Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [4]
Equally disturbing was Marin's insistence on having a Pinky the Poodle theme party, inspired by her favorite television program. Not only has this sunshine-blond, deep-dimpled one-year-old developed a definite preference for one cartoon character over another, but she can clearly express her love by screeching, “PEE! POO! PEE! POO!” The thought of this picture-perfect child embarrassing her mommy with these seemingly scatological outbursts makes me weep fewer tears about my losing battle to improve my niece's intellectual fate.
In keeping with the theme, her grandparents (my parents) hired a neighborhood kid to dress up as the shopping-and-shoes-obsessed canine. The costume can be best described as a fifty-pound fur ball. It's ninety-five degrees and chunky with humidity, so who can blame the kid for not showing up for this humiliation? And take one guess who's the only one who fits into this fuzzy pink prison? Suffice it to say that Pinky's trademark tap routine to her theme song (“I'm the Prettiest Quadruped!”) was less inspired than usual. Try as I might, I just couldn't lift my weighty paws high enough.
“Do the kicks, Jessie—I mean Pinky!” my mother shouted from the sidelines. “One, two, three!”
“Boooooooooooooooooooooo!” the anklebiters wailed as they pelted me with Jelly Bellies.
“No! No! No!” Bethany chastised the toddlers with a wag of her finger. “We are not unkind to animals!”
Oh thank you, Bethany. Thank you.
Then she turned to me. “Come on, Pinky! Shake that tail of yours!” She twitched her juicy peach of an ass, almost obscenely perfect in a denim miniskirt. Often mistaken for Marin's au pair, my sister is the textbook definition of a MILF. If I had it in me to lift my hind leg, I would've pissed on her.
My father was the only one who seemed concerned for my health. “Take it easy on her,” he said. “Jessie's not in the peak physical condition she used to be, back when she was a serious athlete.” Christ. It's been two years since I gave up competitive running, and he still can't resist any opportunity to remind everyone of my deteriorating muscle mass. Of course, he himself was still spandexed and sweaty from a ninety-minute bike ride because dangerous weather is never a deterrent for one of his yellow-jersey jaunts around town.
And so, I wasn't driven to my room (which doesn't feel like my room) by the heckling or heat exhaustion or even anaphylactic shock from an allergy to synthetic poodle fur. I'm here because I had forgotten just how much I can simultaneously love and hate these people called my family. When I was at school, I kind of missed them. Not as actual people, but for their comfortable predictability. My dad always asks if I'm still wasting my time with my Psychology major or if I get bored clocking seven-minute miles around Columbia's one-tenth of a mile indoor track. My mom always asks if every girl at school dresses like a lesbian. Bethany always asks if I've gone to some invitation-only velvet-roped club. G-Money always ignores me because he's too busy coming up with new and creative ways to profit from the recession-proof futures market of American obesity.
I've gotten so used to these and similar familial annoyances that I wouldn't know how to react if my family members didn't play their parts. Plus, I'm always more forgiving of their flaws when I'm still in the thrall of the hygienic and nutritional comforts