Eyes Wide Shut

“She’s beautiful, but she’s a wreck.” A petite, Hispanic woman said from behind her thick Columbian accent.

“She’s a wreck?! Oh, don’t even get me started on her brother!” A portly, loud woman played with her new hair extensions, in an effort to defer attention from her new found baby weight.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” A blonde woman smiled through her southern twang.

“Is everyone going to ignore the fact that she came out of LAX highly intoxicated?”

“She did not?!” The southern blonde gasped.

“Julio, roll the footage!” Baby weight, shouted and motioned towards the screen behind her.

And there it was, footage of me smacking my face against the cold floors of LAX. It was rewound twice, and then I watched as the small gash formed above my eye. I had snagged it on something. I couldn’t figure out what.

“Your skin always was delicate.” My Mother’s cool touch ran against my forehead. I nearly flinched.

“Don’t watch this, Blair.” Her voice was the most soothing that it had been in ages. Your father told me what happened.” She touched my hand.

She turned off the television right as they began to reflect on Samuel’s rant. It took all the will power she had inside her slender body to not take a second glance. It took everything in her ignore thee bleeping out of his familiar voice.

“Why don’t you sunbathe?” She pushed her flawless auburn hair behind her shoulders.

“I already took some sun this morning.” I shrugged and glanced over my perfectly tinted arm.

“I’ll see you for lunch.” She smiled and didn’t press on. I listened as her heels clicked along the dark floors.

For a minute, I wanted her to intervene. I wanted her to take my hand and offer to take me shopping, or offer to lay outside with me. I wanted her to ask me about my latest book, or wonder if my collection needed replenishing. She was close, I could see it in her eyes, but she just couldn’t do it, but I’d never expect anything different; at least not for more than a minute.

“Eliza can be a piece of work.” Samuel walked into the living room with a mouth full of banana and a bag of Doritos in another hand.

“I like David.” I shrugged as he crouched down next to our sleek, entertainment system. He pulled out an X-box controller, and then another.

“He’s problematic for me.” I could feel the smirk spreading across Samuel’s face, nearly mocking the detached way we sometimes spoke of our parents.

I pulled the bag of Doritos from his free hand as he settled into the couch, next to me. He didn’t testify. They were for me anyways, they always were.

“Do you think we spend too much time together?” I popped a Dorito in my mouth as Samuel began killing Zombies with a gun. He shrugged, not looking at me.

“Probably.” He nodded. “But we always have. I’m use to you.” He shoved me lightly as the screen reloaded.

“We need lives, Samuel.” I teased.

“I did have a life, but then they moved us out to the fucking sticks.” His eyes narrowed slightly.

“It’s Southern California.” It was still the sticks to us. I could try and justify it all I wanted, but compared to where we had been, it felt like the sticks, but really we were just lonely.

“I can see Mexico from here.” He shot back. “Maybe I can join in on the drug cartel in Tijuana.” He snorted.

“David would adore that.” I smiled.

“Eliza would love it.” He shrugged, matter-of-factly.

“Do you remember when we were kids?” I began.

“Of course I do.” He nodded.

“You didn’t even let me finish.” I shoved him lightly.

“You don’t have to. You know that.” He kept focused on the television.

I did. Whatever I was going to say, there was a strong chance that he remembered it. We were weird like that, but we had been deprived, because we were given everything, but we were completely alone. We had nothing to show for it.

“Do people bother you the way they bother me?” I brought my knees to my chest.

“All the time.” He shrugged absently.

“How do you stand it?” I watched how quickly his fingers moved across the buttons of his controller.

“Sometimes I give the people what they want.” He breathed. “And sometimes I don’t.”

“That’s it?”

“I’ve got a pretty face, a nice body, and a good chunk of change in my wallet.” He declares it, as if what he’s saying is no big deal.

“That’s it?”

“As far as the media knows, I’m a fuck up. When they look at me, that’s all they see. And when everyone else looks at me, they see money, and a solid one night stand.”

“It’s not true, you know that right? Even what Mom and Dad say, it’s not true.”

“Sometimes it is.” He looks away from the screen for a second. “Most of the time it is.” He shrugged.

“How about me? What does the media see then?” I craned my neck forward a little bit.

“A bitch. Sometimes a whore.” He shrugs. “You got a nice face.” He paused the game to take a sip of water. “But they’re wrong about you. It’s not the way it is with me. You never a whore, and rarely a bitch.”

“And if people say otherwise?” I questioned pryingly.

“Then, who the fuck are they?” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Fuck them.”

He’s almost always been a Holden in some small way, but the older we get, the more I see it. Sure Holden was cynical, and I’m pretty sure he suffered from some sort of depression, but I still admired him. In many ways Holden Caulfield was a man, but in more ways he was still a boy. You see, Holden still had some innocence. Samuel had nothing.