Once she had said goodbye as well, closed the program, shut down the laptop, and put it back in the bag did Brooke clinch and shake her fist with puffing and spitting like an enraged cartoon duck. She flipped off the laptop even though it didn’t do anything and hurled a tempest of harsh words.
Dammit. Even without all the additional everything, she would’ve hated to go to this. Her father started bringing her to his local country club when she was very young and her mother made her wear a pink dress that she felt was a little too short. Men with wrinkly skin and tufts of white atop balding heads cooed and called her over as she was presented, like the newest trinket.
She could feel their breath on her as she politely recited all the coached answers to their muttered questions. Most were sorta benign, asking about her age, where she went to school, if she knew any musical instruments, what kind of games she like to play, and about her friends. They still made her squirm then and even more now. But they also asked what she liked to do when she was alone, whether she ever got weird feelings from her body, and whether she could give them a “friendly peck” on the cheek.
It was just something she had to do. Every so often, they would give her “a little pat on the rump” just to show they were friends. The smelling of her hair and shoulders bothered her the most along with the really old ones who asked her to sit in their laps while they talked. Nothing happened, as she liked to tell herself, but she wanted no part of those groups around her sons on any normal day, let alone one like this.
If Clare and Lacy went and if those sorts did anything around them, then Brooke could only imagine herself finding the nearest golf club and doing several terrible things with it. But that was an assumption. Despite her father’s persistent attitude, the workplace was getting better. And they had cell phones. And it was no longer the 1980s.
Preparing herself with a long breath, Brooke sat up, brushed herself off, and went in search of her family with the hopes that no one was pummeling anyone else.
She suspected Clare was still upstairs, so she followed the biggest cacophony down to the living room. Brooke found Eliot doing his best to hold Blair and Lacy apart. Lacy wielded one of the rougher looking seat cushions with both hands as Blair held his hands up and wore a smirk.
While watching the proceedings, she glanced over at the display where Clare left those rocks. She wasn’t going to get even close to touching them, whether Lacy was right about her assumption or not. Assuming they even worked on her. At the same time, it would’ve been amazing to turn into the son her dad always wanted and then tell him to screw off properly. That was as far as she took the thought.
“Lacy Anastasia Shore! Put that down right now!” That tone of voice and the use of the accursed name. She only did it when she was serious. Lacy looked like all the energy was sapped from her. Blair shared a sympathetic look with his former brother despite everything. Brooke led Lacy to the far end of the couch, but within six feet of the rocks. Meanwhile, Blair flopped down on the other end with his dad, legs crossed. Lacy kept the pillow though and hugged it against her chest gently.
Once they were both settled, Brooke realized she should probably get Clare as well. “Grandpa just contacted me by video. He is unfortunately sprung a demand we need to follow. As a family, we need to attend brunch tomorrow at a country club in town that has a number of his business associates as members.”
“Screw grandpa…” Lacy muttered. Even though she shared a similar sentiment, Brooke delicately urged the issue that grandpa was the reason this trip was possible, grandpa also took care of things, along with schooling and college for all three of them. He had his requirements and demands, but they had to tolerate them as a family. Brooke wanted to share her true feelings but she stuffed them down again.
She translated what that meant then, highlighting, “That means, everyone is going to have to get dressed up nice for the club. I have to review what grandpa sends me…”
“I’m not wearing a skirt or a blouse or especially any friggin dress. No way, no how I’d rather die first!” Lacy stomped her feet with emphasis. Brooke nodded and relayed that there were typically plenty of options with skorts and shorts and so forth along with colors. Lacy refused to even go there. “I won’t be in anything that makes anyone think I’m a girl!”
Blair asked, “Are muumuus and overcoats allowed?”
Lacy had no idea what a muumuu was but immediately shot it down when learning it was a dress. Even though men also wore it. That didn’t leave a whole lot of options. Lacy vigorously shook her head and resolved, “Just say I died. That’s close enough.“
She tried to put an arm around her middle child to comfort her, but she scooted away, only interested in wallowing against her pillow. Blair scoffed, “Bro, don’t be so maudlin.”
“I’m not going to model! I don’t want anyone to see me screwed up like this, ever. Especially not some jerk photographer.”
Blair leaned back and groaned as he spelled out the word. “It means throwing yourself a bunch of pity parties and acting like a chick at that time of the month.”
Lacy stretched up like a tiger ready to claw Blair’s face off. “I’m no chick and I’m..n…I’m n-n-n…SCREW YOU!” Instead of launching up, she made a fist out of her small hands with the middle finger not out but clearly taller than the other fingers.
To that, Blair dipped his head and laid out his hands. Brooke gave a long sigh and slapped her hand on her knee. The ingrown hair was healing up but still felt a little tender. Lacy sniffled with her face scrunched up tight and fanned the pillow before pronouncing, “It’s too darn warm…” Blair gave another look that implied he could tell her the solution based on the fact she was bundled up for a much later season than it was.
Eliot agreed to turn on the central fan without AC just to circulate the air but made them both promise to behave while he was in the other room. Lacy and Blair said nothing but they each gave a little nod. Brooke made it absolutely clear that there would be no more fighting because the family had too many challenges as it was without creating more by going at each other.
Lacy gestured to the place where the rocks had been stashed by Clare. “Aren’t you going to get rid of those? Or are we going to wait until they’ve ruined someone else’s life?”
Looking at the rocks, Brooke asked which one was the problem. On this, Lacy couldn’t remember. She didn’t want to have anything to do with any of them. Brooke considered that fair, but tons of questions circulated through her thoughts. What if the answer to restoring the boys actually resided with the rock? What if it operated on a cooldown and they just needed to wait a certain amount of time to touch the rock and something else would happen? What if it wasn’t actually the rock?
At the same time, she had a sharpened thought about all those crusty, lecherous old men that orbited her father at too many country clubs. They couldn’t get rid of the rocks until they understood what they were dealing with though. Would this area even have a geologist they could ask? Would they know anything more than they did?
Distilling these thoughts, Brooke cautioned that they didn’t know what the rocks would do or how they worked, so getting rid of them might be a bad idea. Despite still bristling, Lacy heaved a slow sigh and conceded that.
She also considered touching them again to see if that might fix her but immediately shook it off as soon as she thought it, fearing, “What if it makes me even worse?”
Brooke told them both just to watch TV or streaming or whatever, while she dealt with Clare. That settled, she dragged herself over to the stairs leading to the third-floor. Pausing on the landing, she cracked her neck before proceeding into the room.
The den was amazing. A large screen TV was anchored to the far wall with teddy bears and dolls in glass cases all along. The back wall had a fake fireplace and assorted bric-a-brac decorations themed along the seaside with driftwood, colorful shells, and models of crabs and birds. Towards the front of the house was the key feature, a skylight with a wooden, overhanging section of the roof. Storm shutters flanked the opening. The unobstructed view of the waves was majestic and worth lingering on. Claire sprawled out on a wide, white couch with her head resting on the end.
She approached carefully so as not to scare off another family member and said, “Hey, sweetie. You okay?”
The star field dress bunched up slightly around Clare. She ruffled it listlessly and answered, “I dunno. It was that rock, wasn’t it? The rainbow one. I got a shock when I picked it up. And Lacy got shocked too and now this… it’s my fault.”
Brooke remembered both of those instances but adamantly urged that it was not Clare’s fault. “You had no idea what would happen when you picked up that rock. And Lacy just accidentally touched it looking through your stuff. If that’s the cause, no one is responsible. It just happened.”
She innately disliked the prospect of blaming a random rock because then that led to the next uncertainty. Was it some sort of alien space rock or a magic rock? If a bizarre, scientific process then at least it prefigured the possibility of deducing a method and possibility for restoration. Still, she wasn’t sure how she felt about aliens or weird rocks in the universe that could turn boys into girls. If something outside the realm and possibilities of a scientific explanation, then she hated that even more.
Clare looked her in the eye with her lip turned up and her arms drooping. “I had a hunch it was the rock. I brought them over from my room to see if I could make it happen again but with me. If I could change back but I didn’t feel anything. But…but… the way Lacy was being, the big jerk, I was hoping he stumbled into the same thing. So yeah, it was my fault.”
Brooke wanted to crouch down beside the couch to be on Clare’s level but she instantly knew that it would destroy her knees and back. Instead, she slipped in on the other side as Claire gradually sat up, with her legs underneath her. She rubbed at her eyes. No grit was coming loose. In fact, it felt like the sand she could normally extract had taken root now and forever. At least her skin wasn’t dry with the coastal weather.
First off, Brooke thanked Clare for being honest with her. However, she noted that it might not be a good idea to let Lacy know about this quite yet, since she seemed to be in a vulnerable emotional state.
“She’s totally gonna wallop me…” Clare claimed. Brooke couldn’t really disagree. Instead, she proposed a plan of action. Claire would come downstairs with her and she would protect her with the assurance that Lacy would have to go through her first. Reason being they needed to figure out a plan because tomorrow was getting complicated. She explained what she expressed to everyone downstairs about grandpa.
Clare was immediately against going but also knew that grandpa had a lot of power. Thankfully, she had been able to be with her children during all the close calls with the most recent set of old guys asking leading and personal questions of them. Brooke desperately would’ve preferred to tell her dad to fuck off but he held the keys to the kingdom, to her children’s future, and the prosperity of their family. It sucked.
“What does she look like now?… Lacy.”
That was relatively simple to relay, as countless photos from Brooke’s youth and adolescence survived. She focused on a junior high lab photo because Clare took a special interest in it, pointing out how pretty she was. Lacy snickered when mom relayed she wanted to be a scientist at that age but didn’t say much else. Thinking back on that, even though she knew how she should’ve been, left Brooke with a little candle flicker of amusement. She didn’t believe in karma. If she did, she would be bitterly disappointed at how badly it failed. Most of the time. But she wasn’t supposed to relish in that German word about appreciation of discomfort, especially when it came to her own child. Not creating drama and problems, like she warned about, even if they were only inside her head.
Reflecting on that old photo, Clare flattened out the front of her dress and slowly shook her head. “So, she’s totally losing it, right?”
Brooke had to admit that Lacy was not taking this situation well, not that she expected any of them to take this sort of thing well. Claire seemed like a much appreciated outlier in that respect. Why couldn’t all of her kids be so simple? Just know what to say, when to say it, and feel the trust from them.
Despite everything, time marched on. She could see morning clouds winnowed away by a steady seabreeze. Noon wasn’t far off and despite a comfortable breakfast, she was already imagining at least a sandwich from somewhere along the boardwalk. It might’ve been far too much to also imagine that she could take her middle child on a comparable excursion to her youngest for something appropriate. At least clothes for Clare had been dealt with and with enough focus towards formality.
“We’ll figure it out. Together, as a family.” Brooke stretched out her hand towards Clare’s side. Cautiously, her daughter slipped her hand around it and gave a quivering, uncomfortable breath. She used her other hand to brush Clare’s hair back gently. That helped, as Clare immediately stretched on her toes and fixed her dress before giving a careful nod to her mom.
They eased their way downstairs slowly. Throughout the short trek, Clare lingered behind. She drifted behind her mom, only peeking out carefully. When they arrived back in the living room, seemingly just her eyeballs were showing. But she slowly crept out.
Lacy just seemed to stare off in the vague direction of the television, which was playing something adventurous like the skateboarding and extreme sports from last night. Her arms carefully cradled her abdomen.
“My gosh! You’re so pretty! I’m sorry! I’m so so sorry!”
Before Lacy could really register that her little sister had returned from hiding, the kid launched herself in her direction and tangled her arms around her meager shape. Promptly, Lacy scrambled to free herself but it was useless. Clare had used this strategy before, getting far too close to her sibling that any effort to dislodge her resulted in more trouble than it was worth fighting her off. Unfortunately, Brooke knew it also conjured up bad memories for Lacy.
This time, she twisted and writhed with terror that slowly calmed to nervous irritation. Soon, Lacy grumbled, harrumphed with her mouth closed, and resumed her prior position. At least it didn’t involve punching yet, Brooke resigned. Looking to her left, she quickly checked the crevices where the rocks had been placed. The one that made her hungry and the candy cane reminiscent one were there… But that rainbow one was nowhere to be found. The rock that started all this was gone!