what actually happened, the lectures on responsibility will dominate our vacation. They might anyway—they often do.

Therefore, when I call from the airport to tell her I’m not making my flight, I share only as much of the truth as I can afford to, which is actually very little of it. Blaming it on traffic, as opposed to oversleeping, is still not quite good enough for Jessie, however.

“Rebecca,” she snaps, “this is exactly why I asked you to fly home yesterday. You’re supposed to be here—they’re filming us leaving the house together.”

The show—a reality series about the family travel agency my dad co-owns—is supposed to feature my father and stepmother exploring glamorous cities and staying in swanky places as they plan trips for other people.

There is nothing less swanky and glamorous than their home in New Jersey, but GoldenNest’s target demographic is middle-aged parents, so the producers wanted that last-minute moment of travel chaos to make us relatable, to leave the viewer thinking, Hey this family is just like us!

—a mom, a dad, one good child getting in some last-minute studying, and one bad child who’s too hungover to pack.

I’d be playing the role of bad child, obviously.

“This will just make for a better way to introduce the characters,” I tell her, pulling my bag off to the side of the entry door so I’m out of everyone’s way. “You know, instead of just informing the audience that I’m irresponsible, we kick off with me actually being irresponsible.”

“The show matters, Rebecca,” Jessie snaps. “Without it, Baby Makes Three takes the last of our business.”

She’s saying this as if the show wasn’t my fucking idea…an idea she laughed at when I suggested it.

Kylie and Jasper, the influencer couple behind Baby Makes Three, were initially content to simply ridicule my dad’s company, Families Travel, before deciding to replicate it instead, leveraging their millions of followers on social media.

Their glossy reels—them floating in a cerulean Turkish sea with their adorable kids or taking a sleigh ride past thatched-roof homes in Finland—make family travel look a lot more appealing than my dad’s brochure, which wasn’t even available online until a year ago and still features a fifteen-year-old photo of my family glumly posing in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Baby Makes Three has grown while we’ve floundered, and this show is how we’ll get back on our feet.

Unless I ruin it. Always a possibility.

“Look, this was the best we could do,” I tell her.

“Fine, just please get on that plane. We’ve got dinner at the restaurant with the press-for-champagne button tomorrow night.”

Bronwyn will be smirking if she’s listening in—it’s been an inside joke between the two of us, the fact that Jessie couldn’t care less about anything in London other than a restaurant where a button will summon your waiter if you desire champagne.

“I get in hours before you,” I tell her. “It’s foolproof.”

She ends the call undoubtedly thinking that nothing is foolproof where I am concerned and that this would never have happened to Bronwyn, which is entirely true.

Bronwyn is a month older than me and superior in every way that matters.

For the bulk of our lives, we’ve been High-Functioning Bronwyn and Underperforming Bex—a set of age-matched but otherwise dissimilar dolls—and this would probably have led me to hate Bronwyn except that she is funny and kind and one of my favorite people in the world. Even if she is Jessie’s daughter.

She calls just as my Uber is pulling up to take me back to my apartment. “You’ve ruined the show,” she says with a quiet laugh as I walk to the waiting Toyota Prius. “Mom’s flipping out that you might miss the press-for-champagne button, to no one’s surprise. So what actually happened?”

I swing my bag into the trunk. “I thought my story about an accident on the 405 was compelling and entirely believable.”

“You see, when you describe something as a story, you’ve already gotten off on the wrong foot.”

Bronwyn would even be better at lying than me, were she ever forced to lie.

“Fine,” I say, waving to the driver as I climb in, “but don’t tell on me. Someone bought us a pitcher of shots last night, which led to Brian coming over, and he thought it would be funny if he hid my passport.”

“Ugh,” she groans.

Her disdain is less about the drunkenness and passport hiding than it is about Brian, who is the kind of guy High-Functioning Bronwyn would never bring home. She dates lawyers and surgeons twice her age, while I date guys like Brian who are young and hot but otherwise entirely useless.

The Bexes and Brians of the world were doomed to failure from the start.

We will marry drunkenly in Vegas because we deserve nothing more than someone just like ourselves, and then stay married because neither of us can summon the energy to research annulments.

Together, we will produce two children who are good at sports but aren’t especially smart, accrue so much credit card debt that we need to declare bankruptcy to get out from under it, and then one of us will leave the other and begin the process anew.

“This trip already feels doomed,” she says. “Did you hear about Theo?”

Ugh. Theo.

“The Henchman?” I ask. “What’s he done now?” Theo owns the UK half of Families Travel, and though we’ve never met, he’s constantly advising my father to come down harder on me—Jessie makes sure to let me know—and he was an absolute dick during our one and only phone call last spring.

Though, to be fair, this conversation did occur right after he helped Dad get me out of jail.

“He’s my future husband, so at some point, you’ve got to stop calling him that,” she replies. “Anyway, he’s not going to be in London when we get there. He’s going to be here for the holidays—well not here, but Puerto Rico—with some woman. My plans to woo him are ruined.”

Yet another way Bronwyn and I could not be more different: our capacity for planning, in that she is capable of it, and I am not.

She’s already determined that she will join the company after law school and marry the Henchman, who—according to my dad—never stays with any woman for long, though she’s convinced he’ll change for her.

She’s chosen upper-crust names and private schools for their incredibly entitled future children.

As far-fetched as it sounds, Bronwyn gets the things she wants from life.

I have no doubt she’ll get these things too.

“Do you need me to pull a Bex?” I ask.

She laughs. “I’m not seeing how it would help, since that usually involves you using your looks to get a man to do something he shouldn’t.”

“I’ve turned over a new leaf, for your information.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, her doubt clear. “How many of those shots did you pay for last night?”

“Irrelevant,” I reply. “Anyhow, I could probably find a way to frame him for murder. That would keep him around until we get back.”

This may have less to do with helping Bronwyn than it does my desire to see Theo spend some time behind bars.

The driver, who’s apparently been listening, scowls at me in the rearview mirror.

“Framing him for murder would cause more problems than it would solve. Also, I’m not sure internet crime is really your strong suit.”

“Nothing is my strong suit. That’s what frees me up to pursue this life of being bad at everything. I’ll see you in the morning. Cheerio, as the British say.”

“I don’t think they actually say that.”

“I’ll say it frequently over the next week to be sure,” I reply. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” she says as she hangs up.

And those words don’t feel the least bit final.

· · ·

A day later, I’m texting Bronwyn from JFK. I tell her I’ve done some research and it’s harder to frame someone than I thought. She responds that she doesn’t want Theo in any legal trouble whatsoever, then just stops texting me though I’ve made several very valid supporting arguments.

I don’t think much of this because Bronwyn is the responsible type who puts her phone away when her mother suggests it’s rude, unlike myself, and they were running late because of filming so I’m sure things are hectic.

I still don’t think much of it when a crowd forms near the gate.

They aren’t responding to my texts, but shit happens.

Cell signals are bad. They’re probably panicking as they try to get through security to make our flight.

Jessie will eventually find a way to make all of this my fault, then conclude that she’s going to “let this go,” as if she’s the bigger person. That’s how this usually unfolds.

But when first class boards, then groups two and three, and there’s still no word…I start to worry. “I’m not sure what to do,” I tell the gate agent. “My family was taking the train in, but they’re not here and they’re not answering. Should I get on board or wait?”

Her face falls and she and the guy beside her exchange a look. “You heard about the crash, right?”