Christmas was spent in West Virginia, a state that’s actually quite lovely, a state with fewer gun shops and cars in front yards than I remember. We stayed at a spa, a destination equal parts Dirty Dancing and the Shining. Cottages dot the perimeter of the greater campus, which looks like a tiny college, if colleges were full of old white people personally responsible for the existence of both the Polo brand and the grilled cheese sandwich made with Velveeta. According to my imagination, these cottages are also where young women wearing rolled up jean shorts go to make sweet love to men who teach ballroom to young women wearing rolled up jean shorts, where illegal abortions happen to further plot, and exceedingly poor hair and makeup decisions are made. A large main house sits in the middle of the grounds. It’s a multi-storied expanse of a resort home that may or may not have been decorated by a large flamingo. Or Blanche Devereaux. It’s indulgence, all right, hot pink and lime green indulgence, yet I still fail to pinpoint the exact draw of the place.
It was my mother’s idea. In part for fun, in part to indulge a fantasy, perhaps, as I imagine most people do when making their reservations. We’ve not a care but an overdue oil change. We’ve tailored furs and eat beef tournedos on a regular basis, none ever cooked at our hands, of course. We prefer robust reds to rosé and golf to the gym. More likely, it was a fantasy that all is okay with our family, that this is not the first Christmas spent without the man of our house. The man who would have enjoyed the wassail to a point and but would rather have passed the evening sampling each dish made with Stilton. Homeostasis. We’re fine, we’re smiling and we’re walking, heads held high, even if at times we’re holding hands while we walk. Even if at times we’re gripping hands while we walk.
The room was spacious, room to move, room to breathe, room to brush teeth while another puts on an appropriately done face. My sister made sure that was the case, given a long history of overdosing on our togetherness. A walk-in closet would ensure that there was room enough for the finery of three women, the majority of whom wore heels to dine before noon. A bathroom with two sinks would allow for simultaneous face washing, not to mention space enough for several dozen toiletries. It was big, yes. Big enough for three. Turns out, it was also ample room for conflict, for grudges long held, for the complete and recurring metamorphosis from adult to 12 year old. If I’m honest, maybe 8 year old. I’ll take 10.
I spent a good portion of the trip by myself, because even as a grown ass woman, I get into a ridiculous amount of trouble. I didn’t light a Marlboro while mother and sister were at the makeup lesson, although admittedly I very, very, very seriously considered it. That of course would have constituted a familial federal offense, but the lesser transgressions involved a good bit of sassing. As they generally do. Of barking in a most unpleasant tone and huffing for hours with lower lip extended. I was not a woman born to bite her tongue, and missed school days we were taught that elders are to be revered rather than used as models for voodoo dolls made from sandlewood hose. Women like me must be caged at family events, particularly ones of extended duration. We must be plied with cabernet to let veiled insults roll off our backs. So yes, I spent much of my time alone, working or sleeping or eating when the others were at play.
I spent the remainder of the trip being insanely jealous of my sister. A light goes on in my mother when she is around; she effuses pride and delight when she talks about her every accomplishment, whether it’s a promotion at work or a newly purchased couch. “Kris,” my mother will ask, “don’t your sister’s highlights look fantastic?” I nod my very blonde head in the affirmative and wait seconds before commenting snidely that she failed to notice my own. I’m a ball of resentment, of fury at being the kid who isn’t good enough in some way, the one who is somehow second rate. It makes my sister miserable, because she does not have a clue as to what to do about it. It gives my mother the upper hand, because she knows all too well that I was born unable to wear emotion anywhere other than the sleeve. She never fails to call me on it. “When will you get over this?” she asks. “This jealousy of your sister. You really need to get over it.”
It’s a perfectly executed punch to the gut, of course, the downfall of Houdini. It’s a routine that’s been in play for years, practiced with great commitment and a fierce love of the game. Maybe it’s because it’s what we do, what we know, our daily routine. But it’s also because we’re a whole lot of angry, this year more than ever, and there has to be someone toward whom we can hurl that rage. Women who wear pants only when bedridden don’t take anger out on bus boys or friends who manipulate. No, these are the kinds of interpersonal guns pulled only on family. “At least your sister cares about me,” she said at one point, following a perfectly scripted argument. Cue tripping over self to make things right, digging nails into rock and grass and dirt to prevent sliding the entire way down the hill of family relations. “Get past it,” she says.
Turns out I’m not past it. As was evidenced this week , and I’m sure will be brought out more often this year than any of our photo albums, at 35 I’m filled with such anger that it’s as if all the room’s air is caught in my chest. I’m cornered and I have no choice but to yell, to scream full speed ahead, whether it be at the first person in line of sight or into a pillow. It’s a tantrum all right, and I employ them with great skill. Babies use them for what exactly? Catharsis? To get noticed? To get just what they want out of their mothers?
We left wearing strained, painted smiles and chitchatted the bellman before leaving. And on the long drive home, like everyone else who spent Christmas at the resort, booking daily facials and outdressing the Joneses for dinner, I wondered just what it was that I was really after.
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