Family And Other Catastrophes. Alexandra Borowitz
nose up on one of their first dates, when she self-effacingly said that she was tired of her parents’ friends telling her that she looked like a young Barbra Streisand. David hadn’t thought to give the correct response: an incredulous look and a shocked “Why would anyone ever say that? You’re far more beautiful!” Instead, he only nodded. She had never let him forget it.
As she turned around, her hair whipped over her shoulder and revealed the candy-pink straps of her sundress. David wasn’t sure what this type of dress was called. He had recently heard the term bodycon but still didn’t completely understand what it meant or if it applied to this dress. He playfully reached out to pinch her butt but wound up groping a handful of poufy fabric. She spun around and laughed.
“I love you so much, sweetie.” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek.
“You know you don’t need to wear a dress to the airport. This is going to be just like Las Vegas all over again. And this time, we’re not shopping for leggings halfway through the trip because you only brought miniskirts.”
“You’re not still mad about that, are you?”
“I wasn’t even mad then. I just want you to be comfortable and I don’t want you to complain during the flight.”
“I want to be comfortable too. But every outfit this week needs to count.” She opened her eyes widely for emphasis.
“Don’t go too sexy on the night of the bachelorette, okay? Trust me, I know guys, and guys don’t care if you’re on your bachelorette party, they’ll just go for it.”
“I wouldn’t wear anything sexy anyway, with Lauren there. If I want to avoid her usual criticisms, I’m going to need a giant androgyny cloak.” Emily’s arms released from David’s neck as she pantomimed a cloak over her head.
David laughed. “I don’t understand why you think she’s such a bitch. Lauren’s always nice to me.”
“Because you aren’t her sister. And you should hear the stuff she says about you behind your back.”
“What does she say?”
She paused. “She thinks you’re boring and that you attempt to make up for it by projecting hegemonic masculinity. I disagree, obviously. But when she found out you played basketball in high school, she kept sending me all these articles about sexual assault and high school sports.”
“What the hell does ‘hegemonic masculinity’ mean?”
“I forgot you didn’t major in something useless at college like I did. Let’s put it this way. She’s been engaged to an unemployed lumberjack with a neck tattoo for ten years—if she doesn’t like you, it’s probably a good thing.”
“But I want your family to like me.”
“The rest of them do!”
“Yeah, okay.” He reached over to close his suitcase where the zipper was gaping, and then realized Emily might see this as literally turning his back on her.
“Are you upset now? I shouldn’t have said anything. I knew something bad would happen this week. Why do I always do this? Now we’re going to be mad at each other all week.”
“Look, I’m not even... I’m just going to feel so weird seeing her now.”
“You should always feel weird seeing her. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t feel weird seeing her. She’s a huge jerk.”
“Well, huge anyway.”
“Mean!” She laughed. “Get that out of your system now. If Lauren didn’t like you before, any comments about her weight will put you into the same category as the guy who accidentally called her ‘sir’ at Panera four years ago.”
“Who did that?”
“None of us knows. But she’s written six blog posts about him.”
Emily
By the time they got to the airport, she was already starting to regret wearing her sundress. So many women managed to look chic at airports, and she didn’t understand why she couldn’t be one of them. She saw a six-foot-tall Latina woman in leather leggings and a simple black blazer, her highlighted hair barrel-curled and cascading down her back. She was standing at the ticket kiosk with a sleek black rolling suitcase, unburdened by a heavy laptop bag, huge overpriced bottle of water or any of the other unwieldy items Emily always lugged around at airports. A few feet away, she spotted a college-aged girl in a casual, loose crop top, a pair of high-waisted jeans shorts and clunky white sneakers, taking selfies near the end of the security line. She also looked flawless. Why was it so hard for Emily? She could spend four hours getting ready and still somehow feel inferior to every other woman in the room. Already she was shivering, her knobby legs were covered in goose bumps and she realized that she should have worn a bra when she looked down and saw her nipples poking through the thin cotton bodice of her dress.
“They won’t let you take the NaturBuzz bottle through security,” David said.
“Right. I guess we should just drink it now. Is it bad to drink it if you haven’t actually worked out?”
“I don’t think so. Better to drink it than throw it out anyway.”
“Sir.” A TSA agent approached. She was short and heavyset with blond hair in a tight, oiled bun as if she were on duty in Iraq and not just working the security line at the San Francisco International Airport. “You need to remove that bottle from the vicinity immediately.”
“Can’t I just drink it? We’re not even in the line yet.”
“If I can see you, you’re in the line.”
“Um...okay.” He handed the bottle to Emily. She looked at the label: white pomegranate and kaffir lime. She would have preferred to savor it a little rather than guzzle it near the TSA line. There went nine dollars’ worth of NaturBuzz, none of it contributing to muscle growth, just winding up as urine in an airplane toilet.
“I don’t have all day, ma’am,” the agent said.
“Oh gosh, please don’t call me that,” Emily said, half jokingly. “It makes me feel middle-aged. I’ll just drink this now, okay?” She thought she might get a little “I hear ya, sister!” from the TSA lady, but all she got was a steely stare and a defiant arm cross. Emily untwisted the lid and chugged half the bottle. She handed it to David, who finished it off.
“Okay, thank you, finally,” the TSA agent said.
As she went through security, Emily couldn’t help feeling anxious again. She looked at the other people in the line. She felt a familiar whirring in her chest and flipping in her stomach. A redheaded man in a suit took off his wing tip shoes for security. She turned to David.
“He could kill all of us right now and it would be too late for anyone to stop him. Ugh, this is why I hate airports. Everyone is a suspect.” Maybe that was why the gorgeous women were there—to divert attention from all the terrorists in the security line. Genius.
“Everyone is a suspect in your world,” he said. “This is the woman who called the cops on the building’s handyman for ‘sitting around outside.’”
“First of all, I’m still not convinced Chan wasn’t up to something. And second of all, that guy in the line could kill us and nobody would be able to stop him before the first few casualties. And that’s assuming he’s carrying a gun and not a bomb. I can’t do this.”
“This guy isn’t carrying anything.”
“Oh, really? You’ve inspected his clothing and you know he doesn’t have a gun? You can’t just blindly trust everyone at an airport.”
“Emily, he isn’t even...”
“If you were going to say that he isn’t even Middle Eastern, that’s the point. They’re dropping in people we least