Sisterella a novel by F.D. Rhoden

from Chapter Four

One thing about my mother, she delivers. I knew when I spotted the crowd of paparazzi at the front gate that this gig was something special. They took a lot of pictures of the van, and it was neat to be the center of that kind of attention even for a minute. And I knew it would be great publicity for Sisterella’s if any of the pictures got out. We could wind up party entertainment to the stars, I thought to myself. Tom Hanks’ll call, or Steven Spielberg or somebody. This party thing may have a future after all!
Tru looked back from the driver’s seat. “Plymouth Rock, I can’t believe it.” She was already in her Red Power Ranger suit, the tight-fitting mask limp on her lap.
I leaned forward from the back seat as Tru pulled the van to a stop a few yards from the gate. “I thought he was dead.” Sad thing for a clown to say I guess, but nobody lives forever.
Syndra looked confused but regal in a fresh satin dress and all the jewelry and stuff. “He?”
A security guard who had to be six feet tall passed through a little door in the gate, locked it and approached the van.
“ID please,” he said, already sounding agitated. Tru gave him our work order and her driver’s license and he stepped back and mumbled something into the radio transmitter. He had it clipped to his epaulet like a traffic cop.
Tru turned to Syndra. “Plymouth Rock is a music legend, Syn, right up there with the Beatles.” Syndra gave her a blank stare as the security guard, whose name tag read T. Lawrence, stuck the paperwork through the van window and stepped back. The van’s exhaust started to back up a little bit, the taste collecting in my throat.
“Lily In Tears,” Tru went on, “Better Half, Haven’t Got A Clue? It hasn’t been that long, has it?”
I said, “I think it has, Grandpa.” Personally, I’m not a huge music fan. I don’t mind it, but I’m no devotee. I like Jewel and Sheryl Crowe, even though they aren’t that popular anymore. I even like some Fleetwood Mac stuff, but basically I’ll take whatever is on the radio.
Tru liked rock music as a kid, always talked about the Rolling Stones and those other oldies bands. Just another thing we didn’t have in common.
The gate swung open and Tru drove slowly up the winding driveway. The paparazzi clamored behind the van. Already in the back, I crawled to the rear door and peaked out the window.
“What kind of name is Plymouth Rock?” Syndra asked Tru.
“What kind of name is Marilyn Manson? P. Diddy, Flava Flav? Back in the day rockers had real names, like Ozzy and Meat Loaf.”
Syndra thought about if for a minute, then flashed with some recognition. “Oh, Plymouth Rock. Is he related to Kid Rock?”
Tru shook her head.
Through the little square window, I could see most of the paparazzi stepping back as Lawrence walked up to the bushes near the side of yard. “Get outta those bushes, Chinkowski,” he yelled like a drill sergeant. Sure enough, some guy crawled out of the bushes. Lawrence grabbed him by the collar and dragged him through the little door next to the gate.
“Tight security.” I crawled back to the front of the van. “Think they’ll strip search us?”
Without even looking back, Tru said, “Don’t get your hopes up.”
“But what a beautiful home,” Syndra said, trying to defuse the tension. “It’s like a castle.”
It was a tudor mansion, gray stones pilled up to where dark brown timber crossed over egg-cream stucco. Cobblestone walkways led up to massive wooden doors, windows lined with rod-iron trim. And it was huge (mansions usually are). So the more I looked at it, evoking an old European feel as it did, I had to agree.
It was like a castle.
“I think Mom’s got a point,” I said. “We get in with this crowd, Sisterella’s may never fold.”
This time Tru did turn around, and she looked me square in the eyes. “Well this just isn’t your day, is it?”
“Knock if off, Gertrude.”
“Stop it, both of you!” Syndra’s voice cracked, but she recovered quickly. It wasn’t like her to raise her voice, especially to us. “You can’t be bickering on the job like this. We have a show to do.”
That was a nice big slice of humble pie, wasn’t it? Went straight to my conscience’s thighs.
“She’s right,” Tru said before I had a chance to.
Instead I mumbled, “She always is.” Not such a terrible thing to say, but I still felt bad about it the rest of the afternoon until I had a chance to apologize.
This was no doubt the wildest party we’d ever worked, and we weren’t the only ones working it. They brought in a petting zoo with goats, sheep and a Shetland pony. They rented the huge Jurassic Park bouncy house. There was a juggler and a four-piece band doing rock covers of children's songs like Polly Wolly Doodle and Froggy Went A-Courtin’ and a lot of songs I recognized from Sesame Street. There was also a permanent swing set and a huge sandbox with clean white sand, a swimming pool, jacuzzi, pool house with a billiard table, a tennis court, lots of trees and pathways and all this on what looked like two acres or more.
And then there were the food booths, like you’d find at a country faire. They had corn dogs, funnel cakes, pulled meat sandwiches, fried catfish, even red beans and rice.
Tru was standing with a bunch of boys near a gazebo. With her slim physique and the mask pulled tight over her head, she made a great Power Ranger, showing the boys a variety of karate chops and kicks.
On the other side of the yard, Syndra sat on a chair, surrounded by a group of little girls. They stared up at her (typically mesmerized) as she read to them from a big story book. I was too far away to hear what story she was telling. But with my sister it doesn’t really matter what the story is, it’s the storyteller that counts.
I was on the side of the yard, not far from the funnel cakes (one of fate’s little practical jokes). If you’ve never had funnel cakes, they’re like donuts that are poured into the vat through a funnel, so they’re long and slender and really crispy and delicious. They serve them with powdered sugar, chocolate sauce, strawberries, whipped cream, or any combination.
Thank goodness I had a line of at least ten kids in front of me from the minute I got there or I would have cleaned that booth out.
“Can I have a dinosaur?” I admit I was taken by surprise. Not by the request, since I do maybe a hundred dinosaurs a year. But this was a man’s voice, warm and rich.
Elijah Rock had deep green eyes, black hair with a touch of a wave, strands of it hanging over his forehead and to the side. He was tall, he was dark, and (let’s not mince words about it) he was handsome.
“It’s for a friend,” he added with a sheepish, playful smile.
Not that he needed to explain. I would have twisted him a scale model of the Taj Mahal if he’d asked me to. I made a more modest offer. “T-rex or brontosaurus?”
“Don’t they call them something else now?”
They did, but at that particular moment I couldn’t place it. “Well, they’ll always be brontosauruses to me,” I said. “Brontosauri? Bronti? If one wrote a novel, she might be called Charlotte Bronti.” I’m not saying I’m any great comedian, and improv is hard anyway. But you remember clown funny. Some things only fly when you’re in a clown suit.
I tied the balloon off and he said, “T-rex’ll be fine.”
I guess some things aren’t even clown funny. I started twisting the balloon, making the little head and big jaw with a single fold. As you know, I usually talk the kids through the process of making the balloon animal, and that’s what I was going to do with this guy, I swear.
Instead I wound up saying, “Is this for your girlfriend?”
Let me say at this time that Elijah and I had not been introduced. I didn’t know who he was, much less that he was the son of the house’s owner, Plymouth Rock, whose young second cousin was enjoying his fifth birthday party in grand style. I almost never flirt on the job, but I certainly would never hit on the client or family of the client! And I wasn’t really hitting on him, just making conversation.
But he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he very casually pointed across the yard and said, “It’s for that guy right over there.”
I admit, my first impression of Deek Stein was under a slight misunderstanding. But when Elijah pointed him out fifty feet away, tall and bearded, slim and wearing only a bathing suit and holding two plates with a burger on each, it was a pretty easy misunderstanding to come to.
Then Elijah’s face lit up with worry, corrections tumbling out of his mouth. “Oh, no no, he’s a friend, just a friend.”
“Well, maybe this’ll do the trick.”
“No, you don’t understand, we’re old friends.”
I leaned in and touched his arm. “That gives you something to build on. Don’t give up.”
“You... I.... No, Deek and I are... we work together, we’re like partners. No, I didn’t mean partners, I meant....” He was so cute, fidgeting and stammering to save face.
And what a face.
I knew there was obviously a misunderstanding. A guy as cute as Elijah could get somebody way better looking than Deek Stein. But I didn’t dare let him off the hook. Why should I? He was single and obviously wanted me to know it, right? I felt a real chemistry between us. Sometimes it’s easy to misread that kind of thing, but not in this case. I knew he was interested in more than a balloon animal, I was positive. Maybe he wanted just a few minutes of idle small talk, or to step away from some other chat he wasn’t enjoying. How did I know? But I didn’t want to risk being rude by cutting the conversation short. I have my professional ethics, after all.
Elijah said, “He’s a musician in my band. Best guitarist I’ve ever worked with.”
“Yeah, guitarists are hot.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle a little under my breath. Elijah said, “He wanted a balloon to give to a girl he met.”
“And he sent you to get it?” I thought, Please say you had to come up and get to know me, please!
But he shrugged and pointed at Deek. “He got the burgers.”
I bent the T-rex’s tale downward, turned it to the side and handed it to Elijah. “There you go. I hope he... I mean she likes it.” We both chuckled and he stepped back, still facing me.
“Ouch, my toe!” a small boy said as Elijah passed him.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you okay, little guy?” The boy nodded as Elijah stepped away, casting glances at me as he met Deek and they sat down with their burgers.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but like I said, you hear things and put it all together. His friend Deek said to Elijah, “Oh man, I wanted a flower or a pretty butterfly or something. I can’t give her a dinosaur, Elijah. And a T-rex? You’re killing me.”
“Which one is it this time?”
Elijah scanned the yard as Deek pointed out the beautiful princess reading to the little girls.
My sister Syndra.
Elijah said, “She’s breathtaking.”
“Hottest chick here.” It’s a good thing I only heard about this afterward, because if I had known I would have done terrible things to that guy with my balloon pump, the future of the family business be damned.
Elijah took a closer look at Syndra. “Kind of... young?” Deek chuckled. “Don't take advantage of her, Deek.”
“What’s the point of being a rock star if you don’t take advantage of it?”
“Take advantage of it,” Elijah said, “not of her.”
I ask you, how often do you meet a guy like this?
Elijah added, “And we’re not rock stars yet.”
“We will be, soon as you sign off on that final mix, brah.”
“Background vocals are too high, too much middle end in the organ. I’ll release it when it’s perfect.”
Deek shook his head. “If your dad had said that he never would have scored any hits at all. He’d still be working on his first record too.”
“If my dad had cared as much about his music as I care about mine, he might still be having hits. He’d be working on his next record.”
But instead of being a part of that conversation (which would have been helpful in so many ways) I was still knee-high in rubber, feverishly working a pump and tying knots. Um, that didn’t come out right, but you get the idea.
“I’d like a horsey, please.”
I was about to twist this kid a horsey when I heard my name in my sister’s voice. “Matty,” Tru said as she leaned over the boy in front of me. “It’s monster time.”
I knew this was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. “Do we have to? You’re doing great with the kids as it is.”
“We gotta knock this out of the park,” Tru said. “Unless you’d rather we blow the gig. Are you really that desperate for our family career to be ruined that you’d sabotage our best efforts?”
“What’s your problem, Tru? I’m as much a part of this family as you and Syndra. More than Syndra, really.”
“But she’s not the one acting like a selfish little brat. What’s my problem? How dare you even bring this up now?”
She was right. No matter what problems there are, you never let the clients see it and especially not the kids. Why was I suddenly getting so lax about my professional ethics? Could it be true? I wondered. Am I subconsciously trying to sabotage the family business to secure my own freedom? Yet wasn’t I at the gig, giving it my best, doing what was asked of me as I always did?
The honest answer came to me in the back of my mind and the bottom of my heart.
“Monster time,” I said.
Tru headed back to her fans across the yard and I put my pump into the bag with the balloons and headed around the side of the house to the van. Big stupid monster costume makes me sweat like a pig, ruins the clown face. I hate Power Ranger parties.
But even more than that, I hated being bossed around by my older sister; by anybody, really, but by her most of all. I never liked the way she decided she’d be my father after ours left. I love her and there are a lot of things I admire about her, like I said. And I understand that she was furious when our dad left and never really got over it. But sometimes I wish she’d also go out for a pack cigarettes and never come back (and then not actually smoke the cigarettes, ‘cause she is my sister after all).
But Tru was only two years older than me, and only four years older than Syndra. Is that enough to make her queen of the Taylors? Of course all this was always when my mom was working outside the home office. When she wasn’t doing her seasonal gig at the university administrations department, my mom ruled the house.
But try telling that to Gertrude, especially at a party. On a gig she was in charge, which sucks when she’s ordering me into that big, uncomfortable costume. She could at least do it with a smile. Instead she’s in my face about it, calling me a traitor to the family. I’m sorry, but that is not cool, I don’t care where you are or who’s in charge.
“Wait,” a little voice behind me said, “can I have a dog? I didn’t get one.”
“I’m so sorry, honey, I can’t. I have to...” I couldn’t get any more words out in the face of this kid’s big-eyed pout.
“But I really like balloon animals. Please?”
“See, my sister is waiting for me...”
Now let’s get a few things straight. A party entertainer’s job is to entertain. Simple enough, right? Any clown’s first priority is making kids happy. My job (no matter how you slice it) is to say yes, not no. They hear no from their parents, their teachers, their friends. They start hearing it as soon as they put the first dirty coin into their mouths and they hear it constantly for the rest of their lives. As adults they’ll hear it from lovers, spouses, banks, police, the government. You name it, it’ll say no.
That’s why people like me do what we do, so a kid can hear a simple yes a few times in their lives.
If I had said no to that boy, would I have been doing my job on any level? Of course not. So first and foremost there were my professional ethics, which were still in tact.
Also I was not there to blindly follow my sister’s orders, to ask, how hi? when she said, jump! So if my bossy sister’s time table got slightly delayed, if she had to entertain the kids with a few more empty karate kicks, that’s a small price to pay. I had to make sure the kids with me didn’t get cheated out of the experience that was designed specifically for them.
Am I right? Well, right or wrong, it made perfect sense at the time. So I picked up my pump and a pink balloon and said, “How about two dogs?”
That would show Tru something about bossing me around.
One thing you learn in this business is that fifteen minutes goes by fast when you’re twisting balloons. When you’re painting faces, even faster. One kid almost always lines up behind the next and the whole day can fly by. So when the last child walked away with a balloon in hand, I knew I’d spent a little more time than expected.
I continued around the side of the house to the van muttering, “Now it’s monster time.”
You know that hot feeling in the pit of your stomach, that nervous nausea when you think you’ve lost something important, like your purse or your car keys?
Or your giant monster costume?
Come on, come on, I was thinking as I pushed the Elmo costume to the side. It hadn’t slipped into the front seat or fallen out when we stepped out of the van. The monster costume was gone. Yet I could have sworn I sat right next to it on the trip from the Valley.
I figured, If we forgot it, that’s as much Tru’s fault as it is mine.
Not that she’d see it that way, of course. I knew what her position would be and I could already hear her in the back of my mind. You deliberately left it because you wanted us to fail. Congratulations, you’ve finally destroyed the family once and for all.
But it wouldn’t even come up. We’d have much bigger things to talk about by the end of the night.

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