n i n e
“A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.”
—Mary Karr
I woke up this morning feeling like crap.
I purged again last night.
Mom made lasagna last night, and I couldn’t help myself. I stuffed down two huge pieces. I can’t gain any more weight, and I’m sick of purging. It feels terrible. My throat’s sore. My back hurts from hurling. My face is puffy. I’ve started developing a sore on one of my knuckles from my teeth scraping against my hand when I stuff my fingers down my throat to make myself vomit.
It’s such a stupid cycle.
I have to take my punishment now before everyone wakes up. The rest of the day is going to be super busy. Dad’s calling a family meeting about the campaign, Royce and Mason are down here to visit and I have that date with Antonia and Heather tonight.
The house is completely quiet as I walk into my bathroom and shed my pajamas. I pull on my running shorts and shoes. After getting dressed, I go downstairs and put two frozen waffles in the toaster. While they’re cooking, I take a kitchen knife and cut an apple into tiny, thin slices. I eat half then leave the rest out on a plate. When the waffles are finished, I pull them out of the toaster and bite off a piece from each.
I chew until the waffle becomes mushy in my mouth, then spit the food into the sink. I tear a few pieces off and put them on the plate with the apples, then dump syrup all over them. The rest of the waffle goes down the garbage disposal. I make sure to leave the plate out. Mom will tell me I’m being a slob, but she won’t ask me about breakfast.
I leave for my run, heading up the road for the canyon. The rosy pink dawn is beginning to burn off the night. I start off slowly, stretching my legs, then hit my stride, running faster and faster, until my calves begin to burn. With each step, I feel the blood circulating through my body. Other joggers begin to come out. Young mothers push strollers up hills, which motivates me to run even harder until I finally reach the canyon and take a break. Sweat drips down my chest and back and I have to use my shirt to wipe off my forehead. The sun’s all the way up in the sky now. I jog the trails around the canyon for another hour until I’m so exhausted that I have to walk back to the house.
When I finally get home, Royce is splayed out on the couch, head back, snoring like some kind of ugly swamp monster. He’s in his senior year at Stanford. The article he had published in the New York Times, which was about the effects of climate change on rural America, helped him decide that he wants to work as a reporter for an international Associated Press bureau after graduation. He’s way too busy to be hanging out here. Royce is one of the most even-keeled people I know. It’s unsettling to see him so off balance. Things with Jas must really be going wrong.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, waking him up. “You’re snoring.”
Royce blinks for about twenty seconds. He has that just-woken-up-red-eye look.
Is he even awake? He used to think I was funny when I woke him up like this. I guess that was already a long time ago. We haven’t been living in the same house for four years. “Sunshine?” I say. “Come in, Captain Sunshine.”
“I’m awake,” he says, as if I’m the current problem in his life. “Why do you still call me that?”
I gave him that nickname back when we were both in elementary school. Royce has always been a heavy sleeper and Mom used to send me—the annoying little sister—into his room to wake him up for school every morning.
“Because you are,” I say, standing over him. “Why are you here? I thought your classes and job were taking up all your time.”
“Dad’s campaign. I just got in this morning.”
“How could I forget?” I say sarcastically. Royce probably knew about the campaign before I did. Mason only recently cleaned his act up after drinking so much and getting into trouble when he was my age, but Royce has always been the golden boy. “Is today the day we’re supposed to sit around the living room while he lays out his grand plans about how we’re going to tour every city in California and dine with all the important people in state politics? Oh, and how we’re to only talk about winning if we’re interviewed, but don’t get interviewed unless his campaign manager is there with us?” I swing my fist like I’m so excited. “Or how we’re all supposed to be strong as a family, and if we have any differences with each other to air them out now, or to at least promise to bury them during the campaign? Something like that?”
“Why don’t you want to help Dad?” Royce asks. “He said you were acting super weird about the whole thing.”
“How am I supposed to act?” I ask. “I really want to know.”
To be honest, I can’t say I’ve been trying that hard. I don’t want to be consumed by his campaign. It’s not what I want to do with my life—I didn’t sign up for this.
“Just...not weird,” Royce says.
“Well, that’s me,” I say. “I’m weird.”
Out of us three kids, I’ve always been the black sheep. Although my parents respect artists, they don’t think I should be an artist. Whenever I mention wanting to go to art school, they change the subject. That’s another reason I want to talk to LeFeber. His parents didn’t accept him as an artist. They didn’t even really accept him as a person. What kept him going? Did he stand up to his family? Did they ever believe in him?
Royce and Mason find the campaign trail exciting. It sounds like hell to me. Arguing about politics? Meeting with strangers to win their vote? No thanks.
“I know.” He rubs his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept well in at least a week. Maybe longer. “But you don’t have to act like this is the worst thing you’ll ever have to do in life. There are a lot worse things that could be happening.”
I hear some kind of subtext in what he’s saying, like he wants to tell me something but won’t. “What do you mean?” I ask.
Royce turns away as if I’ve struck a nerve. “Nothing. It just means things could be worse so you should stop thinking about yourself and think about what Dad’s doing to help our family. It’s not going to be that different from any other campaign he’s run.”
“Isn’t being a congressman enough? Haven’t our entire lives been given to his campaigns? To the Blakely family image?” Royce sits up on the couch. I can tell I’ve finally gotten his attention. “It’s my junior year. Even though he probably won’t announce until the end of this calendar year, you know he’ll be planning for months ahead of the campaign. Then there will be the actual campaigning, which will go until November of next year. If he wins, then that means half of senior year in Sacramento. I just want to figure out who I am on my own for once.”
“Politics matter. Or at least policies do. Take Jasmine—”
Royce interrupts himself before he can finish his sentence. It’s like even saying Jasmine’s name is physically painful for him. I’ve never seen him this way. They get feisty with one another, but always seem to make up. This must be worse. Something big.
“What were all those texts about a couple weeks ago?”
“Nothing. I shouldn’t have sent them to you,” he says.
“Do you need to talk?” I ask Royce. “Did Jasmine come down with you?”
He shakes his head.
“Where is she?” I ask. “Still at school?”
Royce swipes his hand over his bedhead. “I don’t know.”
I’m worried for him. He honestly looks like he’s on the brink of falling apart. He’s probably stressed about graduation, finding a job and now the campaign on top of figuring out his problems with Jas. I want to comfort him, but I don’t know what to say.
Leaning on the arm of the couch, Royce opens his mouth, then changes his mind before he finally speaks. “We’re trying to figure out what’s next.”
“You mean like marriage?” I say.
Royce shakes his head. “No. Like careers. I want to start reporting for an international bureau. She’s planning to apply to medical schools. That’s seven more years of studying and residencies. Who knows what else.”
“That’s a long time,” I say, trying to be understanding of him even though I want to ask why that’s such a big problem for their relationship.
He slowly gets up from the couch. “Want breakfast? I’ll make something.”
“I already ate,” I say, feeling nauseous at even the thought of eating food. “I’m not hungry.”
I usually don’t have to worry about Royce catching on to my eating habits. He’s oblivious about that sort of thing.
“Come on,” he says. “Talk to me in the kitchen. I’m starving.”
I lean on the kitchen counter while Royce pulls enough food from the fridge to feed a small family. It’s disgusting how much food he can eat and still stay so thin. It’s like we don’t even come from the same gene pool. I eat one burrito and gain two pounds.
Royce turns on a burner. He cracks eggs onto the pan. They sizzle and hiss from the heat. Then he starts mixing pancake batter. It smells so good. I want to eat some, but I have to stop overeating. It’s the only way I’m going to get down to my goal weight.
“How’s Eastlake?” Royce asks. “I miss that place.”
“You would,” I say, staring at the pancakes bubbling on the stove. The smell of the batter makes my stomach turn. “Everyone liked you.”
Royce laughs. “I don’t think you really remember right...”
“Whatever. Everyone likes you, Royce.”
“Believe me, I wasn’t that popular. I just had a small group of close friends before I met Jasmine...” I can hear sadness and longing for a simpler time in his voice.
I suddenly feel bad for Royce. His life is probably so intertwined with hers that he wouldn’t know what to do if they ever broke up. “Want to go to the de los Santoses’ house?” I ask, trying to cheer him up. “I’ll go with you. I haven’t seen Jas’s family in forever.”
Royce shrugs. “It’s not really where I should be right now.”
Now I’m really worried. Did they break up already?
“You go visit them,” he says. “I need to stay here and be a part of this family.”
“I thought Jasmine was your family. Our family, actually.”
I don’t mean to push him, but I want to understand the problem.
“Don’t be like this, Liv. I told you—if you want to go visit them, go right ahead. I’m going to finish my breakfast, then help Dad when he gets home.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, touching Royce’s shoulder. “You know me. I like to fix problems.”
He attempts a half smile. “It isn’t your problem to fix, Liv.”
“I just want to help, but I guess I don’t really know how.”
“It’s okay.” Royce pinches his nose between his index finger and thumb. “You better go take a shower. You kind of smell.”
I’m about to head upstairs when Dad walks in with Mason and a bald-headed guy with thick black glasses I don’t recognize. He looks at me like I’m a dirty dish towel.
“Hi, honey,” Dad says to me. “This is Rich Nguyen.”
“I’d shake your hand, but...” I hold up my palms. “I’m kind of sweaty. Just went for a run.”
“That’s okay,” Rich says, assessing everything about me. I can tell already that Rich is going to be a control freak. “Tell me something about yourself.”
His question takes me off guard. I was expecting a simple greeting, not a job interview. “I love Frida Kahlo,” I say. “She’s one of my favorite artists.”
Rich scrunches his eyes. “That’s the one with the unibrow, right?”
I’m appalled. I don’t even know how to respond. I want to tell Rich how Frida had to overcome so many obstacles to be able to paint. How polio left her crippled as a child. How she was riding a bus one day that was hit by a streetcar, sending an iron rail through her pelvis. How she learned to paint while her spinal column was shattered. I consider telling Rich how way ahead of her time Frida was and how much pain she had to go through to even be able to paint, but he won’t care. That’s not why we’re talking.
“Well. I’d like to meet with you to put together what I like to call an ‘image promotion plan.’ Your brothers will need to put one together too, but yours will be the most important. Teenage girls present the most difficult challenges to navigate for political elections. On the family front, that is.”
I’ve just met this guy and he’s already calling me a difficult challenge? I look to Dad for support. Maybe an explanation? Or a smile? Nothing. “Could you explain what an image promotion plan actually is?” I ask. I have a guess, but I don’t think this is going to go anywhere good for me. I’ve been around PR people who have helped my parents before. I generally don’t fit into their image of what a politician’s daughter should be.
Rich shrugs his shoulders and straightens out the sleeves of his perfectly pressed lavender shirt. “Let me put it this way. Think of any major modern charismatic leader or well-known person. JFK. LeBron James. Angelina Jolie. Pope Francis. Oprah. Bono. They have to construct a public persona. Then they have to promote that image.”
“Isn’t that what Dad has to do? What does this have to do with me?”
All of a sudden, Rich gets really excited. “Oh no! Of course you have to worry about your image. It’s good you’re a girl to begin with. Daughters of politicians are always preferred to sons by voters. Except that can be a double-edged sword because being placed on the podium means that you can fall farther. Higher expectations.”
“I’m sorry,” I interrupt. “It’s just that I don’t plan to be that involved. Right, Dad?”
Dad slowly sips his coffee. My heart sinks.
When I was younger, Dad could bring me out for photo opportunities, but the press generally didn’t care too much about children. There wasn’t enough of a story there. Now I’m a teenager? That’s huge fodder for the news. All bets are off.
“We didn’t really need to bother with this stuff for you when I ran for Congress because you were so young, but your brothers have had to put together an image plan. It’s really not so bad. You just have to think of yourself as a character.”
“A character?” I’m nearly shaking. “I’m a real person, Dad, I’m not—”
I don’t want to turn into a pawn in a political chess game.
“Come on, Liv. You know that part of being a political family means you’re in the public eye. We’re not trying to control your private life. We’ve just invited Rich to help us craft a plan for you.”
“So then what’s this gonna involve?” I ask. He’ll obviously want me to keep a low profile. Forget hanging out with Zach. Why does this have to happen right now?
Finally his turn to speak, Rich gets all excited again and sets his binder on the table. He opens the papers so I can flip through them. “First are the values. What are three abstract qualities you want to represent? For example, Barack Obama, I’d say, attempted to embody a mix of sunny optimism and cautious reserve. That’s our starting point anyway. We’ll figure out the nitty-gritty of what colors to wear for TV appearances and other things of that nature later on when the campaign is announced.”
Everything Rich is saying makes me think of Ollie Barrios. Dress this way. Look that way. Hang around with these people. Be my little Barbie Doll all the time.
I look to Mason for backup. He shrugs.
“You’ve really thought all this out,” I say to Dad and Rich. “I should go, I need a shower.”
“Honeybee,” Dad says, stabbing into one of Royce’s pancakes. “The boys and I are going to start working on the campaign with Rich. You should stick around.”
“I have plans,” I lie. “Royce can’t wait though.”
Royce emerges from his haze. “Sorry. Been a long night.”
“Aren’t they all?” Dad says. “I’m telling you, getting this campaign in order has cut my sleep in half. You don’t have to go,” Dad says to me. “You have a say in this too.”
“Sorry, Congressman Blakely,” I say. “Duty calls.”
“What duty is that?” he asks. “There are some family items we really need to run over.”
Items. Run over. Like our conversation is a press release.
“I already figured those out with Royce. Just ask him. Look, if I don’t get to a shower ASAP, we’re going to have a problem, as you can probably smell...” I say, leaving the room as Mason shrugs at Dad.
Forget spending my entire Saturday working on the campaign with the boys and being told what to do by Rich Nguyen. I’m going to the de los Santos house stealth style. Maybe Danilo will know what’s going on with Royce and Jasmine.
After I shower and dress, I sneak back downstairs. Dad and the others are debating something in his office as I walk into the kitchen. I pull up my phone and order an Uber. It’s going to be an expensive ride all the way out to Chatsworth and Mom’s probably going to kill me when she notices the charge on the credit card, but I don’t care. I need to get out, talk to someone who isn’t part of the mess that’s my life right now. I need to talk to Danny. He’s someone I can talk deep with too—art and dreams and all the other things people seem so afraid of revealing about themselves. That used to be Sam. If he really joined the debate team to pursue a girl, I figure I better keep my distance. Not to mention that I have feelings for Zach. Maybe we have to be less close.
“Honeybee?” Dad shouts. “Come here. I want to talk to you about something.”
I head into Dad’s study. “I only have a few minutes. Sam’s picking me up.”
“I really want you to take this image thing seriously,” Dad says. “You do understand that my career rides on this election? That this is my job.”
“Yes, Dad. I understand. It’s cool.” He’s right. Complaining isn’t going to stop him from running. And fighting with him is only going to make him think I need more babysitting from Rich. I glance at him. He doesn’t exactly look that excited to be working with me either. “I’ll start working on the image plan or whatever.”
“Thank you, Liv. I think you’ll learn a lot from this campaign as long as you’re willing to be open-minded.”
I walk by the fruit bowl and grab another apple to take with me on the way to Danny’s house. Then I check my phone. My ride’s almost here.
As I’m walking out the door, I see Mom pulling into the driveway, which makes me nervous. She’s going to ask too many questions. I just want to get away from here for a little while and soak up some time to myself before the campaign really gets started.
She parks her car and steps out, her hair and makeup perfect. “You were up early this morning,” she says.
“I ran to Franklin Canyon,” I say, not offering much information. I’m hoping I can get her to go inside before the car shows up. There’s no way she’ll take me all the way out to Chatsworth without wanting to stay and chat with Jasmine’s parents.
I’d rather hang out with the de los Santos family myself. When Jas and Royce started dating, Jas became part of our family, but—even better—I got to become part of hers. They’re easy to be around. They’re not constantly focused on politics like my family and always ask about my art when I come over. I really don’t want to lose them.
“That’s a long way. I hope you took a snack,” she says, opening her back seat and pulling out a box of books. “You need fuel to run those kinds of distances.”
“I ate before I ran.” Exercise and restricting my food is essential to meeting my goal of a hundred pounds. I want to meet that goal for myself, but I want to look good for Zach too. He’s around tiny actresses all the time. I have to look my best.
Mom starts walking toward the front door, carrying her box.
“Just be careful not to overdo things. You tend to push yourself too hard.”
“I’ll be careful,” I say, checking my phone again. It says that the driver’s about a mile away. “Dad’s inside talking to Rich and the boys about campaign stuff.”
Mom exhales a deep breath. “So you finally met Rich? I trust your father with these kinds of choices, but this one’s a little intense for my taste.”
I nod. “Yeah. He also thinks Frida Kahlo is the ‘one with the unibrow.’”
“Cretin.” Mom laughs.
I’m lifting my arm up to push a stray hair back behind my ear when Mom grabs my hand. “What happened, Liv? These sores look awful.”
I pull my hand away from her fast. My heart is racing. She probably won’t figure the real reason about the sore right away, but she’s the kind of person who will look up information on WebMD for hours until she figures out all possible causes of a symptom. It would only be a matter of time before she confronted me on my secret.
“I was working on the throwing wheel at school this week and the clay was really rough,” I lie. I’m not even in ceramics. “It cut up my hand a little.”
“What have I told you about putting Neosporin on wounds? You have to do that or the sore will turn into a scar. You have such pretty hands, Liv.”
“I know,” I say. “I just forgot.”
“Do you need a ride somewhere? I just need to set down this box. We’re collecting donations for elementary school libraries...”
“Sam’s picking me up,” I lie again, silently apologizing to Sam in my head for using him as an excuse to get away from my family. Thinking about him reminds me of Antonia’s comment about how much Sam has physically changed this summer. It won’t be long until he gets a serious girlfriend and whatever feelings were growing between us last year when we kissed on the bench at the marina will be completely gone.
“I’ve always loved that boy.”
“I know you have,” I say hesitantly.
“I just wish you and he could—”
“Mom, please. Not right now.”
Thinking about Sam like a potential boyfriend hurts my head. I have feelings for Zach. Sam obviously likes another girl. We’re too much like siblings to date.
She opens the front door. “Well,” she says, sounding disappointed, “be back by 5 p.m. tonight. We’re finally going to have a proper family dinner.”