Bex
I was breech. Bronwyn was not.My stepmother says this proves I began causing trouble in the womb, which would be funnier if she’d actually given birth to me, and funnier still if it wasn’t true.
But it is. And here I am, once again, proving her right.
I run through the airport, dragging my massive suitcase behind me. I’m sweating and disheveled by the time I reach the counter, my passport damp from my clammy palm as I hand it over.
“Your flight leaves in less than an hour,” says the airline attendant, without sympathy. “It’s too late to check a bag.”
“But—” I begin, and then my mouth closes. This woman is stuck working five days before Christmas and does not care that I’m headed to London to appear on a TV show, that I have my big suitcase filled to the brim with all my favorite winter clothes and every ounce of makeup I own. And maybe if the show was for some big channel, she’d at least be interested, but no one my age has even heard of GoldenNest TV. I wouldn’t have heard of it either if my dad’s college roommate wasn’t a senior VP there.
“My boyfriend hid my passport,” I tell her. My eyes fill, whichis helpful and not entirely fake because Iamworried, and it’s been a very stressful two hours since I woke up late and hungover and discovered that Brian—who isn’t actually my boyfriend and definitely never will be now—thought it would be really funny to hide my passport before he left. “I’m supposed to be in New Jerseytodayso I can fly out of JFK with my family tomorrow and they’re going to besopissed.”
Her face softens. Maybe it’s the tears or maybe it’s that angering one’s parents is a universal fear, like death. “Let’s see what we can do.”
After a fair amount of searching, she says she can get me on the red-eye to JFK, landing in the morningwithmy luggage. Jessie, my stepmother, is still going to be very upset but perhaps this might not turn into the Year Bex Ruined the Show.
We already have the Year Bex Ruined the Beach Trip, the Year Bex Ruined Thanksgiving, the Year Bex Ruined the Family Photo…I’d rather not add to a fairly lengthy list.
Arriving tomorrow really isn’t a big deal, but Jessie’s going to be mad anyway, and if she knows what actually happened, the lectures on responsibility will dominate our vacation. They might anyway—they oftendo.
Therefore, when I call from the airport to tell her I’m not making my flight, I share only as much of the truth as I can afford to, which is actually very little of it. Blaming it on traffic, as opposed to oversleeping, is still not quite good enough for Jessie, however.
“Rebecca,” she snaps, “this is exactly why I asked you to fly home yesterday. You’re supposed to be here—they’re filming us leaving the house together.”
The show—a reality series about the family travel agency my dad co-owns—is supposed to feature my father and stepmother exploring glamorous cities and staying in swanky places as they plan trips for other people. There is nothing less swanky andglamorous than their home in New Jersey, but GoldenNest’s target demographic is middle-aged parents, so the producers wanted that last-minute moment of travel chaos to make us relatable, to leave the viewer thinking,Hey this family is just like us!—a mom, a dad, one good child getting in some last-minute studying, and one bad child who’s too hungover to pack.
I’d be playing the role ofbad child,obviously.
“This will just make for a better way to introduce the characters,” I tell her, pulling my bag off to the side of the entry door so I’m out of everyone’s way. “You know, instead of justinformingthe audience that I’m irresponsible, we kick off with me actuallybeingirresponsible.”
“The show matters, Rebecca,” Jessie snaps. “Without it, Baby Makes Three takes the last of our business.”
She’s saying this as if the show wasn’t my fucking idea…an idea shelaughed atwhen I suggestedit.
Kylie and Jasper, the influencer couple behind Baby Makes Three, were initially content to simply ridicule my dad’s company, Families Travel, before deciding to replicate it instead, leveraging their millions of followers on social media. Their glossy reels—them floating in a cerulean Turkish sea with their adorable kids or taking a sleigh ride past thatched-roof homes in Finland—make family travel look a lot more appealing than my dad’s brochure, which wasn’t even available online until a year ago and still features a fifteen-year-old photo of my family glumly posing in front of the Eiffel Tower. Baby Makes Three has grown while we’ve floundered, and this show is how we’ll get back on our feet.
Unless I ruin it. Always a possibility.
“Look, this was the best we could do,” I tell her.
“Fine, just please get on that plane. We’ve got dinner at the restaurant with the press-for-champagne button tomorrow night.”
Bronwyn will be smirking if she’s listening in—it’s been an inside joke between the two of us, the fact that Jessie couldn’t care less about anything in London other than a restaurant where a button will summon your waiter if you desire champagne.
“I get in hours before you,” I tell her. “It’s foolproof.”
She ends the call undoubtedly thinking that nothing is foolproof where I am concerned and that this would never have happened to Bronwyn, which is entirely true.
Bronwyn is a month older than me and superior in every way that matters. For the bulk of our lives, we’ve been High-Functioning Bronwyn and Underperforming Bex—a set of age-matched but otherwise dissimilar dolls—and this would probably have led me to hate Bronwyn except that she is funny and kind and one of my favorite people in the world. Even if sheisJessie’s daughter.
She calls just as my Uber is pulling up to take me back to my apartment. “You’ve ruined the show,” she says with a quiet laugh as I walk to the waiting Toyota Prius. “Mom’s flipping out that you might miss the press-for-champagne button, to no one’s surprise. So whatactuallyhappened?”
I swing my bag into the trunk. “I thought my story about an accident on the 405 was compelling and entirely believable.”
“You see, when you describe something as astory,you’ve already gotten off on the wrong foot.”
Bronwyn would even be better at lying than me, were she ever forced to lie.
