Family Reunions

We were late. It was 5:48 when we arrived and Dad was waiting on the porch for us with Uncle Roger and Uncle Buck. We had been trying various ways to sober up my sister and her friend until Amber actually spoke up and said all we had to do was make them drink water. Easy enough right? Wrong! They acted like we were in 1543, when water was considered painful, bacteria-infested poison. Eventually, we hid the water in a flask and they started feeling better. Morons.

Amber had pulled into the driveway in the Ferrari, which would've been suspicious if Dad wasn't a complete moron. He just walked over to the Ferrari and rubbed it with his grubby hand. "So this is what my child support is paying for? Well, your mother has good taste."

"Yeah," I grumbled. If only he knew... "She does."

My uncles, who seemed unfazed by the fact that their niece was just in an awesome Ferrari, grabbed me and Amber in their arms. Matt followed and then Violet and Junie, who winced when our burly uncles hugged their backs, came over to us. Inside, Jenny was "cooking" with Lauren and Julianne, my younger cousin. Leila was talking with my Aunt Bam, who grabbed me up in a suffocating bear hug as soon as she saw me. Leila also hugged me.

"How's my favorite niece?" Aunt Bam asked me.

"I'm tired and I need to change."

"Into what?" Leila asked. Leila, an inspiring fashion designer, was always trying to get me to let her style me, which was always greeted with a big no. "Can I help?"

I changed the subject. If she had seen all of the clothes we had just spent $3,530 of her mom's money on, she would've wanted to move in with us. "How's Amsterdam?"

Aunt Bam looked at Leila in shock, making her laugh. "You are from the Netherlands! You are Dutch?"

Leila laughed harder. "No. Daddy says we are Puerto Rican. I live in New York. Amsterdam, NY is like three hours from NYC. We go all the time to take Ollie to the special doctor."

"How's Ollie?"

"He's okay. He had an appointment this week, but I get to be here instead. Yay..."

"Well, here isn't so bad. We've got beer and good food and... beer." Aunt Bam cracked another beer open and took a heavy swig. "Aah..."

"Aunt Bam... I can't drink beer."

"Sure you can!" Aunt Bam said. Leila squirmed away and ran down the hall, gigging the whole way. Aunt Bam smiled. "So, how's your mother?"

"She's great. She tried to kill us last night with her Bean Casserole. Every type of bean was blended and baked until solidity."

"That's what she's into these days, huh?" I nodded. "She used to be so busy with that job of hers that she would come in to you three with Pizza Hut, hand me a twenty even when I'd just arrived, and go up to bed."

I shrugged. "She's not like that. After all of her other relationships when down the toilet and she just gave up on everything else, she gave up. She quit her lawyer job, took over Pappy's business, and is trying to be our mom now."

"That makes two of us," my favorite stepsister, Lesley, said. She came over to me and wrapped her arms around me. "Do you mind if I steal her from you, Aunt Bam?"

Aunt Bam shook her head no. "I'm about to go learn the anatomy of a beer can."

Lesley pulled me into my bedroom, pushed Lola out and slammed the door. She clicked the lock and threw me on my bed. "How've ya been?"

"I've been awesome. What about you? Hear about you making honor roll and getting that awesome award and pizza. What's up with that?"

"I'm not a perfect person," Lesley said, quoting her favorite artist, "but I'm pretty damn close. Yeah, I've got a boyfriend, a platinum award, and on occasion pizza."

"Lesley Washington has a boyfriend? How interesting... Is she going to tell me everything?"

"But of course, darling." Lesley reached in her pocket and produced a photo. It was embroidered with blue smiley face stickers. It was of her standing with this tall Asian guy, a girl with frizzy hair that could've been in Brave, another guy that reminded me of Harry if he had let his mom give him dreads like she did his siblings, and another guy putting ice-creme in her hair. "Don't mind the stickers. Toni did that all over all of the pictures of us. I finally got the stickers off of all of us."

"Which one is it?"

Lesley pointed to the tall Asian guy. "His name's Brian. He's a sweetheart. He even said I was cute with the strawberry ice-creme dripping from my head and onto my shirt."

I smiled at her and put an arm around her. "How's that going?"

"His parents were shocked. There are two other Leslies in our school. Leslie Nguyen is my best friend and is awesome and his parents thought he was dating her but he isn't. The other Leslie, Leslee Kidd, is a total bitch to me. But we are always paired up."

"I meant, is he nice? Is he muscular? Is the picture lying to me?"

"I'm puny compared to him and I'm 5'9. He's a total sweetheart. He has longer hair than that picture because that was the first week and it's been a few months now. Daddy loves him. He said he wishes he were black but that he approves. But you know how he is. Daddy's practically a Mason. All he lacks is the last name. Toni even likes Brian and she's hated everyone I've brought home. I remember the first time I brought Leslie home and she spat in her soup. In front of her."

"EW!" I squealed. "That's gross."

"Yep. Leslie said she gets worse at home. She has three brothers and they are always messing with her. Once, she accidentally ate something her brother's frog had sat on."

"He has frogs?" I was squirming in my seat. That was just sick.

"Yep. He has a frog, two turtles, a snake, and three lizards. They are always everywhere. Her brother's snake looks like a coral snake and the first time I was over, he was holding the snake and I fainted. No one told me D.C. doesn't have coral snakes. I thought Leslie had lured me to her house to kill me. But now we're best friends and Striker loves me."

"Who's Striker?"

"Striker's their snake. He's a scarlet kingsnake and he bites but it won't kill you."

"How many times has he bit you?" Lesley hopped up and began counting all of the places where she'd been bitten. The girl was nuts.

"Ten times I think. I always scare him. Once Brian was there. He freaked out and thought I was dead. I laid really still and if I hadn't started laughing when he was slithering up my body, Brian would've killed him."

"Girl you are weird."

"Always." Lesley jumped onto the bed next to me using that track star inside of her and laid on my bed. "So, how is embezzlement going?"

"What?"

"You are grinning like the Cheshire cat. I know you what you're doing. I do it all the time. How much did you blow?"

I looked to make sure the door was shut and locked still. Then I uttered the estimate. "Over $4,000. We blew so much of it at that mall. Did you know how much that stuff is? It's expensive. But your mom and my dad have a lot of money. Like enough to move out of this dump..."

"You'd better have thought of me and gotten at least two hundred dollars worth of crap for me." Lesley ignored anything that wasn't about what I'd gotten her until I had spilled it. Again, the agreement...

"Don't I always?" We had an agreement.

"Of course you do. We had an agreement. What did you get me?"

"It's in the trunk. I'll bring it in when they are all too drunk to realize what's happening. It'll be easy."

"Sweet."

Shortly after we had drummed up a plan to smuggle the new clothes into Lesley without getting caught, Aunt Bam stumbled in and announced the arrival of dinner. Twenty of the finest pizzas Papa John's had to offer. I hated Papa John's and they made me sick but I was also hungry again. My sister and Junie had complained about being hungry halfway through our shopping trip so we went to the most expensive place, got lobster thermidor, ate three bites, got dessert, ate two bites out of that, and dropped two hundred dollars of Dad's money right down the toilet and flushed.

Hawaiian pizza was the first thing I smelled. My family was weird. We are all pretty much rednecks but we still have a soft spot for football and Hawaiian pizza. So, of course, twenty of the pizzas were Hawaiian. We love that stuff. I grabbed two slices, breathed them in, and them went for a third. My younger sister, Sarah, waddled in when we had gone though five boxes of pizza and dad and Aunt Bam were cracking open the thirty-fourth six pack of the night. (I've never been good at math but I know that's too many.)

Sarah was a half-sister. Which means I like her half as much as I like my whole sister. I dislike my whole sister so I hate my half-sister. (Hey, I'm great at that kind of math.) I don't hate Sarah because she's my half sister. I basically hate her because she was born. Before her, Dad and Skanky could still afford to give all of us (including the skank's kids) our own rooms and everything was great. I could eat, sleep, and shower without seeing half of the people I hated. But then, everything came crashing down when Sarah came four years ago.

Most people do math with numbers. I do it with personalities. That's probably why I passed algebra with a D-, the closest to failing I could get without seeing Mrs. Kent ever again. I know that putting me and Lesley in a room would be good since we are practically attached at the hip the whole week anyway. I also know that putting me in a room with Lionel wouldn't be good because I could get anally raped while I'm sleeping and he could get his throat slit as soon as I come to. But, no one seems to see it my way.

My father's house has seven bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms and twelve people. My sisters, Lauren and Emily, get along great. So, of course we will shove Sam in the room with her bitchy thirteen year old sister who is on her period already. And then, when Emily is crying her eyes out, we will promise her a room with her psychotic older sister Lola who hates pretty much everyone except for Sam, Lesley, and Matt (like anyone could hate such cuteness). And Violet, don't ever shut your eyes because we are shoving you in a room with Lloyd, the fourteen year old creeper. Because we want you to stay a virgin.

Yeah. And little Matt, we hope you will learn something so we will put you in a room with Lionel who spends half of his fucking time in the mirror anyway. I think the only one who didn't get screwed over in this deal is Lesley. She practically has her own room because London, the older brother she shares it with, is either in Houston with his family who loves him and values his opinion or out with his friends who have houses that he can stay in at any time. I swear, my family's just booming with mini Einsteins.

As soon as we were done with twenty boxes of large Hawaiian pizzas, I followed Lesley back into her room where we could talk in peace. London was in there but he is always blasting Linkin Park and other sad and depressing shit in his ears so he could barely hear us anyway. Lesley and I sat in front of the door so no one would barge in. Our family, like the rest of Monroe, is good at kicking in like S.W.A.T. London joined us on the floor. Not because he was interested or anything but because his Android had died after so many years and he needed to charge it.

"So, what's up with you?" Lesley asked. "Are you going to be a sophomore or what?"

"Yes. Duh."

"I'm a freshman!" Lesley squealed. "I can't wait."

"Oh, you can," London said.

"Well look who's talking? Mr. Viva la Revolucion himself," Lesley teased. "Can you hear me. Are you aware that you are speaking to us?"

London rolled his eyes. "Don't call me that. Everyone calls me Iz. Call me Iz."

"Why?" I asked.

"His middle name is Israel. Iz sounds more Mexicano."

"Yeah... with less racism."

"London Israel Reyes. Well aren't you something?"

"My girlfriend calls me Atlas."

"Is she Siri? I mean you guys get so much face time, you'd think you were dating your phone!" Lesley joked.

"Haha. Go fuck yourself."

"Well that's not ladylike at all, London. The feminine name should make you act more like a lady but you are still cursing like a Sam."

"Shut up."

"Speaking of relationships... What's up with that guy next door?"

FUCK! DOES EVERYONE FUCKING KNOW? "He's cute... Who have you been talking to?"

"Kevin."

Figures. He would rat me out to my brother. (Hey, I don't hate this one!) "Yeah. I like him and I think he likes me... or great girls just give him boners... but I don't know how to say it..."

"The boner thing?"

"No, no. I've said that several times already. The important thing, moron. Keep up!"

"Don't make me hit you. Just say it, Sam. It's the best thing you can do. Just come out with it and hope he feels the came. Or he lets you down easy. If he doesn't, I will drive the twelve hours by myself to kick his ass."

"I'll be sure to call you when it happens."

"You mean if."

"I mean when."