Maggie
I’m always a sucker for winter break, but this year more than ever. Seriously, it couldn’t get here soon enough.
Why, you ask? Well, it’s simple.
School is where Carter is. Home is where Carter is not.
And these ten days of Not School will give me more time to Get Over This Shit.
I’m doing better. I really truly am. I went a whole four and a half minutes without thinking about Carter during a particularly
spirited conversation about The Scarlet Letter in Ms. Karp’s AP English class.
Wow. I’m bragging about four and a half minutes. That sounded more pathetic than I meant it to. So maybe I’m still a mess.
A new cliché this time: the girl who can’t stop thinking about the guy. Who she once loved but whose memory keeps getting
erased every time he ages back a year.
I guess that’s not really a cliché.
In spite of my best efforts, I passed Carter in the halls at least five times over the last school week of the year. As opposed
to that first day, when he seemed clueless, he seemed more bristly and angry. Then the last time I saw him he was more hopeless
and defeated, and I really, really wanted to give him a hug. Just an anonymous drive-by. No need to tell him who I was or
to be overly flirty or anything. Just give him the hug and go.
But I didn’t do it.
“Mind if I join you?” my sister, Vivian, asks from the top of the basement steps.
“I thought you’d never ask,” I say, pausing the TV. I’ve been sitting on the couch down here, watching the latest Netflix
show that everyone is obsessing over, a drama about the high-stakes world of circus performers. Well, watching is probably
an overstatement. More like letting the images move in front of my eyeballs while my brain spins on completely unrelated topics.
But Vivian is home from school, and Vivian is coming downstairs holding that dish we love that has separate compartments for
chips and salsa, and the compartments are full, and honestly, Vivian is exactly what I need right now.
Because Vivian is the best.
She’s on winter break from her senior year at UPenn, where she’s majoring in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies and minoring
in cinema and media studies, captaining an Ultimate Frisbee team, acting in avant-garde performance pieces, volunteering at
a local soup kitchen, and dating a beautiful nonbinary junior named Brand.
Vivian’s one of those people who’s always had her shit together but is also very open about her insecurities and her anxiety
and the SSRIs she’s on, and not just because I’m her sister. She’s like that with everyone, so it makes you feel less resentful
and jealous of how good she is at everything.
“What’re you watching?” she asks, gracefully sitting next to me and placing the chip dish onto the old coffee table from Dad’s
New York City days that he kindly left with us after the divorce.
“I don’t really know. It’s that circus show, Three Rings.”
“Overrated,” Vivian sings, and somehow even this throwaway joke sounds like something people would pay to listen to.
“Yeah, right? Like, is it that intense to work at a circus?”
“Even if it is, I don’t think the dialogue at a real circus is that clunky.”
I laugh and dip a chip, wanting to revel in this moment. Simple. Pure. Two sisters joking around about nothing. On a couch.
With snacks.
“How did you even have time to watch this?” I ask, reaching for another chip. “Didn’t it just come out a few weeks ago?”
“I would have it going on my phone while I was studying for finals,” Vivian says with a shrug. “It was weirdly calming.”
“Wow. And you were still able to pick up on the bad dialogue. Only Vivian Spear could pull that off.”
“Well. Let’s see how she does on her finals first and then we’ll decide.” She chomps down on a chip, and a little salsa gets
on her chin. Her phone buzzes, so she pulls it out of her dress pocket and glances at it, frowns, and sighs.
“Everything okay?”
“Eh. Brand and I broke up, and they’re not handling it well.”
“What? You broke up? Why?”
Vivian raises her eyebrows and gives an exaggerated shrug. “It was getting a little too serious.”
“So you’re saying you dumped them.”
Another shrug. “I don’t want serious right now. I want fun.”
“Vivvy! No!” I say, shoving her shoulder. “I liked Brand! I thought this time would be different. That maybe you’d make it
past the eight-month mark.”
“I thought that too,” she says. “But I was wrong.”
“Dang, sis. You’re stone-cold.”
“It is what it is. I gotta do me.” She chucks her phone to the other side of the couch. “So what’s going on with you?”
“With me?” I panic. I can’t help it. “Nothing, why?”
“I dunno,” Vivian says, “you just seem like you’re in a little funk. And Mom confirmed this to be true. Since last week.”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, it’s not a big deal. I think it’s just . . . senioritis, you know?”
“I don’t think you’re using that word correctly, but okay.”
Here’s the thing: If I’m gonna be honest, Vivian is another big reason why I can’t be with Carter anymore. I mean, it’s stupid
to say that because she doesn’t even know I was with him; she stayed in Philly last summer, so she was barely home during
the time Carter and I were dating, which made it an easy fact to omit. But I irrationally worried Vivian would, like, silently
judge me. Or worse, not-silently judge me.
I think I put too much weight on what Vivian thinks.
But . . . like she just said: It is what it is!
And it’s a moot point now because Carter and I are donezo. Kinda wish I’d never told Mom I was dating him. Then I’d have only
my own judgments to deal with instead of hers too. And it would make this transition to a Carterless life even easier.
“If this is about your love life,” Vivian says, “you can totally—”
“It’s not about my love life!” I try to sound chill, but instead it comes out more like the villain in a superhero movie right
after they learn their evil plans have been foiled.
“Right, sure, okay,” Vivian says, one calming hand in the air. “But if it is, you should know there are tons of people who would want to date you. You don’t have to be single forever if you don’t want
to.”
“What makes you think I’ve been single all this time?” I’m not sure why I said that, considering it points her in the exact direction I’ve been trying to avoid.
Maybe it’s because she sounded a little smug when she said single forever.
“Oh,” Vivian says, blinking away her surprise. “Are you not single?”
“No, I’m single right now, but I’m just saying you don’t know my deal for sure.”
“Geez, Mags. Fine. I guess I assumed you would tell me if you started hanging out with somebody.”
“Oh.” I feel a little bad that I snapped at her for no reason whatsoever. And that I never told her about Carter. “Of course
I—”
“Girls, are you down there?” Mom is standing at the doorway to the basement.
“No,” Vivian says. “You’ll have to look elsewhere.”
“Hilarious, Vivvy,” Mom says, already walking downstairs to us, a jovial bounce in her step because it’s Christmas Eve and
she fricking loves Christmas.
“We’ll help cook and set up,” I say. “We’re just being lazy.”
“Oh, you’re fine, you’re fine,” Mom says as if she wasn’t stressing about this very thing as soon as we woke up. “I just wanted
to say hello to my two favorite peeps.”
“Nope,” Vivian says.
“My favorite people.” Mom seems happy in this almost unhinged way, and Vivian and I exchange a look. I’m grateful for Mom’s timing, actually, as she’s pushed Vivian and me past that tense moment. But her vibes are making me nervous. “What’re you two up to down here?”
“I’m watching this circus show on Netflix,” I say.
“Ooh, that sounds fun.”
“In theory, yeah. Less so in practice. For example, one of the plotlines is this acrobat guy falls and breaks a bunch of bones
because his partner is distracted during their act because the partner’s wife is cheating on him with one of the ringmasters.”
“Do circuses have multiple ringmasters?” Mom asks. Because that was definitely my point.
“That episode’s actually really good,” Vivian says.
“Yes,” Mom says. “I see why that could be a very compelling show!” This is getting weird. Mom doesn’t usually, um, what’s
the word . . . CARE about the details of random shows we stream.
“So,” Vivian says, after a few seconds pass of us looking at Mom in silence.
“Oh yes.” Mom rubs her hands together, then clasps her own fingers, then rubs them again. “So I also wanted to share some
news. As you know, Ron and I went for our lake walk this morning.”
“Indeed,” I say.
“We do know this,” Vivian confirms.
“Right, okay,” Mom says, “so we went for our walk, and then—”
She stops speaking and puts a hand to her mouth. Vivian and I have no idea what’s happening, but then I realize she’s crying.
“Girls,” Mom gasps, removing her hand. “We’re getting married!”
“What?” I am stuck to the couch as Vivian responds the way I should be also, leaping up and shouting, “Ohmigod! Mom!” and
giving her a huge hug and not letting go.
I will myself to a standing position and zombie-walk over to them. “This is so exciting,” I force out as I wrap my arms around them.
My mom and Ron are getting married.
Fuck.
Ron is fine—he’s sweet; he’s good to her; he’s nice to us; he’s all the things. The problem is not Ron.
Mom and Dad have been divorced for almost seven years, so you’d think I’d have made peace with this. Dad’s in Pennsylvania
with his work, we’re here in New Jersey, we see him many weekends, and that’s what it is now.
But perhaps I have not made peace.
Because my mother marrying a man who is not my father feels like a butt splinter.
“This is so great, Mom,” I say as we pull out of the hug.
“Is it okay?” She looks right into my eyes, as if she knows I’m the one who’s going to be tough about this. “Is it? I know
it might feel weird or strange or odd—”
“All those words mean the same thing, Mom.”
“Ha!” she says, which is different from actually laughing at something. “You’re right! But really, Mags, we want to do this
in a way that works for everyone—”
“It works, Mom. It really does. I’m happy for you.”
“Me too,” Vivian says. “The best news.”
“Oh, thank you, girls,” Mom says, hugging us again. “I love you both so much.”
And I really am happy for her, for the way she’s glowing, for all the ways dorky Ron is a better fit for her than Dad ever was.
So why does celebrating this right now feel like dancing in quicksand?
It is possible I’m . . . jealous? Of my mom?
I mean, I obviously don’t want to marry Carter, but it is kind of unfair. Mom and Ron are engaged, and Carter and I are . . . two people who don’t interact because
one of us has no idea the other one exists.
“Okay!” Mom says, accompanied by an emphatic clap. “Time for me to revert to being stressed again. I need you both upstairs,
lots to do.”
“Aye, aye,” Vivian says, doing a cheesy salute.
“I’ll meet you two up there in a minute,” I say. “Just want to finish this episode.”
“Oh, yes, of course, the ringmasters,” Mom says as she heads up the stairs, which is both endearing and totally irritating.
“You sure you’re good?” Vivian asks, putting a hand on my arm with a tenderness that makes me want to cry.
“I am,” I say. “Really. Just want to . . . finish this.”
She doesn’t believe me, but she nods and follows Mom upstairs.
I sink down into the couch and stare at the high-def rainforest screensaver on the TV, thinking maybe I’ll rewind to that
scene with the broken-bones acrobat and watch it on a loop.