Chapter 3 – “chemtrails” - Lizzy McAlpine
VICE
“CHEMTRAILS” - LIZZY MCALPINE
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Hush,” my brother murmurs. “She’s analyzing.”
He stands across the breakfast bar in his kitchen, his girlfriend’s daughter next to him as they both study me. Lou tilts her head, strawberry-blond hair falling over a shoulder. Her arms are crossed, and her eyes narrowed. “Yep.” She nods before looking to Everett. “She’s a tortured poet.”
He lights up with laughter, like she’s the most endearing thing he’s ever witnessed, before planting a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re so intuitive, mi lucecita.”
“What the fu—” My brother shoots me a warning glare. “Fudge does that mean?”
Lou smiles knowingly, and my brother chuckles again, scratching his beard. “Go upstairs and tell Mama to hurry up, or we’re gonna be late.”
“She doesn’t like it when you rush her.”
“That’s why I’m sending you, Luz.” He smiles, and she huffs, slipping off her barstool and bounding up the stairs.
I simply came downstairs to grab a snack, but instead stumbled upon my brother in the most ridiculous fucking outfit I’ve ever seen, eating enchiladas—my dad’s recipe, I’m sure—with Dahlia’s daughter.
“Are those all chicken?” I ask, nodding toward the pan.
To my surprise, he smiles. “Nope. I made two cheese-only. Just in case you decided to eat a real meal tonight.”
He turns to the stove, plating the enchiladas and adding a scoop of Mexican rice on the side before setting it down in front of the chair Lou just vacated.
I don’t eat dinner with Everett and his family all that often.
For two reasons: I don’t want to feel like I’m imposing on the little life he’s built for himself, and I don’t want to make anyone feel like they have to go out of their way to accommodate my vegetarian diet.
I don’t have the energy to cook for myself most days, so I end up living off snack food, which I’m fine with. But my dad’s enchiladas are the ultimate comfort food, and Everett is the only person who can make them almost as well as Dad.
I know my brothers have an event down at the boardwalk tonight, raising money for the Foundation.
I’m not attending, obviously. Even on a good day, even for a different reason, it wouldn’t be my cup of tea.
But when you’re the villain in the story, and everyone else is living in their epilogue, it’s probably best not to show your face around the memorial events of the horror you helped cause.
The house was quiet when I woke from my afternoon nap, so I figured they’d already left to begin setting up, and I’d have the place to myself for a while.
The front door opens, and my brother and I both peek our heads around the narrow corner that leads from the kitchen to the front entryway, finding our mother stepping through the door.
She sets her purse and keys on the table next to it, sliding her large sunglasses off her face, brown eyes—a twin shade to mine and Everett’s—lighting up as she looks at us both.
“I miei bambini!” she exclaims, reaching me and wrapping me in her arms. “Siete entrambi qui. Bella ragazza, mi sei mancata.”
“Ciao, Mama,” I murmur against her cheek.
Both of my parents are on the shorter side, so it’s no surprise I match my mother’s height at barely five feet, my dad reaching five-seven on a good day.
Nobody knows where Everett’s obnoxious height and body mass came from.
If he wasn’t the spitting image of my dad and hadn’t come out of the womb just four minutes before me, I’d tell everyone he was adopted.
Mom pulls back from me, and then freezes, I’m assuming to notice my brother’s outfit for the first time.
I turn with her, taking him in. A jacket I can only describe as a dark blue, sparkly pom-pom, accents his chest and shoulders over a black T-shirt and dark jeans.
Though, his belt appears to be…bedazzled?
Hand-glued with multicolored rhinestones, and he’s wearing a pair of white sneakers that look the same.
His nails are also painted a sparkly, electric blue.
“What’s going on here?” my mom asks, circling her finger through the air in front of him.
“You look like Tom Sandoval,” I snort.
“Who?”
“Is this what the kids are wearing nowadays?” Mom asks. “What’s Dahlia dressing up in tonight? Fishnets and a coconut bra?”
“God, I’d love that.” My brother laughs. “Speaking of, can Luz hang at your place for a while after the event tonight?”
“Why?” Mom asks.
“Give it like two minutes, and I think that question will be answered for you.”
Our mom rolls her eyes, digging through the fridge. “Is this your way of letting me know you’re trying to make me more grandbabies?”
“Oh, they’re trying their damndest,” I mutter. I don’t think Everett realizes how loudly his headboard slams against the wall that I sleep on the other side of. Nodding toward my brother, I continue, “So, what is going on tonight that’s got you all…” I trail off, unable to find words for the getup.
He rolls his eyes at me before answering, “We’re doing a Fall Crawl.
We’ve got it all decked out in Halloween decorations and converted the empty suite between the tattoo shop and Wicked Wildflower into a walk-through haunted house.
It’s a soft launch for the bakery, where Dahlia will be handing out samples of menu items to get people excited about its opening next year.
Darby is selling pumpkins and autumnal flower arrangements, and August’s workers have set up drop-ins where customers can get a pre-designed tattoo done during the event. ”
“Why aren’t you guys going to the banquet anymore?” I ask.
“August isn’t invited to it. Things haven’t been good between him and Alex since Zach passed.”
I physically flinch at those words, and my brother pauses, no doubt noticing it too. I break our eye contact, glancing down at my abused nail beds, picking the skin away.
He continues, “They’ve never allowed him to be involved, and he’s never allowed us to support him, so Leo and I went every year, thinking it was better to do something than nothing.
” I see my mother wipe her eyes from my periphery.
“But after last year, we decided we couldn’t be complacent in their shitty parenting, regardless of what it’s doing for the community.
I can’t approve of someone treating their son that way, so we decided to do something ourselves. ”
I don’t even allow myself to conceptualize my thoughts on that.
Instead, I ask, “Is he going to be there? At the boardwalk?”
I can’t decide which answer I’m hoping for. Part of me hopes he’s as miserable as I am, and that he doesn’t deserve to be celebrating with pumpkins and haunted houses. Another part of me—the larger part, I think—hates myself for having that thought, and wants to know he’s healed.
Everett shakes his head. “No. He’s not ready for that yet, but we wanted to do something to show him we support him nonetheless.”
“Great.” I force a smile. “Well, I hope you have fun. Sounds like a phenomenal time.”
I suddenly feel the intense need to leave.
I don’t want to be around any of them. I don’t want them to know I’m not numb.
I don’t want them to know I still care. That I still can’t say either of their names or think about their faces without wanting to scream.
I don’t want my family to know how affected I am by the simple title of a summer month.
I don’t want anyone to know how comforting it is to realize that while I lie in bed tonight, replaying the worst day of my life, he’ll be doing the same.
I don’t want to address that, even to myself.
The solidarity I feel in it. The heavy burden only the two of us bear—and how, although we don’t speak, I’m somehow relieved to know I’m not feeling it alone.
I toss my dirty plate into the sink, refusing to make eye contact with my brother as I pass him, hugging my mom quickly and heading toward the stairs.
“Elena, what’s—” Everett begins, but we both pause as a door shuts at the top of the staircase.
I take a step back, waiting for Dahlia and Lou to come down.
Lou comes first, smiling as she bounds down the stairs and grabs my mother by the hand.
She’s wearing a giant pink suit jacket with silver sparkles, a pair of matching boots, and pink streaks clipped into her strawberry-blond hair.
“C’mon, Mom said we have to load all the desserts in the car, and then we can eat one. ”
“Well, it’s hard to argue with that offer,” my mother chimes.
Dahlia comes down next, wearing sheer black tights, a glittering black leotard, and thigh-high red boots. Over her shoulders, she has on what looks like a…ringleader-type of jacket? Red, white, and gold, with a matching top hat. Her lips are painted a bright cherry.
“Is that the answer to my question?” Mom asks Everett, popping her brow.
He grins, bottom lip between his teeth. “She kills it every time. Every-fucking-time, Wildflower.”
She tosses him an eye roll, but the color in her cheeks gives away the effect of his words.
My brother steps into the entryway, the space now feeling incredibly crowded with the five of us here, myself the most out of place.
Like this is another family entirely, and I’m watching them live their lives within the walls.
Everett helps Dahlia down the last step, kissing her cheek as he pulls her in, whispering something against her ear that sends a fit of giggles bursting from her lips. She slaps his chest, pulling back. “Okay, y’all. Let’s get the car loaded up before we’re late.”
As she shuffles her daughter out the front door, my mom plants a kiss on the top of my head, pulling me in for a hug. “Te amo, tesora,” she whispers, eyes misting. “Have lunch with Dad and me this weekend, please? We miss you.”
I nod, earning a smile before my mom follows Dahlia and her daughter outside.
That’s the guilt that burns the most. Watching my parents try to fix me when I know that they can’t.
They were so happy to have me home, but I think they—my brothers too—were shocked at the person who stepped off that plane.
I’m not who I was before I left for New York, not who I was before that day four years ago.
I’ll never be that girl again, and I hate seeing my family attempt to revive her when I know she’s long been dead.
I’m sure a therapist would tell me it’s why I’m so avoidant.
My brother makes no move to leave, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed.
“I would’ve invited you. If there was any chance in my mind that you’d entertain the idea, I would’ve invited you.
Begged you to attend, actually. I want to be with you on this day.
Every day. But when you don’t let me…” He shakes his head. “It makes it hard to continue trying.”
“How do you do it?” I ask. “Move on. Celebrate. Be…happy.”
My brother sighs, running a hand through his hair. “His life ended, but mine didn’t.”
I bite back a gasp, and Everett throws his hands up in surrender.
“I know you think that sounds fucked up, and maybe it is. I wish he was here. I wish that he could meet my kid. I wish he could meet Dahlia.” His eyes flick toward the closed front door, like he can see them through it.
“I wish he knew Darby came back and that they ended up happy together, or that his brother finally opened up his dream business and kept the house Zach loved. He should be here, and it’ll never stop being gut-wrenching that he’s not, but the fact is, I can’t do a damn thing about it.
” He shrugs. “I know it sounds cliché, but I think he’d want more for all of us.
We know Zach loved attention, and we know he wouldn’t want to be forgotten.
He’d fully expect us to mourn; he’d be pissed if we didn’t.
” Everett laughs, scratching his beard. “But I also think that if we all spent the rest of our lives walking around like lifeless zombies, he’d be real disappointed.
If he’s somewhere else watching us right now, the least we can do is entertain him.
” Everett points at his ridiculous outfit.
A snide laugh escapes me. “So, what you’re saying, is he’d be disappointed in me?” I mimic my brother, pointing at myself—the pajamas I still have on at 4:00 p.m., or the stain across my Grand Canyon T-shirt because I honestly can’t remember the last time I washed it.
I don’t put much thought into what I said, and I know neither Everett nor I are surprised that it was my takeaway from his spiel.
I can’t bear to listen to people speak of him, so I zone it out.
I only allowed myself to absorb the part that made it clear my brother was referring to me when he mentioned lifeless zombies, because we both know that’s exactly what I am.
“I didn’t say that, Lele.” Everett sighs defeatedly, tossing open the door. “You did.”
“If you let me borrow your Jeep, I’ll go hang out at Mom and Dad’s so you can have your sex. I can bring Lou back with me later,” I say. “I’m not really keen to hang out here and listen.”
My parents will be at the event for a while anyway, so I’ll get a few hours to myself.
Plus, my dad is the only person who doesn’t pressure me to talk about my feelings or be a productive member of society.
He’d rot on the couch with me all day watching Real Housewives if my mom would let him.
That safety is a comfort that’s rare to find.
I don’t mind being around Lou, either. She doesn’t know who I was before I became a ghost, and she doesn’t seem to mind the fact that I’m painted in shades of gray now.
She’s a little spitfire, and I get thorough enjoyment watching her humble my brother.
While I’m terrible with children, she’s ten, so she’s kind of like a mini-adult.
At the very least, she can read, so we never run out of things to talk about.
Everett nods. “Home by nine thirty?”
“Sure.”
He’s halfway through the front door before he pauses at the threshold, turning back around so quickly I don’t register what’s happening until I’m wrapped in his massive, tattoo-clad arms. “Love you, Lele,” he whispers.
“I love you too.”