Lillian was sitting at a plastic picnic table in a backyard, identical to the seemingly thousands of plastic picnic tables she'd sat at before at these birthday parties. With a small sundae cup in hand, she watched the kids run back and forth across the yard, screaming and laughing, eating cake, having the best time of their lives and not even knowing it. Not even knowing that things only get worse the older you get. She sighed and looked down at her shoes, covered in dirt and blades of grass. Suddenly she felt something hit her in the back of the head, and reached up to touch it, turning around.
"Ow!" she said, looking at the fence behind her and noticing Alexis leaning over it, grinning, in her pirate costume; Lillian continued to rub the back of her head and added, "you know, a 'pssst' would've sufficed." "You're not a cat," Alex said, "besides, what're the odds we'd wind up working next door to one another?" "For the sake of my skull, unfortunately not slim enough," Lillian said, making Alex laugh. Just then, Josh also propped themselves up on the fence, waving at Lillian, who blushed and waved back as she asked, "what...you guys are working together today?" "Well, pirates and mermaids go kinda hand in hand, so," Alex said, "Can I have one of those sundae cups?" "...sure, just hop on over here and go to the red icebox, they're stuffed in there," Lillian said, not expecting Alexis to actually do such a thing, and mildly surprised when she did. As she ran across the yard to the icebox, Lillian, chuckling, looked back at Josh, who was smirking as she tossed her hair a bit and asked, "so...what's it like working with the walking equivalent of a construction site disaster?" "Hey, give her a break, she's entertaining, and she's pretty nice," Josh said, "also she looks hot in her pirate costume." "She does look hot, I can't deny it," Lillian said, glancing back over her shoulder at Alex before hearing Josh speak again. "Jealous of her hair, too. It's so bouncy and bright. That's au natural, nothing I can do will ever match that," they said, grabbing their own and touching it gently, adding, "I waited a long time to grow my hair out to this length, and god do I love it, but there's just something that I can't seem to capture that you and Alex get so easily." "Volume," Lillian said, mouth shivering from the sundae, "it's volume. You need volume. Otherwise your hair is flat." "You should come over and do my hair sometime," Josh said, making her blush as they added, "it'll be fun, I'll order pizza." "You sure know how to show a girl a good time," Lillian said as Alexis rejoined them and sat on the top of the plastic picnic table Lillian was seated at. "I had to fight off like 3 other kids just to get this sundae cup," Alexis said, tearing the lid off it and licking the underside. "You didn't actually punch children, did you?" Josh asked. "It's not like any of them were the birthday child," Alexis said, shrugging. *** Maddie was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a sandwich for lunch and reading a book she'd gotten from the library while her mother, Jessie, was making something for her father, Phil. Despite all the work she had to do now around the house, despite the reasons for why she had to do all this new additional work, Maddie couldn't help but notice that her mother was humming a lot lately, specifically while cooking. After a bit, Maddie put her sandwich down, bookmarked her page and looked at her mom. "Is dad gonna be okay?" she asked. "He should be, yes, he's getting better day by day, and it's been over half a year now, so," Jessie said, "hopefully soon he'll be able to go back to work and and stuff." "I don't want him to go back to work," Maddie said, "I like it when he's here. He was never here before." Jessie put her stirring spoon down and looked over the counter at Maddie, unsure of how to respond to this. She sighed and pulled her hair up into a bun, tying it down. "...we haven't been around enough, we know that. We know we fight a lot. We know that isn't fair either. We both feel terrible," Jessie said, "but we both have very high paying jobs and with those comes a lot of stress, but you are never the problem, you know that right? In fact, you're the only good thing in our day to day lives." "If that's true, why don't you guys spend more time with me?" Maddie asked, and to this, sadly, Jessie didn't have a response. Maddie picked up her sandwich and her book and went to finish eating in her room, while her mother went back to cooking, quietly crying to herself as she did. *** "My mom let me grow my hair out real long in high school," Josh said, "like, long long, and it was awesome. Course a lot of people thought I was a hippie or a surfer, but still." "Mermaids are kinda like surfers," Alex said. "The Surfin' Mermaid would be a great name for a Tiki Bar," Lillian said. "It so would! Oh my god!" Alexis said, making Josh laugh. "Anyway, I appreciated it, because it made me feel more comfortable in my own skin. Unfortunately, my father didn't. One time, in junior year, my mom went to visit her sister and my dad dragged me into the bathroom and cut all my hair off to the point where I nearly had a buzzcut. I refused to go to school for a week. It was...god it was traumatic. I remember going back into the bathroom that night, after he'd fallen asleep, and looking at all the hair he'd put in the trashcan, just standing there, crying. I'd gone from beautiful to ugly in 10 seconds flat." Alexis sucked on her wooden spoon and then sighed. "That is, bar none, the worst glory days story I've ever heard," she said, making them laugh. "Well, either way now I do whatever the hell I want, and fuck him," Josh said, "I just wish I could get that bounce you guys seem to have effortlessly." "It isn't effortless," Lillian said, "I have to put a lot of time and work into my appearance. I mean, sure, a lot of who I am is effortless, simply because I'm a woman, but a lot of it is makeup, contouring, hair work. It's exhausting being a woman. It takes so much time." "I'm effortless," Alex said, shrugging, "what can I say, I'm perfect, and I'm sorry, but you can't teach perfection." Lillian and Josh laughed again, both appreciative of Alexis being here to lighten the mood. She excused herself for another cup, leaving Josh and Lillian alone once again. Lillian stood up and leaned on the fence, her and Josh's faces only an inch or so apart as she lowered her voice and spoke. "It's pretty cool we get to see one another this regularly," she said, "guess there's perks to working at the same place, huh?" "I've always heard office romances don't pan out, so I don't know about all this," Josh said, smirking, before Lillian leaned in more and kissed them, to which they happily reciprocated. It was new and exciting, but it was something both of them needed, and to hell with anyone who might say differently. After a minute or two, they pulled apart again, both giggling, Lillian blushing. "I think you make a beautiful mermaid, and I think any other girl would be jealous of your hair," she said as she reached up and touched it, playing with it gently. "You sweet talker you," Josh replied. *** "Parents are weird," Lillian told her therapist that week, "like, everyone I know, either who works with me or who doesn't, seems to have pain that stems from some kind of unfulfilling adolescent experience with their parents. This little girl I know, Maddison, her parents are like never home and she's always upset at how lonely she feels and hates how often they fight, and then most of the people in my company hate their parents too. I've been trying to get along with my mother more, but lord knows it's hard." "Parents are tough people to understand," Greg said, crossing his legs, "We want to see them as fully complex individuals, but we can't help but see them as our parents, first and foremost, and as such, we are doomed to judge them based on the actions made as parents more than any others. If we knew them as people instead, perhaps we'd be a bit more subjective, but that's sadly not the case." Lillian sighed and looked at her nails, then started tugging at the knees of her jeans nervously with them. "...I worry that I'm an extension of her worst attributes, and as such, that makes me not only hate myself but hate her even more for making me what I am," she said quietly, almost whispering, "...she put me into these pageants, she made me believe that beauty was important, the end all be all defining trait for a woman, but lately..." "...lately?" Greg asked, raising an eyebrow, as Lillian smiled. "Lately I've begun to learn, thanks to someone I know, that women cannot be defined," she said, "certainly not by their appearance. Femininity is not a strictly defined thing, it's a concept, it's an idea, it's a belief. If someone feels they're a woman, they are. I'm not my mother. I'm me. A wholly different woman than she was, and I think that that's what's helping me most right now." Greg smiled and jotted something down on his legal pad, then let it rest of the desk beside him as he cleared his throat and ran a hand through his pepper grey hair. "...do you ever think about returning to the pageant circuit?" Greg asked, "but as a judge, maybe? Prove to other little girls what it took so long to prove to yourself? Show them that they have more to offer besides their bog standard beauty dictated by society. Maybe this would be a good form of closure, or maybe it'd be simply a new way to make something good out of something that once hurt you." Lillian had never once considered it, but maybe Greg had a point. Maybe she should return to the circuit, if, for nothing else, than to help other little girls not be so ashamed of themselves like he'd said. She knew the damage these things did on little girls self esteem and self worth, and she knew that it was worth salvaging. But god, could she? That was the question. Could she stand to be back in there, amongst those kinds of people, seeing those kinds of mothers pouring their toxic identity beliefs into children who aren't even in 3rd grade yet? "...I never did think about it, no," she finally said, biting her lip, "but now that you've brought it up, I doubt I'll stop thinking about it, so thanks for that." *** "Everything is a falsehood," Lillian said. The party was winding down, the kids parents were coming to get them, and it was just her, Alex and Josh now sitting by the poolside of the party Alex and Josh had been working. Lillian had taken her shoes and stockings off, pulled her dress up and slid her legs into the lukewarm pool water. "Everything about who we are is made up," she continued, "every facet of our personality is decided upon by us because we think it fits who we wanna be. So, for someone to get mad at someone else for not being part of the binary or part of what society might consider 'normal' is ridiculous. A woman isn't a cheerleader all the time. A man isn't a construction worker nonstop. Eventually they take these uniforms off and they go back to being themselves. Those parts of themselves are not their whole. We are all so much more than what our uniforms make us to be. Just a small part of us, honestly." "Deep," Alexis said, plopping herself down next to Lillian and sliding her own legs into the pool as Josh swam around in front of them. "Everyone plays dress up," Lillian said, "Some of us just take it to more extreme measures than others." "Wait wait wait," Alexis said, "you're telling me Josh isn't actually a mermaid? Oh god, my entire belief system is now thrown into question!" Josh and Lillian laughed as Alexis pulled out a package of cigarettes and lit one, taking a puff. "I'm just saying that nobody should be judged for who they are simply because who they are isn't who everyone else is. Unless you're a legitimate horrible person with vile beliefs that's outright hurting others, nobody should be judged for adhering to one social scene over another. We invented the idea of cliques without realizing that it wasn't a joke. We need these characters. We need these roles. They define us, in some small way, and help us feel more at ease with ourselves. I think that's a beautiful thing." "You would, Princess Twinkletoes," Alexis said. "Like you, just because you do drugs doesn't make you an addict, and even if you were, it's not WHO you are, it's just part of what you do. It doesn't define you, nor should it be the singular characteristic others judge you on," Lillian said, making Alexis go pale and stutter. After a moment she softly mumbled 'thank you' and went back to smoking. Lillian looked down into the pool at Josh, who was smoothing their long hair back, and she smiled at their innate beauty; Lillian took a deep breath, then continued, "we're taught to play pretend, to play dress up, and then told to stop once we get 'too old'. But the adults continue to do it. They just have to call it different things for their ego. It's all still dress up." "Deep," Alexis said. "You already said that." "No, I mean the pool, it's deep, see," she said, shoving Lillian into it, making her scream. Alexis cackled as Josh helped Lillian up, the both of them laughing. A year ago Lillian might've gotten annoyed at Alexis for doing such a thing, but lately she'd learned to fine tune her irritants and only be mad when the situation truly called for it. Besides, she knew there was no correlation to the act of treading water and her actual life. She wasn't sinking. She was swimming. And she loved it.
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It was warm. It was warm all over, like life itself was giving her a hug. That was until the sound started to come back, and she could hear someone crying over her. When Alexis Lafayette finally got her eyes opened, even just a bit, everything was blurry, like she was underwater. As it turned out, she had been underwater. She'd been underwater for a bit too long. Now, however, she was lying on the beach as a small crowd formed around her, and a young woman - someone who appeared to be in high school - was sitting beside her, breathing hard. She was wearing a one piece swimsuit and had a whistle around her neck. Alexis would later come to learn this lifeguard was the one who'd dragged her limp body out of the ocean, and up onto the sand. She'd never find out her name. She was told it didn't matter. But it did. It did matter.
Because the older Alexis got, the more addicted to drugs she became, the more she began to let down her parents, the more she wanted to yell at this lifeguard. This poor, 17 year old girl who was simply doing her weekend job, who didn't expect to be saving a child that particular day. She wanted to grab her by the shoulders, shake her violently and ask her why she'd saved her. Why had she brought her back. Alexis hadn't wanted to die, but as she got older, she was getting angry that she'd survived. Now, as an adult, standing in front of a large aquarium filled with small sharks and various other marine life, sipping on the straw in her plastic soda cup from the theme parks cafeteria, she couldn't help but wonder if perhaps her interest in making "pirate" her costume of choice for work was partially driven by her seafaring escapades as a little girl. She grimaced and shook her head. Nah. That was dumb. That wasn't remotely connected outside of being vaguely water related. She shouldn't try to psychoanalyze herself, she knew, it never went well. Suddenly she heard Lillian approach her and hand her a churro. "Thank you," she said, taking it and immediately taking a large bite. "The show's gonna start in like 3 minutes," Lillian said, checking her watch, making Alex scoff. "Who still wears a watch?" Alex asked. "It's a little thing called fashion, I suggest you familiarize yourself," Lillian replied, the both of them laughing. Since starting their own company, Alexis and Lillian had been spending more and more time together, and had become essentially best friends. These days they often spent entire weekends together, and were even doing parties together now. For Lillian, it was that Alex was the closest thing to a friend she could have (outside of Rina), since Vera was far too business oriented and Tyler was too focused on Vera. "Where's Rina and the kid?" Alex asked. "They're already seated," Lillian said, "Josh is gonna go on shortly. You like fish?" "I guess," Alexis said, shrugging, tossing her hair from her eyes, "did I ever tell you I almost drowned as a kid? I was probably 7 or 8, and I wasn't a very strong swimmer. My family was kinda poor growing up, so we went to the beach a lot just cause it was free. One time I don't even remember what happened, but I do remember waking up on the sand, and this lifeguard had pulled me from the water and I guess I was real close to being dead." "That's terrifying," Lillian said as they turned and started heading for the outdoor arena area where the shows took place. "Probably, but I don't remember it. That's the thing, people always talk about these ordeals as if they're scary as hell, but the people experiencing them are often unconscious. Like, also one time, I was hit by a car while on my bike and I was in the hospital for like a week, unconscious, and my parents always talked about what a harrowing thing it was, but like, wasn't shit to me, dude, I was sleepin'." "Why did they continue to let you out of the house when everything is clearly trying to kill you?" Lillian asked, biting her churro, making Alex smirk. "You got me. Maybe they were trying to bump me off, make their lives financially easier. Having three kids while being poor isn't too great," Alexis said. They exited into the marina, and headed up the concrete stairs, up through the seating area, looking for Rina and Maddie. After a short walk, they spotted them and saw Maddie waving furiously at them, jumping up and down. Alex and Lillian smiled at one another, and headed further up until they reached them and took their seats. "Good seats," Alexis said, "...we won't get wet from this will we?" "I doubt it, we're pretty high up," Rina said. "Churro?" Lillian asked, handing one to Rina and one to Maddie, both of whom happily took them and started to bite in. The show started, and the performers were announced. One by one people around their age swam out from the building and into the enormous pool arena, in their mermaid costumes, and when Lillian finally spotted Josh, she couldn't help but smile like an idiot. Since coming to work for them, Josh had grown their hair out to their waist and had chosen a mermaid as their party costume, which, as it turned out, wasn't as difficult as they'd initially thought it'd be to achieve. It meant that they could charge extra, because the people Josh was hired for had to have a pool, and they got a lot of work for them because of that uniqueness. It'd been almost a year since the gang had left the company and formed their own, and almost a year since Maddie's dad had suffered a heart attack that had rendered him virtually reliant on his wife. Things had calmed down at Maddie's, but she still found herself spending a lot of time at the company headquarters, inside her little rocket ship, and Lillian had found herself spending a lot of time with Josh. *** "I have to tell you something," Josh said one day at lunch, right before Lillian was supposed to head to a party. She was in full costume, and they were sitting in the diner the gang liked to go to, just the two of them. "Is it bad?" "No, it isn't bad," Josh said, cutting their sandwich in half, "actually, it's great." "Thank god. I can't handle more bad news for a while," Lillian said, "last year almost killed me." "Well, I assure you this is good news. For me, anyway. Last week I had a doctors appointment," Josh said, taking a bite of their sandwich and chewing for a bit before continuing, "actually, same doctor who helped me with my physical therapy after the accident. Kind of a jack of all trades apparently. Anyway, so I talked to her about what we talked about, you know, in the hospital when you came to see me, and ultimately she suggested what I'd always considered, which was hormone replacement therapy." "Which is...?" "I'm going to live as a woman, like I've always wanted," Josh said, "I've already gone through the act of growing my hair out, changing up my wardrobe-" "It has become noticebly more feminine, I admit," Lillian said. "-and now I'm gonna start taking medication for physical effects," Josh said, "I figured, like we talked about in the hospital, why wait til I'm dead to be happy. I wanna be happy now, even if it isn't exactly what everyone else might want from me. My folks should be okay enough, they've been accepting up to this point, and my mom even knows I've always felt wrong in my body, but still. A scary but necessary change." Lillian smiled and stuck her fork into her salad, lifting some to her mouth and eating. After she chewed for a bit she put her fork down and folded her arms on the table, looking at them. "I'm jealous, cause you know what you want from life," Lillian said, "I'd give anything to be that certain of something at all." "You are though, you knew you wanted to start your own company," Josh said, "That's gotta count for something, right?" Lillian blushed. They were right. And so for the next few weeks, she took Josh shopping, she even went to doctors appointments with them, she wanted to be a building block in their new identity and help them stay stable as they took this new step into their future. But she wanted to do more than be there for them. After a while, Lillian discovered, she wanted to be a part of their future in general, and not just as a friend. *** After the show, everyone was back inside the main building. Alexis, Rina and Maddie were looking at stuff in the nearby gift shop, while Lillian waited for Josh to get changed and join them. Finally, after a bit of sitting and waiting, she spotted them coming out of a back door, in their jeans and button down flannel. Lillian smiled and shot right up from her seat, approaching them and hugging them tightly. "You were so good," she whispered. "Thanks!" Josh said, patting her on the back, "I'm glad you guys came, it was nice to finally have people appreciate what I do who actually know me." "Maddie loved it, like, totally loved it," Lillian said, as they both glanced over at Alexis and Maddie using plush seahorses to play make believe together and they laughed at the sight; she turned back to face Josh and added, "can we talk outside?" "Actually..." Josh said, looking around, "You wanna see something really cool?" Josh led Lillian halfway across the park, and into a large almost empty building. A few people were here, but it was almost solitary for them. Inside were dozens of glass tubes filled with various types of fish, including the ceiling. The lighting was a mixture of soft blue and white, and the whole place had a comforting feeling that washed over her as soon as she'd entered. "Why don't more people come here?" she asked. "Cause they'd prefer to do activities and see shows or the other aquatic animals. Most people don't wanna just look at boring fish," Josh said as they strolled though the hall, hand in hand; they continued, "but I don't think fish are boring. I think fish are cool. There's so many varieties and stuff, it's nice to see that much difference in one species. Diversity is good." Lillian smiled, looking at her feet as she cleared her throat. "...uh," she started, her voice shaky, "I haven't done this in a long time, and most of the people I've been with in the last few years have been kinda...not romantic, hah, it was more like casual hook ups and stuff, so I'm a bit nervous but-" "You don't even have to ask, of course we can go out," Josh said, making her laugh loudly. "God, am I that transparent," she asked. "You kinda are, but I like it," Josh replied, the two of them sitting down on a large plastic display of sea lions. Lillian pulled her legs up and crossed them, as Josh held her hand and rubbed them with their thumbs. "...you look really good," Lillian said, chuckling, "in and out of your mermaid costume. But I'm glad you said you wanted to, cause I've really enjoyed doing things with you, and I'm not so great at relationships so it'd be nice to get some practice, not that you're practice or anything, but you know what I mean. I'm just...I'm not...blah." "If I kiss you will you stop babbling?" Josh asked, and Lillian giggled and nodded. Josh leaned in and, one hand on her shoulder, the other still holding her hand, pressed their lips against hers. Later in the week, when Lillian would recount this moment to her therapist, she would say that it felt like kissing someone she'd always known, and that she'd never felt that before. She'd tell him that in the last few years she'd had random hook ups with guys she'd meet at the parties she worked who wanted to be with her just because of how feminine she looked in her princess attire, and how much they liked feeling bigger and stronger than her as a result, and how much this sickened her. She'd tell him how Josh didn't come off that way, because really, they weren't a man. She knew she was kissing another woman. She'd tell him how funny it was that sometime last year she'd told her mother she wasn't gay, and yet here she was, kissing another woman. But most importantly, she'd tell him, maybe for the first time since attending therapy... ...that she was happy. *** Josh was 12 when his sister had a birthday party. A pool party, nonetheless, and everything was mermaid themed. She was 9 years old, and yet Josh couldn't help but feel jealous. Sitting there in his bedroom, watching from upstairs as his sister and her friends splashed and played around with all their mermaid attire, all they wanted in the world was to be like them. To join them. Their bedroom door opened, and their mother stepped inside. "You don't wanna go down?" she asked, coming in and sitting on the bed as Josh shook their head; their mother rubbed their back and sighed, then asked, "...is there anything I can do for you?" Josh waited, then turned and pushed themselves into their mother, burying their face into her, and whispering. "make me like them," he said, near tears, and his mothers heart hurt. She stroked his long hair and held him close, wishing she could do anything to help subside this pain. "If I could go back in time, I don't know how I'd do it, but...I'd find a way to make you like them before you were born, I promise," she said quietly, "I'm so sorry. It's not fair that you have to feel this way, and it must hurt so much. I don't wanna see you hurt." Josh just cried harder, and spent the entire day with their mother, avoiding their sister and her pool party. Later in life, when getting the job at the aquatic center, when they were told they would be costumed as a mermaid, it made them feel grateful. Like somehow they'd won something back for themselves. They held that costume near and dear to their heart, which is why upon meeting Lillian, they instantly connected to her, because she understood how it felt to want to be something nobody else sees you as, whether it's a mermaid, a princess, or just a girl. *** "You're drunk, how'd you get drunk at an aquatic center?" Lillian asked as she drove Alexis home that evening. Alexis had the passenger window rolled down and ashed her cigarette out it, chuckling. "Like I go anywhere without alcohol on my person," she said, "you should stay over, I'm gonna take mushrooms." "You really should try and take a break," Lillian said. "Mushrooms aren't dangerous," Alexis said, "I'm trying to get off the harder stuff, which means taking more of the fun stuff, it's a fair trade off I think. And then maybe eventually I can ween myself off that too, not that I'd want to. The world is more fun when you're not experiencing it like everybody else." After dropping Alexis off, Lillian headed home to her apartment, and, upon getting there, found a bouquet of flowers and a box of candy outside. She picked them up and headed inside. As she sat down on her couch, she opened the little card and was surprised to find it was from Josh, which surprised her if only because how had they had the time in between leaving and now to make this happen? But Lillian didn't mind. She didn't mind one bit. She loved that someone was that invested in her, and was thinking of her. She opened the box and popped a chocolate in her mouth. Coconut. Her favorite. It might be a good night after all. After all, it isn't every day a cute girl sends you flowers and candy, and so she appreciated the gesture greatly. Josh really knew how to make her feel like a princess. |
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A young woman named Lilian Phillips, who plays a princess at birthday parties, befriends a little girl who had a child die at her own birthday party. Archives
April 2024
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