could hear Lauren’s four-year-old son, Ariel, ask “Mommy, what’s ‘body-shaming’?”
Marla shook her head in a long-suffering way. “I promised myself we wouldn’t fight this week. I must just be overwhelmed with all the planning that I’ve had to do all by myself. Let’s just get you settled in.”
Emily stepped inside. David followed her but stood frozen, still carrying the two bags, afraid of putting them in the wrong place. The living room hadn’t changed much since Emily was a kid. Her father’s antique Japanese bronze bowl sat in the middle of the low cherrywood coffee table, while a few family photographs hung over the mostly decorative marble fireplace that hadn’t been lit since 1992. Light flooded through the windows. The only light fixture in the room was a dim, Japanese lantern-style floor lamp next to the black leather sofa. The television was the same bulky, old-fashioned one that Emily had watched throughout her childhood because Steven and Marla both believed television made people dumber and saw no need to upgrade. Emily had seen discarded ones in the vacant lot that were more up-to-date.
“Hi, Lauren,” Emily said. Lauren got up from the sofa. She had gone from slightly soft to legitimately big, a label that Emily knew Lauren wouldn’t mind. Matt, her beanpole-shaped, perpetually silent “partner and parental unit,” stood next to her. He apparently had a strong preference for larger women. Emily knew this because Lauren told her about it every time anything tangentially related to weight came up. But Emily was happy that her sister had found someone she loved. For a woman who raged so much against body expectations, Lauren’s taste in men had always been very conventional: thin, white, young and tall. Matt checked all those boxes, but his neck tattoo and long blond Viking beard were a good disguise for his conventional looks. Thanks to that beard and tattoo, Lauren didn’t look like too much of a sellout.
The two sisters hugged, Lauren’s black cat-eye glasses jabbing into Emily’s forehead. Emily still couldn’t get used to being taller than her older sister, after so many years of looking up at her. She hugged Matt, his bony sternum pressing against her chin.
“Don’t listen to Mom,” Lauren said. “She’s been on a warpath all morning. Ariel ate the last of her nectarines and it’s been downhill ever since.”
“I heard that,” Marla said. Beyond the living room was an open kitchen, where Marla was opening the fridge to get a mixed berry Greek yogurt. For as long as she could remember, Emily had never seen her mom eat a full meal. Marla ate constantly, but all her meals looked like unsatisfying snacks you would grab quickly before running to the airport.
“I like your hair,” Emily said. Lauren had cut her dyed black hair to her chin with baby-short bangs across her forehead that made her look a bit like a creepy 1920s doll. Emily didn’t really like it, in the sense that she would never have mutilated her own hair like that, but she knew the bizarre impression it gave was exactly what Lauren was going for, so the compliment was still somewhat genuine.
“Oh, thanks. I took Ariel to the salon with me and let him choose it. It was either this or a purple buzz cut. Then we both got manicures. Ariel, show Aunt Emily your fingernails.”
“No!” Ariel shouted. His long pale blonde curls whipped from side to side as he shook his head with his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a blue T-shirt with a fire engine on it, along with a fluffy pink tutu and a pair of yellow floral rain boots.
“Ariel, do you need to pee?” Matt asked him, noticing how he was grabbing his crotch and dancing around.
“No!” Ariel said. “I’m just touching myself!” Matt shrugged and went to pour himself a glass of water.
“Ariel, I think that’s for private time,” Emily said.
“No, it’s not,” Lauren said. She patted Ariel on the head. “There’s so much anti-masturbation stuff in the media nowadays, we may as well let him enjoy his own body while he’s little enough not to understand shame.”
“Is he wearing a...skirt?”
“Ariel dresses himself,” Lauren gloated. “Some people say it’s strange, but fuck them.”
“Mommy, what’s ‘fuck them’?”
“Nothing, Ariel. I’m just speaking with Aunt Emily.”
“You curse in front of him?” Emily asked, lowering her voice a bit.
“I like him to be present for adult conversations. It is ridiculous how people underestimate their kids and baby talk to them. You know, I take Ariel to work with me once a week. He needs the exposure to the adult world, especially in a female-positive, body-accepting space that recognizes and calls out his inherent privilege.”
“Don’t you work at a place called Cunt Magazine?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t matter to Ariel. Children are innocent. He loves his Fridays at Cunt. Don’t you, Ariel?”
“I love Cunt day!” Ariel flailed his arms around and twirled.
“He isn’t using it as a gendered slur, so as far as I’m concerned, he’s just taking away the word’s power,” Lauren said. “I don’t want to tell him to stop saying it. It might damage his self-esteem.”
“Uh-oh, did I walk in on another debate about Photoshopping plus-size models to get rid of cellulite?” Emily’s brother, Jason, stood in the doorway. Emily hadn’t seen him since his divorce, and she was struck by his new single look. It had been a while since Jason qualified as attractive, and now that he was in his midthirties, balding could be added to the list of attributes that made him solidly average looking. However, he had slimmed down a bit, losing some weight in his face, and he had stopped wearing white Reebok sneakers with jeans unironically. Now he wore skinny jeans and an intentionally distressed Urban Outfitters T-shirt, dusty blue and paper-thin, with a faded image of a Fender Telecaster printed on it. He resembled the middle photo between “Before” and “After” on the LifeSpin progression board that was posted between the AeRate™ oxygen bar and the FloTate™ flotation chamber.
“Hey, Jason,” Emily said. “Nice shirt. You look good!” She hugged him.
“You too, Em. Christina is coming by to drop Mia off later, by the way. She posted a picture of her on Facebook, and I have to say, she looks pretty cute in her flower girl dress. You’re going to like it.”
“Aw, I can’t wait to see her.”
“That makes one of us.”
“Not Christina. Mia.”
“Oh. Yeah, me too. Last time I saw her was three weeks ago. I miss my little girl. I had to miss our last weekend together for my friend Mike’s bachelor party, and then Christina was too much of a bitch to give up the weekend after. Says it will ‘ruin the schedule.’”
Marla strode over to them. “I couldn’t help but overhear. Jason, have you heard from Christina yet?”
“Please refer to her by her proper name—Satan. And the answer to your question is that I haven’t heard from Satan since last night when she said she’d be dropping Mia off today. Maybe she’s been busy causing plagues in Africa or possessing the bodies of rural teenage girls.”
“Hmm. Well, would you please ask her to give us an ETA?”
“Why
